Identity, Isolation, and Hot Sauce: The Themes Behind iZombie

The zombie apocalypse has been a regular feature of pop culture for decades, but it exploded in the 2010s, when it became a cultural juggernaut on TV. From megahit series The Walking Dead (2010–2022) to weirdo experiments like Netflix’s horror-comedy The Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2018), they were everywhere. There was also iZombie, a supernatural procedural dramedy that was a critical and commercial mediocrity, but a modest hit that inspired rabid devotion from its fans.

Broadcast on The CW for five seasons, the show was just a curiosity for many viewers, but for those who dug in, it quickly became something special. It offered a clever mixture of snappy humor, likeable characters, some truly gruesome crime-solving, and a steady diet of zombie mythology that fed into one big seasonal arc.

The show centered around an aspiring doctor named Liv Moore (Rose McIver). Her life changed forever when a party on a rented boat was interrupted by a wave of violence, which was due to someone mixing the energy drink Max Rager with a batch of designer drug Utopium. Scratched and bitten by a zombie while fleeing the chaos, Liv found herself newly undead and disoriented in a body bag on a beach the next morning, with a hunger for brains. She broke up with her fiancé, Major (Robert Buckley), to protect him from the truth, distanced herself from her best friend Peyton (Aly Michalka), and took a job at the medical examiner’s office to stay close to brains.

Liv’s boss, Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli), uncovered her secret, and rather than panicking or reporting her to the authorities, he became obsessed and promised to figure out a cure. Liv also partnered with Detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin), who was convinced that Liv was psychic. The twist was that Liv learned everything the brain donor had learned in life, down to little personality quirks and secrets they didn’t even know about themselves. Whenever Liv ate a brain, she experienced snippets of the donor’s memories that provided insight into their death. Some of these traits were immediately useful, like fluency in a foreign language, while others were challenging for Liv to handle, like debilitating phobias.

Brains, Baddies, and Great Characters

Each show needs a good bad guy, and iZombie found one in Blaine DeBeers (David Anders). Blaine, a drug dealer, created the Utopium used at the boat party that Liv survived, and when that business went bust, he began dealing brains. By infecting the brains of the wealthy elite and using a delivery system similar to a pharmacy drug subscription service, he created a steady stream of high-end brain addicts that he could then regularly service. He was charming and devious, while also suffering from deep family issues, which made him a showstopper for any episode he appeared in, for better or for worse. Blaine was also an occasional reluctant ally.

The show also had a light touch with romantic storylines. Major was intended to be the show’s central love interest, but fans found Liv’s first-season relationship with Lowell Tracey (Bradley James) far more appealing. Lowell, a British musician and poet whose zombie status ended his career, bonded with Liv over their mutual secrets. Lowell also had a friendly bromance with Ravi, which some fans considered the highlight of the season. Unfortunately for those fans, Lowell was killed when he got in over his head trying to take out Blaine, which many also felt was a decision by the writers that completely ignored fan response.

As the show’s seasons progressed, several other colorful characters joined the cast. Jessica Harmon’s Dale Bozzio went from an FBI forensics investigator to Clive’s partner. Bryce Hodgson first guest-starred as Scott E., a patient in a mental hospital, before returning as twin brother Don E., as part of Blaine’s operation. Several guests also showed up to spice things up a bit, like Daran Norris as sleazy weatherman Johnny Frost or Steven Weber as Max Rager CEO Vaughan du Clark. Rita (Leanne Lapp), his daughter, was so ghoulishly perfect that she met a gruesome end in the second-season finale. She ate her father’s brains after becoming “full Romero” (reanimated, but with cannibalistic instincts) before the authorities killed her.

One of the most consistently fun and interesting parts of iZombie was Liv’s various personalities, which changed based on the brains she ate. A dominatrix, a curmudgeonly old man, a LARP-ing Medieval professor, a kids’ basketball coach, a “sexy librarian,” and so many more, McIver brought it each week with performances that could be either a moment of whimsical comedy or honest emotion. Other times, the brain transfer was just there for giggles. Lowell eating the brain of a gay man before a date with Liv was a running joke, as was Liv, Blaine, and Don E. sharing conspiratorial theories after eating paranoia-inducing brains.

In one of the season’s best episodes, Liv ate the brain of a vivacious young woman named Holly (Tasya Teles), an ex-sorority sister who she knew had skydived to her death in what was at best an accident. Experiencing her old friend’s penchant for risk-taking and zest for life through Holly’s brain was what Liv needed to take back a little of her own life that she had given up when she became a zombie.

The show didn’t have its sharpest focus in the later seasons, and its finale felt both rushed and unsatisfying, but the charm, the creativity, and the characters on the show gave it a strong and lasting appeal among its fans. It proved there was room in the zombie genre for a weekly murder mystery show about mayhem and mystery, spiked with heaps of puns and stirred with heart—one tasty brain at a time.