#iZombie 3.13: "Looking for Mr. Goodbrain Part 2"

“If we’re going to survive, we might have to do a few things that can’t be undone. If I scratch you, you’d better be damn sure whose side you’re on.”
-Chase

Once again the creative team behind “iZombie” pulled off a finale that left me wondering where the show was going next year and sure it would be someplace interesting. And yet again, whoever is in charge of the music cues was on point. One of my very favorite moment of “iZombie” overall was in the second season finale when a bunch of zombies were munching on the “real” Rob Thomas’ brain while singing Matchbox Twenty’s “Unwell.” This year’s music moments didn’t quite top that, but they were still pretty darn clever. This episode was just jam packed with twists and turns and things that will most definitely have consequences next season. D-Day is upon us, and now that everyone knows zombies exist, it is going to be time to see how the reaction plays out. Will humans be content to let the zombies live peacefully as long as they mostly stay in Seattle, or will our ugliest impulses (which have been quite prevalent for the past couple years, I think) reign?

The episode begins in the aftermath of the house explosion that ended the previous episode. Liv, Peyton, and Ravi are watching the news coverage of the event, and Liv is clearly devastated (as you’d expect, considering her two main romantic interests of the moment were both there). Just as everyone is feeling especially desperate, Major and Justin show up at the door. They survived because they were outside, but the rest of their squad and Natalie did not. Justin asks where Liv was, so Liv has to come clean about the whole sleeping with Chase Graves thing. At least the has the class to take him into another room to deliver the news. He doesn’t accept the being on the brain of someone who liked hookups excuse, and he storms out.

Later at the morgue, Liv and Ravi are working on the explosion victims, trying to piece bodies back together. Babineaux stops by with new information on the Katty Kupps case. Patrice, Tatum Wexler’s roommate, was on the flight from Paris that Katty suspected was the source of Seattle’s Aleutian flu outbreak. She was supposed to be bringing Chase Graves a new pet dog. The team starts speculating about whether a collar meant to dispense citronella to stop barking could have actually dispensed Aleutian flu. Liv confirms she has seen the dog (and the collar) plus a napkin with Katty’s phone number on it in Chase’s hotel room. When pressed on why she was in Chase’s hotel room in the first place, she has to admit that she slept with him. Meanwhile, at the Scratching Post, a bunch of zombies on choreographer blue brain are dancing to “Dream Lover,” which was a pretty great visual. One of Blaine’s minions shows up and says the feds interrupted the drop of Russian brains they were counting on. Blaine, understandably, is not happy about this development.

At Filmore Graves, Blaine tries to do a deal with Chase. He wants to provide all of the brains needed by Filmore Graves employees. Chase declines, saying he has the brain situation taken care of. Furthermore, since whole brains, blue or otherwise (as opposed to brain mush) can be a distraction to his soldiers, he is banning his employees from patronizing the Scratching Post. That just adds insult to injury for poor Blaine. As a very frustrated Blaine leaves Chase’s office, Major enters. Major wants back in at Filmore Graves. Meaning he wants Chase to scratch and re-zombify him. Chase warns Major of the consequences. D-Day is coming, and Major will need to make some tough choices about which side he’s on. Major says there’s no question he’s on the side of the zombies, and he really does want to be scratched.

While Chase is taking meetings, Liv and Babineaux are hovering outside his house. They are planning to do some recon to determine if he had something to do with the Aleutian flu outbreak. Specifically, they want to test the dog collar for flu residue. Liv drinks some Max Rager and jumps over the wall, and she lands right in Chase’s pool. Chase has just arrived home, and he sees this happen. He gives Liv a robe to wear while he runs her clothes through the dryer, and she and Babineaux sit on his couch for a chat. They tell Chase about all of the circumstantial evidence that connects him to the Aleutian flu outbreak. He gets rather snarky with them, which I appreciated, asking them if they want to watch some TV while Liv’s clothes dry. It’s way better than how robotic he’s been in some of the earlier episodes. Meanwhile, since Chase’s directive, the Scratching post is not doing so well anymore. Only one guy is dancing, and Blaine is so disgusted he turns the music off.

