iZombie Episode 5: Flight of the Living Dead

This week's episode gave us a couple of interesting reveals, one which could lead to something interesting or sad - I haven't decided how I feel about it yet. Liv MET someone... It also seems like a case was left hanging - literally. The victim this week was a skydiver who happened to be a friend of Liv's. Several people were investigated for that case, but ultimately the suspect got away so the case remains open. Meanwhile, Major is still looking for his missing shelter kids, and nothing is resolved this week. Oh - NEWSFLASH! Lieutenant Abe takes his coffee with hot sauce! DAMMIT! Best. Ep. EVAR! Well... so far, anyway. I said that about the last episode too, and it just keeps getting better!

The new plot developments are starting to give me that familiar buzz at the base of my skull, and I cannot wait to see what's in store for next week!

Catch up with the recap after the jump, and let us know what you think in the comments!


And now on to our recap!

iZombie: Flight of the Living Dead

A group of skydivers has made a jump that went really wrong. At the scene of the accident, Liv is laying on a tarp under a tree. In the tree, one of the jumpers is dead - impaled on a broken tree branch. "Even if I laid out here long enough, I still wouldn't get a tan. I used to have freckles. I miss my freckles," says Liv. Ravi is pacing, frustrated. "Two hours going back and forth on extraction... and I forgot my phone and I'm hungry," Ravi pouts as he sits next to Liv.

While they wait for the FAA investigators to gather their evidence, Liv and Ravi make small talk. Liv asks, "Which one of these people would you eat first?" "I think first I would ask if someone could spare an apple.. or half sandwich," Ravi answers. Liv goes on about trying to fake it with the food thing after seeing an egg salad sanwich on TV, and says she almost got it with tofu. "I went to this artisinal cheese shop and got some stuff.. and in the end, the sandwich wasn't so bad. It didn't quite hit the make, but it came close."

Ravi mocks her, saying "hashtag YOLO!"  "OK, amuse yourself!" Liv responds. Ravi points up to the body in the tree. "I think you might be having shishkabob for lunch," he says with a grin. "I get it, food on a stick. You're so juvenile," responds Liv. She pauses, then they go back and forth naming food on a stick.

Liv gets a call from a distraught Peyton, who tells her about their friend and sorority sister Holly. "I started seeing RIP Holly in my feeds..." Peyton mentions that there was a skydiving accident. Liv looks up at the body in the tree and makes the connection, realizing that the dead skydiver in the tree is their friend Holly. 

Liv explains to Ravi who Holly is, and he advises her to sit this one out. She says she's fine. The FAA investigator approaches them. Looking at Liv, he makes an unfortunate comment. "Man... I thought the insides of my thighs were pale..." Ravi and Liv glare at him. The guy tells them that it's pretty much an accident. "Nothing out of the ordinary here. Her chute deployed, equipment looks good... Those sport chutes they're using are dangerous to begin with, and this drop zone is not for the faint at heart. Just your run-of-the-mill Darwin Award. Bunch of dumb assess... " 

The group of skydivers were arguing amongst themselves. One of them approached Liv, Ravi, and the FAA investigator. He says this wasn't an accident. "Holly made thousands of jumps. Lowell was supposed to jump before her. Something happened on that plane - he jumped last, and late. He was nowhere to be found when the plane landed. We keep asking what happened, but he's not talkin'."

At the precinct, Major has gone to see Clive. Clive asks if Eddie ever turned up, and Major tells him that Eddie is still missing - and so is Jerome now. He wants Clive to look int thing sat the skatepark that the boys have been hanging out at, because he knows that there's been drug dealers and worse in the area. Clive refers him to Missing Persons, and Major tells him that he's already been there. "They're useless! The moment they hear it's Helton Shelter, they stop returning my calls." Clive tells Major that he's pretty overwhelmed with other cases, but Major persists. He tapes a picture of Jerome to Clive's computer monitor as he leaves. "Major - don't do anything stupid!" Clive calls after him.

At the morgue, Liv is preparing Holly's body for the autopsy. She removes Holly's jewelry and clothing. Ravi tells her she doesn't have to eat Holly - they have plenty of options. There are witnesses they can talk to. Liv insists. "I do this all the time for strangers. If there's anyone I owe this to... I need to know what really happened if this wasn't really an accident." Ravi puts on a mask and grabs the skull saw.

