First of all, I sincerely apologize for how late this review is. I thought iZombie returned next week and didn’t realize it had already aired until Wednesday night. My bad! I’ll be more on top of that in the future. Anyway, let’s get to iZombie’s latest episode “Method Head,” which was a fun, if inconsequential return for Rob Thomas’ zombie series. It featured enough meta humor to fill an entire Scream film but lacked a bit in terms of actual stakes.
Picking up the day following Liv and Major’s breakup, Ravi breaks the news to them about the zombie cure being only temporary and then we are taken on a short time jump that was a little jarring, especially considering how it diminished the impact of the events that ended “Cape Town.” It does provide a nice way for iZombie to not have to drag Liv and Major’s break-up (and Liv and Clive’s break-up) out for multiple episodes, but it makes the dramatic plot turns from “Cape Town” seem unimportant by the end of “Method Head.” Liv and Major are on speaking terms and Clive and Liv are back to working together. We just skipped all the fallout. Also, that whole Santa Claus murder bit could have been removed entirely and the episode would have been all the better for it.
The bulk of the episode was spent on the set of “Zombie High,” a show that Liv watches religiously but for some reason hasn’t mentioned until now (but how funny was it to see Clive make fun of it?). This setup was prime for a ton of meta humor, and “Method Head” didn’t disappoint. There were plenty of zombie jokes as the show (iZombie, not “Zombie High”) poked fun at itself and also allowed Live to eat the brain of an actor. I admit that the show didn’t go quite as far with the brain as I would have liked it to, but otherwise all of the meta humor worked pretty well. The mystery itself, in which a cocky actor was shot with a real gun during filming was not quite up to par with some of iZombie‘s best mysteries, but it was serviceable.
In other news, Blaine is without his zombie hooker that Major froze back in “Cape Town,” and he gets paid a visit from Bozzio! Watching Blaine freak out about the cooler with the brain in it was highly entertaining and it was quite refreshing to see Blaine actually worried about something. Blaine may be a great villain, but he is definitely the epitome of a “comic book villain” in that he always comes out on top. Seeing a moment of weakness for the character was a nice turn of events. It doesn’t look like things are going to get any easier for Blaine, since Clive and Dale realized that he is also their suspect in the Meat Cute Massacre from the Season 1 Finale.
Major didn’t spend much time with Liv this week, but he did get to bond with Vaughn du Clark for the majority of the episode. Special mention must be made of Steven Weber. How great is he in that role? He’s clearly relishing every second of it and it shows in his performance. It was fairly obvious that Major was being tested for his loyalty when the good doctor came to him pretending to be a whistleblower, but it did lead to a great moment of suspense when du Clark let the zombies loose with the doctor inside the feeding room.
“Method Head” is a lot of fun to watch, but it seems to be more of a filler episode to bridge the two halves of the season (it is the middle episode in a 19-episode season), so it did feel a little slight. That being said, it’s hard to resist an episode that calls itself out on its ridiculous premise.
Random Notes
- Chapter Titles of the Week: Dead Rodent’s Society; Homicide for the Holidays; Cast Times at Zombie High; A Royal Fan; Trailer Trash; Major Downer; The Brains Behind the F.B.I.;
- Brain Recipe of the Week: Used as a topper on a frozen dinner! I ate many of these during and right after college so this actually looked appetizing to me.
- Nice cut from Blaine pondering about a zombie outbreak to a scene from Zombie High.
- On that note, how funny was the repeated use of the word “prickerbush.” I’ve never heard it called that before.
- Babineaux and Bozzio are having sex. That’s cool.
- Liv trying to not act excited when they were interrogating Wyatt the shooter was hilarious.
- “Well, there it is! Some of the most famous junk in America.” -Liv on Jordan’s penis.
- “He’s blinded you with man-jewelry and the promise of a rock-hard ass!” “Well *slaps butt*, promise delivered!”
- “Don’t know if he has the range for Blue.” -Liv, when hearing that Wyatt was auditioning for the role of the Blue Ranger in the new Power Rangers movie. Also a nice nod to Rose McIver’s days as a Power Ranger (she was the Yellow Ranger).
- Gilda calls full-on zombies “Romeros.” I love it!
- I’m not the only one who thought that sketch of Blaine was super creepy right?
- iZombie is taking the next two weeks off so I’ll see you all on February 2nd (and I’ll be on time next time).
