overnights

iZombie Recap: Lusty Liv

iZombie

Fifty Shades of Grey Matter
Season 2 Episode 11
Editor’s Rating 3 stars
Fifty Shades of Grey Matter

iZombie

Fifty Shades of Grey Matter
Season 2 Episode 11
Editor’s Rating 3 stars
Aly Michalka as Peyton, Rose McIver as Liv. Photo: Diyah Pera/CW

This week’s iZombie finds the show on a similar wavelength to its CW sibling Jane the Virgin, as Liv dives back into the dating world after eating some horny librarian brain. For most of its running time, “Fifty Shades of Grey Matter” is just as silly as the previous “Method Head.” The episode is content to wring as much as it can out of Lusty Liv, until the final act arrives and things get serious. (Yes, the show finally made me care about the Stacey Boss stuff.)

After collapsing at work, librarian Grace is rushed to the hospital where she dies. The doctors can’t figure out the underlying cause of death, so her body is sent to Ravi and Liv, who discover that she was poisoned by a plant known as water hemlock. Grace was married, so Liv and Clive decide to question her now-widowed husband, Andy.

When they arrive at Grace’s home, they discover that Andy is confined to a wheelchair. A former firefighter, he was paralyzed when a beam fell on him during a fire. While Clive questions Andy, the effects of Grace’s brain start to hit Liv; she daydreams about making out with Andy’s hunky and tattooed caregiver. During the interrogation, Andy denies having any hemlock, and reveals that his wife’s first romance novel was due to be published. As he tells it, the only enemy Grace had was her co-worker, Muriel.

So, our duo pays Muriel a visit — and she turns out to be just as un-fun as her name suggests. (No offense, Muriels.) We learn she strongly disapproved of Grace’s book The Upright Position, an erotic novel in the vein of Fifty Shades of Grey about a flight attendant’s mile-high escapades. Muriel has them listen to the audiobook, which is narrated by … Kristen Bell!

#FACTS: Kristen Bell could make the phone book sound compelling and fun. I wish she could narrate my life. But I digress.

As the erotic-novelist brain exerts its effect on Liv, she starts slapping Ravi’s butt, imagining Ravi and Major wrestling, and, most importantly, hitting on Drake, the zombie she turned down a few episodes back. To recap: Drake is one of Boss’s henchmen, but now he’s a mole for Blaine, who is feeding the information he gets to the FBI in exchange for brains. Except now, Drake is starting to worry that he’ll be caught, so he asks Liv if she’ll supply him with brains. Liv says yes, but only if she gets to “know” him better, if you know what she means.

Like we see in “Fifty Shades of Grey Matter,” the most effective brain plots on iZombie are the ones that drive Liv to live up to her name. (Liv Moore. You get it?) It’s been over a month since she ended things with Major, and Grace’s brain is the push she needs to get back out there.

She invites Drake over for dinner, and things go a bit too far a bit too quickly. They get hot and heavy on the dining table, but Liv stops before they move to the bedroom. Why? Because she fed him some of Grace’s brain. Yes, she basically zombie-roofied him. Liv decides they should wait until the effects of the brain wear off before they go any further.

Peyton, unfortunately, doesn’t exhibit Liv’s restraint. While together on the Boss case, she and Blaine share several drinks and end up sleeping together. Peyton will later regret this.

Back to the case: Liv and Clive discover that Muriel was also working on a book, which contained a passage that describes someone sprinkling hemlock on a salad. So, the police storm Muriel’s house. They don’t find any hemlock in her garden, but they do find a burned copy of Grace’s book in her fireplace, the back cover conveniently still intact. As they look over the charred novel, they notice a window-box planter in Grace’s author photo … and hemlock is in it. Which leads them back to Andy. Which surprises no one because the show didn’t introduce anyone else in Grace’s life who could’ve killed her.

During his interrogation, Andy admits to the murder. His motive is really lame: He and Grace hadn’t had sex in five years, and he was worried that her book would transform him from firefighting hero to “the guy who couldn’t give it to his wife so she fantasizes about doing it with everybody else.”

Though Liv’s work is done for the day, Clive still has two other cases on his plate: the Meat Cute murders and the Chaos Killer, a.k.a. Major. Bozzio discovers that one of the missing people in the latter case owned a dog with a tracking chip. (The dog in question is Minor.) Luckily, Major finds out that the FBI is tracking the dog. Dressed in a hoodie and amped up on Max Rager, Major parkours his way to the vet where he dropped Minor off to be cleaned, then gets rid of the tracking collar before Clive and Bozzio find him. After realizing this is the end of the road, he leaves the dog on a bus. Stone cold, Major.

However, this doesn’t slow Bozzio and Clive down. They learn Blaine’s real name, which leads them to realize that Blaine’s father is one of the missing people. So, they bring him in for questioning on both cases. They don’t get too far, unfortunately, before Peyton interrupts their interrogation; Blaine is her star witness and has immunity. Before setting Blaine free, Clive tells Peyton everything he’s suspected of doing.

Understandably concerned, Peyton rushes to Liv’s home and asks if she knows Blaine. Liv says yes, then proceeds to recap season one for Peyton, who is horrified that she slept with Blaine. Before she leaves to take her “Silkwood shower,” she says, “You know, you sleep with someone you think you know, but they could be anybody.” These words resonate with Liv, who, it’s revealed, has a naked Drake lying in bed in the next room.

Liv’s Meal of the Week: Brain-stuffed green peppers. Yum!

Leftovers:

  • How will Peyton’s new knowledge affect the way she handles the Stacey Boss case?
  • Kristen Bell narrating Grace’s book: “I’m going to show you why they call it a cockpit.”
  • Liv, getting meta: “The Upright Position, as read by Kristen Bell. I’ve always felt a kind of connection to her.”
  • Ravi, after Liv slaps his butt: “Go forth, direct your lust elsewhere.”
  • Lusty Liv, to Major and Ravi: “If you wrestle, film it.”
  • Blaine has a couple of hilarious lines with Peyton. Right before they hook up, there’s, “We all can’t look like we were created in a lab by a 14-year-old boy, can we?” Then, as she barges in on the interrogation: “You look good on a white horse.”

iZombie Recap: Lusty Liv