At City Hall, a woman from the CDC tells city staff, including Peyton, that the Aleutian flu out break could be really, really bad. It’s a slow, painful death. Vaccine’s are on the way, however, and she recommends everybody gets vaccinated. Our gang sits around the office, talking about the vaccine. Babineaux apparently is really paranoid about diseases and wants to get his as soon as possible. He’d be even happier if Peyton would tell them where the city is storing them so he could get his early. Liv ends up having a vision of Filmore Graves employee Carey Gold (who I believe is related to Tatum Wexler’s roommate Patrice) standing over Katty, who is in a car trunk, surprised Katty is still alive. The gang now thinks Carey is behind all the recent zombie murdering. And they’d be right. At Filmore Graves, Chase, who has also figured this out, calls Carey into his office and accuses her of mutiny. She admits it, and she says she did it because the whole “zombie island” idea will get them all killed. She’s probably right about that, actually. Putting all the zombies in one concentrated area would just be asking for somebody to destroy them all in one go. Chase calls for security, but the guards are all loyal to Carey. Chase ends up shooting Carey and all the guards just as Liv and Babineaux arrive. He ends up confirming to them what happened.

The vaccination stations are finally open, and of course, Johnny Frost uses his media personality status to get one of the first doses. Meanwhile, Babineaux goes back to the precinct, where he is confronted by Dale. Dale picked up one of Babineaux’s Cis while she was working on intercepting something related to Russia (presumably Blaine’s botched brain drop), and this CI has connections to Major and Blaine, too. It’s that guy Don-E brought into the business earlier in the season. In the interrogation room, Babineaux realizes it’s time to bring Dale into the fold, so he hits the CI and makes him go full-on zombie mode to prove to Dale that there are zombies among us. At the morgue, Ravi tells Liv that he found some open vials of tainted Utopium among Katty’s effects. It’s not enough for a cure, but the residue might be valuable. He has Liv turn the release valve on his mad scientist set-up, and that triggers a vision for Liv. She sees Patrice attacking Katty outside of Tatum and Patrice’s house.

Liv sneaks into Tatum and Patrice’s house. On an abandoned cell phone, she sees text going back and forth about how it’s D-Day and zombies will never go hungry again. Liv’s cell phone battery is dead, so she uses the kitchen land line to call Peyton and warn her that something is wrong with the Aleutian flu vaccines. Peyton tells Liv that the vaccines are being stored at a nearby elementary school. Tatum enters the kitchen, and she explains to Liv how she was zombified. They hug, but then Patrice tries to attack Liv. Liv knocks out both Patrice and Tatum, then she goes to the school, where Filmore Graves mercs are tainting the Aleutian flu vaccine with zombie blood. Liv calls Babineaux, who is in line at the vaccination station with Dale, to warn him. Babineaux has to go outside to get reception, but by the time Liv can deliver the news, it’s too late for Dale. As Babineaux rushes back in to save her, she’s already gotten the shot.

Liv heads to the local news station, where she confronts Johnny Frost about how he’s a zombie now, and she gets him to make an announcement about the vaccines being tainted and that zombies aren’t inherently bad. People flee the vaccine centers and head for the gun shops, but we also see some more tender scenes of new zombie life. Babineaux helps Dale dye her hair. The Scratching Post is hopping again. Chase and some of his mercs show up at the news station. He has his own video that he wants to broadcast. He says Seattle’s zombies will stay put in Seattle if the rest of the country donates sufficient brains (upon the death of the donors) to keep them well fed. It’s a bit of blackmail, for sure, but it’s not exactly a bad deal. We see Peyton inform Mayor Baraccus of recent events while he’s reading a book to a group of school children. It was a scene that was a bit too much of an on-the-nose invocation of 9/11 for my taste, personally. We also see a bunch of humans try to attack one of the new Filmore Graves operated zombie feeding stations, just to get mowed down by Filmore Graves mercs.

At the end of the episode, Liv goes back to the morgue, where Ravi informs her that he has used the Utopium residue to develop what he believes is the first vaccine for zombism. He takes it himself, and Liv is incredulous that he’d use himself as a guinea pig when there’s no good way to test the vaccine. Ravi does have a test in mind. He wants Liv to scratch him. If he doesn’t become a zombie, then the vaccine works. I would think he’d want to try this test in a few weeks after his body has built up immunity, but nope. He wants to do it right now. Liv doesn’t want that responsibility, but Ravi says it’s not her responsibility, because he’s asking for it. He wants her to deliver the scratch because they started this journey together. Eventually Liv agrees. As we fade to black, Ravi makes zombie noises, and Liv tells him, “don’t be a dick.”