NOTE: Full spoilers for this episode of, “iZombie” are present in this review
iZombie is continuing to experiment with its usual format this week, in the wake of Harley’s zombie-truthers trying to expose the information about zombies to the world. “Conspiracy Weary” is generally another very good episode of iZombie, even if the concept behind Liv’s latest brain, which has Liv, Blaine and Don E. all consume the brains of Harley’s aggressively paranoid brother, Bo, wasn’t used to its full potential.
The episode certainly hits the ground running, as a zombie rage-fueled Liv and Blaine drop into Harley’s compound to stop them from torturing Don E. into going full zombie on everyone. Blaine and Don E. kill several of the zombie-truthers, while Rachel and Harley flee the scene, and the remaining conspiracy theorists are gunned down by Chase Graves’ soldiers, complete with Major tagging along with the outfit. This has Major awkwardly discovering that Ravi lied about his whereabouts during his undercover operation with Harley, though disappointingly, not much seemed to come of this.
In fact, Major’s subplot in general felt a little strange this week. Major continues his love affair with Shawna, but Liv and Ravi eventually put together that Shawna is seemingly using Major for Tumblr notoriety, so they urge him to call it off. Shawna claims that she’s trying to redeem Major in the eyes of the world, though Major nonetheless breaks up with her, leading to an apparent reprisal of t-shirts being made that depict a shirtless Major with Shawna. It’s not spelled out if Shawna is behind the shirts or not, but either way, this mostly existed as a way to have Major fully choose Fillmore-Graves and its zombies over any real degree of human connection. That’s fair enough, though the execution of this subplot was kind of clumsy, since Major doesn’t ultimately seem to be that bothered over what happened with Shawna in the end, considering that he’s partying with his zombie friends in the very next scene. Moreover, is Seattle seriously still universally ostracizing Major over a bunch of killings that he was never convicted of? The longer that unfounded witch hunt goes on across seemingly the entire city, the more it feels unrealistic.
Fortunately, the show is continuing to move pretty effectively towards an exciting climax for Season Three this week, which will properly unfold across a two-part episode spread over the next two weeks. Peyton most notably continues to investigate what happened with the dominatrix’s murder, with Liv helping her come to the realization that the killer’s daughter is a zombie. Peyton manages to talk the daughter into bringing her along to a safety deposit box, which has the evidence she’s looking for, confirming that the dominatrix murder was an accident, and someone else wanted that memory card. Peyton quickly begins to suspect foul play with D.A. Baracus, who, surprise, is elected mayor of Seattle at the very end of the episode. With a zombie in charge of Seattle, the city is sure to have the odds against it if they don’t take well to the fact that zombies are in their midst!
The investigation with Liv and Babineaux into where the fugitive Harley might be hiding also went over fairly well, especially when Harley proves to be surprisingly smart and resourceful, even leading Chase’s guys into a trap at one point! Like I said however, despite an initially promising idea with Liv, Blaine and Don E. all consuming a conspiracy theorist’s brain, which makes them all paranoid and developing severe apohenia, not much is sadly done with the brain this week. It was another brain that offered some funny moments with Liv, but mostly completely got in the way of this week’s investigation. Likewise, all we get out of Blaine and Don E. is them sharing a theory about how Tupac may have survived. It’s still cool to see iZombie not wanting to fall into a procedural rut, but it’s too bad that the conspiracy theorist brain couldn’t have been put to better use, even if it may have slightly helped Liv point Peyton in the right direction.
Another great development was had with Ravi this week though, after he becomes increasingly unable to deal with Major’s intense whirlwind romance with Shawna. That romance may be over at the end of the episode, but Ravi is nonetheless occupied by trying to keep tabs on Rachel, who eventually shows up at his home, only to be frightened away by Major. Later, Rachel does show up at Ravi’s work to make peace though, where Ravi tells her everything that’s happening with zombies. This actually led into a superb twist to end the episode on as well, as it’s Rachel that publishes a high-profile news story in Seattle’s newspaper, after Ravi filled in the blanks for her, rather than Harley, whom no one seemed to actually believe. Liv and Babineaux do manage to find Harley towards the end of the episode, with Babineaux even believing that he kills him in self-defense as well, only to discover that Harley somehow became a zombie, possibly being scratched by Liv, Blaine or Don E. while fleeing his compound! On top of that, a vision from Liv also confirms that Harley and Bo actually aren’t responsible for the Tuttle-Reid murders either, despite the weapons used in the killings being in their truck. Looks like Babineaux’s vendetta must continue.
“Conspiracy Weary” may not have realized every story element perfectly, but having Rachel prove to be the true catalyst to Seattle finding out about zombies, while Peyton seems to close in on some damning evidence against Seattle’s new zombie mayor, has iZombie moving towards Season Three’s climax with continued excitement. Harley’s zombie-truther operation seems to be in shambles at this point, but a new threat is bound to rise up in his place, after Rachel gets word out to the city. Frankly though, humanity is looking pretty outnumbered in Seattle at this point, between both Mayor Baracus and Fillmore-Graves. There’s two episodes left in Season Three, so we’ll have to see how the city looks in a couple of weeks, but I think it’s safe to say now that, despite this show’s well-meaning undead protagonist, zombies have truly never been more dangerous in this world!