iZombie Review: Zombie Knows Best (Season 3 Episode 2)

Major Lilywhite has many positive qualities. He’s smart, loyal, and handsome. But here’s something I thought I’d never say… Major should really eat more teenage girl brains!

Robert Buckley steals the show on iZombie Season 3 Episode 2, titled “Zombie Knows Best.” I guess you could go as far as saying he was born to play a teenage girl.

Major acting like a bratty teenager is one of the funniest plots the writers have come up with yet. Every time he opens his mouth to deliver a snarky or bitchy line, I laugh out loud.

There are several Major gifs that need to be included in this review. You’ve been warned!

This installment brings us back to the case of the week. While the case itself wasn’t particularly interesting, it did provide us with pure comedy gold.

A father and daughter are killed in a car accident. What first seems like a tragic accident quickly turns into a homicide investigation. Liv eats the father’s brain, and Major eats the daughter’s brain.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the case:

– The daughter’s best friend is the first suspect.

– The friend sent a picture in bed with her step-father to the daughter’s phone.

– The daughter and father were going to tell the authorities.

– After the step-father skips town, they discover the mother knew about the affair via a hidden app she put on her daughter’s phone.

– The mother killed them so the information wouldn’t get out and humiliate her.

Pretty cut and dry. As soon as the mother appears, I know she’s going to be the real murderer. This is an example of the case of the week not always being a slam dunk.

However, even if the case isn’t particularly compelling, I’m more forgiving if it serves as a comedic or dramatic backdrop to the main story line and characters.

For as much as I didn’t care for the case, it did provide us with Major on teenage girl brain, and for that I am thankful.

Robert Buckley looks like he’s having a blast with this episode. He embodies the spirit of an annoying teenager with just the right amount of over-the-top annoyance. Basically he acts like every girl I tried to avoid talking to when I was a teenage girl.

For so long we only had Liv be the one to embody different personalities. Now we can watch her play off of whatever brain Major eats.

Liv and Major have very few hilarious scenes together as there is so much emotional history between them. I am pleasantly surprised to see how well they match comically, especially playing with conflicting personalities.

Liv doesn’t get as many laughs as Major simply because she’s playing the “straight man” in this scenario, but she sure does play the painfully uncool dad to perfection. Rose McIver excels at playing up the authoritarian brain.

Major’s self-hating meltdown in the locker room at Fillmore Graves is phenomenal especially when complaining about his body and showing the excessive number of selfies he’s taken.

However, the scene serves a greater purpose than Major complaining about other men’s bodies. His fellow mercenaries show him special brain tubes they eat.

These tubes contain a bunch of brains mashed up into one mixture so they avoid taking on the personality traits of the dead. If this is true, my long-running question is answered. I always wondered what would happen if they ate two brains or more at once.

Ravi doesn’t get much to do in this installment other than pine for Peyton and wonder about Blaine’s amnesia. I’m glad they are suspicious about Blaine too, and it’s not just the audience.

Peyton is great and all, but I’d rather have Ravi move on and find himself a more compelling story line. There’s a lot of potential for him to get caught in the middle of the zombie/human conflict.

I’m not sure how Vivian would feel knowing Ravi has developed and continues to work on a zombie cure. She seems perfectly happy with being a brain-eater.

While Ravi spends the majority of the episode getting a fatherly pep-talk from Liv and listening to Major gossip and complain, Clive’s backstory becomes clearer.

Bringing Clive into the fold has opened up so many new opportunities to learn more about him. He may still be getting used to watching Liv and Major eat brains, but he’s still the wonderful man he’s always been.

It seemed a little odd to have Clive act so upset after Wally’s death. We just learned they once knew each other. That’s why I’m relieved to see the writers follow-through with showing us the history between Clive, Wally, and Wally’s mother.

I appreciate how the show separates Clive’s flashbacks from the zombie brain flashes. Clive’s memories of his time with the family are surprisingly emotional. Clive was once their neighbor and helped put away Wally’s father.

Clive quickly became a sort of surrogate father/babysitter for Wally. We also get to see him watch Game of Thrones for the first time, and his facial expression is like a kid in a candy store.

He also developed a close, flirtatious relationship with Wally’s mother. Their romance was over before it even began when she moved them out of the building to go live with her brother.

It’s not wonder Clive was so upset by their deaths. Even worse, the list of suspects is getting longer. The neighbor who called into the radio station informs Clive and Liv that there is a whole chat-room thread where people share information about zombies in Seattle.

Looks like it won’t take too long for more people to discover that zombies are living among them.

What did you think of this episode of iZombie? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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iZombie airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

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