S04.E13: And He Shall Be a Good Man

[ElectricBoogaloo]

SEASON FINALE!

Quote

Clive, Ravi, Peyton and Major work together to help Liv.

Promo:

[Ray Adverb]

I kind of want to see Liv's brain squished.  She knew she was committing a capital offense against the ruling military junta.  She was terrible at it.  She was deliberately infecting people with a terrible virus.  There are so many bad guys in this season, and I just detest almost everyone.

[Affogato]

Since Chase was so ineffectual it seems odd that killing him would bring about utopia. Also not sure where brains are coming from in general and how making lots of zombies can work. But hey—Clozzio!

[Mr. Sparkle]

Decent finale, IMO. I wonder where they're going next season. 

[Affogato]

2 minutes ago, Superclam said:

Decent finale, IMO. I wonder where they're going next season. 

My guess Ravi makes his way to a cure with the support of f-g and we see the hitherto forgotten f-g kids cured. Perhaps temporary zombism can cure many ills.  bozzio gets pregnant. Major and Liv work their way back to being friends with the promise of more. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Yeah, perhaps I should have said "I wonder how they're getting to the obvious conclusion next season."

[Ray Adverb]

Good episode.  I liked that there were no wacky brain hijinx.  I'm glad that Blaine's plan to cause a zombie apocalypse for fun and profit was a spectacular failure and everyone in the zombie cult was killed.  Human authorities displayed competence for once.  I liked that Inspector Closeau was playing a long game to set the cult up for failure.

 

What did they mean when they said "Gate 6 has been overrun"?  It looked fine to me and the army had everything under control.

 

That was a lame ending with Isobel's brain being exactly one dose of the cure.  Last week, Ravi cured that rat with zero brains.  He just put the brain in a jar of goo, zapped it with electricity, and made a cure out of electrified orange brain goo.

 

Why did the screen keep going dark during the rescue scene?

 

I hope that next season they wrap it up with an actual cure and they don't end it on some stupid unresolved cliffhanger.

[ketose]

On 5/22/2018 at 9:47 AM, RayAdverb said:

I kind of want to see Liv's brain squished.  She knew she was committing a capital offense against the ruling military junta.  She was terrible at it.  She was deliberately infecting people with a terrible virus.  There are so many bad guys in this season, and I just detest almost everyone.

The people she infected with a terrible virus were dying before that, so I'm on her side. Plus, there were more issues with brain hoarding than brain supply, so the FG rationale was sketchy.

So, Ravi found ONE DOSE of cure? Blaine has more than that in his secret stash. Ravi has had the zombie vaccine in him for months now. Can't he use his own blood to make more of that? At least it would help people like Clive.

I know the whole brain drugging thing is a sore subject, but would Liv being in town have really saved her boyfriend (like Major, I can't remember his name)? He probably would have done something stupid to get himself executed much like Liv did, especially since Chase was on the verge of losing it by then.

So, not much changes next season. They're still trapped in Seattle. The government is still on the verge of nuking them. There's still going to be some shortage of brains. I'm certain Liv will continue to mimic kooky personalities.

[JamieLynn832002]

1 minute ago, RayAdverb said:

Why did the screen keep going dark during the rescue scene?

I think it was a stylistic choice to make the scene more dramatic. I hated it and for me it had more of the opposite result but I think it was the intention. 

Otherwise, I mostly liked the episode. I didn't quite buy Liv's love for Levon when they've been together 5 minutes (I think, I honestly have no idea how the timeline works this season) but I guess it was needed for dramatic  effect. I was surprised that I actually really enjoyed seeing Clive and Dale get a happy ending. I love Clive but didn't think I actually gave a damn about their relationship.

[Twilight Man]

18 minutes ago, RayAdverb said:

Why did the screen keep going dark during the rescue scene?

7 minutes ago, JamieLynn832002 said:

I think it was a stylistic choice to make the scene more dramatic. I hated it and for me it had more of the opposite result but I think it was the intention. 

 

I hated it when they did that during episodes of Smallville

(usually to produce a cheap way to make it look like Clark was moving super-fast to save somebody).

((as well as aforementioned dramatic effect)).

[MisterGlass]

This was okay.  It didn't wrap up much other than the zombie cult, but I'm okay with that part being done.

Add me to the list who don't get how the whole orange brain is required to cure a human, or why the enzyme is not reproducible.  It should be studied further and with more resources they might be able to reproduce it.  Further, there were two brains involved in the test: Isabel's, and cured social media girl's. They both had enzymes.  Therefore, the other people who bought the cure from Blaine should have it.  They need to identify them and get them into a testing environment.

They finally started showing Chase's uncertainties and his reliance on a shady lieutenant.  It would have had more of an impact if they'd spent more time on it this season.  If FG operates on keep what you kill, shouldn't Liv be in command?  Major leaping several ranks into command is weird.  And giving Liv permission to turn as many people as she can get through is a horrible idea.  They already had too few brains to reasonably go around.  Even if they stopped all the brain tube resellers, they were not getting as many donated brains as expected.  Now, Blaine is their sole source of brains, and I would bet that a substantial portion of his brains are not donated.  We already know that some people are killed to go on Romero's menu.

Clive and Dale's wedding was sweet, and reminded me why I liked them together.  Vampire Steve as officiant won me over with 'we are gathered here today to get through this thing called personalized wedding vows.'

[Free]

18 minutes ago, JamieLynn832002 said:

I didn't quite buy Liv's love for Levon when they've been together 5 minutes (I think, I honestly have no idea how the timeline works this season) but I guess it was needed for dramatic  effect.

