iZombie – Some Like It Hot Mess

By: Emily Cross

Yvonne Fallon (Alexia Fast) gets ready for a party in her car. Never mind, she’s headed into work at a grocery store, where her boss Ron (Gabe Khouth) is mad that she’s late again. If she keeps this up, she’ll lose her job. Another worker, Joel (Brian Norris), pulls her away before she gets yelled at more. Yvonne is thankful and promises Joel there will be no more drama. Yvonne gets to her cashier station, where a woman approaches her and slaps her.

Major (Robert Buckley), post-cure, is indulging in heaps of ice cream finally able to experience flavor again. Ravi (Rahul Kohli) holds up pictures and Major identifies all of them. Clearly, the memory loss hasn’t set in just yet. Liv (Rose McIver) enters and is glad to see Major is doing well, but knows the memory loss is imminent. She leaves to go home, leaving Major with the human food he can now enjoy.

When Liv arrives at her apartment, she runs into Peyton (Aly Michalka), who is cooking breakfast. She fills Peyton in on Major’s non-zombie status before Blaine (David Anders) comes out of Peyton’s room and the two are disgustingly flirty and kiss. Liv makes them promise to keep it PG in the common areas and then blacks out into a vision for a longer amount of time than usual. When she returns, she laments that she’s sick of these new, more intense visions. She then gets a text from Clive, calling her in to work.

Liv, Ravi and Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) arrive at the crime scene: Yvonne’s bath tub. The cause of death was electrocution thanks to the hair dryer that lies in the drained tub. Clive theorizes, due to a chipped tile, that the hair dryer was thrown into the bathtub from across the bathroom. Clive steps out to solve a dispute between two other police officers over what to do about a signed baseball found in the trash (bag it and log it), and is told the roommate is ready to talk. The roommate, Barb (Joy Osmanski), tells Clive and Liv that she stayed at her boyfriend’s the night before and returned home to find Yvonne’s body. They barely knew each other, and Barb doesn’t have any ideas as to who killed her. Since there was no forced entry, it’s likely Yvonne knew her killer. Barb tells them that Yvonne was messy, self-centered, and dramatic. This is going to be fun for Liv…

Back at the morgue, Liv whips up noodles with brains and veggies. Soon, she’s working around the morgue grooving to the kind of pop music Yvonne enjoyed. Ravi tells her she can go, but sends her a list of medical supplies he needs for the next version of the memory cure to pick up at the medical supply store near her apartment. One problem: Liv’s phone is inside a dead body. Scatterbrained Liv is not going to be easy to deal with!

Liv and Clive go to the grocery store where Joel shows them the security camera footage of Yvonne being slapped. No one else in the store recognized the woman. Liv also finds a flyer for a bar called Ice Ship where Joel says Yvonne DJ’ed. Liv begs Clive to go, and he relents.

Major and Ravi play video games at their house. Major tells Ravi that there’s something between he and Liv again, but since he’s human again, they’re back to square one. Ravi, in turn, admits that he probably pushed Peyton into Blaine’s arms and there’s nothing he can do about it now. He left a lengthy apology on her voicemail, but she never responded. They die in the game and Ravi is concerned when Major doesn’t remember a common tactic they use and passes it off as a brain fart. Liv arrives soon after, fully scatterbrained and dramatic. When Ravi tries to tell her that Major’s memory is slipping, she’s only concerned with whether he remembers her. Ravi suggests that they take shifts to make sure Major is okay, and asks Liv if she got the medical supplies for the blue memory enhancing solution. She totally forgot, and promises to get it tomorrow.

At the Scratching Post, Don E (Bryce Hodgson) speaks to a zombie who wishes to be human again. He promises Don E $1 million in cash for a cure.

Liv and Clive arrive at the club and Clive has to remind Liv they are there on a case, not to party. They meet Sage Denning (Niall Matter), the owner, who tells them that his wife Trish (currently out on an errand) handles the day to day stuff and probably knows more about Yvonne. Liv goes to question Nels (Behtash Fazlali), the bartender, who worked with Yvonne a lot. After a shot of pepper vodka, Nels tells her that Yvonne was not a great DJ. He should know since he’s a DJ too. Meanwhile, Clive gets Yvonne’s pay stubs from Sage. They’re interrupted by loud music: Liv decides to take the turntables for a spin. She’s still drinking the pepper vodka telling Clive it’s a questioning technique. When she runs out, she goes into the storeroom to find more and instead finds the woman from the grocery store. This must be Trish (Reagan Pasternak)!

Liv fills Clive in on the main area of the bar with Trish in tow. Trish tells them that she slapped Yvonne because Yvonne was sleeping with Sage. Sage tells them it wasn’t a big deal and Clive doesn’t believe him, asking for alibis from both of them. Sage was working at the club with a barback named Jen (with whom he claims nothing happened). Trish was at “Tyler’s” doing stuff of a sexual nature. This causes the couple to bicker and Clive is over it, asking for Jen and Tyler’s details. He tells them to not leave town.

Liv visits Major who is surprised to see her. He pretends to not remember, but Liv doesn’t find it funny. Major is writing goodbye letter to the important people in his life (including Ravi and Liv), seeing as he won’t remember them soon. Liv notices he didn’t write a letter to Sue and Dalia in Walla Walla (who are they?) and encourages him to. When she comes upon her own letter, Major tells her that it says that he loved her like no other. They share a kiss, but nothing more as Liv wants them to “just be.” After she leaves, Major picks up the envelope for Sue and Dalia and makes a decision. Soon after he boards a bus bound for Walla Walla.

