Grumpy Old Liv

"Death. I can't sugarcoat it. This won't be easy. But I'm here to make the process... What's the word? Palatable. It's what I do. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone with more experience. I bet ever since you got the news, you've been walking around like a zombie, am I right? Yeah. I thought so. Just know this. My number-one priority is your piece of mind. I never stop thinking about it. So, let's take this journey together. What do you say? Hmm?"

- Blaine DeBeers

"Grumpy Old Liv" is the first episode of Season 2 of iZombie. It was written by Rob Thomas and directed by Michael Fields. It is the fourteenth episode of the series overall, and premiered on October 6, 2015.

Synopsis
Liv consumes the brains of a cantankerous old man to help gain insight into his death. After receiving an anonymous call on the tipster hotline, Liv and Detective Babineax stop by the residence of Byron Thistlewaite, to question the mysterious caller. Meanwhile, Ravi suspects that Major might be experiencing a side effect of the cure, and Liv pays Blaine a surprise visit.

Recap
Liv is at the hospital unable to give blood. She goes to see her brother who still looks bad. He’s had three surgeries in three months. Her mother Eva tells her to leave Evan’s room. She says if Evan wanted to see her she’d know then accuses Liv of being on drugs and that’s why she wouldn’t donate blood for Evan’s surgery. Evan wakes and tells her to go away and to not come back. Liv says she couldn’t give Evan her blood and talks about repelling the people she loves.

Liv thinks that she needs to act more like the monster she is. A woman is out for a jog when she hears a man screaming. Liv talks to Ravi about her mom’s ire. Ravi says Major hasn’t been himself and then they’re at the crime scene. They see that the guy working on his car that the jogger saw was squashed by his car. Ravi says that why he doesn’t work on his own car. They hear the victim is an older guy named Wendell. Clive tells them the jack on his car was kicked.

They notice tracks on the pavement and then a neighbor rolls over on her scooter. She tells them Wendell was hated by most people – and was actually her brother in law. She says he got fibromyalgia 30 years ago and it wrecked his life and turned him into a horribly grumpy old man. Liv dines on some of his grouchy brains then tells Ravi that New Hope, the cure rat, hates her. Ravi says it’s not hate, she just doesn’t want to be part of Liv’s drama.

Ravi says she’s feeling sorry for herself and Liv says she has a lot to be sorry about. Liv says she’s done with relationships until she’s human again. Ravi asks about her new roommate and she says the girl works for the IRS. Ravi says they need to work on making her human again. He says he needs Utopium from the night of the massacre. He worries what could happen if the cure wears off. Liv says she had to give the cure to Blaine so he couldn’t keep making zombies.

They wonder where Blaine is and if he has any of the drug. Turns out Blaine is now a funeral director. There’s a ceremony to honor Lt Suzuki posthumously. They give the medal to his widow and talk about his heroism that saved lives when he fought off drug dealers. Clive comes to the lab and finds Liv asleep. She wakes up and he says someone called the tip line then asks if she has any vision. She tells him her vision is of her napping and him leaving her the hell alone.

Liv yells at skateboarding kids like – get off my lawn. Clive asks if she and Major are back together. She says far from and asks why. He says she’s the alibi Major gave for the Meat Cute murders. Liv says Major passed the gun residue test but Clive isn’t so sure that Major is off the hook. Liv reminds him that case is closed even though he doubts Suzuki is the hero they said. They go see the tipster Byron and he asks wasn’t the tipline anonymous. Clive says the line makes no such promise.

Liv tells him that his t-shirt is stupid. It says “t-shirts are passe.” They play the call and he says he didn’t want to get involved. He says this kid Rodney Ricks is the terror of the neighborhood and is a thug. Liv plays grumpy old man with him and Byron says Rodney was egging his house and Wendell tased him then kicked him while he was down. He shows them the upstairs room where he overheard it. Back at the lab, Liv complains to Ravi about Asian drivers.

