iZombie Season 2 Episode 9 Review: “Cape Town”

iZombie

Who is Liv Moore? It’s a question that’s been at the heart of iZombie since the show’s inception, particularly with Liv taking on a different set of personality traits and skills every week, but it’s a particular focus in this season’s fall finale, “Cape Town,” especially when Liv loses everything she cares so much about over the course of a couple of scenes.

Ever since iZombie‘s first episode, Liv has been able to find renewed purpose in her life by helping Clive solve crimes. If the price she has to pay for getting justice for the dead and saving people’s lives is eating brains and dealing with overpowering mood swings and visions, it’s worth it because she is making a difference. For the first time since being turned into a zombie, she has found peace and happiness.

All of that is why it’s so absolutely crushing when Clive ends their partnership in one of the final scenes of “Cape Town.” He’s always trusted Liv, despite her somewhat wacky behavior, and the closer the two of them have become, the more he’s treated her like an equal, as if she was a cop herself. But when Liv breaks into Stacey Boss’ compound after Clive explicitly tells her not to do anything, it’s a step too far for him; Liv has taken on too much power and crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed, so Clive tells her that they’re done, as Liv asks for forgiveness and claims that she needs their partnership, that she needs to keep helping people.

As I’ve spoken about many times before, iZombie is very much a show about battling depression, and Liv’s struggled mightily against her demons over the course of the show’s 20-plus episodes. However, what’s always been her lifeboat in the never-ending despair that she faces is the difference that she makes while solving crimes, the “superhero” moments that she has when only working a case with Clive. From iZombie‘s very first episode, that satisfaction and fulfillment of helping others is what reawakened Liv to life; what will she be without it?

That question is what’s so terrifying to Liv. If she can’t have the one thing in her life that makes her feel human, that makes the eating brains and the constantly changing personalities and the not having sex, then what is the point of going on? That dread is so powerful and persistent that it bleeds into Liv’s decision to break things off with Major, stating that he used to love the human that Liv once was but now simply just “tolerates” the zombie version of her and insisting that he two of them should stick to their own kind.

The break-up isn’t entirely on Liv; a major cause of the conflict between the two of them is Major playing the hero, keeping his Max Rager-ordered duties from Liv in an effort to keep her safe. “Cape Town” finally provides insight into Major’s reasoning for not telling Liv (he thinks that she’ll go after Vaughn herself and wind up getting killed) and his strong faith that Ravi will be able to create a cure. He shares both of these tidbits with his newest target, a high-class call girl turned zombie prostitute, who sleeps with her pimp’s men in order to obtain brains, and in just a short span of time, she and Major become very close, so much so that he promises to help her end her life if there’s no cure by the time she and the rest of Major’s zombie captives are pulled out of their frozen slumber.

Unfortunately, Major’s withholding of his secret works as poorly as Liv’s did last season, as it keeps putting more and more distance between them, and while he gains some understanding of zombies from the woman he meets, it’s still not enough. To Major, all of his problems with Liv are simply temporary and will go away as soon as the cure is made; however, Liv has prepared herself for the fact that she could very well be a zombie for the rest of her life, which is why her work with Clive and her relationships with friends are so crucial to her maintaining any sense of humanity at all.

That sense of numbness that we first saw from Liv in iZombie‘s pilot reappears in “Cape Town” after her double-whammy of break-ups with Clive and Major, and after witnessing how much progress Liv has made since the show began, it’s heartbreaking to watch. But just like any human being who is battling depression, we need to know that Liv’s condition isn’t temporary; it’s not something that can be easily fixed with the right words or the right drug. No, it’s a constant fight that can be exhausting, and you just hope that the good days keep coming and that they outnumber the bad ones.

So who is Liv Moore? She’s a zombie, but she’s also a bit of a superhero, even when’s not wearing a costume. Mostly though, she’s just as human as the rest of us, doing her best to deal with the overwhelming aspects of life and searching for a purpose that’s bigger than herself, something that “Cape Town” captures beautifully in another excellent episode of The CW’s best show.

And if Ravi’s calculations about the cure at the end of the hour are correct, the lines between zombie and human are going to become very blurred sooner rather than later, especially for the two men, Major and Blaine, who have already been injected with the serum. Liv’s condition certainly isn’t temporary, but Major could well be joining her and the rest of Seattle’s zombies in a very permanent way.

Other thoughts:

Although he’s not in the episode as much as the show’s other characters, Blaine still plays a major role in “Cape Town,” as he convinces Liv to turn one of his guys (I believe his name is Derek) into a zombie in order to gain access to the tainted Utopium needed to make a cure. Fun fact: Derek also works for Stacey Boss, who is on the lookout for the Utopium.
Speaking of Blaine, something that I should have mentioned above is that his forcing Liv’s hand also plays a big role in this episode. It is essentially the “supervillain” action that her “superhero” behavior is trying to make up for.
Similar to his reactions to magic in “Abra Cadaver,” pretty much everything Ravi says and does relating to superheroes in this episode is aces.
I really hope we’ll learn more about the pimp who is running the zombie prostitution ring that Major’s new friend has been forced into. That guy needs to be stopped ASAP.
Even in a Santa costume, Stacey Boss remains as creepy and dangerous as ever.
In addition to The Fog, other superheroes in Seattle include Hashtag, Ghost Cobra, Gray Area, Megafist, Superfly, and Blue Swallow.
Ravi suggests many superhero names for Liv, including “Old Scratchy” and “Snow Woman,” but my favorite interaction between them is this: “Mighty Whitey, what do you think?” “I think I’d be the Ku Klux Klan’s favorite superhero.”
“I am The Fog, and tonight, I’m thick with justice.”
That’s it for iZombie in 2015. Between the series’ strong first season and its fantastic sophomore effort, it’s been a hell of a year for the show. I’m excited for what iZombie has in store for us next, and I’ll be back here to review it all when the series returns on Tuesday, Jan. 12.