iZombie Season 1 Episode 3 - The Exterminator Recap

Things get real on iZombie this week! Liv uncovers new evidence in a case that Peyton was prosecuting that connects to a case that Clive is working on, and what she finds puts Peyton's career in jeapeordy. It also puts Ravi in danger - but she just doesn't care, thanks to the brain of a guy who did some bad stuff.

This is developing into something so much better than I had dared to hope for! There were a couple of "Jeez WTF!" moments for me, and a few "AHA! Now it makes sense!" things. And there was a really fun zombie bash scene that had me going "YESSS!" It's a good thing I was watching this by myself, or I would have really annoyed someone.

There are some scenes and dialogue that aren't what I would consider suitable for younger viewers, but they definitely add to the context of the story and action. The voice-over narratives are becoming more relevant and less redundant, which is a good thing. There are fewer narrative break-ins, and the ones that do occur now bring more context and detail to the scene and storyline.

Like I said in my recap of the pilot episode, I wasn't a very big fan of Veronica Mars - but I am absolutely going to give it another go, after seeing the way iZombie is shaping up. I have the feeling I won't be disappointed.

Our recap starts after the jump!

And now - this week's episode of iZombie: The Exterminator!

Night time. Brian walks around a building on a pier, taking pictures of some scrap piles and wreckage with his cell phone camera. He stops for a moment, and his friend Karl jumps out of hiding to scare him. Karl wants to know what he's doing there. Brian starts asking if the scene would make a good shot for video he's taking. While Brian frames his shot, the boys hear a sound. Karl gets scared and tells Brian that they should maybe leave. Brian goes over to a pile of scrap covering a metal tube, and uncovers part of it. He looks inside, and sees something move. Karl asks what he's doing, panic creeping into his voice. Brian says, "There's a hobo in there! We can cut him into the movie!" Karl is not amused. "Maybe it's a serial killer, and he can cut us into stupid virgin stew! What if this place turned him into a mutant and he's got hermit crab hands?!" Brian grabs his phone and starts video. "Then I'm about to have 3 million Instagram viewers!"

At the morgue, Liv is doing the autopsy on a hit-and-run victim. "I'm hungry - are you hungry?" she asks Ravi. At the computer, he tells her that he's set up Google alerts for the search term "zombies." They've already got a couple of hits - one is for a showing of "Night of the Living Dead." Liv makes a wisecrack and Ravi tells her that there's a picture on a teenager's Facebook, supposedly showing a zombie, taken at an abandoned shipyard less than a mile away from where Liv was turned. "Is it me?" Liv asks, amused.

"We should at least go take a look," he says. Liv says, "wait... There's already two. Me and Blaine. Now there may be a third? Two's company, three's a horde." "But with great power comes-" "Hey," Liv cuts him off. "Do not. Seriously." Taking a breath, she says, "Fine! We'll go zombie hunting! Solve murders... find zombies... Why don't you ever suggest something whimsical?" Ravi asks how the autopsy is coming along, and she gives him a  progress report. She gets text alerts on her phone, but is disappointed when she checks them.

"What's going on?" Ravi asks with a sigh. "You keep getting texts that disappoint you." "They're not the texts that I want," Liv replies. "I hate to pry -" "Said the man who keeps asking for my urine sample," she responded irritably. "It's in search of a cure! Liv, don't cheapen it. And you don't have to feel compelled to share your personal -" Liv interrupts him again. "I hit on my ex-fiance." "You have an ex-fiance?" Ravi asks, surprised. "Yes," she says, "who I broke up with because I'm partially dead and didn't want to risk giving him the big Z! But then I ate the brain of Seattle's most sensual painter, and I tried to jump my ex's bones!" (Wow. I haven't heard the "jump someone's bones" in a very long time!)

She goes on about how she couldn't exactly explain that she's a zombie, so she just dumped him, and then hit on him. "So I texted him an apology, and he hasn't responded yet." "That's awful! You texted him your apology? That seems to beg for a face-to-face conversation, don't you think?" Liv turns to face him. "I am too hungry right now to work out if you're joking or not - your skull just turned into a giant animated ham." "Alrighty then... Let's see ...  Marvin Webster..." Ravi picks up the file for the deceased, and reads the details of the deceased from the file. Ravi points out that it should be a safe brain to eat. "Said nobody... EVER..." Liv replies, picking up the bone saw.

