Pilot

"I've been terrified about someone finding out for months and you are acting like it's the measles I've contracted."

- Olivia Moore to Ravi Chakrabarti

"Pilot" is the first episode of Season 1 of iZombie. It was written by Rob Thomas & Diane Ruggiero-Wright and directed by Rob Thomas. It is the first episode of the series overall, and premiered on March 17, 2015.

Synopsis
Olivia "Liv" Moore was a disciplined, over-achieving medical resident who had her life path completely mapped out... until she is turned into a zombie. Now stuck somewhere between half-alive and undead, Liv loses her drive and ambition. She breaks off her engagement with charming soul mate Major, fearful of infecting him with her condition. Liv transfers her medical residency to the city morgue in order to access the only form of sustenance left available to her - the only thing that allows her to maintain her humanity - brains. There are side effects to Liv's new diet: With each brain Liv consumes, she experiences "visions" - flashes of the corpse's memories - which often provide clues as to how they were killed. Her boss, the brilliant but eccentric Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti, encourages her to embrace this gift and to work with unproven homicide detective, Clive Babineaux, to help solve these murders. In doing so, Liv finds a measure of peace, and a new sense of purpose in what her "life" has now become. Blaine DeBeers also stars.

Recap
The series open in a hospital, where the overachieving Liv saves a man's life and then turns down a party invitation by her rival turned friend Marcy to be with her fiancee Major. However, despite her not enjoying parties, Major encourages her to go. Although Liv decides to go upon Major's motivation, the boat that the party is on is attacked by zombies. While trying to escape, she is scratched on the arm by a zombie and falls off the side of the boat, presumably drowning. She eventually wakes up in a body bag and notices a large scratch on her arm leftover from the zombie that attacked her, and her reanimation frightens a nearby EMT.

Five months later, a noticeably paler Liv is at the grocery store buying bottles of hot sauce and a copy of  Night of the Living Dead. When she arrives home, her roommate, Peyton, tells her that they are reinstating "Potluck Tuesday". She walks Liv into the kitchen, where Major, her brother Evan and mother Eva are waiting; Liv has broken off her engagement to Major, and she has given up her career as a medical resident for a job in the morgue. She realizes that the Potluck Tuesday is actually an intervention for Liv to change her behaviour and rethink her life decisions, and she is reprimanded by her mother for her lack of motivation for wanting to participate in the haunted house attraction (something that Liv has always taken part in and enjoyed). Liv tells her mother that she has to get to work but will try to be more social, including a visit to her mom's haunted house.

At work, Liv comes in and her co-worker Ravi are investigating the corpse of a Jane Doe, a woman who apparently having committed suicide in the back of a garbage truck. After Ravi leaves, she removes the corpse's brain and cooks it in a cup of microwave noodles with her hot sauce. While she eats, she's suddenly interrupted by Ravi, who catches her in the middle of eating the Jane Doe's brains and quickly comes to the conclusion he's been reaching for for weeks.

Ravi had suspected her condition since she started; now that he's confirmed she's a zombie, he has a million questions and is checking her vitals while they speak about her behaviour. He had worked for the CDC but was fired upon his insistence of man-made plagues and biological warfare. She explains that she eats brains to keep from becoming feral. She flashes back briefly to the night of the party, where a drug dealer named Blaine was attempting to sell her "Utopium" became a zombie and scratched her.

A cop, Detective Clive Babineaux, comes in to ask whether they have identified the Jane Doe. The answer is no -- until Liv gets a flash of the woman's memories and tells the police officer how to identify her. When Babineaux asks how she could possibly know that information, Ravi tells him that she's psychic. Liv heads to the haunted house, and while she sneaks some toy eyeballs into her pocket, she hears a scream and gets a flashback to the Jane Doe being attacked by a man she later identifies as a local weatherman.

She heads to the police station and meets up with Detective Clive Babineaux, who recruits her to come talk to the weatherman, Johnny Frost, with him. When they arrive, they show the photo to the weatherman, who reacts in such a way that Babineaux is confident he's the guy. Johnny Frost wants to send them away as soon as possible, but then when Babineaux mentions that the Jane Doe has been murdered, he shows them a website; the murder victim, named Tatiana, was an escort.

Meanwhile, Liv has been taking small objects and pocketing them. Back at the morgue, she talks with Ravi about how she doesn't believe there are any other zombies out there, when Babineaux comes to get her and bring her with him to talk with Tatiana's friends. When Tatiana's friend Tess starts speaking Romanian (she tells Clive she can't speak English), Liv starts speaking Romanian, surprising both her and Babineaux. When they ask about Tatiana, Tess asks what trouble she's gotten into, but is shocked when she's informed of Tatiana's death. Although Tess tries to shut them out, she gives them Tatiana's full name before Babineaux and Liv leave.

