Astroburger

"These coolers are full of brains. Now, it's a lot to absorb, I know, but I will explain everything. And don't worry, 'cause I'm gonna kill them. I'm gonna kill them all."

- Major Lilywhite

"Astroburger" is the eleventh episode of Season 1 of iZombie. It was written by Kit Boss and directed by Michael Fields. It is the eleventh episode of the series overall, and premiered on May 26, 2015.

Synopsis
When someone close to Major dies of an apparent suicide, Liv consumes the brains resulting in a mix of reality and paranoia. Clive questions Major and learns of a secret computer file that may contain important details in the investigation - and finding the killer. Blaine DeBeers and Ravi Chakrabarti also star.

Recap
Major is at the psych ward. He’s waiting on Scott E to come place chess. The guy isn’t there and Major shows up to check on his friend who is dead in a bathtub. Major screams for help. The guy slit his wrist. Clive and Liv are there at the hospital. Clive says he’s seen shivs in prison but not there. Ravi says the guy didn’t kill himself and was put into the tub already did. They go talk to Major. He says he found him around 930 and he was late for their chess game so he went to check on him.

He says only Brie was nearby and says they were just friends with benefits. Clive says an orderly said he got frustrated when Scott E beat him at chess. Major says so he killed him and tells him to take him away. Major says Scott said the devil was after him. They go talk to Dr Larson who says Scott had a psychotic break after the Lake Washington massacre. He was there and saw the entire thing. She says he and Major were thick as thieves. Liv goes to sit with Major and says she’s sorry for how Clive acted.

Major says Scott E told him something crazy and asks if she saw anything strange at the boat party. She says corpses and other stuff. Major says Scott told him he saw zombies. Liv smiles and asks if he meant real flesh eating zombies. Major says Scott told him he got them on a video on his phone and sent it to someone on local TV. He asks if it’s crazy. She’s nervous. Liv says she at least thought Major was safe there but he was close to a murder and heard about zombies.

Ravi says Scott E died from an overdose and it could have been a doctor, employee or another patient. Liv says she has to find the video so she can get rid of it. Ravi asks about Blaine and she says she has to find him first. Ravi reminds her not to mess up his date with Peyton that night. She says she’s eating a crazy brain. Ravi is at their place for dinner. He laughs at Peyton for wearing tiny shorts and then many pairs of socks.

Liv complains they didn’t send her noodles then tells Liv not to talk during Vertigo. There’s a knock at the door – it’s Major! She asks if he’s okay and he says a giant Indian threw a sink through the window and he got out (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). He says he checked himself out then says he was looking for Ravi to get a key. They invite him in to eat. Ravi gives them some meaningless Chinese food trivia. Peyton says it’s Ravi’s first time with Vertigo.

Liv doesn’t want to play it since it’s about a crazy person and Major is there. He asks if Harvey is also out. Peyton suggest Zombie High and Major says it’s okay when Liv flinches. He says he didn’t believe Scott E and then Liv sees the devil on the bag of hot Cheetos talking to her and saying that if she doesn’t get to the video first someone else will. Liv asks Ravi if he can hear the devil on the bag. Ravi says Scott’s brain must be kicking in. She listens to the devil on the bag.

Ravi asks if he can have some and the devil says – eat me. Major gets ready to leave and asks if they spoiled Ravi and Peyton’s date. She says no when they hear them giggling in her room. The bag devil starts saying dirty stuff and Liv shoves it into the trash. She offers to let Major stay the night since he was attacked at his apartment but he says it’s okay. They hug, he goes. Liv hears more dirty stuff from the devil then there’s a knock at the door.

Major is back and asks if he really have the couch. She smiles. Blaine chats up Suzuki who is picking up his food. Blaine says he wondered if he hurt Suzuki’s feelings. He says he’s past of it. Then he says they found Liz cradling Lowell when they found him and says they were dating and he wonders if Liv knew about Lowell’s plan to skewer Blaine. He says she seemed to buy it when they said it was suicide. Blaine says he prefers his information fresh.

Suzuki asks what Blaine has going on but he won’t tell him. The news comments that astronaut Alvin York is missing. Guess Blaine kidnapped him. Liv gets a flash from Scott’s brain. She calls Clive and says she thinks Scott E’s friend with benefits was trying to get pregnant and he wasn’t happy. She walks in on Major getting dressed and he says he has to find a job. She says he may need some more sleep. He seems tired. She said she’s going and he can crash in her bed.