At home, Peyton and Liv are having a glass of wine and looking at old posts online of Holly's adventure pictures. Peyton laments that Holly lived in the danger zone, defying gravity without regard for the fact that she had to come down some time. Liv remarks that Holly seemed like the "death is a consequence of living" type of person, and admired her for it. Peyton finds a new video on her feed, and they watch it. Lowell is in it, and the ring on his hand triggers a vision for Liv. She sees Lowell in the plane, and he appears to be angry at Holly. This makes Liv suspicious.

Liv goes to the precinct and tells Clive that she thinks that it wasn't an accident at all. He tells her that there's not a lot he can do about it - he already has two open cases, so until they have something that gets it up on the board, he can't help her. She tells him about her vision, and he relents. He agrees to bring Lowell in and ask some questions. She tells him that he should also get the helmet cam footage. "OK... is there anything else?" he quips. She smiles her thanks and leaves.

The next day, she heads out to the precinct to meet Clive to talk with Lowell. She stops at her car for a moment. Feeling the effects of having eaten Holly's brain and gained her zest for life, Liv decides on a whim to ride her bike in the rain to the precinct instead. She gets to experience some of what Holly must have felt - the thrill and exhilaration of doing something new and a little bit risky.

Clive has Lowell in a briefing room. He asks why he's here, and Clive explains that it's just an exploratory interview for the investigation. Liv arrives, and Lowell recognizes her. Clive introduces her. Clive asks Lowell about the MaxRager skydiving group. "Why would an energy drink company pay for you to jump out of a plane?" "If you're under MaxRager's thumb, you are contractually obligated to doing pointless and/or dangerous crap on camera." Clive asks what he means by "under their thumb." Lowell explains that they financed his last album, and he's signed to their recording label. 

Lowell asks why they are asking about what happened when they can just watch the helmet cam footage. Clive says that they will watch it, as soon as it comes in. Lowell tells them that he jumped last because he got nervous, Holly said she would go first, and he jumped after her. He missed the drop zone, and didn't know where he was. He finally caught up to the group a half hour later. "All of which you can watch on the com footage," he says irritably. Clive gets up and goes to check on the progress with getting the footage.

When Clive leaves the room, Liv asks Lowell why he was miserable at Carson's party the night before the jump. He looks around and sees the camera up in the corner. Liv asks if he and Holly were sleeping together. Lowell leans toward Liv. "Let's talk about you. How about this - " "Answer my question," Liv says. "I'll answer your question if you answer a question. "Fine. Whatever," Liv says, annoyed. 

"I was miserable because Carson's parties blow. And no, I was not sleeping with Holly. She was one of my favorite people to hang out with at MaxRager events. She was genuine... smart... unlike the rest of those guys... Now it's my turn. Do you have a boyfriend?" Clive comes back before Liv can answer, and he says "Got some bad news for you, rockstar. MaxRager, in all their infinite wisdom, destroyed the footage from the jump. Now, what reason would they have - other than protecting you - for doing that? Any theories?"

Lowell looks genuinely surprised to hear this. Out in the hall, Clive asks Liv if she's ever met Lowell before. She says she hasn't. "Well, he sure seems to know you..." "What did you think of hem?" "Smart ass, withholding... evasive... If you got nothing to hide, you tend to be open... Let's bring his friends in, and find out more about him." 

They bring in Ren - "all around action stunt sports guy... mostly motocross..." MaxRager sponsors him. They also bring in Eliza, one of the marketing reps for MaxRager. Clive asks her why the cam footage was destroyed. She says it was to protect Holly's family from seeing images of Holly plummeting to her death. "Oh. So it was for their good," quips Liv. "Ours too," Eliza says. "Who would her family sue if that footage got out?" Clive asks if it was typical for executives to go skydiving with their athletes. Rolling her eyes, Eliza answered "not really. But Carson's my boyfriend, so...." They bring in Carson - the "face" of Max Rager. 

Clive asks Eliza if it was true that Lowell was acting strangely at the party the night before the jump. She explains that Lowell had been withdrawn for the past couple of months and had canceled a couple of events. "But he's really a great artist overall..." Ren says that Lowell was acting weird at the party. "I don't know if he's on drugs, or off 'em... You know musicians... either way, he was acting like a bitch and Holly made it her business to find out what was up."

Then Clive asks Carson if Lowell and Holly were romantically involved. Carson says they weren't, and that Holly invited him to everything.  "She was really into his music... psh... whatever. He would just shit her down. He was the one guy who could resist her." "He was the one guy who could resist her?" Liv says. "You're a guy."

Eliza tells Clive that she knew about Carson's past fling with Holly, and implied that she was positive it was over. Ren says that Carson and Holly still had a thing going on. Carson denied sleeping with Holly anymore. As Carson begs them not to tell Eliza, Liv gets a vision.

