Review: ‘iZombie’ – ‘Astroburger’: Devil inside?

A quick review of tonight's “iZombie” coming up just as soon as I decide which poison to give you…

I'm happy that the CW premiered “iZombie” late enough in the year that we're getting these three out-of-season episodes, not just because it gives me something new to watch at a time when so many other shows I follow are done until fall (or later), but because it gives me a chance to discuss it with you all at this crucial point in its first year, when I was too busy to write anything most weeks.

“Astroburger” features a really clever piece of misdirection, where it's so busy showing us Liv hearing the devil voice that it's not entirely clear until the end that she's been hallucinating a lot more of this adventure, including everything with Johnny Frost and her confessing her secret identity to Major. I usually find myself three steps ahead of twists like that, but even though I could tell there was something not quite right about Johnny Frost, I still felt gut-punched when Major came in and I realized that Liv's conversation with him had taken place entirely in her own head.

Now, watching the CW's more traditional DC Comics adaptation has given me a very low level of patience when it comes to heroes keeping their identities secret from close friends and/or lovers, which only makes sense as a trope, and as a way to generate conflict when the truth comes out, rather than something these characters would actually do. (And both “Arrow” and “Flash” benefited significantly from Iris, Thea, et al finding out the truth.) There have been points in this Dark Major arc where I've all but screamed at the TV for Liv or Ravi to tell Major the truth about zombies, for his own protection as much as anything. And I imagine the season still ends with him finding out what's what. But if keeping him in the dark was dumb on our heroes' part, where it's led feels honest and emotionally complex enough to maybe be worth the bother.

And with only two episodes left, the show has a lot of balls in the air: Major's quest to kill all zombies, Liv attempting to take down Blaine (and vice versa), Ravi apparently getting very close to a cure, etc. We're getting a second season, but it doesn't feel like the creative team has held anything back in the first, which has me wondering how much they're going to actually resolve in the next two weeks, and what the show might look like if, say, Blaine and the rest of the gang from Meat Cute go gentle into that zombie night.

What did everybody else think of “Astroburger”? And how are you feeling about “iZombie” as we near the end of season 1?

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