iZombie Season 4 Episode 1 Review: Are You Ready For Some Zombies?
Jasmine Blu
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Blaine wasn't kidding when he said it's a New Seattle!
On iZombie Season 4 Episode 1, Seattle as we knew it has completely changed, but oddly enough, much of what we loved has remained the same.
It's impressive that the show managed to reinvent itself while staying true to itself and what makes it so unique and enjoyable.
First off, we have to talk about Ravi's limbo state. He's not a zombie, he's still human, but he exhibits zombie characteristics every few weeks.
So the good news is, his vaccination has been effective. The bad news is, what Liv has hilariously referred to as "his time of the month," Ravi experiences brain cravings, consumes brain and has to rock a streak in his hair at least once a month.
What does that make him, exactly? It's an odd in-between stage between the living and the undead.
This is ideal because we get the best of both worlds. Ravi is allowed to remain blessedly human for the foreseeable future, but he also gets in on the brain action every now and then. That's going to be a hell of a ride. He was a riot as a nudist, I'm sorry, a naturist.
There's also the matter of how he will go about recreating his vaccine as it proves to be a success.
Related: iZombie: Why Season 4 is Poised to be the Best Yet!
Seattle may be in dire need of it. It will fare better than what Chase has to offer. Chase is in over his head. He's bitten off more than he can chew, and it appears as if deep down he knows it.
Only three days after he made zombies public, the city was quarantined off with, you guessed it, a wall. It's a heavily guarded wall too, but a few thousand humans were able to flee, in what Peyton, Baracus and their cohorts referred to as the "Exodus."
What has come about is what many of us could have predicted: vigilante groups, bigotry, rations... Seattle has become a militarized city under the control of a zombie who is solely responsible for the city descending into chaos and turmoil.
Blaine: Is that a guillotine?
Chase: Of sorts. It's a guillotine for zombies.
Blaine: But why? We're zombies.
Chase: Zero tolerance. That's our message.
Blaine: Message received.
The reaction to Chase will be the most interesting. He's a dictator, but he's operating under the guise that he isn't. In his mind, he's being pragmatic about this entire ordeal, but he crosses lines.
At some point, it will come back to hunt him. We namely saw the potential tension brewing through his interactions with Blaine and Major.
Blaine is not the type of guy who responds well to being under someone else's thumb, and Chase has him by the short and curlies, as he so eloquently described it. The only way Blaine can keep his multiple businesses open and thriving is by leaking information to Chase.
Blaine's conundrum when it comes to Chase won't be a moral one. It will be strictly self-serving, but he'll go to whatever lengths and work with whomever if it benefits him in the end. Blaine does not want to be under Chase's control.
Major, however, will have a moral battle.
He's more often than not motivated by doing good. At the moment, he truly believes that his position at Fillmore Graves working alongside Chase is the perfect way for him to do good. It's to the point where it affects his relationship with the others.
Did you notice how Clive has zero confidence in Major doing anything that goes against Fillmore Graves whether it's for the best of everyone or not?
Related: iZombie Season 4 Trailer: Welcome to the New Seattle!
There's a three-month time-jump, I wonder how tense matters were when they discovered Major willfully became a zombie and helped usher Seattle into this dystopia.
Major is the character likely to be on unstable ground as the season progresses. His face practically lit up when Chase put him in charge of the zombie youth because it was something in his wheelhouse as a former social worker and teen counselor.
He was great at it, too. He related to the kids and heard them out, but some of what they had to say had to have niggled away at him, right?
Jordan's comment about turning tricks for food got his attention even if she was lying about it being her personal experience. The issue the homeless youth brought up about the rations had to have given Major pause.
Jordan: So I'm out there everyday trading sex for brain tubes to feed my little sister, and you get to eat them like candy bars?
Major: You're really...?
Jordan: No. I work at coffee stands. But I do know plenty of girls who are putting out for tubes.
Teen zombie boy: And some dudes.
Major was one of the people directly responsible for turning people into zombies. It led to an influx of zombies -- kids and teens who were promptly kicked out of their homes for being zombies -- and not enough food to distribute.
The kids were rightfully amazed and outraged that the Fillmore Graves crew get extra rations; meanwhile, they're in the streets practically starving.
