iZombie Needs A Stronger Lead Character

A while back, I posted the preview trailer for the new comic book adaptation from the CW called iZombie.

It was obvious from that short, three minute clip it was a crime procedural with a twist, along the same lines as Monk or Psych.

But iZombie’s crime solver is a lady zombie. And as Hollywood likes to believe, one change makes it totally different from other shows.

Keep in mind I haven’t read any of the comics from which this show is based from. I’m strictly talking about the TV show.

Throughout the majority of the season, the show has been predictable but fun. They follow a strict formula.

A dead body comes into the morgue. The lady zombie, Liv Moore (see what they did there?) eats the victim’s brain, sees some of their memories, then runs off to help the Seattle PD solve a murder.

Liv also adapts some of the victim’s personality traits, which has been a lot of fun up until the last few episodes.

Crime solving Liz is confident and clever. That ALL goes down the drain when the show focuses on her story line.

That’s when the character is shy, indecisive, and the stereotypical weak female character.

Warning: Spoilers Ahoy

Liv has been reserved since the show began. Which is understandable as she’s turned into a zombie at the beginning of the first episode.

I understand that. Her entire world was turned upside down and as well-adjusted as I like to think I am, I’d have a hard time adjusting to that change as well. So Liv gets a pass there.

But she doesn’t get a pass in episode 9, “Patriot Brains.” In this episode, the show’s victim was an ex-military sniper. She eats his brains and get’s some of his personality and his sharp shooting ability.

She enlists her boyfriend’s help and plans to take out the show’s main bad guy, another zombie, who has been killing the homeless and selling their brains to rich zombies.

Everything is going to plan until she chickens out. Her boyfriend tries to take the villain out, but it backfires and he ends up dead.

She had the snipers memories and attitude. She knew how to put together a high-powered rifle. The bad guy was in the scope’s cross-hairs. A sniper, even a zombie sniper, would have taken the shot.

There’s strike one.

Strike’s two and three are in the following episode, “Mr. Berserk.”

Strike two came when she let her ex-fiance, Major, commit himself to a psychiatric ward.

Major was a counselor for troubled kids, and when one of them went missing, he sets out to find out what happened. He catches on to the brain delivery service (but not the zombies?) which lands him a lot of trouble.

But when he turns to his friends, Liv specifically, no one believes a word of what he says. Even though Liv and Major’s roommate know different.

So instead of telling him the truth, she and Major’s roommate let the poor, dumb bastard think he’s going nuts.

Then there’s strike three.

Toward the end of the episode, Liv’s in a dangerous spot. She’s been nabbed by a contracted killer. Why she’s been kidnaped is a long story, but she gets out of it and escapes while turning the psychopath into another zombie.

She didn’t kill the guy. She knows she’s a zombie. There’s a scene in the first episode where  Liv is sulking on her couch watching Night of the Living Dead.

She watched the hitman take a small dab of her blood and put it in his mouth while she was incapacitated. Liv knows how this zombie stuff works. Kill the bastard. But she didn’t.  She got away as fast as possible.

Why the hell was she running away? She’s a zombie. She could take the hitman out in three seconds and have a snack afterward.  There was nothing about that scene that made sense.

Unarmed human vs Zombie. We’ve seen it a thousand times. The zombie almost always wins unless it’s a crime procedural on the CW.

iZombie is a cute show that’s perfect for putting the brain on cruise control. But that doesn’t excuse the main character from being weak or indecisive. The writers can’t let these characters fall into some cliched stereotype more than they already have.

Give Liv Moore some lady balls and let’s see her crack some heads.