That and it doesn't help that she's lost a new boyfriend each season.

28 minutes ago, ketose said:

So, not much changes next season. They're still trapped in Seattle. The government is still on the verge of nuking them. There's still going to be some shortage of brains. I'm certain Liv will continue to mimic kooky personalities.

I thought it would be, they still have 1 final season left and only the zombie cult and Chase Graves' storylines would be over.

If anything else would be resolved, it wouldn't be until the series finale next season.

[The Wild Sow]

18 minutes ago, ketose said:

I know the whole brain drugging thing is a sore subject, but would Liv being in town have really saved her boyfriend (like Major, I can't remember his name)?

Levon!  (♪♫ And he shall be a good man......♪♫)  Brush up on your Elton John! ;-)

I liked Levon a lot even if he was only around for one season.  He was a good man, plus quite adorable to look at!  Aw. Levon, we hardly knew ye.

The one whose name I always forget is Drake (Liv's 2nd Zombie boyfriend, I think.)  Even if he was an undercover cop pretending to work for Mr. Boss, he was just such a bore!   Sorry, Drake.  But, yawn.

Angus on horseback, leading his flock!  Anyone notice they didn't actually show  his headshot?  So, is Blaine really an orphan?  Guess we'll find out next season!

[ketose]

26 minutes ago, Free said:

I thought it would be, they still have 1 final season left and only the zombie cult and Chase Graves' storylines would be over.

If anything else would be resolved, it wouldn't be until the series finale next season.

I haven't been keeping up. Next season is the last season of iZombie? I guess Ravi does find a cure.

[Free]

13 minutes ago, ketose said:

I haven't been keeping up. Next season is the last season of iZombie? I guess Ravi does find a cure.

Yes, it was announced at the CW Upfronts that Izombie, Jane the Virgin, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend would all end with their respective final seasons next season.

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, RayAdverb said:

Good episode.  I liked that there were no wacky brain hijinx.  I'm glad that Blaine's plan to cause a zombie apocalypse for fun and profit was a spectacular failure and everyone in the zombie cult was killed.  Human authorities displayed competence for once.  I liked that Inspector Closeau was playing a long game to set the cult up for failure.

 

What did they mean when they said "Gate 6 has been overrun"?  It looked fine to me and the army had everything under control.

 

That was a lame ending with Isobel's brain being exactly one dose of the cure.  Last week, Ravi cured that rat with zero brains.  He just put the brain in a jar of goo, zapped it with electricity, and made a cure out of electrified orange brain goo.

 

I don't think the human authorities were particularly competent so much as the zombies were particularly incompetent. Again, if you have just one vulnerability, you should go out of your way to protect it. And there's probably a more subtle way to rally the troops than to send a video message that the authorities could see and thus prepare for (not that they did.)

I don't think Enzo was playing a long game or setting the cult up for failure. He told them of a weakness. It seems he showed up because he was obliged to as head of security. But I don't think there was anything to indicate he wanted the attempt to fail.

They presumably had been overrun at Gate 6 and then managed to regain control, or they just misspoke, or got wrong intel.

The test rats I'm pretty sure ate some of Isobel's brain. But it is definitely selfish for Ravi to not do the responsible thing and see if the brain could translate into more than one dose of the cure.

1 hour ago, ketose said:

I know the whole brain drugging thing is a sore subject, but would Liv being in town have really saved her boyfriend (like Major, I can't remember his name)? He probably would have done something stupid to get himself executed much like Liv did, especially since Chase was on the verge of losing it by then.

So, not much changes next season. They're still trapped in Seattle. The government is still on the verge of nuking them. There's still going to be some shortage of brains. I'm certain Liv will continue to mimic kooky personalities.

If Liv had given herself up, Levon probably would not have tried a rescue attempt. So I think it is fair to think that Major's kidnapping had the unintended result of Levon being executed.

I think there's actually big potential changes. 

Major is in charge of FG and so now has to answer a lot of the dilemmas that we've seen more directly.

Peyton is in charge of the civilian government of Seattle directly an again has more responsibility.

Clive is a married man.

Ravi has a new line on a cure.

Blaine now has the potential for respectability or to be Brother Love 2.0

I can dream that the show will move away from the cop procedural roots and deal with the bigger picture things involved in New Seattle.

48 minutes ago, MisterGlass said:

They finally started showing Chase's uncertainties and his reliance on a shady lieutenant.  It would have had more of an impact if they'd spent more time on it this season.  If FG operates on keep what you kill, shouldn't Liv be in command?  Major leaping several ranks into command is weird.  And giving Liv permission to turn as many people as she can get through is a horrible idea.  They already had too few brains to reasonably go around.  Even if they stopped all the brain tube resellers, they were not getting as many donated brains as expected.  Now, Blaine is their sole source of brains, and I would bet that a substantial portion of his brains are not donated.  We already know that some people are killed to go on Romero's menu.

Seems mighty convenient that FG is going to let Liv get away with killing their commander. 

I am blanking on the person Levon supposedly killed.

Chase had promoted Major to essentially his second-in-command as "Vice President of Getting Things Done." And as we saw last episode, Major was popular enough to be thought of as a possible coup leader. It wasn't quite clear to me if Hobbs was just trying to set Major up or turned on Major because Major wasn't interested or what.