When Babineaux and Liv arrive, they find that Tatiana's apartment has been ransacked, but her valuables were left behind. They find Tatiana's phone, and the voicemail from the day of her death indicates that she stole something. While scouring the apartment, Liv realizes that eating Tatiana's brain has given her the ability to speak Romanian and kleptomania. She sees a vision of Tatiana's death at the hands of a man whose ring she stole, who pushes her out of her apartment window to her death. Upon returning to Tess' apartment, Tess' neighbor tells her that Tess has packed some suitcases and left, but gives Babineaux and Liv a lead on another one of Tatiana's "friends", Monica.

At the morgue, Ravi is looking at her blood under a microscope, trying to cure her infection by exposing it to bacteria. Liv is amazed that she could possibly be cured and, while he waits outside, she tells Babineaux that she can't join him on his trip to talk to Monica. Instead, she goes to see Major, hoping to rekindle their romance now that she considers the possibility of a cure. Instead, she finds him there with another girl (playing a zombie-killing video game) and runs off.

The next day, Babineaux's boss hands the case off to another cop named Pratt. Babineaux objects, saying he has leads on the other girls and that he's very close to solving the case, but his boss refuses to listen and instead tells Babineaux that he can tag along with Pratt to the interviews. Back at home, Liv is watching TV when Peyton comes in and asks if she's seen her pens. Liv answers yes and reveals that she has them all in a little pile in her drawer. Before she leaves, Peyton tells Liv off and mentions that she was willing to write her off as someone who can't be helped, but she instead tells Liv to step up her game.

Liv decides to return all her stolen things and focus on finding justice for Tatiana. She goes to the police department and is there when the other detective gets the address; then she returns to the morgue and meets Babineaux, who gives Liv a Romanian phrase to translate. She says it means "bearded pig" and Babineaux realizes that Pratt had arranged to replace him on the case as Babineaux was close to solving it. They manage to secure the address that Pratt was recording on a piece of paper using a pencil.

By the time Babineaux and Liv get the address to find Tess and Monica in a house tied up by Pratt, who is rambling about his missing ring and his wife using all of his money. Babineaux chases Pratt through the house, but Pratt eventually gets away and jumps out a window. Liv sees him escape to his car and backs her car into the driveway to stop him. He gets out and shoots her, dragging her out of the car and driving away. Babineaux sees her getting shot, but by the time he gets outside, he realizes that her corpse is missing. she's riding on top of the car, punching through the windshield and causing Pratt to crash. She's thrown from the roof and while he's unconscious, she just wakes up, filled with adrenaline, and her eyes turn blood red. Although she goes to feast on Pratt's body, Babineaux manages to catch up and stop her before she can eat his brain.

Babineaux is confused as to how Liv is alive, but she manages to halt his suspicions by claiming that she only arrived on the scene two seconds before him. After stopping to get stitched up by Ravi, she heads out to the haunted house to dress up as a zombie and play with kids. That night, she finally manages to sleep.

The next morning, she wakes up to the sound of sirens, and sees a vision of the drug dealer -- now fully a zombie -- attacking someone.

Starring

 * Rose McIver as Olivia Moore
 * Malcolm Goodwin as Detective 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
 * Molly Hagan as Eva Moore
 * Ty Olsen as Detective Pratt
 * Nick Purcha as Evan Moore
 * Daran Norris as Johnny Frost
 * Hiro Kanagawa as Lieutenant Suzuki

Co-Starring

 * Alexandra Voicu as Tatiana
 * Elysia Rotaru as Tess

Body Count

 * Olivia Moore (zombie) - scratched by Blaine at the boat party.
 * Tatiana (dead) - a prostitute killed by a detective in Clive's department.

Soundtrack

 * Stop, I'm Already Dead - Deadboy & the Elephantmen
 * Young Summer - Taken
 * Fever - The Black Keys
 * Hangover (feat. Flo-Rida) - Taio Cruz

Production Notes

 * Originally, Alexandera Krosney was cast for the role of Peyton but the role was later recast.
 * Nora Dunn was originally casted as Eva Moore.

Episode Connections

 * The Tatiana is called "Stephanie Germanotta", which is actually the singer Lady Gaga's real name.
 * When Liv goes back to her ex-fiancé's house he's playing the zombie slaying videogame "Dying Light" on the Playstation 4.
 * The KSTW 11 news van at the lake is the CW affiliate in Seattle and does not have a newscast.
 * In Liv's second flashback, we see a man yelling "Heeeeere's Johnny!", a reference to the movie The Shining.

Continuity

 * Ravi is the first person to know that Liv is a zombie.
 * Detective Clive Babineaux starts to think that Liv has visions because she is psychic.
 * The 1st time Liv enters in Full-Zombie Mode.
 * Liv sees Blaine in a dream. He was responsible for her zombism at the boat party.