She eats some of the brain for lunch. In the voice-over, she says that she used to be a lot of things. But now she's just a stomach - hunger incarnate. When she's hungry, she forgets that her lunch used to be a person. When it's bad, she forgets that she used to be one too.

As she's finishing up her meal, Blaine appears in the doorway. He watches her licking the knife. "Now, that's hot." She tells him that he shouldn't be there. He confronts her about standing him up for a promised brain delivery date. She asks him to leave. He asks her to think about what she would have to go through to get a brain if she didn't work at the morgue. While she has access to a bone saw, Blaine says that he has to use other means. "I find that a rock works best." Liv tells him that she doesn't trust him - "You made me this thing..."  She says that she doesn't think he's a murderer, but she does think he's still the same guy who tried to sell her Utopium and then groped her on the boat at the party on the night it all went bad, and refuses to help him. "So I guess it's every zombie for himself, then?" "I guess so," Liv says.

When Liv gets home, Peyton is sitting on the couch. A bottle of champagne is on the table. Liv asks about it, and Peyton tells her that she's celebrating. She says that she won her first case - she successfully prosecuted the killer in the Wally Walker murder case. Wally Walker was a high tech wiz kid who was mugged and murdered in a park. Liv said she hadn't heard of the case. She sits next to Peyton on the sofa, and they watch a news reporter interviewing two men and the widow of the deceased. One of the men is Walker's angel investor who put up the reward money for information. The other is the man who collected the reward. In the background Peyton walks into the camera shot. The girls squeal with excitement.

Peyton asks Liv to help her prep for her next cross-examination. "You can play Gus Williams, the murderer!" During the rehearsal, one of Peyton's pieces of evidence is an autopsy photo of the deceased, with a gunshot to the head. Liv gets a vision of a man getting shot in the head from the shooter's perspective, and she says "I killed him!" Peyton thinks Liv is flattering her.

Liv goes to the precinct to talk to Clive. She tells him about the Wally Walker case, and says that they have the wrong man - Gus Williams, the drifter that was being prosecuted, isn't the killer. He reminds her that he's not working that case, he's working the hit-and-run - "the poor schmoe that got run over in the parking lot, remember?" "Yeah, well here's the thing. The drifter didn't kill Wally Walker. The poor schmoe did," Liv insisted.

When Clive asks her how she knows, she tells him that she had a vision. "Marvin Walker - our hit and run victim... I had a vision of him murdering Wally Walker." Clive says, "this is important... When you had your vision, were you holding an apple bong? Or did you just smoke an old school spliff?" Liv gets offended. "I'm not screwing around, Clive -" He says he's just wondering if this vision had winged unicorns and dancing pizza.

Liv insists again that they have the wrong guy. Clive again expresses skepticism about her visions, and asks how the two deceased men are even connected. Liv tells him it's something to do with debts. Clive laughs at her. "You want me to go to my boss, and tell him to stop a high-profile murder trial because the morgue medium said so?" 

Liv describes the manner of death as an execution, not a mugging. Clive points out that the drifter had Walker's DNA all over him and was wearing Walker's shoes. "A drifter who needs to steal shoes doesn't normally pack a Glock. That's what the murderer used... with a suppressor - also called a silencer..." She rambles off a bunch of factoids about the history of the suppressor, and doesn't understand how the heck she was able to access the knowledge so fast.

She keeps insisting that the drifter is innocent. "What more do you need than I SAW him commit the murder?" Clive tells her that he can't go to his boss with this unless there's hard evidence. She tells him that since he won't do it, she's going to man up for both of them. In the voice-over, Liv notes that she just asked Clive to commit career suicide, and then questioned his manhood. And she didn't care at all. She starts analyzing the things that she knows about Marvin Walker. he was a sociopath with no empathy whatsoever. She worries that she will lose what's left of herself - and her humanity - to this brain. "This brain is gonna suck."

Liv gets home, and Peyton asks, "How's it going?" Liv shrugs. "Okay..." So you haven't seen it," Peyton says. She loads a Facebook page with a video of Major kissing a girl while they play Jenga. She tells Liv that she only saw the video because the girl tagged him and he liked it - she didn't realize that it would sound so sexual. When Liv has no real reaction, Petyton asks her if she feels anything at all about it. Liv knows she should feel something - anything. But it doesn't bother her at all. Peyton worries. When Peyton gets up to take a phone call, Liv notices the Wally Walker file on the table. She goes through it and finds information that will help her convince Clive to investigate further.

