The mid-climax of the second season of iZombie ‘Capetown’ has arrived! It was by far one of the most entertaining episodes of iZombie in a long time. And that’s actually saying something. Want the details? Scroll down.
Review of iZombie Season Two Episode 9 ‘Capetown’: Spoilers
This episode has a lot going for it, wonderful brain, major changes, and a captivating cliff-hanger. However, this episode also revealed a few of the shows’ overall weaknesses. Let’s cover them!
First, before we go any farther, I need to express just how amazing Liv’s brain was this week. Season two has been pretty unstable with brains, they are either great or terrible, there hasn’t really been an average brain. Thankfully not only was ‘Capetown’s brain good, it was the best so far. The cheesy lines, the heroic stance, the costume, it’s all great. And for what is ultimately a pretty depressing episode (we’ll get to that later), having a light and entertaining brain was a perfect choice.
Similarly, this week’s murder was pretty good too. It introduced a colorful cast of characters and tied in nicely with the Mr. Boss plotline (will discuss below). While the murder itself wasn’t too interesting, it was written to set-up other plots, and it did so quite nicely. Though I was bothered by Liv using Chloroform (It takes over five minutes to knock someone out! Don’t waste your time!)
The Major (heh) focus of the episode was between the aforementioned Major and Liv, after the previous episode Major x Liv (or as I like to call them ‘Miv’) isn’t holding up so well. Both parties were saddened and hurt by the development, though Major hitting on another girl was not okay. Don’t do it Major! You just spent hours defending your loyalty! IDIOT! The end, Liv breaking up with Major, didn’t have nearly the impact I wished it had, Liv and Major have already gone through this, the whole show has been an off-and-on for them. So this doesn’t feel all that drastic.
The bigger break up was Clive and Liv. This is a pretty worrisome, yet exciting turn for iZombie. On one hand, the show is losing it’s conflict engine and supply of brains, thus kinda killing the crime procedural aspect of iZombie. On the other hand the show now has a chance for some big changes, a pilgrimage for Liv, and adventure for… also Liv. Something drastic will happen, let’s just hope it’s the good kind.
Also CLIVE YOU ARE SUCH AN IDIOT! Liv solved all of your crimes! You are useless without her!
The interaction between Major and… um… Zombie-Hooker? I swear her name wasn’t mentioned once. Regardless I really enjoyed her character overall. This is the section I wish I could have been praising iZombie for having the guts to kill off… um… Zombie-Hooker. It would have further tormented Major (which iZombie loves to do) and could have really given Major an insight into the rough aspects of Zombie-hood. That said, the ending we did get made sense character-wise, I just think… ugh… Zombie-Hooker dying would have had a bigger impact.
Let’s cover a few possible issues found in this episode. First we have this mysterious Utopium kid. I was really, really confused when he first showed up, the show treated him like he knew who he was. This lead to a brief, unfounded fear of having not watched the episode before. Furthermore in the end it’s revealed that he works for Mr. Boss. This is a really confusing plot-point. It is way to early for a betrayal by this character to be effective in any sense. It could also be interpreted that he is going against Mr. Boss, after all Blaine is providing the brains, which Mr. Boss can’t give him. Unless this is Mr. Boss getting revenge at Blaine for trying to enter the same market, siccing Peyton in him, and giving said Peyton information about his business.
Speaking of Peyton, where has she been? This leads me into one of the bigger problems that the second season of iZombie has found itself in, the villains. Let’s not forget, Mr. Boss is a wonderful villain, so is Max Rager, so was Blaine. However it seems too ambitious to have both villains on at the same time. Max Rager and Mr. Boss almost alternate episodes, last week was for Max Rager, this week it’s Mr. Boss. Because of this the development feels very choppy, if this isn’t handled soon, it could lead to a disastrous climax.
Finally, the episode ended with Ravi revealing (to himself) that the cure is only temporary. This might seem like a bad thing, I mean, it is. But the fact that Major is doomed to become a zombie once more give some hope for the eventual revival of Miv, at the expense of Major’s job, and possibly Liv’s life. So… there’s that.
Also, during the week it was announced that due to the success of the second season of iZombie, the episode count has been raised to 19, from the previous 13. While this is wonderful news (More iZombie!), the impact this might have on the story is… questionable. It’s nigh impossible to judge at this point, but it will be something kept in mind as those episodes air.
Overall, ‘Capetown’ was a wonderful climax, full of many fantastic things, with the only negatives relevant to future episodes.
