S05.E09: The Fresh Princess

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Liv and Clive investigate the murder of Miss Teen Seattle beauty pageant contestant, Laurie-Beth Spano, who went into anaphylactic shock onstage in 1999 and ended up in a coma. At the time, police arrested rival contender Velma Charlet for spiking Laurie-Beth's makeup and she was given a four year sentence. In present day, Laurie-Beth has passed away and Clive has arrested Velma for her murder. Velma claims to be innocent and Liv consumes Laurie-Beth's brain in hopes of tracking down the murderer.

Promo:

Original air date: 6/2719

[Cthulhudrew]

I'm sure it's happened before, but I'm really having a hard time recalling when the mystery of the week seemed so completely lost and extraneous to everything else going on in the story. They could have easily jettisoned the Pageant Girl plot and I literally would only have wondered why Clive was not in the episode.

They are really rushing through things this season. I understand why, but it makes for a very unsteady storyline.

[GaT]

36 minutes ago, Cthulhudrew said:

They are really rushing through things this season. I understand why, but it makes for a very unsteady storyline.

There's only 4 episodes left. They created the rush when they decided to add all sorts of new plots for no reason. At this point I hope the general drops the bomb & wipes out everything.

[AnimeMania]

Stupid mentions of mood rings changing color, when everybody knows mood rings change color based on skin temperature. They even mentioned that Zombie skin is cold when they looked at the infrared videos of the bar patrons.

There was no reason to shoot General Mill's daughter because she would have returned to her normal Zombie self if they would have let her finish eating her human brain. She could have then identified her abductors and maybe told them what their plan was. They had enough Fillmore-Graves Zombies there is subdue General Mill's daughter and her boyfriend without hurting them.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

A+ for the 90s music they used this week thanks to Liv's pageant girl brain. It's been ages since I last heard Sunny Came Home.

I laughed so hard when Blaine was revealed to be sitting in the dark watching Ravi and Peyton rifle through the basement and then he told them how much they sucked at being sneaky.

Edited June 28, 2019 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ketose]

2 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

Stupid mentions of mood rings changing color, when everybody knows mood rings change color based on skin temperature. They even mentioned that Zombie skin is cold when they looked at the infrared videos of the bar patrons.

There was no reason to shoot General Mill's daughter because she would have returned to her normal Zombie self if they would have let her finish eating her human brain. She could have then identified her abductors and maybe told them what their plan was. They had enough Fillmore-Graves Zombies there is subdue General Mill's daughter and her boyfriend without hurting them.

I don't know if people born after 1980 know much about mood rings at all. 

It's been established that once a zombie has gone "Romero" that their mind is gone. Although, in this case it seemed to take less than a week.

1 hour ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

A+ for the 90s music they used this week thanks to Liv's pageant girl brain. It's been ages since I last heard Sunny Came Home.

I laughed so hard when Blaine was revealed to be sitting in the dark watching Ravi and Peyton rifle through the basement and then he told them how much they sucked at being sneaky.

The song choice was good, but I'm used to CW committing more to a montage. They stopped and started the song in order to get more exposition in.

Until the bitter end, they are going to continue with Rose McIver doing improv with brains.

Also, Liv's mother and brother were even more douchey tonight. She was dead to them until they needed Renegade's help. Now all is forgiven. Plus, Evan, the guy who disowned Liv because she didn't want to turn him into a zombie, would rather face dubious treatment than being made a zombie at a time when zombies are at least not in hiding anymore. I might actually be more on Team Dad than Team Mom at this point.

[AudienceofOne]

3 hours ago, ketose said:

Until the bitter end, they are going to continue with Rose McIver doing improv with brains.

That was my problem with this episode. I realised that the COTW, 'Liv on Brains' thing is seen as such an integral part of the show by the writers that they're not going to ditch it for anything. 

But it means that Liv is stuck doing these cases instead of being actively involved in the overarching plot.

Which worked until this season but now just makes her seem like an ongoing cameo. 

