iZombie – Looking for Mr. Goodbrain, Part 1

By: Emily Cross

Picking up where we left off last week, Liv (Rose McIver) and Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) have Harley (Andrew Caldwell) chained up in the outhouse bunker. Major (Robert Buckley) arrives with a tranquilizer and a tube of brains, which he offers to Harley. Harley initially refuses, but his zombie nature takes over quickly. As he eats the brains, Major tranquilizes him and locks him in a freezer.

At the morgue, Liv tells Ravi (Rahul Kohli) what she’s been up to. He shows her newspaper and she’s shocked to see her own face staring back at her. Ravi leaves out the fact that Rachel is the one who wrote the article, but Liv soon finds out when Dr. Katty Kupps (Christina Cox) walks in, brandishing the newspaper and wondering about zombies. Even though Ravi isn’t named in the article, he is obviously a source. Katty warns Ravi about speaking to the press because it could lead to him losing his job.

Major visits Chase (Jason Dohring) at Fillmore-Graves. He offers Major a brain tube, which we grossly watch Major try to pretend to eat. Chase knows Major is human from information he found on Shawna’s blog. He fires Major because he’s putting zombies at risk. Major begs to do anything else, but Chase doesn’t bite. In the locker room, Major says goodbye to the troops who promise him a proper send-off that weekend.

Peyton (Aly Michalka) can’t stop thinking about Baracus and the Weckler case. Liv changes the subject to the newspaper article because she’s worried that she’s identifiable, but Peyton doesn’t think so. The picture is of full-on zombie Liv, who looks totally different to everyday Liv. Liv doesn’t seem convinced.

At the morgue, Rachel (Ella Cannon) pays a surprise visit to Ravi who is mad at her for not telling him about her article. He tries to get her out of the morgue before Liv arrives, but no dice. Luckily, Liv is un-zombie-fied: she’s wearing a blonde wig and tons of makeup. Rachel doesn’t recognize her and leaves as Liv and Ravi get a call about a body.

At the crime scene, Clive interviews dumpster divers who discovered the body. When Liv and Ravi arrive, Clive walks them to the body and explains the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of the head. There was no blood near the body so he theorizes the victim was killed elsewhere. When they get to the body, Ravi recognizes her: it’s Katty.

At the morgue, Ravi warns Liv that she might find herself attracted to him after eating Katty’s brain. She makes a Katty Kupps-cake (gotta love a good pun!) and digs in. Clive enters with a box of evidence from Katty’s hotel room and Meg Nevins (Françoise Yip), a CDC employee who explains why Katty was in Seattle. She was investigating the outbreak of the Aleutian flu and looking into a flight from Paris to Seattle. She had four first-class passengers left to interview and it appears those interviews may have occurred on the day she died. Among Katty’s notes on the case where lots of ideas jotted down on cocktail napkins from the hotel bar, including one that just says “17D.” Clive decides to put together a timeline of her last day, starting with the four people she likely interviewed. Since Ravi used to work for the CDC (and knows enough to know the CDC is suspecting bioterrorism), he agrees to sit in on Clive’s interviews.

The first interviewee (Barbara Pollard) mentions that she told Katty that a man with a turban sat next to her on the flight and she was suspicious of him (Ravi is predictably annoyed). During the interview, Liv has a couple of visions of Ravi doing the dirty with Katty and it’s awkward all around. The man in question, Jimmy (Arvind Johal), is actually very nice (who knew…). The only thing of note that he told Katty was that a small dog was barking during the flight.

Baracus (Kurt Evans) knows Peyton is in the loop about zombies. He tells her that Seattle needs to prepare and he wants her to be his chief of staff. She refuses, saying she has a new angle on the dominatrix case. Baracus doesn’t blink. He just tells Peyton that if she ever finds the footage that he might show up. He encourages her to think the job over.