[thuganomics85]

Oh, Levon!  You really were doomed once Liv fell for you, huh?  It's hard out there for a Liv love interest!  Was surprised that they finally brought back Justin for a bit.  I was wondering what he was up to during all of this.

Other then that, a pretty big win for the good guys since not only is Angus and his flock already disposed of, Chase Graves is finally taken off the board, and Filmore Graves is now being run by Major of all people.  Can't say I'll really miss either of the characters.  I felt like there was some potential with Angus, but I suspect that a lot of ideas and stories were cut after those assault accusations were leveled at Robert Knepper.  But I do like that, once again, not only is Blaine (and Don E!) still around, but he somehow finds himself in a winning position.  The dude knows how to keep surviving (err, besides the whole dying and becoming a zombie thing.)

I called Bozzio being cured by the end of the season, but I was wrong about how.  Instead of it being one of Blaine's cure, it was because of Isobel's brain, and Liv decided to give it to her, so that Clive can possibly have that family that he always wanted.  Seemed to be a bit much that apparently the entire brain had to be eaten to work and there was no way for Ravi to replicate it, but good for Clive/Bozzio, I guess.  But will we ever see poor Michelle, again?

It's always fun when Johnny Frost is around!

Overall, a decent finale, but this season was admittedly pretty rough.  Hopefully with the next season be the last, they'll tighten things back up, and find a way to give it a proper send-off.

[Cthulhudrew]

After being forgotten for the entire season, Justin returns!! 

... only to end up standing around looking forlorn the whole episode and not actually doing anything to help save the day.

Chase Graves is killed!!!

... bringing no real depth to his character and still leaving me wondering why they bothered replacing Vivian Stoll with him. She was both more interesting, and CG was a waste of Jason Dohring's talent.

Angus McDonough is killed!!!

... which apparently causes Blaine to learn that he'd come to really have affection for his father again(?!?!) and ends the Zombie Messiah storyline with a whimper, not a bang.

Major is the new head of Fillmore Graves!!!!

... because we hadn't seen enough of FG and all of its shady characters this season. Like shady Hobbs (whose betrayal and motives still remain completely unclear, inasfar as he's been given any sort of character whatsoever); Enzo and his similarly unclear motives as well as his worn out caricatured French accent and mannerisms that are throwbacks to Peter Sellers' Inspector Closeau; and that guy they kept cutting to in the warehouse with the giant moustache.*

The Zombie Cure is used and used up!!!!

... to literally no one's surprise. They once again manage to force a situation in which Liv doesn't get cured. Dangling that football in front of us. At least she put it to good use. You're a good man, Charlie "Liv" Brown. 

(*Seriously, who the hell is this guy and why did he suddenly get a bunch of screentime? He looks like what would happen if FG's Russ and Chase Graves had a son.)

Edited May 29, 2018 by Cthulhudrew

[GaT]

I'm sorry, but I just don't understand why Liv is a hero. There aren't enough brains to feed everyone, & she keeps making more mouths to feed. How is this a good idea.

The last time there was only one cure, she gave it away to Major. How many times are they going to repeat that?

4 hours ago, Free said:

That and it doesn't help that she's lost a new boyfriend each season.

That's exactly what I thought when they crushed Levon, "well, there goes another boyfriend" Another thing they keep repeating.

[didhugh]

5 hours ago, RayAdverb said:

What did they mean when they said "Gate 6 has been overrun"?  It looked fine to me and the army had everything under control.

 

From my understanding, there's a FG unit manning one side of the gate in New Seattle, and there's a US Army unit manning the other side, and the inspector guy was only providing inside info on the FG unit but not the US Army unit; the zombie cult managed to overrun the FG soldiers at gate 6, but got wiped out once they ran into the human army soldiers on the other side.

Anyways, I liked this episode.  I don't really care about Levon (the only one of Liv's boyfriends I liked was the musician all the way back in Season 1) and I'm iffy on the morality of creating new zombies when there's a brain shortage, but FG and Chase Graves were the ones with the brilliant idea to create zombies out of the population of Seattle by putting them in vaccines, so this is something they really ought to have thought of beforehand, and overall I like the arcs of almost all the characters and the way they've played out in this episode.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I had to laugh when Chase's entire reaction to the Liv Is Renegade documentary was "Is that Paul Rudd narrating?"

[Affogato]

2 hours ago, didhugh said:

 

 but FG and Chase Graves were the ones with the brilliant idea to create zombies out of the population of Seattle by putting them in vaccines, so this is something they really ought to have thought of beforehand

Except that Vivian and Chase were protecting the members of FG who were at the picnic. Carey led a faction who infected the vaccine and Chase killed her.

Chase was becoming psychologically unstable but Major agreed with him all along in theory. As opposed to Liv  Chase wasn’t wrong, as we were shown, so much as losing it. He was obsessing about renegade and losing sight of the bigger picture  PTSD? We never got the story  

Only a few episodes so plot not well developed. 

One could theorize that Chases enemies and bad advisers were Carey’s remaining minions advocating for a zombie apocalypse (why ?) I. Which case they are still in place as major takes over. 

Now I think the idea is the world will not destroy zombies because of Miracle cure aspects. Documentary jump started that. 

Edited May 29, 2018 by Affogato

[Affogato]

41 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I had to laugh when Chase's entire reaction to the Liv Is Renegade documentary was "Is that Paul Rudd narrating?"

Antman would be one hell of a smuggler and Ravi needs his help with the cure, so let’s hope this is a lead in to a series of Marvel-Vertigo crossovers. 