[dubbel zout]

8 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I laughed so hard when Blaine was revealed to be sitting in the dark watching Ravi and Peyton rifle through the basement and then he told them how much they sucked at being sneaky.

That was my favorite part of the episode.

6 hours ago, ketose said:

Also, Liv's mother and brother were even more douchey tonight. She was dead to them until they needed Renegade's help. Now all is forgiven.

I know! It really annoyed me that Liv didn't call her mom out on that.

[Ray Adverb]

6 hours ago, ketose said:

Also, Liv's mother and brother were even more douchey tonight. She was dead to them until they needed Renegade's help. Now all is forgiven. Plus, Evan, the guy who disowned Liv because she didn't want to turn him into a zombie, would rather face dubious treatment than being made a zombie at a time when zombies are at least not in hiding anymore. I might actually be more on Team Dad than Team Mom at this point.

Trading one terrible incurable disease for another is not a trade everyone would want to make.  I wouldn't.

9 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

There was no reason to shoot General Mill's daughter because she would have returned to her normal Zombie self if they would have let her finish eating her human brain. She could have then identified her abductors and maybe told them what their plan was. They had enough Fillmore-Graves Zombies there is subdue General Mill's daughter and her boyfriend without hurting them.

No.  It was established in one of the earliest episodes that if a zombie goes too long without eating brains, it will turn feral.  At that point, no amount of brains could help.  Possibly a zombie cure would help, but this has not been proven.

[AnimeMania]

2 minutes ago, Ray Adverb said:

6 hours ago, ketose said:

Also, Liv's mother and brother were even more douchey tonight. She was dead to them until they needed Renegade's help. Now all is forgiven. Plus, Evan, the guy who disowned Liv because she didn't want to turn him into a zombie, would rather face dubious treatment than being made a zombie at a time when zombies are at least not in hiding anymore. I might actually be more on Team Dad than Team Mom at this point.

Trading one terrible incurable disease for another is not a trade everyone would want to make.  I wouldn't.

I would if I knew one would absolutely work and I could live a relatively normal life. The leaving Seattle experimental cure, they may not be accepted, they don't have any money or place to live, and the treatment may not work, may not work very well or may not give you a good quality of life.

[LoneHaranguer]

18 minutes ago, Ray Adverb said:

No.  It was established in one of the earliest episodes that if a zombie goes too long without eating brains, it will turn feral.  At that point, no amount of brains could help.  Possibly a zombie cure would help, but this has not been proven.

But that possibility might mean the General could still have his daughter back, while killing her will free him to decide it's okay to nuke the place once he finds out. Good thing there's also a heavy-handed plot for a last-minute cure.

[EyewatchTV211]

9 hours ago, ketose said:

I don't know if people born after 1980 know much about mood rings at all. 

I was born in 1985 and mood rings were definitely still a thing when I was a kid.

[Affogato]

27 minutes ago, VMepicgrl said:

I was born in 1985 and mood rings were definitely still a thing when I was a kid.

I was around for the first phase but I seem to remember they became in—or retro in—again in the 90s. I mean as a fashion accessorie, not just a toy. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

3 hours ago, LoneHaranguer said:

But that possibility might mean the General could still have his daughter back, while killing her will free him to decide it's okay to nuke the place once he finds out. Good thing there's also a heavy-handed plot for a last-minute cure.

Mills, when last we saw him, was already in the "Nuke Seattle" camp because FG wasn't able to produce his daughter by the time of his visit.

I would think he would be even more so if he learned that she had turned into a single-minded killing machine who had in fact killed at least a couple of people and that there was no particular reason to think that she would ever turn back to the daughter he loved.

[ketose]

I was just thinking, it would have been funny if Liv ate the coma victim brain and then fell asleep for a week while everyone else did their thing.

[thuganomics85]

I almost predicted the killer for the case of the week!  I thought the scene with the parents seem like an obvious set-up point, but I thought it was going to be the father instead.  I feel bad for the victim, but there is definitely some irony that the mom accidentally did it to her own daughter in an attempt to take out the competition.