Liv goes to the mental hospital looking for Scott E’s phone. It’s not there but she spots Blaine on the visitor list. Clive and Liv chat with Brie who talks about burning her dad’s car dealership. Clive asks her about Scott E and Liv sits to listen. Brie says they screwed regularly. Liv hears the devil and Brie says she’s a minion of the devil. Liv hears the devil telling her to join him and she asks Brie if she’s pregnant. She says she always takes her pill.

Liv asks to take a break and rushes off. Brie flirts with Clive. Liv goes to talk to the bags of hot Cheetos in the vending machine. They tell her they know who the killer is. Clive sees her talking to it and she says she lost a dollar. She comes back to the morgue and finds Blaine there. He says he’s checking on the cure progress. Ravi says he thinks Max Rager may share some clues. Ravi says they should try it and sends Liv to get a couple out of the fridge.

She goes to the fridge and sees a bunch of poison. She pours Blaine a glass and he says he ordinarily takes it from the can. He says after you and offers her the glass. She says Liv to the Max and gulps some down. Blaine then drinks and asks what happens next. Blaine asks if he’s still alive and Ravi says as much as he was. Blaine says he misses the occasional rush of adrenaline before you died. He says he needs them focused on a cure and she asks if Ravi told him about Scott E.

She says he was a Utopian dealer who went off the deep end and wonders if she knew him. He says he came by to play chess with him. She asks if Scott told him about the boat party video. He says it never came up and he wishes it had. He asks if she wants the number of a spray tan guy but she says she’s not a self hating zombie. Ravi asks if she considered all the poison. She says she couldn’t be sure what poison would do to a zombie.

Major comes to see Clive who says Dr Larson said they were tight and he wanted to ask him about it when Liv wasn’t there to interrupt. Major says they mostly just played chess and Clive asks what he talked about. He says Scott talked about how he never wanted kids because he’d screw one up but did talk about getting it. Liv finds Johnny Frost at the morgue – the local weather guy. He says he’s there to identify the body of Scott E.

She opens the drawer and pulls him out. Johnny says – poor kid – he says his parents disowned him after he was busted the first time. He says Scott was his pot dealer and he was an uncle figure to him. Liv asks if Scott ever gave Johnny a video of the Lake Washington massacre. She says it’s still an open case and they could use it. He says he knows where Scott stashed his valuables and can show her. They go to a ratty apartment while Johnny gives cheesy weather narration.

Johnny says the place has been burglarized. She says the TV and stereo are there and so is his stash. He says the photo of him is gone but she finds his laptop and says maybe it’s there. Johnny talks about watching Harold and Kumar and getting stoned. Liv finds lots of chess videos but no lake video. He says to use the laptop to find the phone. They trace it to a location of ratty apartments but they have no apartment number. Later, we see Major break into Scott’s place. He goes looking for the computer. It’s not there. Apparently Scott told him where he kept his valuables. Major hears a noise and looks down. He sees Blaine and Julien get out of the car. They head upstairs with gas cans. Julien breaks a window to get in. Julien says he can smell the weed. They pour gasoline around then hear a noise. Blaine goes to look. He sees an open window and says the wind must have blown it over. He says they should burn it to destroy a video hidden there.

Major goes to hide in the trunk of their car while they’re inside burning the place up. The car stops and Major lets himself out later. He’s outside Meat Cute. He looks inside and sees Blaine and Julien. Johnny dozes off in the car. Liv spots a guy and says she knows him from the mental hospital. She says he was there the day of the murder. They note the number on his parking spot then Liv climbs up into the guy’s place. She lets Johnny in and she says his hair is fine.

She calls the phone and they hear the toilet ringing. Liv finds the phone in a plastic bag there. She also finds a bag of pills. She’s upset that the phone needs an access code. He says he needs to use the bathroom. Liv calls Clive and says she had a vision that the orderly was stealing patient stuff and drugs. He says he needs more than a vision to get a warrant. Liv cranks up the music then calls the cops for a noise complaint while she lays out drugs.

