iZombie: The Complete Third Season

iZombie: The Complete Third Season

iZombie: The Complete Third Season, available on Tuesday, has the 13 episodes of this season on a well-priced DVD set. (The Blu-ray is available through Warner Archive. The studio, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, provided me with a free review copy of this DVD set. My opinions below are mine.)

At the end of last season, there was a massive zombie outback as military contractor Fillmore Graves took over energy drink producer (and zombie creator) Max Rager. After surviving that, season 3 brings a new honesty to the core crew, as police detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) knows that medical examiner Liv Moore (Rose McIver) and her ex-fiance Major (Robert Buckley) are zombies.

Liv (Rose McIver) and Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) in iZombie season 3

Liv (Rose McIver) and Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) in iZombie season 3

Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) has found out that his crush Peyton (Aly Michalka) slept with Blaine (David Anders), who was restored from zombie status back to human last season, but who says he can’t remember anything as a side effect of the cure. (He does spend some time as a lounge singer this season, which was great to see, given his voice.)

Fillmore Graves is training zombies to protect their own when humans finally find out they exist, and they want to set up Seattle as a “zombie homeland”. Major enlists with them — since he’s been outed (although cleared) as the Chaos Killer, he doesn’t have many job possibilities.

Major (Robert Buckley) and Ravi (Rahul Kohli) in iZombie season 3

Major (Robert Buckley) and Ravi (Rahul Kohli) in iZombie season 3

I wasn’t a huge fan of this quasi-military group and their politics that took much of the focus this season, although it did bring in Jason Dohring as Chase Graves, new leader of the group. I more enjoyed the idea of setting up a zombie speakeasy and the other cultural implications of this kind of existence.

What keeps me watching iZombie, loosely based on a comic by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, is the wonderful cast interaction as they cope with their ever-changing circumstances. What would you do for your friends, even if they were monsters?

iZombie: The Complete Third Season

I also love the sarcastic murder cases they take on, accompanied by the personality changes. Liv has to eat brains to stay non-monster, and the flashes she gets from their histories affect her behavior. (McIver does a terrific job layering these characters on top of Liv.) Particularly entertaining were the ones where Liv is

  • a new age yoga instructor
  • a club girl addicted to drama
  • a preschool teacher who was sleeping with several of his students’ mothers
  • a role-playing game master who talks her friends into gaming with her
  • a father, with Major the teenage daughter.

She also channels a dominatrix, an office gossip, and a guy who does stupid stunts on YouTube. Note that the way they prepare the brains matches the character; for instance, dad and daughter have cookout chili dogs. Yoga guy is a chai latte. The clubbing “hot mess” is a bunch of leftovers smushed together. The preschool teacher is, of course, a PB&J with the crusts cut off.

Ravi (Rahul Kohli) in iZombie season 3

Clive also gets a meaty focus episode filled with flashbacks to him bonding with his neighbor and her son, while Ravi spends time with a zombie truther conspiracy group. They’re violent crackpots, but they’re also right, which becomes more important as D-Day, Discovery Day (when humans find out that zombies exist), gets closer.

Special Features

As previously announced, the extras are minimal. Disc one only has 9 minutes of deleted scenes, most of which deal with Major’s attempt to find Natalie, the zombie forced into high-end prostitution. Another lengthy segment shows how Don E. is rounding up new customers for his club via the method of sending zombie hookers to bachelor parties.

Disc two has 3 1/2 minutes of deleted scenes from two episodes. You can access any of these per episode or all in one bunch.

The only extra on disc three is the 2016 Comic-Con Panel, 29 minutes with the main cast members (sans Buckley) and two producers. Since it took place between season 2 and 3, none of the information will be revelatory, but it’s nice to see the stars interact.

Although there are few special features, I quite enjoyed being able to binge the whole season over most of a weekend. I wish more shows were 13 episodes with a tight storyline and plenty of entertaining character interactions.



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