Maternity Liv

"Please let this conversation end with you cutting the crusts off a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

- Ravi Chakrabarti to Olivia Moore

"Maternity Liv" is the seventh episode of Season 1 of iZombie. It was written by Bob Dearden and directed by Patrick Norris. It is the seventh episode of the series overall, and premiered on April 28, 2015.

Synopsis
A group of teens get a scare when a disheveled young pregnant woman approaches them muttering for help. Unfortunately, the woman doesn't survive but her baby does. Liv and Clive begin questioning suspects in her murder, and after consuming the victim’s brain, a fierce maternal instinct kicks in for Liv. Meanwhile, Major makes a shocking discovery. Ravi Chakrabarti and Blaine DeBeers also star.

Recap
A group of teenagers are drinking around a campfire. A pregnant woman stumbles into their area and starts dying, begging for help.

Later that day, the police hold a press conference to announce that the baby survived but the mother died. There's a task force that's been created to look into the death of Emily Sparrow.

At the morgue, Emily's parents identify the body, and Clive tries to talk to them but the girl's father blows him off, saying that the baby's father is responsible for the death one way or the other. Clive tells Liv that they just can't find any evidence.

Later, Liv is on the phone to complain about their broken ID card reader.

The body has a number of injuries related to walking through the forest in the dark, and during the course of their exam, Liv (having eaten some of Emily's brains) starts to get fierce maternal instincts.

At the police department, Liv tells Clive that Emily's parents had locked her up for the duration of her pregnancy to keep her boyfriend Dylan. Clive says he can't pursue it yet. He's been assigned to Dylan's interrogation.

There, the police are grilling the boyfriend, who isn't very helpful. He tells them that the night they had a fight, she hitchhiked home and while looking for her, he heard what sounded like a pack of dogs barking. Outside the interrogation room, Liv is upset that Dylan is going to get the custody of the kid.

Major calls Clive to ask for help with the missing kids. Clive tells him that he can't help right now, and that until there's some evidence, nobody in homicide wants to see a bunch of unsolved murders go up on the board. A reporter who's on speakerphone with Major asks Clive a gotcha question, and Clive hangs up; she tells Major that if they want to catch the Candyman, they'll have to do it themselves.

At the morgue, Liv is cradling one of the lab rats, her maternal instincts taking over again. Ravi admits to Liv that he told Major about Lowell (the boyfriend part, not the zombie part). Lowell arrives and the two men exchange some small talk about the UK.

Later, Ravi is running tests on Lowell and reveals that he believes the zombie virus is caused by a combination of a bad batch of Utopium and an unlisted ingredient in the Max Rager energy drink. He shows Lowell his lab rats, on which he's experimenting through trial and error. Lowell excuses himself to go back to the studio; he's got a date with Liv, but he isn't particularly affectionate before he leaves. She becomes worried that she gave their relationship too much credit, and asks Ravi what he thinks; he doesn't want to talk about it.

Clive comes in, revealing that he's in trouble at work and has been demoted to paperwork detail after the newspaper used the quote from what he thought was a private conversation with Major. He blames Liv for making the introduction.

At the hospital, Liv goes to visit the baby again. There, Emily's parents are there lingering around the NICU. Liv goes to see her mom, and finds her brother in the office as well. When her mom tries to get her brother to get a part time job, Liv sides with their mom, confusing her brother.

At the police department, Clive is being harassed by other cops, when he notices a clue in some paperwork. Clive heads to a house where they suspect Emily may have been kept during her pregnancy; it's the same house where Liv saw the family fighting in her vision. Clive says they can't go in without probable cause, and there's a banging noise inside. They go to the basement, where they find a handcrafted wood cradle. A group of dogs start barking upstairs.

Clive pulls his gun, and Liv has another vision: Emily watching a man from through slats while dogs bark.

Clive answers a cell phone call; it's Emily's father, saying that there's been a break-in at his cabin. Clive admits it's them. Later, they all talk upstairs, Clive asking why Emily's father started making the crib just weeks after his daughter vanished. He says it was about keeping hope alive, but that it was pointless since Dylan will never give up custody. Emily's parents say that Dylan was a bad influence on their daughter, and that they didn't react well.

Liv tells Clive that she thinks her vision wasn't the Sparrows' dogs; she believes it was an animal control truck. Clive asks for employment records, and an animal control officer comes with them. None of the pictures match. They ask if anyoine's been fired in the last eight months, but the only person who has was arrested four months ago and is almost certainly not their guy.

At her apartment, Liv kisses Lowell to shut him up when he starts rambling about Zombieland. She's offended when he doesn't actually seem to enjoy the kiss. Lowell had eaten the brain of a gay man. This means their date will be basically drinking, girl talk and dancing before he goes home without doing anything physical.

