*Spoiler warning for iZombie season 5, episode 3.
Ravi and Liv compete in a dance competition on iZombie. Photo courtesy of the CW, screenshot by Linda Maleh.
What would you give for two tickets outside of the zombie ridden walled city of Seattle? This is what Liv, Ravi, and Clive have to ask themselves on this episode of iZombie. The passes out of Seattle are a prize for a dance contest, and the top contenders, Nancy (Carlena Britch) and Gulliver (Cody Kearsley), are killed off by cyanide poisoning. Liv and Ravi go under cover as dancers to try to scope out who would’ve wanted the couple dead.
Liv, having eaten Nancy’s brain – who was actually the target of the cyanide, since the poison was in her drink – is excited to get out on the dance floor, but Ravi is terrified that he might actually have to dance to maintain this cover. They immediately make a connection with the couple mostly likely to win now that the front runners are toast – Tina (Sidney Leeder) and Lars (Brian Dare). When Liv has a vision that Gulliver and Lars were having an affair, she decides to switch brains, and see if it has anything to do with the murder – especially since Nancy catches them in the act, and Gulliver is terrified that Tina will “beat him to death” if she finds out.
Now on the male brain, Liv is far less needy and whiny, and becomes the supportive partner, which is just in time for her and Clive (who apparently is a great dancer) to show Ravi how to dance for the dress rehearsal coming up. Commence, dance training montage, which is actually a lot of fun. Following teaching Ravi how to dance, Clive digs into figuring out who Trip is – the other dude mentioned in Liv’s vision, and who was hooking up with Gulliver at some point. He thinks it may be someone on Gulliver’s water polo team, but “Trip” seems to be a nickname, so he’s not sure who.
Liv and Ravi get all dressed up and head out for their dress rehearsal. Their dance is actually going really well until Liv has a vision in the middle of it and walks right off the dance floor, leaving Ravi to finish the dance on his own. She tells Clive, who was videoing the whole thing, that she had a vision of some guy begging Gulliver not to leave him, and that Nancy only cared about herself. Clive shows Liv the water polo photo, and she identifies the guy in the vision. It turns out his nickname is Trip, because he has a third nipple – triple nipple.
Liv and Clive head over to interrogate Trip, but he dies of cyanide poisoning right in front of them, so I suppose the case is still wide open? It’s unclear because from the trailer for the next episode, it doesn’t look like this case is continuing. It did sound like Trip was making a confession right before he died. He was talking about how he just wanted Nancy out of the way and he never meant to hurt Gulliver, but then who poisoned Trip? I can only assume that there was some sort of mix-up and Trip accidentally put cyanide in his own water bottle, but if so, that’s just lazy storytelling. I shouldn’t still be wondering if a case is even closed or not at the end of the episode. It’s too bad, because if it wasn’t for this snafu ending, the dance case is actually a great plot-line. It added a lot of fun and life to the episode.
Other things going on in this episode are Major and Peyton dealing with a zombie crisis at a school, and Clive running into an old girlfriend who may or may not be pregnant with his child. Yep, you heard that right.
Major sends his soldiers in to break up a “lice check” at a school. The lice checks are really to try to suss out which kids are zombies, so that they can isolate them in the school from the other kids. That kind of segregation is illegal in New Seattle, but this school has been doing it anyway. While the soldiers are there, one of them makes a crack about eating the kids, which a student caught on video. The video then shows all the soldiers aiming their weapons at the kids. What the video doesn’t show is one of the kids trying to grab one of the soldiers’ sidearms.
So Peyton has another PR disaster on her hands, and goes down to the school to force them to re-integrate the zombie kids with the rest of the school. Right while she’s reaming out the principal, however, one of the zombie kids rages out, and almost attacks another student who had been bullying him. Peyton realizes that the kid is Jordan’s little brother, which explains why he’s so angry since she got shot by a human sniper a couple of episodes ago. Peyton calls Major in, and the two try to figure out what to do with the kid and his brother. They’re orphan zombies, and finding a warm and loving foster home for that combination is not easy.
They ultimately ask Liv to take them in, since Liv is already sheltering the foster kids she took in last episode. The kids walk in right as a memorial to Baron, who died last episode, is happening. They’re stunned to find out that a human would risk their lives to help zombies, and that he was far from the only one. So that was a fortunate turn of events.
Clive, on the other hand, runs into ex-girlfriend Michelle (Christie Laing) at a birthing class. You remember her, she was Clive’s rebound after he and Dale broke up. Clive dumped her as soon as he realized why Dale broke up with him (because she was a zombie and she knew he wanted kids), and immediately proposed to Dale. Ouch, for Michelle. It also turns out that he and Michelle had sex for the first time the night before he broke up with her, just to make matters worse. She shows up at the same birthing class that Dale and Clive are at, she doesn’t have a partner, and she’s about as far along as Dale is. Dale and Clive, immediately freak out.
Clive gets up the courage to ask Michelle if he’s the father, but since she slept with a couple of other men, neither of whom are in the picture, right after they broke up, she doesn’t know who the father is, and she doesn’t want to do a paternity test until after the baby is born, so that she doesn’t risk the pregnancy. Dale and Clive are both still freaking out, but they realize they have to be nicer to Michelle, and Dale even befriends her a little bit.
I loved most of this episode, but I disliked the Michelle-might-be-pregnant-with-Clive’s-baby part. Michelle was such a great character last season, and she deserves better than this. Clive and Dale were also finally happy, and I wish we could have just let them be. Trust me, this show has enough other drama without this plot-line.
The Peyton and Major part of the episode was just another reminder of how at odds this city is – a powder keg waiting to explode. They’re trying to work together, but Peyton kind of represents the human side, while Major represents the zombie side, so that sometimes puts them at odds. All in all, this was a pretty good episode.