The next morning, Blaine is making breakfast for Peyton when Liv enters, her dramatic brain making her upset about how unfair life is between Major and the murder case. Not to mention Peyton is prosecuting the dominatrix case from last week and Liv is barely in the police report. Blaine asks if Peyton has any sage and that triggers a vision. Liv sees Joel upset at Yvonne for sleeping with Sage, after all he’s done for her. It’s also clear that Joel knew who Trish was and why she slapped Yvonne. Liv leaves the apartment without the list of ingredients for Ravi, which Blaine finds in the printer.

Liv and Clive interrogate Joel, who admits that he stopped by Yvonne’s place the night she died because he had promised to loan her $1,000. Liv, having seen Joel with a bottle of wine in her vision, correctly assumes Joel was expecting something more but was rebuffed by Yvonne. Joel confirms this and also tells them that Yvonne didn’t take the money.

Ravi, down at the morgue, leaves Liv a message about a random spleen at her workstation. After he hangs up, Don E appears! Ravi isn’t happy to see him, but Don E isn’t looking for brains. He’s looking for the cure and offers Ravi half of the $100,000 the client is “offering” (if only Ravi know how much the client was really offering). Ravi refuses because of the side effects, but Don E proposes his “Blaine is faking” theory and Ravi is intrigued. Don E claims that he once overheard Blaine referring to a man named John who has been dead for a year. Ravi isn’t quite convinced; there are a lot of Johns in the world. Don E leaves, but asks Ravi to think about it.

After Don E leaves, Ravi gets another guest: Peyton. She asks for the full report on the dominatrix case and Ravi takes the opportunity to fill her in on what Don E said. He doesn’t relish passing along the information, but if it’s true that means the cure works. Peyton doesn’t believe him and isn’t happy he’s told her this information.

Clive checks up on the Sage’s alibis and it checks out. When Liv dumps her purse out on Clive’s desk, she has a vision. She sees Yvonne pawning a signed baseball for $1000, off the books because she can’t find her license.

Liv goes down to the morgue, to find Ravi angry that she forgot his ingredients again. She’s also supposed to be monitoring Major so Ravi is doubly mad. They go to the house to find Major and his travel bag gone. They have no idea where he’s gone.

Well, at least we know where he was headed. Dalia (Nisreen Slim) gets a visit from Sheriff Bill (Donny Lucas), telling her that people at the bus depot reported a young man with no belongings or ID and no idea who or where he was. Bill obviously recognized Major and brought him to Dalia.

Peyton visits Blaine at the funeral home and tells him what Ravi told her. After learning that Major took the cure, Blaine comes clean. He did lose his memory at first, but a couple of days later it came back. He never told anyone because he liked the new version of himself, but reassures Peyton that he’s worked hard to maintain the new and improved Blaine despite having his memories back. Peyton is mad, not because he lied to her, but because the fear of memory loss stopped Major and Liv from taking the cure. She leaves.

Major wakes up in what looks like a childhood bedroom and goes downstairs to find Dalia with Sue (P. Lynn Johnson), his mom! Major, clearly with his memory now, tells Sue that it was easier to choose his dad after the divorce because he was the one without a new girlfriend (I’m guessing that was Dalia?). He tells her that he thinks there’s a chance for a future for him and Liv. The timing might finally be right.

Liv and Ravi go to her apartment to see if they can find any old addresses Major might try to go to, but Peyton intercepts them and tells them about Blaine. After the shock of Blaine’s lie sinks in, Liv gets a call from Major. He tells her that he’s better than fine, but is confused as to how. She promises to fill him in when he gets back. When she hangs up, Ravi asks Liv if she’s ready to take the cure and judging by the look on her face, Liv is thrilled.

But, you can’t ruin the premise of iZombie so naturally there’s a problem. When Ravi, Liv and Peyton go to the morgue to get the cure, they find it ransacked and all of the cure syringes missing.

In the interrogation room, Clive interviews Tim (Adam Beachesne), Barb’s boyfriend. He claims he was with Barb all night, but Clive doesn’t believe him and presses down on him. Clive brings in Barb next and tells her that Tim told him that she left his place around 2AM, leaving her without an alibi. But that’s not the kicker. Clive wonders why the signed baseball, worth about $10 grand, was in the trash. He answers his own question: the ball is fake. He lays out his theory: Yvonne owed Barb back rent of about $1,000 so she pawns the baseball to get the money and replaces it with the fake one, hoping Barb wouldn’t notice. But Barb did notice and killed Yvonne because of it. Barb confesses.

In the morgue, Peyton is convinced that Blaine stole the cures, but Ravi suspects Don E. Now that they’re a little calmed down, Ravi remembers the syringe he gave to Major just in case. He thinks Major still has it, but we know he gave it to Natalie. Clive enters brandishing Barb’s signed confession and thanks Liv for her help. Liv tells Clive about her upcoming curing (this is painful!) and he is happy for her.

Bad Blaine is back, with a vengeance. He’s using the ingredients for the memory cure to synthesize his own cure. I guess we’ll find out why later on. Major returns home and has to deliver the bad news about the last cure syringe.