The next day, Liv and ravi go out to the pier to check out the zombie sighting. They go to the spot where the pictuyre was taken, and Ravi uncovers the metal tube. Looking down into it, he sees a zombie. Liv realizes that the zombie is her former colleague, Marcy. Ravi asks her how she knows it's Marcy. Liv comments that she recognized the pearl necklace that the zombie is wearing. "It's her grandmother's. She always wore it." Ravi realizes that it's been nearly six months that Marcy hasn't fed. He tells Liv that he thinks if they feed Marcy, her zombification may reverse itself. Liv is not so sure.

He wants to test his theory. Liv disagrees. She starts throwing rocks at Marcy, and Ravi stops her. At first he doesn't understand her behavior, but then realizes it's because of the brain she ate. He tells her that this isn't her - it's not who she is. He pulls out a cooler with brain matter in it, and slops it down to Marcy. Marcy pounces on it. Liv tells Ravi that feeding her is not going to help, and that they need to kill her. Ravi disagrees. He says that they should come back and check on her at a later time, and covers the tube.

Liv decides to go to the precinct, and use the way her brain s working to her advantage. She tells Clive that she has some new information, and convinces him to investigate further. She tells him that Walker had gambling debts, and owed his bookie money. "You got a name for this bookie?" "Frank Smith." Clive turns to face her. "Frank Smith? Former Seattle cop? Current owner of Smitty's Bar and Grill, and bookmaker to half the cops in the city?" Liv grins. "Great! It's a cop bar! Everyone will have badges - we'll blend right in!"

They go to the bar, and Liv acts like she's a regular there. She acts like she knows some of the patrons, but they look at her like she's crazy. There's a woman on the stage in a Barbara Eden "I Dream of Jeannie" costume, conducting a trivia contest. Liv and Clive walk up to the bar. live asks to see Smitty. The bartender asks who wants to see Smitty. Clive flashes his badge, and the bartender goes to get Smitty. Liv is writing down her trivia answers on the entry form. She tells Clive, "Are you cool with me naming our trivia team Piggy and the Brain?" 

Clive excuses himself to the restroom. Written on the paper towel dispenser is a threat disguised as a reminder - "Pay Smitty today! You know what happens when a cop has to chase you!" Clive finishes washing up and goes back out to the bar.

Frank Smith, aka "Smitty," is talking to Liv. "Yeah, Wally Walker owed me money. He died owing me money. Now, you mind explaining why this is your fricken' business?" Clive breaks into the conversation with an apology. Clive asks if he's Smitty. "Let me guess - you're Babineaux?" Clive nods. He asks Smitty if he remembers the last time he saw Wally Walker. "June 8th, the night he died. He came in here asking for more time to pay. Cash flow issues, he said." The trivia winner is announced - "Piggy and the Brian!" Liv celebrates a little, and Clive stares at her.

Clive asks if it was unusual for Walker to ask for more time . Smitty tells Clive that it had happened a couple of times before, and that he knew Walker was good for it - he was going to sell his company and if Smitty gave him a couple of more months, he would double Smitty's fee. The girl from the stage comes down and takes her picture with Liv, and goes off.

When they finish talking to Smitty, Liv notices a pillar with polaroids on it - pictures of other contest winners. She sees a picture of Marvin Webster, dated June 8th. Clive can now make a connection between the deceased men. He and Liv go to Marvin Webster's house. Clive shows her his badge and asks for permission to go through her husband's persona effects. She allows it. Liv and Clive go down to the basement, where Liv remarks that Mrs. Webster seemed pretty cool to let them go through all her husband's stuff. Clive tells her that it's because she thinks her husband had nothing to hide.

They search some more. Liv asks Clive to see if a lamp on the desk has a three-way bulb. It doesn't and the bulb blows. Clive turns the flashlight on, and shines it in Liv's eyes for a second, triggering a vision for her.

Liv sees the car, and gets a partial plate number. She tells Clive what she saw. He asks her for a make and model on the car, but she doesn't know. She says that the car is orange, and that she got a partial plate number.Clive indicates the toolbox and shows her that he's found the gun. Clive is ready to go to his Lieutenant with the evidence.

