iZombie – Zombie Knows Best

By: Emily Cross

The episode opens with Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) in the police station. Cavanaugh (Robert Salvador) has a few questions for him. A couple of years ago, Wally (Mataeo Mingo) listed Clive as an emergency contact on a karate sign-up form. Clive explains that he was working undercover for vice at the time and kept weird hours, resulting in some chance encounters with Wally. We flash back to that time and see Clive with a mustache! (Don’t worry, Ravi still wins the award for most beautiful facial hair.) Wally calls Clive “black Tony Stark” and is generally sassy with him. Back in the present, Cavanaugh isn’t convinced that Clive is telling the whole truth about his connection to Wally and is clearly suspecting him for the murder.

In the morgue, Ravi (Rahul Kohli) and Liv (Rose McIver) brief Cavanaugh on the deaths of Wally, his mom Anna (Caitlin Stryker) and his uncle Caleb. All victims died as a result of a single bullet to the head. The fingernails were extracted post mortem. Caleb worked for Fillmore Graves and Cavanaugh wonders why a private military contractor bought out an energy drink company. Clive takes him to Wally’s body and Cavanaugh notices that he had a lot of broken bones.

This takes us back to Clive’s interview, where he explains that he got wrapped up in the neighbor’s drama and Wally’s father was not a good guy. We flash back to one time when Clive heard Wally’s parents Anna and Rick (Panou) in a fight that got physical where he ended up arresting Wally’s dad.

Back in the morgue, Clive tells Liv that Cavanaugh is starting his investigation at Fillmore Graves. He suggests that they wait a day before following suit, so that they don’t cross paths.

A dad, Stan (Raugi Yu), tries to cheer up his surly teenage daughter, Cindy (Celina Martin) when another car slams into them. The two are killed.

When Liv, Ravi and Clive arrive at the crime scene, Liv immediately notes that there are two bodies, perfect for her and Major (Robert Buckley). She gets to cooking up some hot dogs and making brain chili and Clive’s reaction to everything is golden. I’m so glad he is finally on Team Z! Liv eats Stan’s brain, as he was a high powered banker and the likely target. So, Major gets teenage girl brain. Even though this isn’t the best time for him to be acting like a teenage girl, he doesn’t really have a choice. He also updates the team on his search for Natalie. He spoke to another Chaos Killer victim who remembers Natalie telling Max Rager that someone would pay big bucks for her and giving them a number. Major now has that number and gives it to Clive to run through the system before he calls.

While Liv and Clive head to Stan’s work, Ravi and Major hang back at the morgue. Major wants to find Natalie before he has to take the cure and lose his memory. Ravi fills him in on the memory-loss cure, which naturally leads the conversation to Blaine (David Anders). In the midst of the conversation, Major gets a little dramatic and it’s clear that the teenage brain is hitting him. It is so enjoyable to see someone who looks like Major talking like a teenage girl and I wouldn’t mind seeing this last.

When Liv and Clive return, Major is cranking up the Katy Perry and singing along. She tells him to turn it down in a very jokey dad fashion and Major tells her she’s being embarrassing. And we’re off to the races! Do you remember when these two were engaged? Look how far we’ve come. Liv and Clive struck out at the bank. All of Stan’s coworkers said he was enthusiastic and supportive, which is what Liv is doing right now. Major heads off to mercenary training and Clive and Liv continue to look into Stan, despite their lack of leads.

In the Fillmore Graves locker room, Major is feeling self-conscious around all of the sculpted men around him. One tidbit about Fillmore Graves: all of the zombies there eat mashed up brains in a tube from several people, meaning no mood swings or visions. Major shows them some “subpar” selfies of himself, which triggers a vision of Cindy showing her phone to her dad who insists they need to take it to the authorities. Cindy refuses saying Winslow will never forgive her.

Cindy had four classes with a girl named Winslow Sutcliffe, but that’s as far as they got seeing as they have no idea what was on Cindy’s phone. Major also fills them in on the Fillmore Graves brain tubes and Liv is totally against it. Ravi tries triggering a vision for Liv, but no dice. Before they get any further, a rather strange IT guy (Kett Turton) arrives. Clive gives Cindy’s destroyed phone to him and asks him if he can get any info off of it.

Liv and Clive visit Vivian (Andrea Savage) at Fillmore Graves and find out Floyd Baracus is running for mayor. They also ask her if they can interview some employees that knew the family. Vivian agrees, thinking that people will be more receptive to them than they were to Cavanaugh. She suggests that her suspect list starts with humans who want to see zombies eradicated, encouraged by Chuck Burt’s radio show. A few interviews show the same sentiment throughout Fillmore Graves. When Liv and Clive interview the teacher (Kelly Konno), she mentions that Anna was a teacher’s aide and finally seemed happy.

In Clive’s interview, he maintains that his relationship with Anna was always friendly. He helped her out occasionally, one time babysitting Wally when Anna’s sitter dropped out. When Clive suggests they watch TV, Wally requests “Game of Thrones.” Now we know why Clive is obsessed with it! When she returns, Anna is shocked that Clive let a 9-year-old watch “Game of Thrones.” She’s not upset, but warns him that Wally’s suggestions are most likely not approved by her.

