‘Physician, Heal Thy Selfie’ is the latest escapade from iZombie, and is it any good? Well, it could have been amazing, but I guess it was alright.
Review of iZombie Season Two ‘Physician, Heal Thy Selfie’
First off the episodes murder! This week’s murder case is equal parts progressive and disappointing. On the good side: Three deaths at once, that could really add another layer when trying to get the right vision, no heads or visions, that forces Liv to play detective, tying into the Mr. Boss plot, just generally awesome. Why could this possibly be disappointing? Well, these ideas don’t fully work together. If this murder was just a triple homicide, Liv would have to make a decision, would she only eat one brain and hope that he has the proper memories? Liv then has a 33% of being helpful, or does she eat all three? What would happen? Would the latest brain take over? Would she have all three’s memories and quirks? That could make for a really interesting episode.
On the flip side, having no heads forces Liv not to rely on visions, this could also make for a great episode. Forcing to play detective, actually, look for clues. Would dire circumstances force Liv to step up and reveal an actual talent at observation (ala Psych), or would Clive notice her lack of helpfulness, pushing the Clive-Zombie plotline. This could make a great episode on its own.
The problem is these two ideas are incompatible, the triple homicide’s appeal relies on the vision gimmick, whereas the decapitation forces Liv to abandon the visions. These ideas simply don’t work together. Add to the fact that Clive and Liv’s relationship is basically back to status quo, and things look pretty disappointing.
This doesn’t make for a bad murder, though, that is mostly mitigated by the third gimmick this murder had, actually directly tying into a major plotline. Both actually. The murder was done by Mr. Boss, thus, he was relevant in this episode, but it was played like as a Chaos Killer murder, leaving Du Clark with questions. This was the first episode to really do a fantastic job balancing the two (three?) antagonists.
Du Clark is worried about this fake-Chaos Killer murder, attacking someone Major claimed was human, yet his records clearly reflect zombie behavior. This portion, with Du Clark, is pretty problematic. The first is why Du Clark is so concerned at first. From what he knows, Major lied about the human-ness of this man, then killed him later. What would Major possibly gain by lying to Du Clark, and thus not kill the BA, but then kill him later? It isn’t until Major admits to lying about the BA that Du Clark should really be concerned. The twitter troll bit really spoke to the cruel nature of Max Rager, but the connection between the twitter troll and Major was unclear. Was Du Clark just warning that he doesn’t like being looked down on, enough to tweet mean things about, or enough to lie? Regardless the connection is a little flimsy.And, one of the issues about Max Rager from earlier has sprung up again.
And, one of the issues about Max Rager from earlier has sprung up again. When Du Clark threatens Major about killing the BA, he says, “We know she knows.” HOW? It couldn’t be Gilda overhearing Liv because Gilda has been gone recently (as noted by the line, “Wow, haven’t seen you around here recently”), and between when Liv told about the BA and him getting killed was less than twenty-four hours, so Liv never went home. Liv only talked about the BA in the lab to Ravi and Major, thus, there are two possibilities: Gilda could have slipped a listening device into Liv’s clothes, there are two problems with that theory. The first is that we never saw Gilda slip anything. She would have to do this every day, or have multiple bugs on all Liv’s clean clothes, but we’ve never seen Gilda do such a thing. This wouldn’t be such an issue if it weren’t for the second problem. There is no precedent, it’s almost out of Gilda’s character to use bugs like this because in the past Gilda’s information has come entirely through eavesdropping or just putting two-and-two together.
Another explanation could be that Du Clark has a mole in Liv’s group. In order to determine the validity of this idea, we have to examine a particular scene, when Liv tells Major and Ravi about the BA. It cannot be Liv, that… makes no sense. It cannot be Major, he’s being blackmailed with this information, he isn’t giving it. That leaves Ravi.
There are three conclusions here: one, Ravi is a traitor, two, Du Clark is omniscient, three, we were lied to about the bugs, which is the worst of the three scenarios.
Most of Mr. Boss’s screen time is actually not regarding the murder, but his interaction with Blaine. Outright, Blaine is freakin’ lucky. When Mr. Boss showed up, there were three things it could be about. Leaking company info, competing in the Utopium market or finding out about zombies. All three are terrifying for Blaine. At the beginning, Mr. Boss talks about stolen goods, this could very well just be a warm-up before the real confrontation. So when Blaine finds out that it’s just about that $5,000 a week, he is relieved. That is the best possible outcome for Blaine. Let’s just hope Mr. Boss isn’t just playing ignorant, but really is.
Speaking of Blaine, he may have had the luckiest moment in the episode, he also had the worst. Peyton’s method of breaking up with Blaine was brutal, and… I felt sorry for him. Is that supposed to happen? The Peyton-Blaine ship was really developing into something nice, and it’s clear to see that Blaine saw a real relationship developing there. That scene was hard to watch.
While the Peyton-Blaine ship just sank, the Peyton-Ravi ship has once again began to sail. Seriously, the long-awaited scenes solely between Ravi and Peyton are here and they were wonderful. The chemistry was fantastic and now I’m torn between Blaine or Ravi.
Speaking of relationships, Liv and Pretty Boy are still a thing. Liv’s worry about his past peaked pretty early and dissipated almost immediately, come on Liv, you gave in so easily! At least, he wasn’t actually lying about the leaking sink, though… his mother seemed pretty delusional, and Liv’s make-up was actually kinda terrifying.
Clive handled Liv’s phone-obsessed stint pretty well, even using her tweet during interrogation to his advantage, nice thinking Clive. The moment when Liv and Clive find the heads in the fridge was pretty great. And of course, it’s confirmed Blaine is responsible for Super U, and Liv now knows that too. Which means that the trust she just re-established in Pretty Boy will dissipate once more, because she now knows that he is working with the Super U, and Blaine, and Mr. Boss.
Ultimately, there was real potential for ‘Physician, Heal Thy Selfie’ to be the best episode of the entire show, thus it was kind of disappointing, but the end result itself was pretty good. Just not great.
