‘iZombie’ Star & EP on Humans vs. Zombies and a Cure in Season 5

Meredith Jacobs May 2, 2019, 9:00 pm

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Season 5 premiere of iZombie, “Thug Death.”]

It’s humans versus zombies in New Seattle.

The iZombie Season 5 premiere perfectly demonstrates just that, as a convenience store security camera catches zombies attacking a human. Liv (Rose McIver) and Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) spend the episode trying to identify the woman, but it’s not a good look for the zombies just trying to live their lives in the city.

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And that plays into the underlying conflict of the entire season, which will continue to see cases that divide the city on the topic of zombies, creator Rob Thomas tells TV Insider. “Will the center hold? There are radical zombies who feel like it’s time to just start eating the humans, and there are humans who believe that if they don’t strike first, the zombies will wipe them out,” he explains.

Everyone has stakes in the matter, including Blaine (David Anders), whose business begins to suffer because of the video. He and Don E. (Bryce Hodgson) pay border patrol agents to look the other way and smuggle their brain shipments past their checkpoint, but those humans refuse to continue working for them after seeing it.

(Bettina Strauss/The CW)

Therefore, Blaine wants the case solved fast — and even tries to bribe Liv and Clive to make it happen. “He’s always seeing if he can help out, as a concerned citizen with a wad full of cash in the pocket always at the ready,” Anders says, adding, “there might be a couple more instances” of Blaine butting into police business in future episodes.

While the case isn’t wrapped up by the end of the episode — Liv and Clive are still working on identifying the woman who was attacked — Blaine does take care of his border problem. He kidnaps the agents to remind them of their deal and delivers a speech Anders says “was on par with the Glengarry Glen Ross speech that Alec Baldwin gives to all the salesmen.”

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He threatens to turn the agents into zombies and kill their loved ones (including their pets!). Only one refuses to return to business as usual. “The next time you see him, he’s picked back up and everything’s working smoothly,” Anders says. “Sometimes it goes his way, and sometimes he falls down a ravine. A lot of times, it’s carefully thought out and methodical. Most times, it’s just a wing and a prayer.”

Along those lines, expect to see a “heavy, heavy Blaine” episode later this season that features his voiceover, in which his character thinks, “it’s all happening,” the actor teases. “Finally, finally people see. Finally, someone gave me a chance, and I’m going to seize this chance. I’m going to run this town. That’s always been his endgame, to run Old Seattle and now New Seattle, and then the world.”

(Bettina Strauss/The CW)

The problem with the brain delivery brings Major (Robert Buckley) to Blaine’s door, and this won’t be the only time we see those two together. “Later on down the line, things happen, and Major is one of the only guys who can get me out of a sticky situation, and I’m the only guy who can get him out of a sticky situation,” Anders previews.

Speaking of Major, he and Liv have to make some of the toughest decisions in the city: approving and rejecting applications for those who want to leave and those who want to enter and get the scratch that will save their lives.

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“I wanted this in there to show the audience the gravity of what they’re dealing with every day,” Thomas says. “They’re making the hard calls of who lives and who dies. That is their fate. … Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and they’re both wearing crowns of sort.”

Elsewhere in the premiere, Ravi (Rahul Kohli) is working with Dr. Collier and the CDC on a cure. Dr. Collier discovers that the postmortem brains of those with Freylich syndrome could lead to a cure. However, most die in their teens and one of their brains would only cure one zombie. Those kids would be hunted for their brains.

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Though Dr. Collier appears ready to share her findings anyway, she tells the others on the project it would take “hundreds of thousands of pounds of brains” and therefore “can’t work.”

“That is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” between Ravi and Dr. Collier, who will return multiple times this season, Thomas previews. “But that storyline has some pretty serious bumps in the road. … Not everybody at the CDC is on the up and up, and that will throw roadblocks in coming up with the cure along the way.”