Why iZombie Still Deserves Your Undead Attention

If there’s one thing zombies never seem to go out of style, it’s television. The 2010s were a major cultural moment for them, with AMC’s juggernaut The Walking Dead (2010–2022) and Netflix’s offbeat horror-comedy The Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2018) on either side of the decade. Tucked between them, for five seasons, was the one and only iZombie.

If iZombie never quite had blockbuster status, it certainly had a devout following: fans who loved its shrewd writing, its sincere performances, and its often original take on the zombie narrative. Created by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright and (loosely) based on the Vertigo comic series by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, the show paid little mind to most of its source material, but its undead heart was always present.

The television adaptation’s big move was setting it in Seattle, where the character of Liv Moore—named intended—was born. Played by Rose McIver, Liv is a type-A medical student with good prospects and a steady relationship with her human fiancé, Major (Robert Buckley). One boat party and a rather lurid sequence later, Liv is scratched during a zombie outbreak, wakes up in a body bag, and joins their number. She immediately ends her engagement with Major, temporarily cuts her roommate Peyton (Aly Michalka) out of her life, and applies for a job at the medical examiner’s office so she can quietly harvest brains. Her activities do not go unnoticed by Ravi (Rahul Kohli), the office’s resident mad scientist and former CDC zombie virus researcher. A bit of a hipster, Ravi is an obsessive when it comes to finding a cure, but, more than anything, he’s a good person.

A notable twist that the show added is that when Liv eats the brains of the recently deceased, she also temporarily absorbs their memories and personality. As you can imagine, it opens the door to an exhausting number of personalities—and an exhausting showcase for McIver’s range. Whether it was a sassy dominatrix, grumpy old man, romance novelist, magician, or trivia-hound hitman, Liv made every brain she ate full of integrity and charm.

The other benefit of eating these brains was that they usually contained vital clues to the cause of their owner’s murder, pairing Liv with Det. Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin), a homicide detective who—at least in the beginning—thought Liv was psychic. Ravi also provided comic relief and scientific insight, serving both as a personal cheerleader for Liv’s endeavors and an audience for her more absurd transformations (sorry, Major Lillywhite, PhD scientist, you were a buzzkill).

Brains, Bad Guys, and Bittersweet Goodbyes

Every show needs a big bad, and iZombie found one in Blaine DeBeers (David Anders). If the late Rose McIver’s Liv Moore was the heart of the series, then Blaine was the inevitable enemy: the charming, douchey antagonist that you both hate and can’t look away from. Blaine is a dealer turned zombie who scratches Liv at the pilot party after being duped by his supplier over a batch of tainted Utopium, a new designer drug. He quickly turns from drug dealer to brain trafficker when he discovers a lucrative market of upper-class, human-trafficking zombies who require his services.

Throughout the show, Blaine evolves from a low-rent douchebag into a legitimately menacing bad guy, establishing a well-connected, brain-crazed client base that, without his trafficking ring, would be dead. Sleek, narcissistic, and unapologetically crass, Blaine had a sense of aristocratic superiority, daddy issues, and an annoyingly twisted brand of charisma.

If the cast’s central relationships and iZombie protagonist Liv had some standout characters, its supporting players were also a trove of gems. Jessica Harmon’s Dale Brazzio went from FBI agent to Clive’s partner and was so central to the formula in its last two seasons that they made her a series regular. Bryce Hodgson’s performance as Scott E. in season one was so charming that the show’s writers gave him a spinoff arc as twin brother Don E., complete with a Ron connection, as Blaine’s loyal sidekick. Guest roles like Daran Norris’ sleazy weatherman Johnny Frost or Steven Weber’s Max Rager CEO Vaughan Du Clark and his zombie daughter, Rita (Leanne Lapp), gave the show great one-offs and memorable serial bad guys.

Still, what iZombie did is rare: it had a truly absurd premise and made it so goddamned heartfelt. The show had solid comedic chops and was more than willing to lean into its tonal contrast: the dialogue was sharp, the puns on point (Major Lillywhite, The Scratching Post bar, or Ravi’s dog “Minor”), and its interpretation of brain-based cuisine delightfully revolting (think stir-fry, hush puppies, protein shakes, etc).

One episode that sticks out in fans’ memories is “Flight of the Living Dead,” where Liv eats the brain of her free-spirited former sorority sister Holly (Tasya Teles), a skydiving death that becomes murder. Holly’s carefree lifestyle and adorably devil-may-care attitude give Liv a push towards rediscovering the value of taking some chances, a bittersweet turn in her emotional arc—one of the many elements that remind us that, at its core, iZombie was a story about reclaiming one’s humanity through the unlikeliest of circumstances.

It had zombies. It had murder. It had gore. But iZombie had soul.