Currently on its fifth and final season, iZombie is ready to say farewell to the fans. The adventures of a medical student turned zombie turned morgue employee turned crime solver have been delighting the audience since 2015. Liv Moore made us laugh, cry, and sometimes even scream in desperation, which is in itself a testament to the quality of the show.
While it became popular enough to run for five seasons, iZombie never truly got all the attention it deserved. Because it was so different from the source material, most original fans of the comics didn’t bother to give a try. Other people didn’t get the premise, and the network never did a stellar job with its marketing.
However, with all its qualities and enjoyable moments, iZombie does have a few questionable details surrounding it. Making a zombie show believable isn’t an easy feat, but most of the things that made fans raise their eyebrows have little to do with it. So, without further ado, here are 10 things wrong with iZombie that fans choose to ignore.
The Rats In Lab Testing
The science writing on the show is a little sideways. In more than one instance, it’s pretty clear that the writers didn’t really bother to consult with actual scientists…or even search basic things on Google. Yes, we’re talking about a zombie show, we can’t demand 100% accuracy. But it still takes place in the real world, where basic rules apply.
Something that really bothers some people watching the show - especially people with a background in science who know how labs work - is the number of rats Ravi uses when he’s trying to find a cure for the virus. Seriously, who uses one, or two rats on a science study? Was this a budget thing? It might be a small detail, but it’s still really annoying.
Ravi Can’t Reproduce The Tainted Utopium
iZombie managed to, once again, make absolutely no sense in the realms of science. Considering how big of a plot point finding a cure has been throughout the show, it would be expected that showrunners would try to minimize the plot holes to a minimum. It’s been a wild ride, with cure number one coming around, failing, and then queue cure number two.
The thing here is - Ravi was able to reverse engineer some seriously tricky genetic modifications of the virus that caused people to become zombies…but all of sudden, for some unidentified reason, he is unable to reproduce it? How exactly is that possible? Surely there’s a way, especially considering the reversions he was able to do in the first place.
It Lacks A Clear Identity
For the first couple of seasons, the show was pretty solid in general. It had its own distinct personality, and there really wasn’t another series on television that could compare to iZombie in terms of what it was doing. However, somewhere along the way, it seemed like the showrunners got confused and weren’t exactly sure what story they wanted to tell.
Towards the end of the second season, things seemed to get lost. Was it simply a show about solving crime, only with the added twist of the zombie element? Was it supposed to tackle a zombie apocalypse? Was it meant to focus on a small number of characters and their struggles with the supernatural? Or did it mean to tackle a much bigger scope? It seemed like the creators wanted to tell way too many stories at once, and the show just became a huge mess, without a clear direction.
The Antibody In The Cure
Last time we turn on Ravi and his never-ending problems with finding a cure, promise. But then again, they were so clearly there, it’s nearly impossible to ignore them, no matter how hard fans (and the writers) try. If they were planning on making such a fuss about the cure, they should’ve tried to tell the story in a more convincing way.
Isobel’s death was a sad moment in the show, but her immunity to the zombie scratch gave Ravi renewed hope of finding a cure. Here’s the issue: when he gives the brain to the rats, he comes to the conclusion he simply can’t know what cured them because Isobel’s brain is somehow “impenetrable”. Again, how is this possible? Why can’t he isolate the antibody? It’s hard, but it’s not impossible, especially in this day and age. If they were going to make it impossible, why even come up with this plotline in the first place?
Ravi’s Way Of Dealing With Relationships
Ravi is hands down the most lovable person on the show. He’s sweet, he’s kind, he’s brave, and he’s loyal to his friends. His sense of humor has been, more often than not, one of the few saving graces of the show when the episodes were lacking in quality, engagement, and general entertainment.
But homeboy has some serious issues when it comes to the way he deals with romantic relationships. In season 2, when he kept dating Steph knowing very well he wasn’t interested but she very much wanted a relationship…just to keep having sex for a while longer? Trying to kiss Peyton the day after he breaks it off with Steph? Avoiding Peyton when he knows she was going through trauma and needed support? When it comes to romance, Ravi is just a major mess…thankfully, things seem to be looking up.
Major Hiding Proof
Okay, let’s go over this - so Major was tracking down people who were zombies, sedating them, and then hiding them in his super secret Batcave in the middle of god knows where in the hopes that he could one day give them the cure and turn them human again, while simultaneously pleasing his demented boss. Checks out? Yes.
Just one small problem though! When the FBI closes in on Major, they get a warrant to search his place and they find body bags underneath his mattress and a bunch of incriminating evidence in his safe. If he had a super secret man-cave where he hid the bodies, why wouldn’t he put everything there?! Why risk being caught, as he was by Ravi? There really wasn’t much thinking on his part in that scenario…as per usual.
Peyton’s Character Development
Here’s the thing about Peyton: she’s beautiful. She’s probably smart too since she works as a lawyer for the District Attorney. And that’s it. There’s literally nothing the show told us about Peyton that makes us care for the character at all, besides very generic things that seem good enough to keep around. Honestly, if Liv ate her brain, what would she be like?
Peyton had zero character development throughout the entire show, she got extra screentime during the awful and tiring love-triangle nonsense that did absolutely nothing for her as a character, and is yet to give fans something to hold onto so they can care about what happens to her - and more than just being a love interest for Ravi!
The Continuous Loss Of Liv’s Personality
One of the reasons fans found it so easy to fall in love with the show, and with Liv’s character in general, was because of the great balance the writers found between giving the main character the right amount of traits from the person whose brains she ate, and her own personality. She was still dominated by the personality of the dead person, but not to a ridiculous extent.
As the show moved forward, this proportion was completely lost. All of a sudden, nearly 100% of Liv’s personality after eating a brain comes from that person, and we completely lost her during those times. Why did they do this so abruptly? And if they wanted to, why not at least come up with a reason, like decreasing tolerance or something of the sort?
Liv’s Changed/Unchanged Voices
On the topic of completely unnecessary deviations without zero contest, we have the issue of Liv’s voice after she eats a brain. Now, the change in the amount of personality she absorbed was abrupt, but at least the showrunners were kind enough to stick to their decision, instead of completely jump around from one situation to the other.
There probably isn’t a very defined set of rules for what happens to Liv when she eats a brain, but certain things should be obvious and defined from the start. Nope, not here! One week Liv will speak like a medieval maiden for the entire episode, but next week she’ll eat a rapper’s brain and completely retain her vocal identity. Just, you know, because of reasons.
Liv Recklessly Turning People Into Zombies
Filmore Graves is absolutely terrible, and there’s no denying that. They spread the infection far and wide, without bothering to ask anyone’s approval or consent, and they proceeded to create a situation bordering on authoritarianism. Anyone who tries to defend them needs to drink some wake-up juice because the only word to describe them is villainous.
it’s understandable Liv finds herself at odds with what to do but turning terminally ill people into zombies left and right is not a good course of action. It’s dangerous, she doesn’t know the potential outcomes, she’s the sole decision-maker on this, and a lot of other issues like this need to be taken into account. She’s just turning a bad situation into a worse one, with very serious consequences.
