*Spoiler alert for iZombie Season 4, Episode 11.
Liv and Ravi on iZombie. Photo courtesy of the CW, screenshot by Linda Maleh
With only two episodes left to the season, tensions finally boil over in this episode of iZombie. Isobel’s illness progresses to its final stages, Brother Love’s radical teachings reach new heights, Chase Graves finds his breaking point, forcing Major to find his.
Apparently a key sign that Isobel is close to death is the reappearance of her nose-bleeds. All episode long, she uses that fact to stage her own death, and freak out those around her. The nose bleeds are real, the death part – not so much. It’s a coping mechanism, but a brutal one. The ticking clock on Isobel’s life is at least eased a little by the arrival of her mom, who is snuck into the city by Liv. When the coyote and Isobel’s mom get held up by officials, Liv has to go save them by dressing up and pretending to be Peyton, who is still the acting mayor at this point. Hopefully, no one notices in a future episode that she wasn’t Peyton after all. The episode finally ends with Isobel dying for real. In the time that she’s been alive, Ravi has been unable to find what makes Isobel immune to the zombie virus. We’ll just have to see if he finds any more info once he opens her up, or if Liv is affected in any way after she eats Isobel’s brain – Isobel tells Liv earlier in the episode that she wants Liv to eat her brain after she dies.
Speaking of Peyton, she’s scheduled to go to D.C. on a diplomatic mission this week. At a dinner where she introduces Ravi to her parents (they love him, by the way), they encourage Peyton to stay in D.C. and never come back. They are convinced that the government’s plan for New Seattle is to stop brain shipments, and let the zombies and humans fight it out, and if the zombies win, they’re going to nuke the city. Ravi backs them up – if Peyton has the opportunity to save herself, they all think she should. Peyton, committed to her city, her home, her friends and family, and her responsibility as acting mayor, does not warm to the idea.
Meanwhile it seems that Blaine and his father have joined forces for good, as Don E. eats the brain of a director and films Brother Love’s new sermon on live television. Brother Love’s sermons are as terrifying as ever as he proclaims to a packed house that humans are food put on this earth to be eaten by them, (our French Filmore Graves officer is in the crowd nodding along to every word). Who knows how the newly televised sermons will galvanize the city’s starving zombie population? The ultimate showdown between the zombies and the humans that Peyton’s parents predicted could be right on target. Towards the end of the episode, one of the members of a hate group against zombies, who we met earlier in the season, attempts to murder Brother Love, and is torn apart by the zombie crowd when he fails.
The homicide portion of the episode doesn’t seem that interesting until we find out who the murderer is. Liv eats the brain of a germaphobe that was murdered by blunt force trauma to the head after making some very insensitive remarks about a female coworker at a company sketch show. Her husband did the wacking. Who is he? Turns out it’s Crybaby Carl! As Carl gets carted off to jail, that makes two enforcers that Blaine has lost this season.
Major and Jordan on iZombie. Photo courtesy of the CW, screenshot by Linda Maleh.
Finally, Chase and Major put their plan in motion to root out, and trap the bootleggers running the blackmarket for the brain-tubes. Major swallows a tracker before being brought to the man at the top – who forces him to eat a blue brain that makes him tell the truth – and his squad uses it to ambush and arrest them. It’s all smiles at the club as Chase encourages everyone to celebrate the victory, until Major gets news that one of the men escaped. In his rage, Chase shoots at the two teenagers that make up Major’s squad. He injures the first one, and manages to shoot the other in the head – the only way a zombie can die. Major tries to stop Chase from shooting them, but he’s too late. Major and the rest of the Filmore Graves soldiers are left looking at Chase in shock and horror. Turns out that Chase is the Darth Vader of the story after all. On the other hand, if there was anything to turn Major away from Filmore Graves, this is it. I look forward to having Major back on team good-guy after his dark turn this season. As for the rest of Filmore Graves … I smell mutiny.
The episode ends on an emotional Bailey-from-The-Sisterhood-of-the-Traveling-Pants-like goodbye video from Isobel to Liv and Ravi. If you’re not on the verge of tears by the end of it, you have no soul.
Isobel on video on iZombie. Photo courtesy of the CW, screenshot by Linda Maleh.
