iZombie 2×7 Review: Abra Cadaver

Another week, another brain. Although Ravi seemed really excited for the Brain-of-the-Week, I found it a bit lackluster, and this episode felt completely out of place. Whereas the last two episodes gave a lot of hope for Liv, Major, and the other secondary story lines of season two, “Abra Cadaver” fell completely flat for me.

Of course, I will start with the positives. I could tell that Rose McIver was having a blast with her illusionist characteristics, and the traits were again a bit more subtle, which is one of the things I’ve liked about the past two episodes (my favorite two of the season so far). In fact, I liked the whole idea of having a magic convention going on, and Ravi being stoked about it. It seemed totally natural and a very realistic thing for him to be excited about. The execution of the story was a bit strange.

In this episode, it seemed like the regular characters were just caricatures, not just the characteristics that Liv took on. The fact that our victim was an illusionist, but was also obsessed with death seemed quite forced to me. Liv doing the magic tricks was a lot of fun, and I could even see her doing the tarot cards, but the weird chanting, veil, and ouija board at the end? It was super out of place and seemed like a plot device to push Major away.

I’m not sure what happened to Major, but he lost his high and turned into a total bummer again this week. It seemed to happen way too fast. Major used to be a zombie, how could he not realize the mood swings that Liv would have prior to him wanting to be with her again? I found the pacing of him being creeped out to have happened way too quickly. We really only got one good episode of he and Liv being back together, and then all of sudden he wants to avoid her and possibly move on? This is seriously fickle, and Major seems too stubborn and too loyal to have this happen so quickly, particularly without having a conversation with Liv about. However, I did enjoy that he did talk about his feelings with Ravi and Peyton, so that was nice.

I also really enjoyed Ravi’s arc in this episode. Sometimes it is really hard to follow the relationships of characters on television shows, but Ravi breaking up with his girlfriend actually seemed pretty realistic. To the overall plot, the breakup may seem a bit contrived (particularly since they seem to be setting up a reunion between he and Peyton), but the way that he realized it and then tried to let her down easy was in tune with his character. He really just wanted to do the right thing, even if it meant being the bad guy.

Speaking of bad guys, Blaine actually confiding in Liv about the zombie disappearances was a piece in the puzzle that I hoped the writers would go with. Even though Blaine is the villain, I like he and Liv together and working together to take down the real bad guys. More of them working together, please! And with the ongoing interactions and blooming chemistry that Blaine has with Peyton, the more I can see him getting more and more involved with our main characters.

Finally, I need to talk about Clive. I love our resident detective, and I think that he has really grown into his own in season two. But where did his relationship with Bozzio come from? I knew they had chemistry, but I feel like it would be a big no-no for an FBI agent and detective who are working together to have a sexual relationship. I would have liked to see a slower burn of them becoming an item, rather than them just going to bed together. I love watching awkward flirting, and Clive seems like the kind of character who would need to go through that natural flirting stage in order to progress in a relationship. But hey, I am just glad that Clive is having fun!

I didn’t hate this episode, but I didn’t love it either. Nothing really stood out for me as revolutionary or super important to the plot, and I did have some issues with the relationship stories going on with our main cast. This episode really had so much potential after the past couple of episodes, but instead, plot lines were dropped altogether and nothing really made sense. I hope next week is better!

Author: Erin

Erin has reviewed many shows over the years including Orphan Black, iZombie, Penny Dreadful, and Killing Eve. She has a keen eye for on-screen chemistry, and loves to tackle the subject of casting. She is also our horror aficionado. She live tweets shows, and loves to share her feelings. Erin has a BA in History, and likes to analyze the lore behind historical fiction. She attends San Diego Comic Con every year and has also attended C2E2 and WonderCon.

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