So, the next play by the anti-Zombie faction was to have General Mills' daughter and her boyfriend turn rabid, and cause more violence.  I guess that will accomplish what they wanted to do, but I also wondered why Major had to shot her in the head, and didn't try to capture and question her, to see if she might know something.  Was it simply an optical thing?

Peyton is no longer the mayor, but she pulled one over Blaine, which was fun!

Don E. and his new girlfriend + a Frustrated Major = Comedic Gold!

Looks like an exit for Liv's mom and brother.  At least she has her dad!  Who Ravi and Peyton now know is the creator of the zombie disease.  Uh oh!

[MisterGlass]

I was not too into this one, aside from the 90s music cues.  I also thought the pageant mom was the clear perpetrator from the introduction, and could have done without the case of the week.

I'm not invested enough in Liv's relationship with her family or her father to find a lot of this interesting.  I did like Ravi and Peyton working together, and getting caught by Blaine.  At least they finally figured out who Beanpole Bob is.  I also liked Major's investigation into the missing girl.  He's interesting in detective mode.

The show is doing a weird combination of racing and limping to the finish.

[moonshine71]

14 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

I was not too into this one, aside from the 90s music cues.  I also thought the pageant mom was the clear perpetrator from the introduction, and could have done without the case of the week.

Yeah, as soon as the father mentioned mom was a former patent contestant, I thought it was pretty obvious it was gonna be a case of her sabotaging another contestant gone wrong.

[moonshine71]

Just no on Liv trying to detox her father and moving him in after knowing him for about 48 hours. That just makes her look stupid, not compassionate.

[AnimeMania]

14 minutes ago, moonshine71 said:

Just no on Liv trying to detox her father and moving him in after knowing him for about 48 hours. That just makes her look stupid, not compassionate.

He was found passed out on the floor. He is living alone. She only took care of him until he was able to take care of himself. They obviously had a strong connection since she just walked straight into his house without even knocking.

[AudienceofOne]

17 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I also wondered why Major had to shot her in the head, and didn't try to capture and question her, to see if she might know something.  Was it simply an optical thing?

She'd gone full zombie, which means there was no way back. She'd be like that forever. She was incapable of speaking again ever.

[jewel21]

On ‎6‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 2:24 PM, Affogato said:

I was around for the first phase but I seem to remember they became in—or retro in—again in the 90s. I mean as a fashion accessorie, not just a toy. 

Yup, I remember going to The Bay and buying one in like 1994 or so. I was 14 at the time. That damn ring was almost always black, lol. 

Blaine sitting in the dark was hilarious. Easily the best part of the episode for me.

[tennisgurl]

I think one of the reasons that I am frustrated by this season, especially as an ending season, is that almost everyone in Seattle beside the main characters just seem to be such assholes. You have the human supremacists who are horrible murdering monsters, the zombie supremacists who are also awful murdering monsters, plus we have people like Livs shitty mom showing up continuing less than a fuck about her when she does not need something to help the kid she actually does seem to care about. How sad is it that the parent that seems to care the most about Liv is the murdering drug dealer who wants to commit genocide? There are so many subplots all featuring this shitty and uninteresting dicks, it just does not fit this show. Yeah its always had villains, but its always been a fun show as well as dealing with cases and more serious plots, but now its just losing its fun, no matter how good Rose is at impressions. 

That being said, I did love Blaine just sitting in the dark while Ravi and Peyton snooped around, and 90s pageant queen was a fun personality, and it led to a fun soundtrack which was nice. 

[LoneHaranguer]

On 6/29/2019 at 3:59 PM, AudienceofOne said:

She'd gone full zombie, which means there was no way back.

Back in S1,  it was only irreversible if a zombie was like that "too long".

[Affogato]

6 hours ago, LoneHaranguer said:

Back in S1,  it was only irreversible if a zombie was like that "too long".

