iZombie - Season 4

[marillion]

Admittedly, I recognized the name because I work in a grocery store and spent three years responsible for ordering and stocking the Cereal Aisle.

You should try commuting by a General Mills plant like I do... Oh man.. Depending on the wind, it smells like cocoa puffs... Makes me SOOOOO hungry...

On Edit..... LOVED this episode.... the Bob and Doug reference... Triumph and April Wine in the soundtrack... Rush would have been better but maybe cliche....

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Whoever came up with that Filmore Graves detective with that horrible accent needs a slap upside the head. That was horrible.

 

[Skipper]

Whoever came up with that Filmore Graves detective with that horrible accent needs a slap upside the head. That was horrible.

It was embarrassing. I think I did't see a similar caricature in a film or American TV series since the Pink Panther remake.

 

[The Wormhole]

I kept expecting to be building up to something with the Inspector, but, no, they didn't. And according to IMDB, he'll be recurring throughout the season.

 

[Christopher]

Interesting to see an episode that skips the murder-of-the-week format altogether. And it turned out well, since once again Liv's brain persona merely enhanced her own personal storyline and goals rather than totally overwriting them. I wonder if this means they'll be phasing out the weekly procedural stuff more in the future in favor of the larger story arc. The focus of the show has become much bigger than individual homicide cases.

Nice to see Dark Matter's Melissa O'Neil again. I hope it's a recurring role.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

It was fun to see Rose speak in her natural accent, and having that security guard obsess over LOTR.

 

[Christopher]

I'm a little unclear on the in-story reason for Liv keeping the wig and fake tan. Presumably the real-life reason is so Rose McIver can save some time in the makeup chair, but I'm vague on how it benefits the character. It seems to have something to do with her new "Renegade" role, but it's not exactly concealing her identity if she uses the same look in her police work.

They went too far with the bit where Don E. had a conversation with the bouncer's severed head. Okay, so zombies live as long as their brains are intact, yeah, but how could he talk when he had no lungs attached? How could he wiggle his head around when his neck muscles weren't anchored to anything? Up to now, the show has treated the "zombie" condition as the result of a weird disease, a basically scientific phenomenon that mimicked the properties of modern cinematic zombies. But talking without lungs crosses the line into pure fantasy, if not cartooniness. There's also the question of what was supplying oxygen to the brain. The show has established that zombies still have some circulatory activity, even if their heart rate and blood pressure are extremely low. So if the guy's brain was getting no blood flow, he should've been unconscious, even if he wasn't in danger of death.

I am so bad at recognizing people. I knew the really hot blonde woman in the first couple of acts was very familiar, but I didn't realize it was Bar Paly until I saw the credits, even though I just saw her last week in Legends of Tomorrow.

 

[The Wormhole]

So, Filmore-Graves shut down the newspaper for being "fake news." Way to be subtle, guys.

 

[Christopher]

So, Filmore-Graves shut down the newspaper for being "fake news." Way to be subtle, guys.

This is not an age that calls for subtlety. And this is not a show that's ever been prone to it.

 

[The Wormhole]

Yeah, but the show is already doing it's Trump-ism with what is also becoming a worn-out trope in fiction now, Building a Wall.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, but the show is already doing it's Trump-ism with what is also becoming a worn-out trope in fiction now, Building a Wall.

I think they're doing more of a Berlin Wall or Warsaw Ghetto thing there. There have been actual walls in history with far more real presence and impact than an imaginary "border wall" that's never going to be any more real than Trump University was.

 

[The Wormhole]

Maybe, but like I said, everyone else has been doing their own take on the "Build a Wall" idea in the past few years. It's not hard to pinpoint the likeliest origin of this particular trope.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe, but like I said, everyone else has been doing their own take on the "Build a Wall" idea in the past few years. It's not hard to pinpoint the likeliest origin of this particular trope.

Like I said, there's a pretty huge difference between, on the one hand, a fraudulent demagogue using an impossible wall as a simple talking point for fooling his gullible backers, and on the other hand, the government actually walling in a segment of the population. Stories that have commented on the Trumpian "wall" rhetoric have generally used it that way, as empty fearmongering rhetoric, like when the senator in Supergirl season 1 rallied her base of anti-alien bigots by talking about building a dome over the United States. But while there are some obvious resonances to current events, the reason that current events are so scary to informed people is because we remember history. We remember the walls that actually have been built and the oppressive regimes that have used them. Social commentary about the present also entails reminding audiences of the parallels in the past. Telling a story like this is not exclusively about Trump, however much it may resonate. Because all this has happened before, which is why we know it's bad.

