iZombie Season 5 Episode 9 Review: The Fresh Princess
Jasmine Blu
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It was rude and disrespectful to remind us that the '90s were 20 years ago!
Although, iZombie Season 5 Episode 9, did make up for it by playing the Spice Girls and giving us a bemused Clive enjoying Liv on '90's teen girl pageant brain.
It was cute, and the rest of the hour gave us a heaping dose of Pavi and a glimpse of Evan. Cool beans, right?
The issue here is as enjoyable as Rose Mciver is flexing her skills by playing a different version of one character every installment; it's the final season.
I had to double check the episode order for this final season. It's 13 episodes; we just wrapped the ninth installment. We still don't have any direction on how the series will end.
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It makes the previous installments, some of which are enjoyable aimless. Where are we going with this? Peyton and Blaine, more often than not, were sidelined most of the season.
Blaine's entire presence during the hour was sitting in the dark in the basement apartment of Don E's mom's house being a snarky asshole to Peyton and Ravi.
It's as if he's there, idle, waiting for the time when he bites the bullet and pays a long-term consequence for his litany of offenses wracked up over five years.
It was a decent hour for Peyton in regards to having actual screentime, and she and Ravi were a cute team investigating Beanpole and the Utopium (and it was cool seeing the Cobra gang leader again), but anything of substance happened offscreen.
My daughter seems to have a lot of friends in high places, a private military commander and the mayor herself.
Martin
The city council fired her as mayor, but we didn't see any of the politics there, and it was due to her using the funds to create Hi, Zombie, which has yet to play a significant enough role for us to care about it.
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All this time wasted with Peyton not having much to do, and it's something her character has struggled with for more than one season now.
Ravi's quest to create a mass zombie cure has been the most dragged out storyline of the series, and the most irritating thing about it is how little it's shown or fleshed out.
Where is Dr. Collier? Why is it the last time they showed her it was because of her needing to send Ravi on another senseless fool's run to find her twin sister? Ravi laments the manhunt for Freylich kids, but they don't have him do anything about it.
They pick up and dust off his zombie quest once every blue moon and then stick him on his zombie monthlies for the laughs. He throws out a quip about how much he hates Blaine and reminds us of how awful Blaine is and how overdue he is for his comeuppance, and then it's back to investigating random victims.
Ravi: We don't bargain with kid-murdering, cure-thieving pieces of sh-
Peyton: Done.
It's valuable time wasted; it feels like we're biding time waiting for the grand conclusion with no buildup. If nothing is making much sense now, will it be satisfactory in four episodes? Doubtful.
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Where are all the zombie kids? What does Liv do with them? Who watches them while they're cooped up in hiding? Why are we supposed to care about them?
Will Dale be on bedrest this entire time? Why did they bring Michelle back?
We get all those sweet Clive moments where he looks at his friends and colleagues fondly and paternally, which I suppose is to hammer home how ready he is and great of a father he'll be, but we knew that already. Clive has always been the Dad Friend.
What's going on with Liv and Major's relationship? Are they not going to discuss if they are together or not? Are they together or not?
Their tension from being on opposite sides of matters during all of iZombie Season 4 feels unresolved, and now they're orbiting around one another on occasion, but nothing is happening.
What is Blaine even doing anymore? Do we know? Shouldn't he have a court case coming up or something? What are his plans with the Freylich brains?
Has he found ways to acquire them? Are he and Don E on the outs for good? What's going on with Mr. Boss or his niece for that matter?
Everything about Major leading Fillmore Graves feels like they're stuck in limbo waiting. They're waiting for the Deadenders to do something stupid, or the CHICS leader who disappears for installments at a time and somehow, stupefyingly hasn't been caught or killed.
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Dolly's plans aren't even imaginative. She's vocal about her stance on zombies. She does things out in the open.
How hasn't she been brought in for questioning more or investigated more? How isn't she not suspected when things happen?
It doesn't make sense how she has done as much as she has been able to do right under everyone's noses.
Only a couple of people could be responsible for Sloan's disappearance. It was either going to be Martin or Dolly. There are no prominent DeadEnders for them to factor in.
Dolly's plans are as transparent as glass, so it wasn't a surprise when she shoved Sloan and her boyfriend into a portapotty until they became full-Romero and unleashed them on innocent humans.
Ravi: What is this? She eat the cast of Clueless or something?
Clive: Nineties pageant girl brain.
Dolly wants to start a war, and she's spent a few times this season doing something big and terrorizing humans and zombies alike to make it happen.
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Major being forced to put a bullet in Sloan's head didn't carry much emotional weight at all. Most of the time I forgot about Sloan, so if it was meant to be heartbreaking, it missed the mark.
But this is a season that somehow took a more familiar character (Justin) and made his death blase too.
Sloan was the last bargaining chip Major had with the General to keep Seattle from being bombed, but little does he know, it doesn't matter anyway. Martin and Dolly are two sides of the same coin hoping to start chaos and war until either humans or zombies are the victors.
It's almost to the point where I want the government to nuke New Seattle already; get it over with, I say!
Who the hell is this guy and what the hell is his rug?
Evan
It doesn't feel right complaining about Evan's reappearance when we waited this long to see the kid again, but everything about Eva and Evan's reappearance this season feels like they threw them in to appease fans who we were questioning where they were all this time.
I'm grateful, and I understand they did the best they could, but it's unsatisfying. Evan and Liv barely shared screentime. Liv found out her little brother had cancer and needed to get out of the country in one fail swoop with no time to react.
They dumped Martin's identity on Evan, and it was over with just as fast. Next thing you know Liv is ushering her sick brother she hasn't seen or spoken to in years and her mother whose attempt at reconciliation was half-assed at best through the smuggle door.
Eva expressed no guilt, concern, or anything other than mild disdain for Liz and inconvenienced by her zombies. They never had any fuzzy, warm moments. Eva hasn't given a crap about her daughter all of this time and only mustered pleasantries because of her needing Liv's services to help the child she does give a damn about.
U-G-L-Y, Gayle ain't got no alibi.
Liv
Did she have a right to be pissed off about Liv reaching out to her birth father when she cut Liv off, deprived her of family, and has an open distaste for zombies?
However, it's annoying how Liv takes Martin at face-value when everything about him is weird. She should be more guarded, but she has unfurled her entire life to this man without knowing much of anything about him. Liv being this gullible is inexplicable, especially when Peyton tracked down Beanpole with the few clicks on the computer.
Liv's father is the Utopium druglord and father of zombies. Are you surprised?
Martin does seem to care about his children. He wanted Evan to be scratched; he's mostly anti-human, although he liked Peyton. He also wants Liv to join him whenever he enacts this plan he's putting into motion.
He has discovered Liv is hopeful, decent, and not a homicidal nutbag, so I don't know what he expects.
You are just the best daughter that I can imagine, Liv. Truly. I want you to promise that if the time should come that you and I should have to choose sides that you'll let me take care of you.
Martin
But shoutout to Don E who has been a gem this season. It was hilarious how he and Darcy screwed up Major's investigation and tried to good news/bad news how they tracked her down but chased her to her death.
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Was I too harsh? Were you thrilled to see Evan again? Do you like the pacing of this season? Hit the comments below!
You can watch iZombie online 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.