Liv sees the name on a funeral home transfer form is John Deaux – an alias for Blaine. She goes to see him. Blaine says she inspired him to invest in a funeral home so he could find brains more easily for his clients. He eats chocolate in front of her and torments her by enjoying it. He asks why she’s still on Team Z and says morale is low and the uniforms suck. He asks if she digs being a hero then mocks her. He calls her a crime-solving zombie and a credit to her species. She says it’s not by choice.

He asks why she can’t make more cure and offers her a tour of his funeral home. Blaine asks her about the night she shot him and why Major isn’t among the listed dead and says he was sure the guy was a goner. He says Major must be a zombie and says to tell him he owes him a million bucks. Liv asks him about the tainted Utopium to make more cure. He asks why he would help her. He says he’s gone legit and is no longer a criminal. She says his cure may not be permanent.

She tells him about the dead rat from test batch one and says he’s test batch two and he may be on borrowed time. A guy comes in and says the shipment just arrived. Blaine says he’ll ask around and she says ask like his life depends on it. Liv says she doesn’t buy that he’s gone straight but he says he’s changed, hand to God. She walks out. Blaine goes downstairs to meet his guys and they have brought a coffin full of the Utopium and he says he’s going to rule Seattle with this pile of pure, uncut drugs.

Major meets a personal trainer client at the park and ignore a call from Liv. Bill admits he ate a stuffed crust pizza the night before. Some skater kids roll by and Major looks at them sadly – they remind him of the kids he used to help. He finally takes the call from Liv and she says it’s not a social call. She says Clive is all over her about the Meat Cute alibi. Liv waits for Clive and says she thinks Rodney killed Wendell but hasn’t had a vision yet. Clive says he went to see Evan about the guy who hired him at Meat Cute.

Clive shows her a sketch of Blaine. Then he shows her the same sketch from the decapitation crime. He says the name Blaine was written in Suzuki’s blood and she lies and says the guy doesn’t look familiar. Liv tells Rodney he looks like a two dollar whore because of his guyliner. Rodney says they should be looking at squirrels since they hated him. He talks about throwing seeds in the guy’s yard to bring them in since Wendell hated them.

Rodney says the guy poisoned and burned all the squirrels. They check out his bootprints which is not a match for the crime scene pic. Liv isn’t happy to see the guy is drinking Max Rager. Vaughn Du Clark, CEO of Max Rager, is on a call from the board who are concerned about the headlines about the outrageous behavior from some Max Rager consumers. Vaughn talks about Super Max and the board asks if it will have the same side effects. Vaughn says they’ll be so rich they won’t care. His assistant tells Vaughn they solved the zombie problem and have found the instrument of their destruction. He asks who and she closes the door so they can talk in private.

Major goes to see his next client and his hairs stand on end when the guy gets near. Is the new client Addis a zombie? Ravi comes home and talks to Major. He says he needs to talk to him about the house and the crap in the house. Major says a new client he trained today was a zombie but was normal looking. He says his hair stood on end and his pulse was racing. He says he had the sensation in a crowd once too and says Liv doesn’t set it off. Ravi says that’s because she domesticated him.

A guy calls Liv pale beauty and she calls the guy Tupac. Clive says Rodney could have ditched his shoes and could still be the killer. The same guy tells Liv she looks like she could use some color in her. Clive threatens to put the guy in with the Aryans and Liv calls him “one of the good ones” and Clive gets very mad at her racist comment that she insists was a compliment. Ravi calls and says there’s new side effect of the cure and tells her Major is now a zombie detector.

Liv says that must be why the rat runs from her. Liv runs into a guy and then has an image of his sister in law keying Wendell’s car and threatening him. Jimmy is there and Clive talks the guy down. Clive asks what her deal is and asks if she needs lady aspirin. She says she had a vision and Clara keyed Wendell’s car because his crappy property means she can’t sell her house. Blaine shows up to talk to the guy who cut the Utopium the night of the boat party Don E. He says he knows who cut it, but he didn’t do it.