Back at the NICU, Liv realizes that she'll never be a mother because of being a zombie, and that when Dylan finally comes to take the baby, it's going to hurt her. When she sees a nurse, she gets a vision; Emily was jumping out of a window to escape a house where a pair of other girls say "she'll catch you." Liv goes to see Clive and tells him that they're probably looking for a couple, not just a man. Clive has already done some research of his own and found out that the female animal control officer who came to see them earlier has a husband who was an ex-con.

Sitting in his car, Major has followed one of Blaine's goons, who is on a delivery at a tanning salon. The reporter says she can't do much withotu the man's name, so Major breaks into the driver's car. He rifles through the vehicle looking for anything with a name on it, and along the way finds some Tupperware with a brain in it. While he's doing so, he is spotted by the police, who arrest him for breaking into the car. Major tells the police that he saw a human brain in the guy's car, but when the police search the ice chest, Julian (the goon) convinces them that it's a calf brain from the butcher shop.

While Clive and Liv are staking out the animal control officer's house, someone starts shooting at them and they have to drive away. When backup arrives, Clive leaves Liv in a car, and Liv sees a treehouse nearby that matches where the girls were being kept in her vision. While the police storm the house where the gunman is, Liv heads for the treehouse. Clive's commanding officer goes in alone, telling the others to wait for his signal. Inside, he's shot and goes into full-on zombie mode, tearing the refigerator door off its hinges and using it as a shield to shoot down the animal control officer's husband. Liv is shot while trying to free the girls in the yard, and also goes full-on zombie, tearing the door off the tree house. Upstairs in the house, the lieutenant shoots the animal control officer several times after she surrenders. In the treehouse, Liv finds bunkbeds and captives hiding under the beds. When the lieutenant sees Liv's injury, he seems to figure out that she's a zombie too, although he says nothing.

Later, at a press conference, the lieutenant tells the press that the animal control agents had been engaged in a cult-like lifestyle where the kidnapped girls were sister wives and there were human sacrifices. A number of the missing kids from the skate park are found on and around the property. Emily's boyfriend boasts to Clive about how he's segued his profile into a reality show. Liv dresses him down before he leaves. She goes to the hospital to see the baby one last time and sees Dylan handing it over to the Sparrows, who shake his hand and see him off. Liv's words apparently changed his mind.

Elsewhere, Major is locked in a cell with a trio of big men as "a little thank you" for the newspaper article on the police ignoring the missing kids.

At her mother's house, Liv is sharing some time with her family while she still has maternity brain. She leaves work to see Lowell without noticing that one of the lab rats has killed and eaten the others.

Starring

 * Rose McIver as Olivia Moore
 * Malcolm Goodwin as Clive Babineaux
 * Rahul Kohli as Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti
 * Robert Buckley as Major Lilywhite

Guest Starring

 * Bradley James as Lowell Tracey
 * Molly Hagan as Eva Moore
 * Hiro Kanagawa as Lieutenant Suzuki
 * Nick Purcha as Evan Moore
 * Fulvio Cecere as Detective Flynn
 * Aleks Paunovic as Julien Dupont
 * Barclay Hope as Mr. Sparrow
 * Teryl Rothery as Mrs. Sparrow
 * Chad Rook as Dylan Munson

Co-Starring

 * Sunita Prasad as Rebecca Hinton
 * Anja Saycic as Emily Sparrow
 * Enid-Raye Adams as Margo Shepherd
 * Charles Andre as Mark Shepherd
 * Darren Mann as Senior Boy
 * Cleome Hope as Junior Girl
 * Katie Hayashida as Kidnapped Girl #1
 * Maddie Phillips as Kidnapped Girl #2
 * O.L. Bramble as Beat Cop
 * Aaron Hutchinson as Duty Officer
 * Mike Meneer as Tactless Reporter

Soundtrack

 * Zombies by Radiation City
 * Girl Is a Queen by Splash
 * The Heart It Beats the Thunder Rolls by The Wind and The Wave
 * Cursed by English Teeth

Episode Connections

 * The episode includes several references to Joss Whedon´s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The references includes a pastiche on Oz band Dingoes Ate My Baby. During an interegation a suspect refers to the death of his ex girlfriend as "Dingoes ate my girlfriend" and some minutes later the camera zooms into a newspaper article and especially the word "spike", Spike being a main character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
 * Olivia makes a reference to Rumplestiltskin, a character featured in ABC's Once Upon A Time - which Rose McIver starred in as Tinker Bell. Also, Olivia mentions that Rumplestiltskin makes deals to take a person's first born child - something that happened on Once Upon A Time.