I thought there was a difference between full on zombie and romero. Full on zombie is taking on an aspect, red eyes and so on, and using super strength. But Blaines dad certainly came back from near starvation. Is that general knowledge though? I think Major was assuming it was a death knell in the safe house when he kidnaps Liv ‘for her own good’. And of course the girl in the pit with the pearls. liv assumed there was no coming back. And the basement of max rager. 

[MisterGlass]

You're right @Affogato, full zombie is different from going Romero.  Blaine was still feeding his father by dropping brains pieces down the well, so he was hungry but not Romero.  I think part of his disheveled look was being underwater for so long.

I think for Fillmore Graves it's probably common knowledge that there's no going back. 

[Affogato]

On 7/1/2019 at 8:34 PM, MisterGlass said:

You're right @Affogato, full zombie is different from going Romero.  Blaine was still feeding his father by dropping brains pieces down the well, so he was hungry but not Romero.  I think part of his disheveled look was being underwater for so long.

I think for Fillmore Graves it's probably common knowledge that there's no going back. 

There is probably a point of no return but unless they found it in the rager labs? 

What was beanpole bon doing with the syringes on a stick. Harvesting? What reason to have a room full of romeros?

[possibilities]

I think he's trying to create a romero strike force.

[jhlipton]

On 6/30/2019 at 8:06 AM, tennisgurl said:

almost everyone in Seattle beside the main characters just seem to be such assholes.

Starting with Blaine.  I am sooooo over him.  There's no way that anyone like him would be running around free, making huge deals, et al, after the article was printed.  Any number of people would be lining up to shoot him on sight -- I would be at the front of the line.  Don E is a much better character.

I started fast-forwarding over all the FG and human supremacist stuff.  It's a much better show that way.

[aradia22]

I love stuff about pageants so I liked the brain this week but the rest of the episode continued to be nonsensical. 

Ravi searching for vials is just a waste of time. There's no urgency there. It doesn't even need to be on screen.

I don't know what's going on with Don E. and Darcy. Are they doing a Natural Born Killers/Bonnie and Clyde thing? This last minute character makes no sense.

Speaking of which... still don't get what's going on with Martin. And I have no idea how to feel about Liv's brother and mother because it's been too long. If I cared more, I'd rewatch some season 1 episodes but I worry it would just make me remember when the show used to be good. They seem to be flirting with the idea of Martin turning good and helping Ravi make the cure since apparently he's the only one making drugs who knows what he's doing (basically their lame version of Walter White) and not just winging it. It could be a neat Deus Ex Machina I guess but with him being Liv's dad it becomes a weird thing where if she'd just reconnected with her real dad sooner and maybe before he became a zombie extremist, they could have found a cure in season 1. Which feels... stupid.

OK, I got a laugh of Peyton and Ravi sneaking around in the dark... and somehow not noticing Blaine just sitting there. 

Why was Dottie inexplicably not scared of being attacked by the general's daughter and her boyfriend in full Romero mode? She was just filming with her cell phone. A human should have been scared. 

I thought they'd be annoying and have Peyton and Ravi not go in the house. At least one mystery is solved.

[aradia22]

Quote

Also, Liv's mother and brother were even more douchey tonight. She was dead to them until they needed Renegade's help. Now all is forgiven. Plus, Evan, the guy who disowned Liv because she didn't want to turn him into a zombie, would rather face dubious treatment than being made a zombie at a time when zombies are at least not in hiding anymore. I might actually be more on Team Dad than Team Mom at this point.

I swear they didn't used to be this inexplicably awful.

Quote

Yeah, as soon as the father mentioned mom was a former patent contestant, I thought it was pretty obvious it was gonna be a case of her sabotaging another contestant gone wrong.

Same. She also acted a little nervous while the dad was all enthusiastic when they handing over the tapes. The only mystery there was why they bothered with the detail of the falsely accused girl, Velma, wanting to be an actress and being able to cry on cue. I thought maybe she was somehow still involved in the plot but it had gone wrong. But nope, turns out they only needed her acting skills to get a confession from the mom. As though a regular innocent pleading with a detective wouldn't have been convincing enough??