Really, if anything, Chase Graves's willingness to suspend freedoms and rights in the name of security resonates far more with the Bush/Cheney administration's actions and everything we've gone through as a nation since 9/11 than it does with anything Trumpian. Trump couldn't care less about the security of anyone but himself; he's motivated by greed and racism. So, yes, the bearded Fillmore-Graves guy and his "fake news" excuse for attacking the press is a commentary on a dangerous current trend that Trump embraces, but Chase's arc is about something deeper and longer-standing than that, something we've been wrestling with as a nation for the past 16-plus years, and that also came into play in WWII (particularly for Japanese-Americans) and the Cold War. Chase is nothing like Trump, because he knows what he's doing is awful and he clearly hates having to do it. But there are others under him who are quicker to embrace the power trip.

 

[The Wormhole]

"Filmore-Graves is the Borg." Yeah, I don't see it.

Ravi explaining Doctor Who to Clive and Clive's reaction made for a very good scene.

 

[Christopher]

This is one of the dumber "brain personas." LARPers aren't people who always and exclusively talk and act like medieval characters; they're people who play a game as a hobby alongside everything else they do in their everyday lives. It's not like the professor actually believed he was a medieval squire or whatever. So it makes no damn sense that Liv was constantly in roleplaying mode, that she couldn't turn it off even for Renegade business.

And they're so inconsistent about how much zombies are taken over by the brains they eat. Liv essentially embodies "You are whom you eat," but Blaine ate the imprisoned accountant's brain and was still acting like Blaine afterward.

 

[The Wormhole]

And they're so inconsistent about how much zombies are taken over by the brains they eat. Liv essentially embodies "You are whom you eat," but Blaine ate the imprisoned accountant's brain and was still acting like Blaine afterward.

Well, it's more or less implied that zombies can control how much the brain they eat controls them, Liv just doesn't. EG, in season 3 she tried defending cheating on her Filmore-Graves boyfriend by sleeping with Chase Graves as a by-product of being on a nymphomaniac's brain, but he wasn't having any of it, saying that it is possible to control the brain and not let yourself be controlled by it.

And to a certain extent it does make sense that Liv would absorb herself into the life of the brain she's on, as she's trying to conjure up memories to solve murders. The main problem is that they've cut back on her visions to just one per episode, if that, and a lot of the murders are solved through legitimate detective methods, meaning now we just get Liv being silly for no reason.

 

[Christopher]

Well, it's more or less implied that zombies can control how much the brain they eat controls them, Liv just doesn't.

Except they're no longer writing her that way. Like I said, this episode treated it like she couldn't turn it off even for a moment. When she was on the phone with the girl being smuggled in, it was clear that her affected medieval way of talking was making the girl uncomfortable, in a situation where it was essential to make her feel reassured and safe. So she would've had to be sociopathically cruel to choose to keep up the affectation just for her own personal amusement. So essentially the implication was that she literally could not stop it even when she needed to. Which makes no damn sense, because that would mean the LARPer couldn't turn it off either, and that's not role-playing, that's a full-on psychotic break.

And to a certain extent it does make sense that Liv would absorb herself into the life of the brain she's on

And that's part of my problem. The life of the brain she's on. A life isn't just a single hobby or occupation or character trait. It's everything. It's all the different roles a person has to play in different circumstances -- work, play, family, friends, etc. I hate it when they reduce an entire person to just one caricatured interest. It's idiotic to portray a LARPer as being nothing but a LARPer. I mean, that's just a hobby! It's one thing when what she gets is an attitude or way of thinking, like the artist's brain in episode 2 or the racist brain in the second-season premiere. Or when the brain imparts her with a specific skill the person had, like a foreign language or military training. Or when she gets a particular mental health issue like paranoia or gambling addiction. But it makes no sense when it's someone's job, let alone their hobby. Because that's not the one and only thing they can be.

 

[Christopher]

Nice to see an episode where the brain-of-the-week doesn't totally replace Liv's personality, just modulates it a bit. The rapping was nothing more than a grace note (as it were) on the episode. Although that's largely because the murder was solved almost immediately and most of the episode was about other stuff.

Isobel, the immune girl, is played by Izabela Vidovic, who took over this season in the role of young Kara in Supergirl flashbacks, and who really does uncannily resemble Melissa Benoist, both in face and body language. I figured she was just doing a really good impression of Benoist in her Supergirl role, but she still has a lot of the same mannerisms here, so I guess they just really lucked out with a natural resemblance.

 

[The Wormhole]

That French Filmore-Graves Inspector really is a worn-out joke. Even when they continued to include English subtitles when he actually was speaking English got tiresome too quickly.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

iZombie renewed for season 5