Liv and Clive come to see Clara and they ask about her vandalizing Wendell’s car. Her ladies group says Clara was with them and they all heard the screams the night he died. One of the women offers Liv food and says she’s too skinny and pale. Liv gets a vision of Wendell poisoning a dog. Liv tells Clive once they’re outside and says the dog was a spaniel. She recalls that Byron had a squeaky toy and paintings of the dog but no dog. They wonder if Wendell killed the dog so Byron killed him.

They ask Byron where his dog is and he called the dog who comes running over. They ask about his alibi and he says he was watching soccer at a pub. Clive says Byron could have snuck out the side and killed Wendell. Clive found lost dog flyers that Byron put up and says the dog may have been gone but Byron assumed Wendell hurt the dog. He shows them more surveillance footage of Byron in the right boots. They go to Byron’s place with a warrant and he looks nervous.

Clive tells them to start in his closet. Clive asks why he didn’t mention that his dog was missing. Clive also quizzes him about the soccer match but Byron can’t list a particular. They also find the matching boots. Byron says he thought he killed his dog and says Wendell threatened to multiple times. He says she had been missing for a few days and says he had a few beers in him when he confronted Wendell who admitted to killing her. He says he kicked the car but didn’t know it would happen.

He says then he heard his dog Lana barking – Wendell had lured her into his house. Liv says Byron’s going to be in jail for 20 years for one lapse in judgment. Liv is upset to hear that no one wanted to claim Wendell’s body. Vaughn tells his assistant that zombies deserve no mercy. He talks about submarine movies and how they have to seal off part of the sub even though sailors are still alive in that section. He says the man who closes that hatch is a hero.

We see Adiss, the single dad zombie, get stabbed in the neck and re-killed by an intruder. Vaughn is talking to Major as well and says he heard that he was a human zombie detector. Vaughn says his tech guys developed an algorithm to detect those that tan regularly and spend like zombies do. He has a list of more than 320 names of potential zombies. He asks Major isn’t he the best zombie killer alive. Then Vaughn plays the call with Liv about the zombies he already killed.

Major says he won’t kill for him but Vaughn says this is his civic duty. He tells Major that he doesn’t have to start by killing Liv but they have to start somewhere. We see Major wrapping Adiss’ body in plastic, shooting him in the head twice then dumping the body off an overpass. Liv lies in bed and inventories her life – her family doesn’t want to see her and she lost her roommate and BF. There’s a knock at the door and it’s Gilda, her new roomie.

Liv goes to chat with her. It’s Vaughn’s assistant! She tells Liv they just hired a new guy at her office who’s super hot. Liv asks if she’s going to hit on him and she says yes. Gilda is watching a zombie movie and Liv looks at it and says – stupid zombie. Gilda smirks.

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

 * Steven Weber as Vaughn Du Clark
 * Molly Hagan as Eva Moore
 * Adam Rose as Byron Thistlewaite
 * Nick Purcha as Evan Moore
 * Leanne Lapp as Rita
 * Bryce Hodgson as Scott Everhart
 * Mary Black as Clara
 * Paula Shaw as Clara's Friend
 * Carmen Moore as Suzuki's Wife

Co-Starring

 * Ryan Beil as Jimmy Hahn
 * Terence Kelly as Wendell Gale
 * Daniel Martin as Husband
 * Fred Henderson as Police Captain
 * Wolsey Brooks as Uniformed Officer/Eric
 * Paul Anthony as Speedy Pete
 * Andre Tricoteux as Chief
 * Jesse Haddock as Rodney Ricks
 * Ted Cole as Tim Addis
 * Cate Sproule as Verna Addis
 * Shamus Cochlin as Kyle Addis
 * Brenda Anderson as Dealer
 * David Mott as Chunky Man/Bill
 * Tanya Champoux as Wife
 * William "Bigsleeps" Stewart as Gang Member

Soundtrack

 * All You Zombies by The Hooters
 * I'll See You to the Door by Dick Flood
 * It Was a Very Good Year by Frank Sinatra

Behind the Scenes

 * Both Molly Hagan and Steven Webber appeared on Star Trek:Deep Space Nine during its second season, albeit on different episodes.