Trait of the Week: Maternal tendencies

This week on iZombie, Liv eats the brains of a young pregnant woman who was a bit Gone Girl‘d before giving birth and dying. Lov then fusses over her friends and family, while contemplating the fact that as a zombie, she can’t have children.

The victim, Emily Sparrow, went missing soon after she learned she was pregnant and her boyfriend, Dylan, is the number one suspect. Mostly because he’s a jerk and they fought the night she went missing. When Emily died, her baby went to the hospital, awaiting to hear if her father is a murderer or if her grandparents held their own daughter hostage when they found out she was pregnant. Rough life, kid.

Liv visits the baby at the hospital and we learn her mother, Eva, works at the hospital. Liv and Eva convince Evan he needs a job, and the number one candidate if you remember from last week, is Meat Cute, Blaine’s evil lair. Also happening in Liv’s life: Ravi is testing zombie concoctions on rats, she and Lowell almost make out (but he’s recently eaten the brain of a gay man, so he’s not really feeling it right now. Gotta let it digest…), and Liv goes in her first stakeout.

When Liv and Clive learn that an animal control specialist and her husband may have been the ones to kidnap Emily, they head to their property. While Clive and Lieutenant Suzuki (Clive’s secret zombie superior) engage in a shootout with the couple, Liv saves two other girls who were held hostage in a treehouse. She almost goes FOZM, but the adrenaline passes. In the house, Suzuki comes upon the wife and shoots her with no hesitation. Just when you thought he was going to eat her, Clive arrives and it seems like Suzuki has different plans for this couple anyway.

Major. Oh Major. The missing kids case has taken over his brain, so to speak. He works with Rebecca Hinton, a reporter, and gets himself and Clive in major trouble when Clive implies that the missing kids is the last thing anyone in the police department wants to deal with. Major also pisses off The Candy Man (who we know is a zombie) by breaking into his car and finding his secret brain stash. Major gets arrested, and because he has such goodwill with the cops, they place him in a cell with some biker gang baddies. This man is never not in trouble…

Because Major is butting in, Blaine and Suzuki made a plan: use the crazy kidnapping couple as a scapegoat for the missing kids, getting both cases off Suzuki’s radar. These seems to appease reporter Hinton, but this is far from over.

Lastly, one of Ravi’s rats has killed and eaten the others… a little scary white rat has escaped in the lab!

This week’s case of the week was pretty solid as procedurals go, though not overly interesting. Liv’s trait of the week caused some additional motherlyness, but nothing too wacky or out of the ordinary. I’d say this was a standard episode of the week. But once again, I am left to ask: if a grey rat turned white upon zombie-ism, what happens to people of color and how to they “correct” it to once again be brown and tan and other shades that a tanning salon wouldn’t be able to replicate.

Brain Teasers:

• Did you know I loved Ravi? Because I do.
• ‘I’ve created a monster.” “Yeah, someone beat you to punch on that.”
• Ravi and Lowell bond over being British and liking… socc–futbal– sports. They bond over sports.
• Liv needs a female zombie friend, because Ravi just isn’t having girl-talk. “Can we just talk about you being a zombie? Brain eating, being undead, these are things you can discuss at length with me.”
• Just to drill it in, because I myself keep forgetting: Liv’s mom is Eva, her brother Evan. What happened to her father and does his name match Olivia’s in the same way? I assume his name was Oliver (but not Queen).
• The Candy Man’s real name is Julian Dupont. No wonder he goes by a street name…
• “Look at you two, detectives ebony and ivory!” Said by the evil Margo from animal control before we knew she was the villain. I felt gross at that line, so I’m glad she turned out to be evil in the end. I suppose it was an early subtle clue.
• Dylan calls Liv “Beetljuice.” Just put her in some striped suits!
• “I’m sure your reality show SIDS episode will have killer ratings.” Then Ravi says “Damn girl.” I’ve mentioned I love him, right? Can I just get him, Cisco Ramon, and Felicity Smoak in the same room, please? We watch movies and I watch them talk about science and technology before going back to talking about pop culture.