[Ray Adverb]

7 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I don't think the human authorities were particularly competent so much as the zombies were particularly incompetent. Again, if you have just one vulnerability, you should go out of your way to protect it. And there's probably a more subtle way to rally the troops than to send a video message that the authorities could see and thus prepare for (not that they did.)

I don't think Enzo was playing a long game or setting the cult up for failure. He told them of a weakness. It seems he showed up because he was obliged to as head of security. But I don't think there was anything to indicate he wanted the attempt to fail.

They presumably had been overrun at Gate 6 and then managed to regain control, or they just misspoke, or got wrong intel.

The test rats I'm pretty sure ate some of Isobel's brain. But it is definitely selfish for Ravi to not do the responsible thing and see if the brain could translate into more than one dose of the cure.

It's a little bit of both.  The U.S. army has been so bad at keeping the border safe from smugglers that I really believed a full frontal assault by the zombie cult would work.  I did notice there wasn't any sort of gate or wall; the zombies just charged down an open street to be gunned down.  Maybe that's what they meant when they said that Gate 6 was overrun?

 

I still think that Inspect Closeau (he is such a ridiculous character that I refuse to use his real name) didn't actually tell them about a weakness.  I think he lied and told them this was a weakness to funnel them into a trap.

[Free]

7 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Seems mighty convenient that FG is going to let Liv get away with killing their commander. 

They literally stood around and did nothing after the fact, it's only when Major stood up did he basically be declared their new commander.

6 hours ago, Cthulhudrew said:

... because we hadn't seen enough of FG and all of its shady characters this season.

Agreed, but at the very least things have changed because Chase is gone and Major took over, so that's 1 less thing they have to worry about.

Between this and the Zombie cult plot, they were juggling far too many storylines at once this season tbh, hopefully the final season is much more focused now that they've closed out the zombie cult and Chase plots.

[Chicago Redshirt]

18 minutes ago, RayAdverb said:

It's a little bit of both.  The U.S. army has been so bad at keeping the border safe from smugglers that I really believed a full frontal assault by the zombie cult would work.  I did notice there wasn't any sort of gate or wall; the zombies just charged down an open street to be gunned down.  Maybe that's what they meant when they said that Gate 6 was overrun?

 

I still think that Inspect Closeau (he is such a ridiculous character that I refuse to use his real name) didn't actually tell them about a weakness.  I think he lied and told them this was a weakness to funnel them into a trap.

I could see allowing smugglers for some extra bucks to do what they do. But having a horde of zombies come at you means for your own survival you better take action. And since the zombies decided to bring hammers to a gun fight, it was going to end poorly for them. 

We'll have to agree to disagree on Enzo. The fact that he is such a ridiculous character and the fact that he has been shown as completely supportive of the zombie supremacist cause say to me that we are to take him at face value. Now if it had been Blaine or even Don E who suggested the plan of bum rush this particular gate, then I could buy that the character was angling for a backstab. But nothing in Enzo's two-dimensional nature suggests that he was betraying the cultists. Indeed, Angus said Enzo had been working on their behalf for weeks. An Enzo told them that the execution was in the morning rather than at noon, which meant that FG manpower would be stretched. He wouldn't have done that if he were just wanting the attempt to fail.

5 minutes ago, Free said:

They literally stood around and did nothing after the fact, it's only when Major stood up did he basically be declared their new commander.

Agreed, but at the very least things have changed because Chase is gone and Major took over, so that's 1 less thing they have to worry about.

Between this and the Zombie cult plot, they were juggling far too many storylines at once this season tbh, hopefully the final season is much more focused now that they've closed out the zombie cult and Chase plots.

They presumably haven't closed out those plots. They've just morphed them.

Instead of Brother Love's John the Baptist, we'll have Blaine (or some other character) potentially step up to be the Zombie Jesus. Even if all of Brother Love's flock got killed in this episode, I would think that (combined with the U.S. government's decision to starve New Seattle of brains) would radicalize a lot of the remaining zombie population. 

And instead of the Chase/Major bromance, it'll be the Major/Justin bromance. Almost all the same issues will still present themselves -- how to maintain internal discipline, how to deal with D.C. wanting to raze New Seattle, how to deal with the lack of brains, how to deal with the Dead Enders and human-zombie relations, how to deal with zombie criminals. The only issue that sort of got taken off the table is human smuggling. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

One nitpick: when Liv said that she rescued herself, I was like wellllllll, kind of, but if not for everyone outside working together to pry open the warehouse door which resulted in Major running in to provide a pretty big distraction, she wouldn't have decapitated Chase. I mean, yes, she's the one who actually pulled the trigger but if not for the crowd and Major, she would have been executed. Props to her for taking advantage of the situation but I'd say that was a team effort.

[Ray Adverb]

25 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I could see allowing smugglers for some extra bucks to do what they do. But having a horde of zombies come at you means for your own survival you better take action. And since the zombies decided to bring hammers to a gun fight, it was going to end poorly for them. 

We'll have to agree to disagree on Enzo. The fact that he is such a ridiculous character and the fact that he has been shown as completely supportive of the zombie supremacist cause say to me that we are to take him at face value. Now if it had been Blaine or even Don E who suggested the plan of bum rush this particular gate, then I could buy that the character was angling for a backstab. But nothing in Enzo's two-dimensional nature suggests that he was betraying the cultists. Indeed, Angus said Enzo had been working on their behalf for weeks. An Enzo told them that the execution was in the morning rather than at noon, which meant that FG manpower would be stretched. He wouldn't have done that if he were just wanting the attempt to fail.