On paper, Chase's reasoning is logical. The zombie militia would need more fuel than the average zombie. Unfortunately, it establishes a zombie hierarchy, not unlike human ones with a class system and everything.
But, that also means that Chase can lure teens into joining the zombie military with no real training or experience, just because he can offer them more food.
Chase used Major as a vestibule to recruit the teens, and it was awful. Major thought he was genuinely there to mentor them, but instead, he was there to act as a recruiter. He recommended Captain Seattle and Jordan join the militia, and they'll be his responsibility.
Related: iZombie Season 3 Episode 13 Review: Looking for Mr. Goodbrain, Part 2
How long before these untrained kids, who are game for anything if it means more food, end up dead under his watch?
It's no picnic working under Graves. Roach will find that out in no time. My guess is he'll be the first zombie publicly executed in the guillotine for his side business of selling brain mush on the black market.
Somebody will have to be an example.
Peyton and her new boyfriend are naive if they think Chase is only implementing these laws and techniques for show. Death to any zombie who scratches a human seems excessive, but given the fact that they have more zombies than they do food, more zombies would be an issue.
They can barely handle the zombies that they already have. Clint, the Seahawks die-hard fan whose brain Liv consumed, was the perfect example of someone who hated zombies.
To be fair, the humans have plenty of reasons to be uneasy, angry, and terrified. Their lives have been upturned since this happened. They went from decent jobs that may have been outside the city lines to factory jobs scrubbing brains out of machines for little pay.
Liv: Check it out. Russell Wilson, I would have your babies.
Clive: Try to dial it down a bit, Liv. Let's not remind them that zombies eat their loved ones.
Liv: Zombies are the worst. Pale ass, brain-eating bitches.
Zombies have a lot to fear, too. Humans have formed their own militia called the "Dead Enders," and they were prepared to do some damage to the zombie militia. Their houses are being tagged if they're suspected of being zombies.
Then, they're under constant threat of being rejected by their family and friends. Clint's bigotry and ignorance to the lengths a mother would go for her child is the cause of his demise. He couldn't bear having a zombie son and wanted to make his wife choose.
Related: Ash vs Evil Dead Season 3 Episode 1 Review: Family
It worked out OK for Clint's son because his mother defended him, but what about the homeless kids Major is helping? And with Chase coming across like a maniacal dictator with each passing day, zombies are primed for an uprising.
Ravi: This new world is going to take some getting used to.
Clive: Why bother? Someone is probably going to bomb us any day now.
Angus may be the guy to do it. That won't go over well with the humans caught in the crosshairs either.
Brain Picks and Tidbits:
- Badass Moment of the Hour: Clive pulling out his gun on the Fillmore Graves zombie. Hot damn, I love Clive.
- Funniest Moment: Nude Naturist Ravi.
- Amusement Level of Liv on Seahawk fanatic Brain: 6. Seahawks fans may be obnoxious, but I, too, wouldn't have been opposed to New England contracting the Aleutian Flu if it meant no more Patriots.
- Funniest Quote: "Pale ass, zombie-eating bitches had me clutching my stomach.
- So, Blaine is totally still in love with Peyton, right?
- Socio-political-ish tidbits: The association that "in the closet zombie" tied into homosexuality was obvious. But did anyone else think that comment Clint made about his son picking up the zombie virus because he was recklessly having sex with his girlfriend was a subtle nod to the HIV/Gay men stigma from the 80s?
- The new world consisting of being overly political correct when facing zombies was all too real.
Alright zombie fanatics, how do you feel about this new Seattle? Is Chase evil and does he need to be stopped? What are your thoughts about Ravi being a human with zombie tendencies? Sound off below!
Don't forget, you can watch iZombie online right here via TV Fanatic!
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is an insomniac who spends late nights and early mornings binge-watching way too many shows and binge-drinking way too much tea. Her eclectic taste makes her an unpredictable viewer with an appreciation for complex characters, diverse representation, dynamic duos, compelling stories, and guilty pleasures. You'll definitely find her obsessively live-tweeting, waxing poetic, and chatting up fellow Fanatics and readers. Follow her on X.