They leave the Webster residence. At home, Liv is scouring the internet for the car while she's on the phone with Clive. She tells him that there are so many similar cars. She describes the tail light, and he tells her to draw it so they can match it that way. Clive runs the partial plate numbers,and gets a hit. They are able to match it to a car that was sold on the local trader website. Clive attempts to locate the previous owner of the car.

Meanwhile, Peyton has come home, and finds Liv trawling the web. Liv comments that she's home early, and she mentions that Liv's cop buddy just blew up her case. "They released Gus Williams." Liv tells her that Williams is innocent, and Peyton argues that she has a pile of evidence that says otherwise. "Someone else had the murder weapon. the gambling angle was never fully investigated." Peyton gets angry. "You read my files? My CONFIDENTIAL files?" Liv asks, "You want me to feel bad? You would have sent an innocent man to jail." 

Peyton grows more agitated. "No no no no - you're a slug for months. Months! And THIS is the thing that gets you off your ass - proving me wrong?" Liv tells Peyton that it has nothing to do with her. Peyton tells her it has everything to do with her. "Look, I get that you had to do what you felt was right, but you could at least feel bad about it! You just massively derailed my career, and you don't even care, do you?" Peyton goes off to her room while Liv realizes that she still doesn't feel anything - not a damn thing.

At the morgue that night, Liv is griping about her horrible day and how she's afraid of the person she's becoming because of the brain. Ravi encourages her by saying that the fact that she's cognizant is a good sign. He suggests that she could always eat another brain. An old lady is on the slab, and Liv picks up her file. She considers eating the old lady's brain, but then she would not be able to see anything more about the Willie Walker and Marvin Webster cases. She decides against eating the old lady's brain.

Major and one of the kids he works with at the shelter, Jerome, walk in to the morgue. Major says they need help. He explains that they've been sitting upstairs in the precinct for two hours, being ignored. He apologizes for not returning Liv's texts. "It's fine," Liv says unemotionally. "Why do you need a cop?" Jerome tells them that his room mate Eddie went out to the skate park four days ago and nobody has seen him since.

Liv takes them upstairs to see Clive. She tells him why they are there. Major says they've been staying on top of Missing Persons for three days. They tell him what happened. Clive says that lots of shelter kids run away, there's nothing he can do. Jerome tells Clive that his room mate left his iPod in the dock. "He never goes anywhere without it." Major insists that the kid is not a runaway. Clive gets a description of the kid, and promises to take it over to Missing Persons himself, and put it at the top of the pile. As he walks past, he notices Jerome's shoes. "Nice kicks!"

Clive managed to track down the previous owner of the car involved in the hit-and-run. When they get him to the precinct, he tells them that he sold the car. Clive asks who bouth the car, and the guy tells him that the man that bought the car didn't want to be identified - he didn't give a name, paid in cash, and wore darl sunglasses. But the guy says he recognized the buyer anyway. "The guy's been all over the news lately. He had his picture in the paper, he was on the TV news..." Clive grabs a copy of a recent newspaper.

Clive asks which of the two men in the picture is the one who bought the car, and the guy points to Don Watts - the angel investor who posted the reward for information on Wally Walker's murder. Clive says that the car is probably at the bottom of the lake by now. The guy tells them that the car still has Lo-Jack on. "Does that help?"

Clive has Don Watts brought in for questioning. Watts brings his attorney with him, and Clive proceeds to question him about the car. Watts denies any knowledge about the car at first, Clive then tells him what they know - that a teenager found the car with the windows down and key in the ignition, so he took it for a joyride. They also know that it's the car that ran Wally Walker over. Watts asks, "Who's Wally Walker?" Clive continues, saying that the guy who sold him the car identified Watts, and they found Watts' DNA all over the car. Liv says, "Hair follicles. Ya gotta watch that, man." Watts smiles. "Oh! THAT car. Yeah, I bought it as a restoration project."

Watts' attorney tries to convince him to leave, since he is not charged with anything yet. But he lingers, saying "I don't know - I kinda want to hear how this story ends!" Clive says, "Wally Walker was a programming genius. But his gambling debts were gonna sink the company. He wanted fast cash, so he was gonna sell out... rather than wait to go public, like you wanted. You took care of the problem, and made tens of millions of dollars in the process." Watts replies, "I do remember the tens of millions." Clive continues. "After Marvin did your dirty work, you decided to tie up the loose ends."