You might be more perceptive on the character than I am.  I frankly found it impossible to take him seriously as a character, on account of that cartoonish accent.  I tended to shut my brain off as a defensive reflex every time he appeared on screen.  He would have to know that a zombie horde with nothing but simple melee weapons would be cut to shreds by a trained army with automatic weapons.  I can't see him leading them into that kind of trap by anything but a backstab.

[Affogato]

27 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Almost all the same issues will still present themselves -- how to maintain internal discipline, how to deal with D.C. wanting to raze New Seattle, how to deal with the lack of brains, how to deal with the Dead Enders and human-zombie relations, how to deal with zombie criminals. The only issue that sort of got taken off the table is human smuggling. 

I almost wish we’d lost Blaine. He had a redemption arc and it didn’t take. I’d rather focus on Don E. What goes on in his adorable little mind?

i also noticed we didn’t see Knepper die. 

I think maybe a lot of long shots that work next season and not much addressing of those issues. People will send brains when they see the medical miracles! Everyone follows major because he has earned their respect! They will police their own! Etc. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

I mean, we saw a soldier with his gun aimed at Angus's head from like 3 feet away and then fire, and like 2+ others also fire. We also had the reporter state that the soldiers made sure that Angus was dead. Although we didn't see his head blown up real good, I think we can safely say Angus isn't coming back. 

[Free]

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

They presumably haven't closed out those plots. They've just morphed them.

Instead of Brother Love's John the Baptist, we'll have Blaine (or some other character) potentially step up to be the Zombie Jesus. Even if all of Brother Love's flock got killed in this episode, I would think that (combined with the U.S. government's decision to starve New Seattle of brains) would radicalize a lot of the remaining zombie population. 

And instead of the Chase/Major bromance, it'll be the Major/Justin bromance. Almost all the same issues will still present themselves -- how to maintain internal discipline, how to deal with D.C. wanting to raze New Seattle, how to deal with the lack of brains, how to deal with the Dead Enders and human-zombie relations, how to deal with zombie criminals. The only issue that sort of got taken off the table is human smuggling. 

Major taking over pretty much means that FG aren't antagonists like they were this season under Chase, the government seems to be set up as the antagonists for the next and final season which sort of makes sense given the increased scope of the series each season.

As for the zombie cult, all that seemed to come out of it was daddy issues for Blaine that ended once his dad died along with his cult, his plot is pretty much brain smuggling hence the final scenes in the finale.

[dubbel zout]

11 hours ago, The Wild Sow said:

Anyone notice they didn't actually show  his headshot?  So, is Blaine really an orphan?  Guess we'll find out next season!

I hope Angus is deaddeaddead. I don't think he added anything to the show, especially as a regular. The cult plot could have been a good short arc, but as a season-long one? Zzzzzz.

4 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I had to laugh when Chase's entire reaction to the Liv Is Renegade documentary was "Is that Paul Rudd narrating?"

"You have to admit, that's a good get." Hee.

[Affogato]

2 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I mean, we saw a soldier with his gun aimed at Angus's head from like 3 feet away and then fire, and like 2+ others also fire. We also had the reporter state that the soldiers made sure that Angus was dead. Although we didn't see his head blown up real good, I think we can safely say Angus isn't coming back. 

Yeah I hope considering the accusations levied against the actor from several sources. An actor I really like btw (mutter). I also assumed the reason we didn’t see it was the multiple shots / gore  factor.  Still comic book. 

Most of the issues will probably go under the rug of a modest time jump. Last season four months. 

[Goldmoon]

I don't get why Liv was getting applause at the end.  What the hell did she do to deserve it?  Also, she was very unlikeable when she "rescued herself," gag.  And why would you bring more folks into Seattle to make zombies.  The only good notes for me were seeing Vampire Steve and Johnny Frost.  This show has gone so far downhill I don't know if I can watch next season.

[dubbel zout]

5 minutes ago, Goldmoon said:

I don't get why Liv was getting applause at the end.  What the hell did she do to deserve it?

I thought those were all people she smuggled in, with their loved ones. Plus, she made zombies of a lot of people who would have otherwise died. I can see why they'd be grateful.

[moonshine71]

52 minutes ago, Affogato said:

Yeah I hope considering the accusations levied against the actor from several sources. An actor I really like btw (mutter). I also assumed the reason we didn’t see it was the multiple shots / gore  factor.  Still comic book. 

Most of the issues will probably go under the rug of a modest time jump. Last season four months. 

Yes, despite the fact that I generally follow the thinking that if you do not see someone die on tv, they did not die, I immediately chalked that up to the excessive gore factor. This isn't The Walking Dead, his head would have basically exploded. By the some token, we didn't actually "see" Levon's or Chase's heads being crushed.

[Chicago Redshirt]

3 hours ago, Free said:

Major taking over pretty much means that FG aren't antagonists like they were this season under Chase, the government seems to be set up as the antagonists for the next and final season which sort of makes sense given the increased scope of the series each season.

As for the zombie cult, all that seemed to come out of it was daddy issues for Blaine that ended once his dad died along with his cult, his plot is pretty much brain smuggling hence the final scenes in the finale.

As we saw this season, Major can take actions that will be antagonistic towards Liv's, Peyton's, or anyone else's position, such as shooting up the 206 Weekly and lying about it or kidnapping Liv. 

And Liv can take actions that will be antagonistic towards Major and FG's position, such as risking Major's life (or at least, his position within FG) to advance her schemes as Renegade.

