iZombie 2.11: "Fifty Shades of Grey Matter"

“Go forth and direct your lust elsewhere.”
-Ravi

“Fifty Shades of Grey Matter” involved one of the more interesting “Liv’s acting weird because of brains” scenarios I think we’ve encountered thus far on “iZombie.” Liv eats the brains of a horny librarian who had just finished writing a book that seemed destined to become the next “Fifty Shades of Grey.” You can imagine what this did to Liv! She even hits on Ravi at one point, which is not something I expected to see. Also strengthening this episode, some of the bigger, season arc plots are starting to come together. Peyton’s and Babineaux’s investigations aren’t just on a collision course – they have collided. Peyton also gets quite the education in who Blaine truly is, but unfortunately, it seems like that education might have come a bit late. Regardless, Liv will stand by her, making Peyton and Liv one of the better friendships on television.

The episode opens in a library. There’s a teen hanging around who mostly likely is trying to use one of the library computers to watch porn. There are also two librarians, who we will later learn are named Grace and Muriel. Muriel is a workaholic and (kind of understandably) seems resentful when Grace is obviously coughing to the point that it looks like she’s faking sick and asks to go home early. Muriel is shelving books when the porno teen tries to push the shelves on her. Grace, who I guess was on her way out, sees this happening and stops him. In a rather ironic twist, though, Grace then starts coughing up blood, and she collapses.

We learn from Ravi that Grace spent several days in a coma before eventually passing, and he believes the cause of death was hemlock poisoning. Liv and Babineaux pay a visit to Grace’s husband, Andy to deliver the news that his wife was actually murdered. Andy uses a wheelchair following an accident, and he’s got a very large, burly nurse who Liv starts fantasizing about thanks to horny librarian brain. Andy mentions that Grace was finishing up a novel and had gotten a very large advance. He also says that her coworker, Muriel, didn’t like her very much. Naturally, Liv and Babineaux next interview Muriel. When they mention Grace’s book, Muriel pretty much dismisses it as trash. She lets Liv and Babineaux listen to a preliminary audiobook, which is narrated by none other than Kristen Bell. It’s called “Upright Position,” and it’s about a sexy flight attendant. You can pretty much figure out the rest from that.

Meanwhile, Drake the newly created zombie has a bit of a confrontation with some of Mr. Boss’ other drug dealers. They know there is a mole in their organization, and they suspect it’s him. He kills them all after going into full-on zombie mode. He visits Blaine to express his concern about continuing to work in Boss’ organization, but Blaine doesn’t seem all that concerned. At the lab, Liv demonstrates to Ravi exactly how horny these brains are making her. Ravi is not thrilled, and he’s kind of freaked out. Luckily for Ravi, just as he requests Liv direct her lust elsewhere, Drake walks in. He agrees to more testing. Liv tries to take his blood as sexily as possible, and she even considers providing him brains from the morgue to get him out from Blaine’s clutches.

Babineaux and Bozzio are following up on Bozzio’s recognition of Blaine in a sketch of someone associated with the Meat Cute explosion. He’s been referred to as “John Doe” for a while, but now they realize he’s Blaine. They can’t find any records for him other than a business license, though. This leads Babineaux and Bozzio to believe somebody very important is protecting him, so Bozzio’s going to hit up the FBI database. In other important news, the dog of one of the Chaos Killer’s victims has a GPS tracker, and Babineaux and Bozzio are having it turned on. That dog is Major’s adorable Basset, Minor, of course, who is being dropped off at the groomer’s. Major inadvertently finds out about this when he’s hanging out with Liv and Ravi at the office, and he rushes to the groomer’s immediately. He tells the groomer that he stole the dog because it was abused, and she helps cover for him. All Babineaux and Bozzio find is a GPS dongle from Minor’s leash. Major realizes he can’t keep Minor any longer, though, and in a heartbreaking scene, he leaves him on a bus.

At home, Liv and Peyton talk about Liv’s upcoming date with Drake, and they also talk about the librarian case. Liv looks up Grace’s novel online, and she sees it is being released under a pen name. This confuses Liv, because the audiobook she saw earlier definitely had Grace’s name on it. Liv starts reading the book aloud to Peyton, and this causes her to flash to Andy being possessive and criticizing Grace’s clothing as too provocative. Liv and Babineaux think Andy is worth a second look. Their conversation seems normal, but Liv spies a sexy flight attendant neighbor, who she figures was inspiration for Grace’s novel. Liv and Babineaux talk to the flight attendant, who was in contact with Grace’s editor due to the main character in the book being similar to her. There was the possibility she might need to sign a release. Liv is able to get the editor’s phone number from the flight attendant, and the editor mentions Grace recently gave her a book by Muriel to look over. And it just happened to be a murder mystery featuring hemlock poisoning.

Before we dive back into the mystery of the week, there’s a brief romantic interlude for two of our main characters. Liv and Drake go on their date, and Liv gives Drake some of Grace’s brains for dinner. As a result, the chemistry is clearly there, and they almost have sex, but Liv calls it off because she feels like she drugged Drake. She wants them to decide how they feel about each other when not under the influence of porny librarian brain. Meanwhile, Peyton and Blaine are continuing to work on Peyton’s case against Mr. Boss. They share some whisky the Mayor gave Peyton, and they end up having sex right on Peyton’s couch.

Getting back into the case again, Liv, Babineaux, and some police officers search Muriel’s yard for water hemlock. During the search, Liv has a flash of Grace telling Andy that she wasn’t going to send Muriel’s book to her editor. The team also finds out a burned up copy of Grace’s book at Muriel’s house. Grace’s picture is on the back, and there is water hemlock in the window box behind her. Andy is now the suspect again. When he’s brought in for questioning, we learn that he, not Grace, emailed Grace’s editor and asked for a pen name. He also killed Grace because he was embarrassed by the book. He can’t have sex because of his injury, and Grace making all of that public really bothered him.

Babineaux and Bozzio figure out Blaine’s true identity, including the fact that his own father is one of the Chaos Killer’s victims, and they’re pretty sure they have their man. He’s got an outstanding warrant for possession with intent to sell, so they’re going to arrest him for that and figure out the rest later. While Blaine is being interrogated, though, Peyton arrives on the scene and shuts the whole thing down, saying she needs Blaine to continue to help her on the Boss case. After Blaine is released, though, Babineaux tells Peyton he thinks Blaine is the Chaos Killer, and this starts to give Peyton pause. Peyton pays a visit to Liv to talk it through with her, and Liv outlines exactly all the horrible things Blaine has done to her, including turning her into a zombie. Peyton starts really regretting protecting (and having sex with) Blaine, but Liv forgives her. Also, at the very end of the episode, it’s looking like Liv and Drake did sleep together after all.