iZombie’s Blaine: The Undead, Alabaster Villain

Zombie. When you hear that word, the picture that instantly pops into your head is this foaming-blood-at-the-mouth creature with torn clothes and a raging need to eat your innards, because he’s a zombie, and that’s what zombies do, right? They groan, attack, and if you’re oh so lucky (not) they turn you into one of their undead brethren. See, new family!

iZombie takes that first picture that pops into your head and throws it out the window. Instead it gives us pale — correction — pasty, white zombies who are the undead members of society. They can hold jobs, get married, and live productive lives as long as they have a constant and fresh supply of, you guessed it, brains.

That’s where Blaine comes in.

The first time we see Blaine, he’s being a sleaze bag. He approaches Liv during a boat party, flirts with her, offers her drugs, and when he’s blown off, he slaps Liv’s bottom. It’s a tasteless introduction that makes you forget about him. Because who would want to see that story develop? Who would want to see more of him, even though he’s the one who turns Liv? Well, you do get more of him when he appears in Liv’s dreams and she goes on the hunt to find the zombie man of her dreams.

And was Blaine, a sweet, ‘I don’t want to eat people’ kind of zombie, in desperate want of a normal life like Liv? No, he was not. He was the farthest thing from that. Blaine was a man with a plan and it would lead him down a nefarious path where he would use his cold and manipulative nature to be top dog in the city of Seattle.

Now, we don’t know exactly what Blaine did before he joined ‘Z-Team,’ but we do know he was organizer. He was a smart man who had connections with the dark underbelly of Seattle. This made it extremely easy for him to start his business selling top-notch brains that he obtained from homeless teens at the local skate park, earning him the name ‘Candyman.’

He became a businessman because of this: working at a local butcher shop under the guise that they sold beef, chicken, and pork — when in reality, the back was full of brains ready to be sold to the highest bidder with a side of neural tissue for flavor.

That leads us to the next evil and reprehensible part of Blaine’s quest for domination, and what I think is the most devious.

He chooses the people he deals with very carefully. He couldn’t just choose anyone if he was going to survive and thrive in this new world and existence. He needed top of the line people on his side, many times whether they were willing or not.

He approaches a woman who clearly lives by higher means. He charms her, wines her, and eventually goes back to her place for a night of uninhibited fun even after her initial brush off. How was she to know that a scratch later she would be waking up with a streak of white in her hair and a lusting for the metallic/iodine taste of brains?

But Blaine knew. He picked a person to join his team of the undead who had the money and the means to keep his zombie business going for a mere 25k a month.

He seeks out Liv, our zombie heroine, because he’s curious about the local zombie population.

When he ascertains that she’s a do-gooder, he tries to slip into her life with lies and tales about going grave digging and not having talked to someone about this before. Blaine goes for manipulation with her. When Liv doesn’t believe him and pushes him away, Blaine keeps an eye on her but keeps on moving.

Like previously stated, Blaine is a man with a plan, and he won’t let anyone stop him. That includes his own kind and his own men. When two of his lackies decide to strike out on their own he swiftly cuts them down and takes out two other lackies from the freezer like two well packaged chickens ready to thaw.

Blaine goes as far as using brains as leverage against officials like Lieutenant Suzuki, to get away with his obvious crimes of kidnapping and murder. This flows over to rock star Lowell Tracey, as he uses his leverage to spend quality time with a celebrity even though he kills him at the end. And even when his strings are pulled by businessman Lawrence Kaiser, he’s in control. He has the leverage because he knows how to manipulate, lie, and push you to the right spot where you only need him.

By the end of Season 1 we’re left on the edge of our seats wondering what’s going to happen to our favorite alabaster zombie. Will he be human again? Will he return to his zombie status? Will he actually have some compassion and feel torn about his actions in the past couples months?

We won’t find out the answers to these questions until this Fall, but we know one thing for sure. Blaine will be coming back. Someone like him will flourish above and beyond the obstacles thrown at him and survive. Lieutenant Suzuki, Lowell, and Mr. Kaiser weren’t the only men in Blaine’s pocket, I have no doubt about that.

In Season 2 of iZombie, I expect Blaine to 1) be setting up his business once more, a leaner meaner businessman even though he might be human again, and 2) trying to bring down Liv for screwing up his plans to take advantage of the new status quo.

October can’t get here any sooner. I’m excited to learn how Blaine became Blaine and how humanizing him will change his plans to get back what he so desperately sought and gained in this zombie apocalypse.

iZombie returns October 6th at 9/8c on The CW.