They have a lot of issues to work through, and while it's probably right that the government will take a greater role in the series, I don't think Liv and Major/FG are going to be singing Kumbaya in the short term.

As for daddy issues, they never die. Blaine potentially is going to have to deal with having finally won his dad's approval suddenly having it withdrawn in the worst manner; with wondering if he could have done more to stop Angus from charging the gate; and with the knowledge that he set in motion the chain of events that caused his dad's death. On the other hand, he will probably no longer have to continue giving church members free meals at Romero's.

[LoneHaranguer]

9 hours ago, GaT said:

I'm sorry, but I just don't understand why Liv is a hero. There aren't enough brains to feed everyone, & she keeps making more mouths to feed. How is this a good idea.

I would have preferred a compromise; Liv gets to keep curing people, but the new zombies have to go into the FG freezers until there's a solution to the food shortage (and I'm not going to buy that Blaine's smuggling operation will bring in enough to do that).

[Free]

3 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

As we saw this season, Major can take actions that will be antagonistic towards Liv's, Peyton's, or anyone else's position, such as shooting up the 206 Weekly and lying about it or kidnapping Liv. 

And Liv can take actions that will be antagonistic towards Major and FG's position, such as risking Major's life (or at least, his position within FG) to advance her schemes as Renegade.

They have a lot of issues to work through, and while it's probably right that the government will take a greater role in the series, I don't think Liv and Major/FG are going to be singing Kumbaya in the short term.

As for daddy issues, they never die. Blaine potentially is going to have to deal with having finally won his dad's approval suddenly having it withdrawn in the worst manner; with wondering if he could have done more to stop Angus from charging the gate; and with the knowledge that he set in motion the chain of events that caused his dad's death. On the other hand, he will probably no longer have to continue giving church members free meals at Romero's.

It's not that they're going to sing kumbaya or anything, it's more that the show is moving on from having FG being antagonistic, next season is the last and they're most likely going to shift focus on other storylines.

Blaine is going to be stuck with his brain smuggling operation and whatever storylines they have in the final season.

With next season being the last, it's just not as likely they'll be stuck with these storylines, they have an entire series to wrap up next season and they've set up the government to being antagonistic next season on top of other storylines they have to deal with.

There's a reason why they had both Blaine and Major turn on the antagonists in the end and dealt with the villains of the season that wrapped up those storylines.

[AllyB]

I appreciate that this isn't a big budget show but having so much major action happen just off screen didn't work for me. I found more enjoyment in chuckling at the ways the production used to disguise the lack of crowds and vfx than I did in the drama I was supposed to be watching. The mob of zombies rushing the gate while Blaine and Angus are around the corner and we hear the sounds of early battle. Thousands of people showing up for Liv's open air execution but the action is shifted to a small warehouse with about 20 extras inside and maybe another 20 outside despite Peyton's big tv rallying moment. The constant cuts to black during the rescue, supposedly for drama, in reality because it would have saved a fortune in production costs. The journalist in an alley telling us about the action on the street the show can't afford to show us. Until the smoke bombs are deployed to hide the fact that there is nothing behind Angus and the handful of extras confuse the zombies. None of this is unusual on network tv and usually is done well (Levon's death is an example of money being saved by not actually showing the physical death without it really seeming like saving money was a key objective) but it happened every few minutes in this episode and it was badly done nearly every time.

Enzo was absolutely playing a long game the journalist told us that. I guess it was easy to miss as it was another money saving attempt. Why show us several scenes outlining that it was all a plan to curry favour with the US government with the added bonus of removing the problems Angus posed, when you can just have an unnamed journalist state two lines of dialogue and expect the audience to catch it. Maybe less money on Paul Rudd and more on production would have been wiser.

My main other takeaway from the episode was that Liv and Levon gagged in the back of a van en route to their execution are no Emily and her Martha in the same set of circumstances in Gilead. The visuals were too similar not to compare and the crap about Justin watching Liv's video completely brought home the lack of drama in the scene. Lastly I hated that Blaine had really been all in with Angus. I would have much preferred if he had looked up and smiled after Angus rode off. Happy that his delusional father and his flock had rode/ran off to their deaths and he'd no longer have to feed them at Romero's. The fact that he was genuinely sorry to see Angus head off to certain death was disappointing, especially when it was plain as day that the zombies hadn't a chance of getting out.

[Free]

6 minutes ago, AllyB said:

I appreciate that this isn't a big budget show but having so much major action happen just off screen didn't work for me.

It's budgetary constraints, it's the CW and it's not one of the superhero shows that costs the most among their network.

It's why it's mostly been Liv in makeup, solving cases, and doing different personas, while action set pieces are few and far between.

[AllyB]

34 minutes ago, Free said:

It's budgetary constraints, it's the CW and it's not one of the superhero shows that costs the most among their network.

It's why it's mostly been Liv in makeup, solving cases, and doing different personas, while action set pieces are few and far between.

Which I acknowledged but part of making network tv is writing to your budget. Having plot point after plot point that requires fudging the scenes to (sort of) hide the lack of budget all in one episode makes it unintentionally funny. There are ways to do big action scenes without spending a fortune but they require serious effort and imagination and it's just not possible to pull off so many in one episode. And if you can't do it well, then you don't write them in. This was like watching a not terrible student film. I can just imagine Dawson Leary (or Troy and Abed) coming up with the conceit of the journalist around the corner only taking a peek after the smokebombs had been deployed in time for the horse to charge out.

