iZombie Season 2 Episode 14 Review: “Eternal Sunshine of the Caffeinated Mind”

It’s almost been exhausting to watch iZombie over the past couple of weeks, and that’s not because the show has been boring or dull. On the contrary, there’s been so much exciting stuff happening from the opening minutes of each episode to the closing scene that I’ve had a hard time keeping my notes together. Even in its first season, iZombie wasn’t afraid to move at an extremely quick pace, delivering action, emotion, and twists all within an hour, and that style and structure has been amplified tenfold in the show’s most recent episodes, which have been some of the most jam-packed but also most thrilling installments of the CW series yet.

Similar to last week’s “The Whopper,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Caffeinated Mind” is filled to the brim with story, from the case of the week, which ends in an unexpected way as Liv and Clive aren’t able to bring everyone to justice, to new revelations about Drake (spoiler alert: he’s an undercover cop!). However, the most important storylines in tonight’s episode revolve around Liv and Blaine.

Throughout much of the running time of “Eternal Sunshine of the Caffeinated Mind,” Liv is the most optimistic we’ve ever seen her be, as the brains of Leslie, the positive-thinking coffee shop owner who was killed by her daughter and her boyfriend, provide Liv with a constantly sunny disposition. No matter what happens, whether she’s dealing with Pam’s (Liv’s cellmate from this season’s fall finale) rude comments, or trying to psych Ravi up enough to ask out Darcy the cashier (more on that later), Liv’s mood remains unchained, and she consistently finds a positive way to look at things. As usual, Rose McIver is fantastic at portraying this new version of Liv, making phrases like “That’s just liquid sunshine!” and “He sounds like a hoot!” sound so funny and yet seem so natural coming out of Liv’s mouth, even though we know that she’d never, ever talk like this normally.

But it turns out that the humor from Liv’s newfound optimism is just a distraction, a way to downplay the more fierce and determined parts of Liv’s personality, so that when she explodes at the end of the episode, it has an even greater impact. And explode Liv does after she discovers the truth about her roommate and Major when the two of them awkwardly come face-to-face, standing right in front of her.

Even though Liv doesn’t know the full story yet, as Major stops confessing about his misdeeds for Max Rager just as Rita walks in, it’s still immensely satisfying to watch her figure out what “Gilda” has been doing behind her back, especially when it involves her punching her so-called roommate in the face. There’s obviously more story to tell here, as Major still needs to reveal to Liv the truth about what he’s been up to while working for Vaughn, but I’m just so happy that, after being kept in the dark for the most of the season, Liv is finally beginning to learn about all the lies she’s been told this year.

And although Major doesn’t tell Liv about his work with Max Rager in the episode’s closing moments, his reason for doing so plays a role in another iZombie character’s storyline. Major may have been the focus of the zombie cure storyline throughout “Eternal Sunshine,” but it’s Blaine who we see rise again as a zombie at the end of the episode, after Stacey Boss learns that he’s been making moves behind his back and slits Blaine’s throat as punishment.

It’s not a huge surprise when Blaine claws his way out of the ground, scaring a troop of what looked to be girl scouts in the process; it’s not like iZombie was going to kill off a character as fun as Blaine and get rid of an electric performer like David Anders. Still though, it leaves viewers with many questions. Will there be any other side effects to re-transforming into a zombie? What will Blaine do to get revenge on Boss for killing him? With Blaine already transitioning back into his former state, how soon until Major becomes a member of the undead again as well?

Those are all questions and ideas that I’m sure iZombie will deal with in its final five episodes of Season 2, but the fact that they go unanswered here doesn’t stop “Eternal Sunshine of the Caffeinated Mind” from being a great of hour of television in a season that’s been full of them. iZombie is pulling off the tricky balance of pushing Season 2’s overarching plot forward while still telling real, human stories about the show’s wide cast of characters, and it’s impressive to watch.

Everything has started to tie together wonderfully over the past few episodes, with new twists like Drake’s true identity and the ineffectiveness of the cure adding even more drama. “Eternal Sunshine of the Caffeinated Mind” was another strong chapter in this this season’s suspense-filled story, and its exciting closing sequence is only going to make the month-long wait until iZombie‘s next new episode feel even longer.

Other thoughts:

• So what do we think about Drake being an undercover cop? I personally like this development, although, if I were to nitpick, I’m not sure if it needed to be in this episode, which was already so jam-packed with good stuff.
• I didn’t talk about it much above, but this might have been my favorite case of the season. Not only was it so much fun watching Liv be such an incredible optimist (Rose McIver’s delivery throughout the hour was just marvelous, wasn’t it?), but the fact that Cher got away, leaving Gilbert to take the blame, was a surprising way to end that story and showed that, no matter how hard they try, Liv and Clive won’t always be able to catch the bad guys. I love it when the procedural aspects of shows can shock you, and that turn of events definitely did.
• It’s impossible for me to hear “Zou Bisou Bisou” and not think of Megan in Mad Men.
• Liv and Clive’s reactions to Stan’s “code brown” situation were hilarious, but nothing is better than Clive talking to the gas station on the phone. “No, I don’t need security footage.”
• Ravi finally gets to talk to his cashier crush, Darcy, and he quickly finds out that she hasn’t seen Star Wars and is into “trangressive rhymes.” Even more reason why he and Peyton need to get back together.
• “Little test here, Liv. Jennifer Lawrence in my league?” “She’d be lucky to have you!”

What did everyone else think about this week’s episode of iZombie? Comment below and let me know.

[Photo credit: Diyah Pera/The CW]