At Fillmore Graves, Clive tells Liv he has an idea about interviewing Cindy’s friend, but it’s probably a bad idea. In the interview, Winslow maintains that Cindy was her best friend, despite unfriending her on Facebook the night before she was murdered. She eventually tells them that she was frustrated because Cindy could be really judgmental. Then, Liv has a vision of what was on the phone: a selfie of Winslow in bed with an older man. Liv tries to get Winslow to confess to her, but Winslow leaves when her step-dad Ken (Stephen Huszar) shows up to pick her up. Liv recognizes the step-dad as the man in the picture.

After Winslow leaves, Liv fills Clive and Major in on what she saw. They don’t have any evidence of Winslow and her step-dad’s relationship so they can’t do anything yet. However, Clive goes to get a warrant to see what else might be on Winslow’s phone.

Liv and Clive head over to the Sutcliffe’s nursery. Out front is parked a flatbed truck with no signs of damage, but they don’t rule it out just yet. They find Ken, who confirms that Winslow doesn’t have her driver’s license and couldn’t drive the stick shift truck even if she wanted to. They ask for his alibi and his wife Tori (Sally Pressman) arrives with Winslow in tow, confirming she and Ken were in bed together at the time of the murder. Clive presents the warrant for Winslow’s phone so she hands it over.

At the morgue, Ravi tells Liv he thinks he understands what it’s like to not be in control of your own brain. He can’t stop thinking about Peyton (Aly Michalka) and Blaine and is staying away from Peyton because he’s worried he’s going to blow up. Dad brain Liv encourages him that he’s better than he thinks and to trust himself. Clive arrives and tells Liv that Winslow received a citation a few months earlier for driving without a license. The car she was driving? A stick shift.

On the phone with a judge, Clive asks for a way to get the victim (Winslow) away from her abuser (Ken). He’s seen these things end badly, and it’s clear he’s thinking about Wally as we segue into another flashback. Clive is making dinner for Wally and Anna, who tells Clive that they are going to live with her brother for a while because she’s scared that Rick will come back, despite a restraining order. There’s a sweet moment where it looks like the two might kiss, but they are interrupted by Wally.

Clive’s daydream is interrupted by Tori and Winslow, who tell him that Ken murdered Stan and Cindy. In the interrogation, Tori tells Liv and Clive that Winslow confessed about the affair to her. She also tells them that Ken took off the day before, after Clive and Liv’s visit. Clive asks why Ken would kill Stan and Cindy, and Winslow tells them that after Ken broke things off the previous week, she confided in Cindy. Cindy and Stan were going to go to the police, so that’s why Winslow unfriended her. Tori also tells them that she noticed that Ken had taken bush bumpers off of the truck the day after the murder.

Liv and Clive are called out of the room by the IT guy, who managed to resurrect Winslow and Cindy’s last texts to each other. The last text from Winslow threatened death to Cindy if she went to the police, so it looks like she’s the killer because she was the only one to know that Cindy and Stan were planning on going to the police.

When they get back in the interrogation room, Liv and Clive lay out their suspicions. The IT guy found an app on Winslow’s phone called “Tinker Spy.” It allows parents to see any calls or texts their kids are sending or receiving. The phone number associated with the account monitoring Winslow? It’s Tori’s phone. When Winslow questions why, Tori gets angry, calling her daughter disgusting, stupid and selfish.

Later, Clive tells Liv that Winslow will be staying with an aunt. He put out an APB on Ken for the sexual assault so both he and Tori will be doing time. Ravi arrives with fresh intel from Chuck Burd’s radio show. Someone called in saying their dog dug up brains in tubes, exactly like what Major described from Fillmore Graves. Clive promises to look into itand will update them when he has something. On their way to get coffee, Ravi tells Liv that he’s going to call Peyton and try to work things out. Before they leave Clive catches up, already having an address from the radio caller. It turns out that the guy lived next door to Anna, Caleb and Wally.

At the address they find Mr. Huntsman (Peter Kelamis). He maintains that he didn’t have a relationship with his neighbors and tells them that while he has an alibi for that night, he’s not the only zombie conspiracy theorist. He shows them a message board where he chats with other people who believe that zombies should be eradicated. Someone else hacked his account, found out where he lived and posted “zombies live here” with a map with an arrow pointing at Wally’s house. Everyone on the message board, a few hundred people, knew that information.

Liv and Clive report their findings to Vivian who isn’t happy. D-Day is coming sooner than she expected. In the meeting, Clive gets a call telling him that Ken used his credit card at a gas station in Tacoma. Clive leaves to bring him in and Liv stays at Fillmore Graves.

As Clive is booking Ken, he gets feisty and Clive needs some help. This leads right into Cavanaugh’s interview of Clive, which we’ve been seeing throughout the episode. Clive tells him that Anna and Wally moved out while he was wrapped up in his case at the time so he never got to say goodbye. That was also the last he heard of them, besides a letter he received from Anna telling him that she didn’t want to stay in touch. Rick got busted soon after his release on another charge and has been locked up ever since so he’s not a suspect. Clive also admits that he’s thought about how different things would have been if he had been around when Rick got released.