Mark Watches ‘iZombie’: S02E17 – Reflections on the Way Liv Used to Be

In the seventeenth episode of the second season of iZombie, this show will forever be too much. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch iZombie. 

Holy shit, these last two episodes are going to destroy me, aren’t they?

Blaine

All right, I’m gonna vote that Blaine is truly amnesiac. Here’s my evidence: when other characters leave him alone and no one is there to watch him, he’s still confused. His mask doesn’t drop. He is just as bewildered in front of people as he is by himself. There’s no reason for him to stay in character that long.

And for what it’s worth, this allows the show to reflect on the greater theme of “Reflections of the Way Liv Used to Be”: what were people once like? How have these people grown and changed over the course of the show? By stripping Blaine of his memory, he’s forced to see how everyone reacts to him without any context for why he is so hated. He’s now a blank slate, and admittedly, he’s a nice blank slate. That’s utterly unlike the Blaine we’ve come to know over the series, and the show doesn’t hide that at all. WHICH I APPRECIATE BECAUSE SO MANY SHOWS TRY TO VALORIZE AWFUL WHITE MEN, and this deliberately avoids that trope. Blaine has murdered people, tortured them, and ruined lives, and his amnesia doesn’t erase the affect he’s had on others.

I still don’t know where this is going, y’all. That’s exciting.

Who Liv Used to Be

We’ve only seen brief flashes of that over the show, so it was a bit hard to re-imagine Liv Moore as the overachieving girl who is desperate for validation. At the same time, by the end of this episode, it was clear that Liv thinks she’s a better person than she used to be, which was so goddamn rewarding to see. After all she’s been through, she’s starting to like herself, and y’all. Y’ALL. That means a lot to me!

Sure, there were positive aspects to who she used to be. She was brutally efficient and organized, but at what cost? She needed validation when she did these things, and while there’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel appreciated and noticed, Liv strays far into a compulsive need for that kind of attention. Does that do her any good? In the end, Liv sees how her need for praise got her to lie to Babineaux about Benedetto’s informant program; her relationship with him is far more important than her need to be praised.

The Truth

Perhaps the most pervasive theme in this episode concerns the truth. You can see that in Liv’s story, first of all, since she chooses to lie to Babineaux initially, but she sheds her “old” personality in favor of telling the truth. The life she has now – one where she saves lives and gives people closure – is way more rewarding than what she used to do. But it’s that exact dynamic that Major uses to justify why Ravi should not tell Liv the truth about what Max Rager has done to him.

I don’t know that I buy it, and I don’t think the show’s writers want us to, either. If anything, this episode is one giant example of how not telling the truth has led Major to an increasingly awful place. First of all: few people are ever comforted by lying. IT IS FACT. Granted, Ravi understood why Major lied about Minor and the whole Chaos Killer thing, but that’s not the same as feeling like he was being protected. My guess? Liv is gonna be a whole lot more angry about Major lying to her for most of the year than if he’d not done so.

But even if that’s not the case, there’s still another problem. How can any of them protect Major now? Dale has all the evidence she needs to charge Major, and it’s not like the evidence is wrong. He is the Chaos Killer. Plus, he can’t just tell them the truth about being a zombie, right? Oh my god, there are so many problems presented by this. How will Major eat brains in time? Will Ravi have to tell Liv the truth? I’m guessing that Janko whispered the truth about Major’s storage shed into Vaughn’s ear, so THAT whole thing is now a bust. They fucking know, don’t they??? THEY WERE GONNA SHOW HIM GILDA AND THEN LIKE… FEED HIM TO HER. OR SOMETHING, I DON’T KNOW. Well, maybe not; they don’t know he’s back to being a zombie again.

Look, so much has happened, and Major’s arrest throws it all into chaos. In just two episodes, we’ve got to resolve the Drake plot, the Mr. Boss plot, Blaine’s amnesia, the possible cure (or not), Major’s arrest… how much can the show escalate at this point? PROBABLY A LOT, I’M GUESSING. Y’all, I’m out. I gotta watch another episode RIGHT NOW.

The video for “Reflections on the Way Live Used to Be” can be downloaded here for $0.99.

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