He goes on to mention cell phone records that show he was called from a disposable phone 45 minutes before Marvin Webster was run over. "What was that call about? Watts shrugs. "How would I know? I'm sorry - did you say you found this disposable phone on this hitman?" Clive looks at Liv, who shakes her head slightly. "No... I guess not. Well, let's say I did hit someone -" Watt's lawyer attempts to interrupt him to prevent him from incriminating himself."

Watts continues. "Maybe I did hit something that night. Maybe I was hoping it was a deer. Maybe I just wasn't thinking clearly and walked away. But this... Marvin Webster business? I've never met the man. Good luck proving that." Clive places Don Watts under arrest for vehicular manslaughter. Without admitting guilt, Watts tries to rationalize and bluff his way out of it. His attorney finally tells him that he will be out within the hour.

Liv expresses disbelief that they have to let Watts go. Clive comes up with an idea that he thinks might work. "Get your vision cap on!" Clive goes and gets an impound notice and checks the car's GPS. in Marvin Webster's car. His widow was not happy about that, and stood outside the car yelling while Clive and Liv got the last address that Webster was at with his car. It was a match for where he was killed. Then they checked previous routes to see where else Webster had been.

At one of the stops, Liv feels like Webster's brain is wearing off so he has a snack - more of Webster's brain. As Clive is questioning some dog owners in the dog park, an ice cream truck passes and triggers a vision for Liv. When she recovers from it, she yells for Clive and tells him that there is a witness. A sanitation worker saw Webster talking to Watts that day, and saw who killed him. Clive gets on the phone, telling Liv that he's going to try and track sown all the sanitation crews who worked on that street that day.He asks Liv if she's going with him, but she declines. "I promised Ravi I would help him with a research project."

They go back to the pier, and check on Marcy. Ravi is disappointed that nothing has changed, but he still has hope. He wants to get a tissue sample for a biopsy. He's rigged a long pole with a huge syringe on it. Ravi leans over the edge of the hole, trying to get a tissue sample. Marcy grabs the stick and pulls. Ravi falls down in the hole with her and starts screaming for Liv. "Liv! LIV! A Little HELP here?!"  Liv was caught up in the brain's influence, but snaps out of it in time to save Ravi. She jumps down into the hole and goes after Marcy in full zombie mode. 

Liv puts Marcy out of her misery, and turns on Ravi. He talks to her calmly as she slowly advances on him. "You're okay... You're okay..." Liv eventually calms down and returns to her normal state. She tells Ravi weakly, "you can get your biopsy samples now..."

Liv and Ravi got out of their bloody clothes, and packed up the car. Liv is stunned. "I almost killed you..." Ravi tells her that he's alright, and that with all that psychopath running in her head, he's surprised that she DIDN'T kill him. He reassures her again that he's fine, and they go home.

Liv gets a text from Clive. He wants both of them to go to the precinct. So they leave the pier. When they get to the precinct, they find that Clive has a plan. Liv goes into the interrogation room with Clive. He talks to Don Watts and his lawyer for a bit, telling him that they know where he was that night (Liv recites the address), what car he was in when he went to that meeting (Liv recites the color), and can identify the car that he was in when he went to that meeting (Liv recites the make, model and year).

Then Clive tells him that they have a witness. "What witness?" asks Don. "The witness that picked both you and Webster out of a photo line-up. Liv reads. "From the witness statement: You gave me a price, I paid it. We're all paid up." Clive tells him he should sign the confession. Peyton comes in as Attorney for the Prosecution, and offers Watts a one-time-only deal. He considers refusing, but she points out that it will be a lot less complicated if he took the plea. He signs the confession, and is led out in handcuffs.

At home, Liv is contemplating having another bite of the hit man's brain. It means that she wouldn't feel... anything, and she was okay with that... for a second. She changed her mind and put the rest of it into the garbage disposal.

She writes a note to Marcy's mother and put the pearls and the note in the mailbox for her. She watched at a distance as Marcy's mom had a moment.Then she went home and had a moment with Peyton. Now that the hit man's brain was wearing off, she could empathize with Peyton...

Meanwhile, Jerome went to the skate park to look for his friend. He handed out flyers and asked people to call the police if they see him. Jerome approaches Blaine, and shows him the flyer. Blaine tells Jerome that his friend is at a house party a couple of blocks away. "He's fine! Hey - you wanna go?" Jerome agrees, and the head off to the house party.