As they step out into the hall, Clive shrugs. "All I did was look at him..." Liv tells him that in her vision she saw Carson freaking out and Ren in the bed behind him. Carson was begging Holly not to tell anyone. Clive asks ifHolly was scared in Liv's vision. "Did Carson seem thretening?" "No.. he was a wuss... It was his wussiness that triggered my vision!"

"Look - we've got a sketchy musician, a serial cheater, and some destroyed eyewitness footage. That last bit bugs me the most... But it's still not enough to get it on the board." Liv get son her bike and heads home. She races through heavy traffic on the wet roads, dodging cars that pull out in front of her and weaving around other obstacles. In the voice-over, she says she has a gut feeling that there's more going on than what they see, and she feels the need to keep pulling at that thread. She also thinks that she should just enjoy these last few moments with Holly - the excitement of living on the edge. When she gets home, she makes dinner with some more of Holly's brain.

At the precinct, Lt. Abe is not happy. He is giving Clive a stern talking to about how his morning routine of coffee and looking at food on Instagram - "I've been on this new diet, so I look at all the food that i can't eat. Spaghetti and meatballs is my food porn -"  was interrupted by phone calls from the lawyers for MaxRager, asking about a case that he didn't know existed. "Look - if it's not on the board in red, it's not our case. I don't care if you come home to find your mother with an axe through her head! If Mama Babineaux ain't on the board... " "It's someone else's problem," says Clive, chastened. Just then, Liv comes in from the morgue, where Ravi has given her the toxicology report. She tells Clive that Holly had traces of GHB in her system. "Who are you?" asks Lt. Abe. "Liv Moore. I'm from the M.E.'s office." "You been here long?" "Yeah, a few months." Abe looks at Clive. "Congratulations. You got it on the board. Don't screw it up," 

Liv apologizes to Clive for getting him in trouble. He tells her not to worry about it. She says that she has an invitation to a memorial for Holly at Carson's house, and she is going. Clive tells her to look around while she's there. "Search his house while I'm at a memorial fpr my friend?" "We're not gonna get another chance to get inside without a warrant..." Liv goes with Payton that night, and they meet up with Major. They look at pictures of Holly's adventures snorkeling. "Oh Holly.. Why? It's so out of character for you to be dead," says Payton. She and Major go get a drink,

Eliza, Ren and Carson see Liv and confront her. Eliza says that she didn't expect a cop to ne at Holly's memorial,. and tells Liv that this event was organized for Holly's friends. Liv tells Eliza that she is one of Holly's friends, and that considering one of the three of them drugged Holly before the jump, "I'm probably the best friend she has in this 10 foot radius." 

Walking away from them, Holly winds up in Carson's bedroom. She starts looking in drawers. She finds a pair of blue fuzzy handcuffs, and a prescription pad that's already signed. Carson's father is a doctor, and Carson has access to the pad. Liv gets a vision of Carson wearing a Santa Clause hat and handing out blank, pre-signed prescription sheets to his friends. She calls Ravi, and asks him to research the name of the doctor on the pad. He has the same last name as Carson, so she assumes it's his father.

She realizes that she's not alone in the room, and turns to find Lowell standing in the door. She closes the drawer, and says something about looking for the bathroom. He invites her for a drink. They go to the bar, and he makes two drinks - heavy on the the hot sauce and peppers. Liv is confused. Carson tells her that he is a zombie, and that he figured out that she was one too. Liv tells him that still doesn't mean he's innocent - "I saw you yell at her in the plane!" 

Lowell explains that with the adrenaline rush, he could feel himself starting to go all zombie mode, and wanted her to go so he could have a chance to get out before he ate her or the pilot. He waited until they were away and he jumped late, deliberately missing the drop zone. He made his way back to the group, and they wanted to know where the hell he was. "Unfortunately, I couldn't say Sorry guys - zombie problems."

Major interrupts them to tell Liv that he's leaving. Liv walks him out. As they walk,. Liv asks if Eddie or Jerome ever turned up. Major tells her that they're still missing, and that jerome hasn't returned any of his texts for days and Jerome's phone has been inactivated. He says he wants to leave before he brings the wake down with his somber mood. He apologizes to Liv for interrupting. "That was just a work thing,' she says emphatically. "One day it won't be." 

