iZombie has been an amazing show thus far, but it has one terrible flaw: its rules of zombie-ism are inconsistent.
Let’s start at the beginning: the boat party. We see Liv run towards the water, as freshly-minted zombies tear at each other… wait, that doesn’t make sense! Liv, and other people we’ve seen turn into zombies, aren’t immediately aggressive; it takes days (or weeks) without brains for that. (You could argue that all the zombies we’ve seen have caught the virus, rather than ingested utopium/Max Rager, but even Ravi’s rats were never immediately aggressive.)
The way the zombie virus is transmitted is also suspect. Scratches and sexual intercourse are two bonafide ways to become a zombie: Liv herself was turned by a scratch, and Blaine creates his first client by sleeping with her. But both of these methods come with problems.
Because the virus is transmitted by scratching, some of the viral particles must live on the zombie’s skin or fingernails. If that’s true, wouldn’t living in close quarters with a zombie be enough to catch it, too? It would only take Peyton using Liv’s razor (and nicking herself) once to join Team Z — but, of course, we know she’s not a zombie.
If the virus is transmitted through sexual contact, that means it’s present in bodily fluids. That would imply the virus is transmittable by kissing… but while Liv kisses Major in episode 2, and makes out with him (a lot) in season 2, he doesn’t become a zombie. Sure, there are lots of real-life STIs that are transmitted by sex and not kissing — but those infections aren’t so contagious that they’re transmitted by scratches, too. It just doesn’t make sense that the virus would live on a zombie’s skin and in some bodily fluids, but not in saliva.
The fact that cured zombies eventually revert back poses its own set of problems. It implies the virus was never truly destroyed in their bodies, and went dormant instead — and if that’s true, then Peyton and Rita should have the dormant virus, since they slept with Blaine and Major. In real-life science, having a dormant or dead virus in your system usually makes you immune to the real virus. So, then, why was Rita able to become a zombie?
Why do these inconsistencies matter? It’s not a big deal that they missed a few things, right? It’s an unbelievably huge deal, because iZombie is a show that prides itself in detail and consistency. We’re talking about a show that mentions Mr. Boss seventeen episodes before he actually appears and brings the character of Brody back from fifteen episodes ago.
iZombie, we know you can do better.
Follow Us
The reason why Liv wasn’t immediately aggressive was because she was scratched by Blaine. The rest of the folks at the boat party were either turned by people who took tainted utopium and drank Max Rager, or running screaming from them. Ravi’s rats weren’t immediately aggressive because he hadn’t gotten the actual boat party utopium until the end of “The Whopper”. That cocktail was tested on a rat and that was the same rat that went crazy in “Eternal Sunshine of the Caffeinated Mind.” So you see, when you have that perfect mixture of what was at the boat party, you get super aggressive zombies.
Now, you may have more of an argument about the transmittal of the zombie virus in its active or dormant stages. It’s transmitted through sex, through scratches, but not through kissing? I guess that’s just a leap over science so we could have scenes of Liv and Major kissing. But the rules are simple: You can kiss but you can’t have sex (like with other STDs). If it’s dormant, it’s not catching. If you get scratched, you get turned. And I’m willing to bet that Liv doesn’t share her razor with Peyton.
This isn’t hard science. Also, this is a show where the zombie gets the personality of a dead person by eating their brains. If we had to stick to hard science for how the virus is transmitted, we then would need to explain how the heck that happens! And full-on zombie mode? How would you explain that? I think the conclusion is when one becomes a zombie, their biology is altered in a way that makes all of this possible. Since there are no such things as zombies, I’m willing to accept this as hard psuedoscience. :-)
Now, please change your headline to: “iZombie: Brilliant about Everything”. Thanks!