Natalie (Brooke Lyons) is back in town and texts Major to meet up. When he leaves to meet her, she’s at his doorstep wearing a “Killer Abs” shirt. After filling her in on what she’s missed since she left town, Major confesses that he doesn’t know what’s next. Natalie is doing well. So well, in fact, that she’s decided to move to the Amalfi Coast in Italy. She’s back in town to thank Major for giving her the cure and pack her stuff up.

Liv goes to the bar at the hotel where Katty was staying and worked often. A guy (Brendon Zub) catches her eye and they end up talking for a while. He’s a traveler and Liv envies how he’s able to reinvent himself wherever he goes. At last call, he invites her to his room to raid the minibar. She almost makes it to his room before reconsidering and leaving.

Back at the bunker, someone pries open the freezer where Harley is stored.

At the morgue, Liv is refusing to look at Ravi and doesn’t want to talk about her visions. Peyton visits and tells them about Baracus’ job offer. Liv thinks she should take the job.

That night, Liv is drawn back to the bar. A different man, Seth (Neil Grayston), buys her a drink and is surprised when she approaches him. He thinks she’s way out of his league. She nearly goes to his room, but bails out.

At home, Justin (Tongayi Chirisa) visits Liv and she’s happy to see him. They have the “what are we” talk and agree that they are exclusive.

Major and Natalie get back from packing her things. She starts to give him a massage and they end up having sex. She wants him to come with her to Italy. He agrees because there’s nothing tying him to Seattle (Liv and Ravi would beg to differ!).

Billy Cook (Keith Dallas) and another zombie truther (Peter Kelamis) found the bunker and frozen Harley, after being suspicious of the disappearance of the Johns brother. They plan to hit a place where a bunch of the bodyguards of Chaos Killer victims hang out. Harley wakes up and kills them for their brains.

Liv and Clive go to the bar to investigate the murder and Liv tries to pretend she hasn’t been there yet. The regular bartender (Patrick Keating) tells them Katty was there often. She was memorable because she left with a different guy every night. Clive thinks one night she picked the wrong guy.

At the precinct Clive meets with another passenger, Reese (Roger Haskett), who was actually seated in coach. His wife wasn’t upgraded to first class so he switched with the girl next to her so they could be together. Of course, the girl was sitting in seat 17D.

Major arrives at his party with Natalie. Liv isn’t there yet. Instead, she is at the bar again where she happens to meets Chase. They share a drink and make up stories about the other people in the bar. The conversation somehow turns to sex fantasies and it is hella hot. Chase has a specific one involving the desk in his hotel room. I think I know where this is going…

At the precinct, Cavanaugh (Robert Salvador) approaches Clive about the Johns family. He thinks it’s weird the Johns family has gone off the map. Clive reveals nothing, but clearly Cavanaugh won’t let this go.

Cut to Chase’s hotel room and he and Liv are banging on the desk. Don’t get me wrong, I love Justin, but Jason Dohring (and by extension, any character he plays) is so hot I’m not sorry he got a sex scene. Also, it doesn’t hurt that Liv in a blonde “wig” (which I’m pretty sure is just Rose McIver’s natural hair) looks a lot like Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars from the back. Hey, if we’re not going to get more Logan/Veronica action, this is a close second!

Clive visits Patrice (Anisha Cheema) and Tatum (Ava Frye) because he’s figured out that Patrice was on the flight Katty was investigating. However, Patrice doesn’t recognize Katty, which means Katty never got that far in her investigation. It also turns out Carey Gold (Anjali Jay) of Fillmore-Graves is Patrice’s mom.

After Zack (Aidan Kahn) gives a toast to Major, Justin asks to speak to him outside about Liv. She’s very late to the party and he’s getting worried. Major isn’t too concerned since he thinks she’s just buried in work.

At Chase’s hotel room, Liv finds a cocktail napkin with Katty’s handwriting with her name and room number. It looks like Chase was the killer all along!

Harley crashes Major’s party and is wearing a bomb strapped to his chest. He blows up the house, killing everyone inside. Major and Justin are spared because they were outside, but they witnessed the explosion.