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iZombie: The Complete Third Season

Score: 89%
Rating: Not Rated
Publisher: Warner Brothers Home
                  Entertainment

Region: 1
Media: DVD/3
Running Time: 550 Mins.
Genre: Sci-Fi/Mystery/TV Series
Audio: English 5.1 Surround
Subtitles: English and French

Features:

  • iZombie: 2016 Comic-Con Panel
  • Deleted Scenes

iZombie: The Complete Third Season continues to show the series' ability to shift gears into bigger and more interesting subjects. Where the first season started off on a small scale with Blaine as the main enemy and Season Two had Liv and friends take on Max Rager and it's somewhat grander schemes, now the brain-eating, crime-solving team will have to consider the possibly real threat that the growing zombie population might not be a secret for much longer.

Season Two ended when Max Rager's research resulting in a massive zombie breakout at their launch party for their new product, but at the last minute, the private security company that just purchased the energy drink corporation, Fillmore-Graves, stormed in and put a stop to the outbreak. As a surprise to Liv (Rose McIver, The Lovely Bones, Once Upon a Time), Major (Robert Buckley, One Tree Hill) and the now-in-the-know Clive (Malcolm Goodwin, Breakout Kings), the entire Fillmore-Graves company, including CEO Vivian Stoll (Andrea Savage, I'm Sorry, Veep) is comprised of zombies thanks to a bad Fourth of July corporate party (yes, another party that leads to a massive amounts of zombies being created).

While Liv, Major, and Clive were storming Max Rager's office in the hopes of finding Major's missing Chaos Killer victims, Peyton (Aly Michalka, Hellcats, Phil of the Future) found herself at the mercy of crime lord Mr. Boss (Eddie Jemison, Ocean's Eleven) and both Ravi (Rahul Kohli) and Blaine (David Anders, Alias, The Vampire Diaries, Once Upon a Time) were in a position to save the lawyer. When Blaine was the one that came to Peyton's rescue, it set up the nature of the three's relationship in this season.

When Season Three kicks back up, Liv finds herself facing a decision. Per Vivian, eventually the zombie outbreak in Seattle will grow so big that someone will notice and word will get out. It is Fillmore-Grave's opinion that, when that day comes, normal humans will strike out in fear and try to end the budding population. The question Vivian brings to Liv is, when that day comes, what side will she be on. As Liv and her friends investigate Fillmore-Graves, everything appears to be on the up-and-up, but there are rumors of plans and power struggles that could change the nature of the company before that day arrives.

With Major's identity as the Chaos Killer out in the open, he finds it hard to actually get a job. He eventually turns to Fillmore-Graves and joins their zombie paramilitary security forces. As it turns out, being a zombie comes in handy when in the middle of the battlefield; just don't get shot in the head and you are good. While it takes some time for Major to get the hang of the military outfit, he does quickly form a friendship with another person from his new team, Justin Bell (Tongayi Chirisa, The Jim Gaffigan Show), who was apparently the DJ at the company party the night everyone turned zombie, and he eventually becomes a love interest for Liv.

The season-long story meets a few bumps when it becomes obvious that someone is killing Seattle zombies and Fillmore-Graves plus Liv's friends start to learn about a local group of people who are both aware of the zombie population and are starting to plan various violent attacks against them. When a family that Clive knew ends up on the list of dead zombies, Clive not only becomes determined to trace down exactly who is behind the murder, but he ends up being questioned by his own co-workers when the the connection becomes known.

Of course, throughout the full-season story, there are the episodic cases that Liv, Clive, and Ravi work. Since Clive now knows Liv's secret, their working relationship isn't quite as complicated as before, though the many personalities that Liv expresses still makes their job tougher than it should be. In one episode, Liv digests the brain of an office gossip, while another has her become a yoga guru, and yet another puts her in trouble as a thrill-seeking daredevil. While each of these instances do help them solve the case at hand, thanks both to their detective skills and Liv's visions, it shouldn't come as a surprise that these personality quirks tend to cause some unexpected problems. But then again, that's the nature of the show and seeing how each case falls into place is just as enjoyable as the season-long arcs.

There are a couple of really amusing cases this season. In one, the dungeon master for a D&D game dies at the game table and Liv's personality changes to where she constantly narrates the world around her and reaches for a die every time she needs to make a decision. In another, a father and daughter are killed and both Liv and Major consume the brains to solve the case. Liv takes on the father's overprotective personality traits, while Major becomes a bratty teenager. The interaction between the pair is fantastic and is a source of constant amusement in that episode.

In another episode, Liv has to help solve the murder of a dominatrix and while this makes many of the people around her uneasy, the resulting arrest ends up being a case that Peyton takes on, and when she starts seeing that not all of the facts make sense, Peyton has to do some digging of her own. Meanwhile, Ravi has to deal with his feelings over the fact that Peyton and Blaine seem to be growing as a couple and ends up pouring a lot of time into the next round of the zombie virus cure. His supplies of the tainted drug that caused the problem are dwindling, and given that his last version of the cure left Blaine with memory loss, Ravi is working with what few resources he has in order to save his friends from their current state. Unfortunately, time starts running short as Major starts to show symptoms that resulted from his first cure and re-zombification. Soon, either Ravi will need to come up with a better cure or Major will have to take the same version of the drug that left Blaine as he is now.

As for Blaine himself, with Mr. Boss out of town and on the lam, he works to bring his business back to what it was. Unfortunately, Blaine's father, Angus (Robert Knepper, Prison Break), has plans of his own and takes over Blaine's brain-feeding operation and, with the help of Don E. (Bryce Hodgson), starts a zombie nightclub with high end brains on the menu.

This season of iZombie doesn't come with a lot in the way of special features. There are quite a few deleted scenes, as well as a Comic-Con panel featuring McIver, Goodwin, Kohli, Anders, Michalka and show runners Diane Ruggiero and Rob Thomas. While the deleted scenes add a bit more context to some of the episodes, losing them didn't mean much was missed. As for the panel, as always, it was a fun discussion about where the show was at the end of Season Two and what to expect in the newest season.

iZombie is always a fun show to dive into and while the overall story can be dark, as it spans everything from teenage death to corporate greed, prejudices and life-or-death decisions, the cases and Liv's constantly changing personality end up being the necessary levity that the show needs to balance out the dark spots. Season Three continues this trend and is a must watch for anyone already into the show. If you haven't seen it before, don't jump in here though. While the cases are more-or-less independent, the overall story is a buildup of past seasons and should be watched to fully enjoy.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a copy of the DVD. The opinions I share are my own.



-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer

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