Johnny dances like a wild man and she smiles. Liv finds Major lying in her bed. He says the job search wasn’t great and he should move to the couch but then he nods back off. She lies down beside him and he spoons her. She smiles. Her phone rings the next morning – it’s Clive. He says after they hung up, there was a noise complaint then drugs. He says to meet him at the station and says not to act surprised. They bring in the orderly and tell him he’s going to jail for intent to distribute.

The guy says he pawned a lot of it and says he would never kill anyone. Liv asks where he got the pills. He says Dr Larson wrote him a scrip so he’d keep his mouth shut. He says he walked in on Scott E and Dr L doing the deed and says she’s knocked up now. Clive and Liv are waiting on Dr Larson. Liv says they know she’s pregnant. She says she and her husband have been trying for awhile. Liv hears the devil voice and Clive says her husband won’t like raising another man’s baby while she’s in prison.

She asks why Scott was in constant fear of the devil. Clive says they have an eye witness who saw them getting it on and the baby’s DNA will tell a different story. Liv says Scott E’s family can raise the child when she’s in jail. She says Scott told her to abort the baby so it was him or the baby. Clive arrests her for killing Scott. Liv tells Major about it later and says she doesn’t get this woman. She cooks for them and then Major kisses her abruptly.

She kisses back then says whoa. He asks why they can’t be together. He says he knows she loves him. He says his head goes to dark places and asks if she cheated on him or found him boring. She says Scott was right about the zombies at the boat party. He says not to kid since he just checked out of a mental hospital. She says zombies really exist. She says one of them scratched her. He asks if she’s one. She nods with tears in her eyes. He says her hair and skin.

He says that’s why she called off the wedding. He asks if Jerome and Eddie were killed by zombies. She asks how it feels to know the truth. He says better then hugs her. She cries on his shoulder as he holds her. At Meat Cute, Blaine has the guys packing up astronaut brain for the platinum clients. He’s charging $200k each. A guy runs in and tells Blaine all the orders from his car were stolen. Blaine stabs the guy in the neck and he goes down.

He tells him to get up because they have work to do. He does. Ravi makes notes on his zombie rat. He says if he doesn’t have a cure soon, he’ll be out of luck since he’s almost out of tainted Utopian. He sees the zombie rat is better and says he’s close to a cure. Liv meets with Johnny to talk about the phone code. Liv listens to the missing astronaut news story. She says she almost froze his ass off. She sees the news guy on screen and then looks over. He fritzes out. She’s been imagining him.

She says it was always Scott E’s brain leading her around. She wonders who else could have the video. She punches in the code from the weather report and gets right into the phone. His brain was giving her a hint. She accesses the video. It shows chaos and zombies eating people. She sees herself eating someone! There’s a knock and it’s Major who asks to come in. She asks how the job search is going. She asks about what he told her but he doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

He says he has something to show her. He says he wasn’t crazy and asks if anyone else is there. He brings in a handful of Meat Cute delivery bags and says zombies are real. He says he can explain it all and says he’s going to kill them all. OMG! She didn’t tell Major about her being a zombie – she told a hallucination of Major about her being a zombie. Aww. That’s a bummer.

Starring

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

Guest Starring

 * Aly Michalka as Peyton Charles
 * Hiro Kanagawa as Lieutenant Suzuki
 * Aleks Paunovic as Julien Dupont
 * Daran Norris as Johnny Frost
 * Darryl Quon as Luta
 * Melinda Page Hamilton as Dr. Maddy Larson
 * Leah Gibson as Brie

Co-Starring

 * Tanja Dixon-Warren as Cissie
 * Bryce Hodgson as Scott E
 * Trish Allen as Bored Nurse
 * Dawn Chubai as Kathi Emerson
 * Kyle Donaldson as Aaron Lewis
 * Graeme Duffy as Nice Orderly/Jeff

Soundtrack

 * Joy to the World - Three Dog Night

Episode Connections

 * While Ravi and Peyton are on their movie date, Peyton mentions that they'll watch the movie Vertigo. That is the name of the company that published the original iZombie comic books.
 * The astronaut Alan York is a reference to a similar character in Rob Thomas's novel "Rats Saw God".
 * When asked how he escapes from the mental institution Major states he had a giant Indian throw a sink through a window. This is a direct reference to One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
 * Major makes a reference to Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia.