Perhaps the biggest surprise of the iZombie Season 4 finale is that the hour doesn’t end on a major, game-changing cliffhanger but on on a more hopeful, almost happy note, as Liv is met with cheers and applause from the crowd of people, both zombie and human, that come to see to her at the hotel. And their arrival can’t come at a better time. After dealing with so much loss over the years, from the deaths of Lowell, Drake, Isobel, and now Levon, Liv is finally ready to stop being Seattle’s hero. When Ravi tells her that she needs to do more work as Renegade to help ensure that zombies and humans work together, she initially responds by telling him that it’s someone else’s problem; another person can become the new Renegade, because Liv is tired of this life and everything it has cost her.
Season after season, we’ve seen Liv act selflessly and heroically and almost never complain. Sure, there’s been times when she’s needed to stay on a particular brain longer to numb the pain, such as when she let alcoholic brain consume her following Lowell’s death or remained on mercenary brain after she was forced to shoot and kill Drake when he went full Romero. However, Liv has always bounced back from these tragic moments; they’ve never made her want to give up her role because she always knew her purpose, what the fight was about: finding justice for those who had lost their lives.
This season, though, that fight has changed to giving the sick a chance to survive, but if the most important people in Liv’s life can’t even survive, if all her efforts end with her not being able to save an innocent girl like Isobel or protect someone she loves like Levon, then it makes her question how this particular fight is even worth it. What’s the point of going through all of this pain if it’s only going to hurt more at the end? It’s a valid question for Liv to raise, and when she first tells Ravi and Peyton that all she wants to do is leave New Seattle and go somewhere where no one knows her, I understand it. Finally, we’re starting to see the cracks in Liv’s heroic nature, and that’s because, even though she’s a zombie, she’s more human than the majority of people who have a beating heart and a pulse.
Throughout iZombie‘s four seasons, Liv’s humanity has been what inspires her heroism; the two are interlinked. Liv’s most heroic moment of “And He Shall Be A Good Man” isn’t when she escapes and slams the guillotine on Chase Graves. Instead, it’s when she stands there next to Bozzio, as her maid of honor, listening to her and Clive’s vows and understanding how important being human and having kids is to her partner and one of her best friends, so she chooses to give the cure to Bozzio instead of taking it for herself. The scene is constructed beautifully, as we watch Liv’s conversation without being able to hear it; like Ravi and Peyton, we only see the tearful reactions of the newlyweds when Liv shares the news with them and Clive giving Liv the biggest hug in one of the most vulnerable, heartwarming moments the two of them have ever had together. When Ravi tells Peyton that he thinks Liv is giving Bozzio the cure instead of taking it herself, Peyton smiles and delivers my favorite line of the episode: “Isn’t that just like her.” It is just like Liv, to be selfless and loving and kind, and that’s why, no matter what changes in the world of iZombie, one thing remains consistent: we always root for Olivia Moore. She doesn’t need to lead an army horseback or shoot someone in the head to be a hero–she just needs to be herself and keep getting up even when life continuously knocks her down. Fortunately, if the last scene of Season 4 is any indication, she’ll have a lot of people to help her get back up on her feet.
And one of those people, even though Liv might not be too fond of him right now, is Major, who becomes the new commander of Fillmore Graves after Chase’s death and, within hours, makes big changes that will impact Liv’s work. Fillmore Graves will no longer be against humans crossing New Seattle’s border and the creation of new zombies. As Major tells Liv, the only people she and her group will have to worry about is the U.S. government, who also decides to cut off shipments of brains to New Seattle, which is why Major turns to Blaine and Don E., the two best brain smugglers around, to help him feed the city.
At first, Blaine appears to be distraught over his father’s death (Angus is shot and killed by U.S. soldiers as he leads the zombie escape out of New Seattle, on horseback no less), but his mood quickly changes when Major promises that their new partnership will provide Blaine and Don E. with more money and fame than they ever had before. After so many seasons of Blaine and Major being enemies, it will be fascinating to see the two of them try to work together to help the zombies of New Seattle. Will the two of them be able to put aside their disdain for each other? I’m guessing not all the time and I’m sure Blaine will still be up to his nefarious tricks during the show’s fifth and final season; however, given that the worst possible outcome if things go south between them is a full-on zombie apocalypse, I believe that they’ll be able to make it work more often than not.
When it comes to conflict for Season 5, Major vs. Blaine is really the only main one I see right now. As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, “And He Shall Be A Good Man” provides iZombie with its most hopeful and happiest ending to a season ever, as Liv is a more famous hero than ever before, Major now has the opportunity to do some good with Fillmore Graves, Clive and Bozzio get married, and Ravi and Peyton are in the best place they’ve ever been as a couple. However, I’m sure not everyone will be behind this new partnership between Renegade and the Fillmore Graves commander, and I also believe that there are probably some zombies out there still loyal to Chase Graves that we’ll meet in Season 5. Plus, Ravi still needs to find a way to mass-produce a zombie cure, and Liv and Major’s will-they-won’t-they story will finally have to come to a definitive end.
For right now, though, after everything Liv and the rest of iZombie‘s characters have been through during this exciting, ambitious, and flawed fourth season, a mostly happy ending feels right. The end of Season 3 changed iZombie‘s world as everyone knew it in massive, scary ways, but this final episode of Season 4 shows that maybe, just maybe, people like Liv, Major, Ravi, and the rest of their friends can keep changing it–changing it for the better.
Other thoughts:
- Ultimately, as much as I enjoyed iZombie Season 4, I think this season suffers from the weight of too many plots and characters that don’t provide enough compelling drama to justify their existence. For example, just look at how the Angus/Brother Love story wraps up in the finale. We spent all this time with Angus this season, developing him as a major threat, only for him to essentially be killed off-screen? And all of the relationship stuff between him and Blaine never landed for me. Blaine hated his father enough to throw him down a well. I can’t be expected to believe that he mourned Angus’s death even a little bit. The only potentially interesting thing that might come out of this story is that Fillmore Graves, under Chase, allowed for the execution of over a thousand zombies in order to try to gain more favor with the U.S. government.
- Liv and Major’s conversation about Levon’s death and how angry Liv is at Major features some terrific acting from both Rose McIver and Robert Buckley and some equally fantastic dialogue, as Liv tells Major, “His name was Levon, and he’d be alive if you hadn’t kidnapped me.” “I know,” Major responds, “but you’d be dead.” However, my favorite line comes right after their conversation. It’s what Liv says to Ravi about Major: “I know who he is. Even if he forgets sometimes.”
- Obviously, I knew Liv wasn’t going to die during the finale, but that didn’t stop me from tearing up during her goodbyes to Clive, Ravi, and Peyton. I also had the same reaction during Clive and Bozzio’s wedding and Liv choosing to give up the cure afterwards.
- Speaking of Clive and Bozzio’s wedding, their vows are so perfectly Clive and Bozzio. Also, I what love Dale immediately says after the ceremony is over: “Now, if you’ll excuse us, I’m taking this man home where I’m going to literally sex him to death.”
- Peyton Charles risking her entire career and going on live television to rally people together to help save Liv is why I will always love Peyton Charles. Also, her appearance at the news station gives us more Johnny Frost, so how could anyone complain about that?
- “Zombies and humans working together. What should we do first, Renegade?”
- And that’s a wrap for iZombie Season 4! As I mentioned earlier in my review, I think this was definitely iZombie‘s most ambitious season yet, which also allowed it to be a more flawed season as well. Overall, though, it was immensely entertaining from beginning to end, and I applaud the risks taken by the creative team. Thank you all for reading, commenting, and sharing these reviews this year. I really appreciate it. I’ll be back for iZombie‘s fifth and final season next year. Can’t wait to see how this great series ends!
What did everyone else think about the iZombie Season 4 finale? What did you think about Season 4 as a whole, and what are your predictions for the show’s final season? Comment below and let me know.
[Photo credit: Diyah Pera/The CW]
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