Major Lillywhite, Minor the Dog, and the Scratching Post: iZombie’s Best Puns

Zombies are as inevitable as taxes, but they hit peak popularity on TV during the 2010s. We’ve already done one piece on the decade’s best undead offerings, and though you can’t have a list like that without AMC’s juggernaut The Walking Dead (2010–2022), there were also plenty of less-well-known undead adventures, like Netflix’s offbeat horror-comedy series The Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2018).

Somewhere in between those two cultural behemoths is iZombie, a show with equal parts crime-solving, undead drama, and absurdist humor. Airing on The CW from 2015 to 2019, it spanned five seasons.

Created by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright and loosely based on the Vertigo comic series by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, iZombie‘s premise is similar to the comic but goes way, way off-book from there. The original comic stars Gwen Dylan, a zombie gravedigger in Eugene, Oregon, who is forced to eat brains once every 30 days to remember her life. Her inner circle includes a ghost and a were-terrier, which is just the kind of weird supernatural adventure we can get behind.

But iZombie preferred to take a more grounded approach (though it also ran on The CW, so we didn’t expect a were-terrier anytime soon). The TV adaptation’s big twist is that Liv eats brains to stay human. Set in Seattle, the brain-devouring protagonist is Liv Moore—intentional. Played by Rose McIver, Liv is a type-A medical student who is set to graduate just in time for her engagement party with her very human fiancé, Major (Robert Buckley). But after a night of debauchery at a boat party, it turns out that Major and Peyton (Liv’s roommate and Major’s twin sister, played by Aly Michalka) have mixed up a new designer drug called Utopium with an energy drink called Max Rager, creating a horrific new zombie outbreak in the city.

After Liv is scratched and left for dead in a body bag, she is bitten by an actual zombie. But when she wakes up in the morgue, still alive, the CDC doesn’t know what to make of her. She’s undead—but instead of being a brainless monstrosity, she’s a decomposing yet strangely beautiful bloodsucker. She breaks it off with Major, fakes her roommate’s death, and gets a job at the medical examiner’s office, which gives her convenient access to fresh brains and plenty of time to conduct her undead research.

Enter Ravi Singh (Rahul Kohli), Liv’s sweet and sassy boss at the morgue and former CDC scientist who is just as hell-bent on discovering a cure for zombies as he is on giving Liv a creepy yet completely appropriate runaround whenever she finds his kitschy midcentury apartment or berates him for withholding vital information about the disease.

But what makes Liv unique among all the other zombies is that eating brains causes her to absorb the memories and personality traits of whomever she’s eaten, allowing her to essentially take on someone else’s life for as long as she has that brain in her stomach. This lets Rose McIver strut her stuff as all kinds of hilarious and wonderful people—just take your pick. A sassy dominatrix. A surly, octogenarian, cannabis-using shut-in. A romance novelist. A magician. A pub trivia-loving hitman. Liv put her all into each one, and each one had a unique journey as they saw and interacted with the world through Liv’s eyes.

Adding brains to the mix to help crack open murder mysteries paired Liv with Det. Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) who is convinced she is psychic. Meanwhile, Ravi provided comic relief and data analysis, being understanding and empathetic about Liv’s condition but also gleefully sadistic when it came to a particular new brain (spoiler alert: it was the PhD scientist brain).

Brains, Bad Guys, and Bittersweet Goodbyes

While Ravi and Clive were endearing fixtures throughout the series, iZombie also had a dynamic collection of supporting characters and bad guys. Jessica Harmon’s FBI agent Dale Brazzio was a welcome sidekick who eventually became Clive’s new partner. Bryce Hodgson had a recurring role as Scott E. in season one, which was so popular the writers brought him back as twin brother Don E. (short for Dominique E.) and made him Blaine’s loyal sidekick and right-hand zombie. Guest stars like Daran Norris as sleazy local weatherman Johnny Frost and Steven Weber as villainous CEO Vaughan Du Clark (as well as his zombie daughter, Rita, played by Leanne Lapp) brought with them plenty of memorable one-off moments and series-spanning threats.

The brains that Liv feasted on were fun to see come to life, but we were also endlessly amused by the antics of Blaine DeBeers (David Anders), the hammy bad guy and brains dealer whose long white trenchcoat and squinting stare are a dead giveaway that he is up to no good. With his privileged sneer and long-simmering daddy issues, Blaine is a memorable villain. Starting as just another self-absorbed punk dealer who has his hand on the Utopium supply until he’s undercut by a zombie virus, Blaine grows throughout the series to become a full-on brain smuggler who eventually amasses a fleet of wealthy undead who pay him top dollar to feed their new brain habit. What was just lazily shady in the beginning is an elaborate illegal network by the series’ end.

Liv absorbs Holly’s adventurous spirit, which upends her heretofore hyper-cautious and uptight approach to life as a zombie (she adds dreads!). In a way, it’s the beginning of Liv’s emotional arc in the series, and the show has plenty of these reminders peppered throughout the episodes. But these are also some of the most resonant scenes in iZombie that remind us of what made the series so special: embracing the ridiculous with all of its heart.