This week I’m doing something a little different for Gone Too Soon. iZombie was a show that technically lasted for five seasons on The CW, from 2015-2019, but I’m still going to make the case that it was canceled too soon. Why do I think it was gone too soon? Well I’m glad you asked. I wish that iZombie got just one more season.
Sure iZombie got an ending, but it felt rushed. The final season had a lot of spinning plates, and if given one more season I think that they would have reached an even more satisfying conclusion. Major spoilers between the gifs.
iZombie functioned as an allegory: what started as case-of-the-week procedural quickly turned into so much more, once the world found out about the existence of zombies. When the United States put up a wall around Seattle the entire show changed. The show introduced people smuggling, zombie discrimination and segregation, anti-zombie hate groups, and radical zombies who believe humans should be treated as lesser citizens. The show makes sure that everyone knows that both radical sides are wrong, and the heroes are the ones that have worked to make it possible for zombies and humans to coexist.
All of this comes to a head in the penultimate episode, and then just fizzles out. We discover so much of the plot by being told about it. Blaine, who never deserved redemption, spent the last half of the season as a cartoon villain, not the nuanced one we spent seasons loving to hate.
I like to think that one more season would have let the story lines breathe and come to a similar conclusion that it earned, but who knows it could have ended up like the revival season of Veronica Mars, be careful what you wish for.
iZombie was a mashup of crime, drama, procedural, comedy and horror. The show was based off of a DC Comic under their Vertigo imprint, the same imprint that publishes, Lucifer, Constantine, and Preacher.
The Gist
Olivia Moore (Rose McIver, who is absolutely fantastic in the role) was a normal medical resident with a great fiance, Major Lillywhite (Robert Buckley), and a bright future. Until she goes to a boat party and wakes up a zombie. She abandons her career prospects, breaks up with Major, and becomes an assistant medical examiner, confusing her family in the process.
Liv must eat brains in order to stay lucid, if not she turns into a less reasonable zombie. When she eats a brain she gains some of their memories and personality quirks that allow her to assist the Seattle P.D., Detective Clive Babineaux (Malcom Goodwin), and medical examiner Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) in solving cases.
Over the course of the show more zombies are made, cures are searched for, and nefarious groups who want to use zombies for their own means.
The show starred McIver, who just booked a new CBS pilot and was in the Christmas Prince movies and Buckley from One Tree Hill, who was just in his first Hallmark movie. You can find Kohli in the next season of The Haunting at Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor.
The show also features David Anders as Blaine. He has been in everything, from The Vampire Diaries, Once Upon a Time, and Alias as well as so many other shows. It also stars Aly Michalka, from Aly & AJ, as well as another gone too soon Hellcats. There’s also Bryce Hodgson as Don E, a great addition to the show. Keep a look out for other familiar faces that join the cast, among them Jessica Harmon from The 100 and Jason Dohring, Veronica Mars.
Should You Watch it?
Did you like the first three seasons of Veronica Mars? Are you a fan of quick wit, great characters and mysteries? Then you will love iZombie. Rob Thomas brings the best parts of VM to this show. It is a really clever show, that only falters a couple of times over the course of it’s run.
iZombie is another found family story (Are you sensing a pattern here?). There are so many characters to root for, and they are given time to be fleshed out. I also really enjoy when a show gives its characters time to hang out without the plot of the show. Who doesn’t want their favorite characters to just hang out and actually be friends every once in a while? The cast has awesome chemistry and it definitely shows.
Stand Out Moment
This contains a spoiler, but it is without a doubt the funniest part of the show.
There were some truly great brains on the series, but my absolute favorite were the Teenage Girl Brains that Major eats in season four. His interactions with Liv on the dad’s brain were funny, but his conversation with Ravi and the guys at Fillmore Graves take the cake.
Sunken Ships
I don’t have any. Sure, my favorite ship literally died (R.I.P Livwell), but at the end of the show the ships had worked themselves out. See how happy everyone can be when you let a show actually end.
(You deserved better, Lowell.)
I was never a huge Liv and Major shipper, but by the time the final season started it was pretty obvious that they were going to end up together. I mean all of Liv’s other options were dead-dead, not just zombie dead. (Lowell deserved better). I think one more season could have given Liv and Major an ending that they deserved, not just one that was a last resort. They could have really earned an ending where they found their way back to each other. Instead it felt rushed, like so many other aspects of the final season.
Ravi and Payton (my favorite endgame couple) received a happy ending following their dreams in a different city, as did Clive and Dale. No major sunken ships here.
Caution: Cliffhanger
Unlike the brutal Stitchers cliffhanger, you won’t be left hanging here. iZombie knew that it was being cancelled and gave the show an actual, if rushed, ending. So congratulations, here’s a show that was given time so that it’s fans weren’t left disappointed or angry by an unresolved ending. (*ahem* Stitchers)
As I said, though the end does happen very quickly and part of it is resolved off screen, so the abrupt ending may annoy people.
Where to Watch
You can find all five seasons of iZombie on Netflix, so what are you waiting for? All of them are pretty short, the longest season has 19 episodes and the rest have 13. It’s a relatively easy binge.
Are you happy with the way that iZombie ended? Do you wish it had one more season? Let me know what you think and check out previous shows: Daybreak, Eye Candy and Stitchers.