And speaking of covering things up. Is Ali Michalka pregnant? She was wearing two different oversized coats that didn't suit her shape and swamped her body in this episode. Though she was also wearing jeans and a blouse in a few scenes and had no sign of a bump. So maybe horribly fitted coats are in fashion.

Edited May 30, 2018 by AllyB

[MisterGlass]

I find that I can tolerate Enzo as long as he's not in Inspector Clouseau costume.  When he's plain clothes, he talks like a person.  When he's in the costume, he's grandstanding and obnoxious.

[Free]

40 minutes ago, AllyB said:

Which I acknowledged but part of making network tv is writing to your budget. Having plot point after plot point that requires fudging the scenes to (sort of) hide the lack of budget all in one episode makes it unintentionally funny. There are ways to do big action scenes without spending a fortune but they require serious effort and imagination and it's just not possible to pull off so many in one episode. And if you can't do it well, then you don't write them in. This was like watching a not terrible student film. I can just imagine Dawson Leary (or Troy and Abed) coming up with the conceit of the journalist around the corner only taking a peek after the smokebombs had been deployed in time for the horse to charge out.

And speaking of covering things up. Is Ali Michalka pregnant? She was wearing two different oversized coats that didn't suit her shape and swamped her body in this episode. Though she was also wearing jeans and a blouse in a few scenes and had no sign of a bump. So maybe horribly fitted coats are in fashion.

Izombie usually holds off on the action until the finale and even that's limited since it's one of the cheapest shows on the network sans the dramedies like Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, it mostly takes place at the morgue/police station that feels left over from other procedurals and it's mainly Liv in make up solving the case of the week in terms of its structural format.

[tennisgurl]

That was a pretty decent finale, even if not much changed. Everyone is still stuck in New Seattle, Liv is still a zombie, and the army is still on their way to cause trouble. Mainly, Major took over for Chase Graves, and the zombie cult is gone. Which are both changes I am totally fine with. 

It was sweet seeing Clive and Dale get married, and was nice to see them being happy and not angsty. Especially with Vampire Steve as the officiant! It was nice of Liv to give the cure to them, but they only had one cure? Really? I guess the show would lose some of its urgency if there was a cure now, but it seems like putting off the inevitable. 

Love that Chase Graves only reaction to the documentary was noting that Paul Rudd was narrating. "Thats a good get." Actually, I am a little disappointed that we didnt follow Peyton to the outside world for a bit.I want to see how the rest of the world is reacting to all of this. 

Liv saying goodbye to Clive, Ravi, and Peyton was nice as well, even though I knew she would be fine, and I felt bad for her losing her boyfriend. Not that I was that invested in that character or their romance, but Liv has the worst luck with guys. They all die on her! Even Major, he just came back!

[rabidchipmnk]

Am I in the minority that I REALLY HATED this finale? 

1) Liv's hot boyfriend dies. Again.  Like the other two, and like I called from the second it became evident they were going to bone (so like, 12 seconds after he was introduced).  Lazy.  I suspect they're doing it to get to a Liv/Major endgame and I really dislike that, which is probably why I feel so strongly about that.

2) If I may put on my scientist hat: OMG, RAVI, YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW MUCH OF THE BRAIN SHE NEEDS TO EAT. THE FUCK. YOUR SAMPLE SIZE IS N=1.  YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW THE BRAIN CURES PEOPLE, THEREFORE YOU CANNOT KNOW HOW MUCH OF A DOSE IS NEEDED TO CURE.  WHY WOULDN'T YOU GIVE INCREMENTAL DOSES TO SEE HOW MUCH IS NECESSARY.

3) With the scientist hat still on: okay, so like, if I'm understanding this (really bad medical research) correctly... he had Isabel's brain, and like, put it in blue juice and ran a current through it and then they got a gelatin brain of a different color, by magic.  But you actually literally have no idea how many brains might be immune.  Has anyone ever been scratched and not turned?  Did anyone who got the vaccine not turn? But of course *most* people who die as humans will not have been scratched by zombies, so you have absolutely no idea whether they may have immunity. You have no data!  And if eating the brain cures people, *maybe* start by doing that procedure to *all* brains you come across and see if they turn orange, since *handwaving* Isabel's blood work showed nothing unusual?  Maybe there are more immune/curing brains out there?  How would you even know?

I'm not even that kind of scientist, but I think I understand biological research well enough to know that this is particularly bad (and has been the whole time with the cure/vaccine/whatever), and for some reason it really really really annoys me, possibly the most ever even though this is a show about zombies.  (Ravi is my favorite though, it's not his fault).

4) I am completely not understanding how Major is now in charge. Wasn't he in exile like 8 seconds ago and everyone was following Chase's orders and raiding his hotel room? But... he's prom king, so he gets to be the leader? 

5) Writing your own wedding vows that are 60% "we're getting married but I'm super sad we won't have kids" is weird and dumb.

6) I *really* hope Clive tactfully broke up with Michelle, then.  ...but still, that's kind of a dick move, in her/your place of work.

7) (How could zombie babies have nursery rhymes about Blaine and DonE if we just established ad nauseam that apparently zombies cannot have babies. Are we turning that many babies?)

13 hours ago, LoneHaranguer said:

I would have preferred a compromise; Liv gets to keep curing people, but the new zombies have to go into the FG freezers until there's a solution to the food shortage (and I'm not going to buy that Blaine's smuggling operation will bring in enough to do that).