While Liv was at the wake, Clive goes to the skate park. He calls over one of the kids he knows. He asks if Darius has seen Jerome around. "No... he's gone. And I don't know where he went. Lotta people gone. Even Willie the Wino... Just gone." Clive asks, "What's Willie's last name? With attitude, Darius answers. "Uh... The Wino? Man, I don't know, he's just some drunk used to hang around and yell at us all the time -" he does an imitation of a drunk guy - "Are we havin' fun yet?" Clive asks how many others are missing. Darius takes him over to a pillar where there are dozens of flyers posted, asking for information about missing people.

Back at the Morgue, Liv asks Ravi if he found anything about the doctor. He tells her that he couldn't find anything in Seattle, but he found a compounding pharmacy in Tacoma that handles GHB, and he's just waiting on a fax with the name of the prescribing physician. Liv tells Ravi that she met another zombie. "Friendly?" Yes, quite!"  "Well, bring him in! Expand our data pool!" he says. 

She tells him about Lowell, and Ravi starts asking all kinds of clinical research questions. "Same pallor and hair color?" Liv tells him that Lowell has really blue eyes. "Interesting - I've yet to see a brown-eyes zombie...How does he sustain himself? What's his food source?" Liv shrugs. "I didn't ask... I guess I wasn't thinking about that..." "What were you thinking about?" "I... dunno.. he's just... um..." 

Ravi finally gets it. "Was the zombie subject in question hot?"  "He asked me out," Liv gushes. Ravi laughs. "You liked it!" "No! Yes? I don't know...." Ravi walks towards the fax machine with his coffee. "And what if this hot zombie boy's name is on our fax?" Liv says she doesn't think it will be - she has a good feeling about him. "And... where, exactly is the feeling originating from?" asks Ravi. "I am never telling you anything again!" says Liv with a smile.The fax comes over, and it's confirmed that it is Carson's father's name on the prescription. 

Clive brings Carson in. He and Liv confront Carson with the prescription. He denies knowing anything about it. Clive gicves Carson the theory that he was worried Holly would go public with the news about him and Ren, so he dosed her with GHB in her shot right before the jump. Carson tells him it's not true. He says that Eliza must have done it, and he explains that he was accidentally copied on a marketing department e-mail about one of their products causing deaths. He showed the e-mail to Holly, and she wanted him to go to a journalist with the story becuase MaxRager would just try to cover it up. She told him that if he didn't do it, she would. Carson told Eliza about what Holly said, Eliza said she would take care of it. "But I didn't think she meant take care of it Tony Soprano style!"

Clive leaves Liv with Carson, telling him that they will find something to hold him on and that he is going to go pick up Eliza. But when he gets to Eliza's place with a team, she's not there. Her closet has been cleared out, and the shower curtain is missing but the shower walls are wet, There's something baking in the oven. "I don't think she was planning on leaving," he says.

Clive reports to Lt. Abe, telling him that Eliza got away, but there is video evidence of her picking up the prescription in Tacoma that day. Abe congratulates him on it and tells him that they'll catch her. "I don't think we will," says Clive. He starts to tell Abe about his missing kid investigation that he was doing on his own time, saying that he thinks that something really shady is going on at the skate park and that there are 3 times as many missing persons reports in the area as there were just a couple of months ago. Abe tells him that Homiced goes to work only when there's a body. "Now shut the door." Clive leaves, and Abe pulls out a big bottle of hot sauce and adds a lot of it to his coffee.

Major goes by the skate park, looking for Jerome or anyone who may have seen him. As he sits on the stairs, a guy goes past him wearing Jerome's shoes. Major asks where he got them from. "I wanted to get a pair just like that," he says. The guy says he got it on E-Bay, and it was the last pair. Major confronts him, and Major hits the guy. The guy shoves Major, and they start fighting. Major lands a solid blow, kncking the dude on his ass. The guy gets up in zombie mode, and beats the crap out of Major, throwing him onto the skateboard ramp, unconscious.

Lowell drops in on Liv at the morgue. He broughte her a gift - a bottle of the world's hottest hot sauce. "The sales guy told me it would melt my face off..." They chat a little bit. Lowell tells Liv that he didn't think he could ever find someone that would understand what his life is like now - having to hide what he is, never being able to let anyone know him... "kissing, touching, someone to steal the blanket... Now I have hope." Another body is brought in, and Liv has to get back to work. She tells him that she's free for the weekend, and she has his number. As he leaves, she steals looks over her shoulder on her way to help Ravi. In the voice-over, Liv ruminates. "Lowell could be nothing - or everything. He could break my heart. I don't care about that. I'm ready to feel again. Good or bad."

"I'm ready to feel again!" 

Raven is an avid cosplayer and TV fan.

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