That's a really good question you bring up: why don't they freeze people?  If there's going to be a brain shortage, why not take volunteers to get frozen?  I'm sure some people would even *want* to be frozen, so they can live forever and see future cars.  It's not actually that dire a situation re: brains, it's really limited by freezer space, isn't it?  And then get the CDC on it to do some *actual* sciencing (/handwaving nonsense).  But at least they'd have access to more brains to study.

 

ETA: Don't get me wrong, overall I still enjoy this show, and I only criticize because I care and I know they can do better.

Edited May 30, 2018 by rabidchipmnk

[jennblevins]

5 hours ago, AllyB said:

And speaking of covering things up. Is Ali Michalka pregnant? She was wearing two different oversized coats that didn't suit her shape and swamped her body in this episode. Though she was also wearing jeans and a blouse in a few scenes and had no sign of a bump. So maybe horribly fitted coats are in fashion.

I was wondering this, too. Maybe they filmed the scenes with the coats at a different time than the rest?  When did we find out that the show was renewed - was it long enough ago that they reshot a few scenes to carry over into next season better?

I complained to my husband that it seemed like the writers had lost their map of Seattle, but come to find out, Colorado and Hinds do intersect, and exactly where you’d expect a warehouse to be — in a part of Seattle I haven’t been to in a few years.  So, good on you, writers!  I have to admit, in my head they execute zombies at Gas Works Park, not wherever they said on the show (Fort Something?).

[Chicago Redshirt]

9 hours ago, AllyB said:

Enzo was absolutely playing a long game the journalist told us that. I guess it was easy to miss as it was another money saving attempt. Why show us several scenes outlining that it was all a plan to curry favour with the US government with the added bonus of removing the problems Angus posed, when you can just have an unnamed journalist state two lines of dialogue and expect the audience to catch it. Maybe less money on Paul Rudd and more on production would have been wiser.
 

So I went back to rewatch the part with the journalist. He says that the army got tipped to the zombie exodus by FG, and that FG was trying to get in good with the government again.

The journalist didn't know who Enzo actually was. The journalist claimed that the zombies had gotten close enough that they could smell their human brains, a claim which as far as we know has no basis in actual fact. (Liv, at least, has never been able to distinguish by sight or smell human from zombie). I don't think we can trust the journalist, his source(s) or his speculation about things that he didn't actually observe.

What's more: it doesn't make much sense that Enzo would have set the cult up in order to curry favor with the government. At this point, the government has decided that no more U.S. brains are going to be shipped into Seattle. That is not something that can be repaired. The government has made the decision to prompt the no-win scenario that Blaine talked about: either the humans remaining in Seattle will start eliminating zombies till there are none left, or the zombies will kill humans because they need brains, in which case the government can justify turning Seattle into a parking lot. Staging an attempted breakout would do two things: harden them in the stance that zombies are a threat and convince them that FG was not capable of containing it.  

The one thing that it arguably would do is mean that there's 1,000 fewer mouths to feed. But from everything we saw, Enzo is a zombie supremacist. It doesn't make sense to me that he would throw away zombie lives like that either to prop up FG (which it wouldn't) or to stretch out the brain embargo situation.

It makes way more sense that the reporter got his facts wrong than Enzo put the cult members on a suicide mission to improve the standing of either himself or FG.

[Ray Adverb]

6 hours ago, rabidchipmnk said:

Am I in the minority that I REALLY HATED this finale?

 

I hated it less than other episodes.  Not having wacky Liv brain of the week hijinx was a big bonus.  I don't think they get any worse than that LARP episode last month.

 

The more I think about this after the fact, the more I hate this episode and how utterly short sighted everyone is.  They were facing a brain shortage, and Liv's human smuggling made it worse.  Now it is going to be even worse with literally no brains coming in except through whatever back channels Blaine can figure out.  It will be even more worse (bad grammar for emphasis) now that Major has declared open season on human smuggling.

 

Ravi found a promising lead on a cure, but instead of making any effort to study it, he just decided to give the entire supply of the critical orange brain ingredient to Liv.  It didn't even seem to cross his mind to think about the 10,000 other people afflicted with this disease.  Ravi is such a piece of garbage, and I have dreams where I tell him this to his face.

 

Angus and his cult charged headlong into automatic machine gun fire, but at least this was in character for them.  They all had a screw loose.

 

Clive was prepared to charge head long into the zombie life despite the pending severe brain shortage.  Thank goodness that never happened.

 

I just want SOMEONE to start acting like a rational human being.

Edited May 30, 2018 by RayAdverb

[marcee]

I liked it. It felt a bit like a reset. Chase is gone. Levon is gone. The zombie horde is gone. Blaine is back to being a dealer. Liv and Major are both relationship-free and zombie. Peyton & Ravi is my OTP. I feel like this cleaned a lot of things up. And no matter how flawed Major is, I still love him. Especially if and when he takes his shirt off.

I am disappointed that the cure required the ENTIRE BRAIN - not sure how that made sense, but plot.

I'd like to think that instead of the government being so concerned about walls and weapons and brain supplies - they'd be more concerned with finding/creating/testing a cure. It doesn't make sense that Ravi isn't working with a lab on the outside. You'd think that would priority one. *shrug*

I still enjoy the jokes. The "police brain" episode made me laugh out loud -- multiple times -- and upon rewind/rewatch, when Liv mimicked CSI Miami with the quip and sunglasses and then Det. Cavanaugh stubbed his toe just in time for the "Aaaawwwwwhhhhhhh"... perfection! <3

Edited May 30, 2018 by marcee