Rose McIver’s Many Faces: Why iZombie Was a Showcase for Talent

Zombies, of course, have been fixtures in pop culture for decades. But on TV, they particularly experienced a boom in the 2010s, from megahits like The Walking Dead (2010–2022) to more idiosyncratic experiments like Netflix’s horror-comedy Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2018). In that latter category falls iZombie, a supernatural procedural dramedy about a zombie who solves crimes and solves people’s brains with equal aplomb. The five-season series aired on The CW and never became a breakout hit, but it managed to find a die-hard cult audience in viewers who appreciated its wit, its likeable characters, and its particular mix of weekly procedural whodunits with longer arcs that explored the world and mythology of the living dead.

The CW series was very loosely inspired by a Vertigo comic of the same name by writer Chris Roberson and artist Michael Allred. In the comics, a zombie gravedigger named Gwen Dylan lives and works in Eugene, Oregon, where she must eat a brain every 30 days to retain her memories and mental acuity. She has two companions, a 1960s ghost and a were-terrier named Scott “Spot,” and the three of them find themselves continually investigating strange supernatural cases, including vampires, mummies, aliens, and more. In the TV series, the concept of a brain-eating zombie cop was created by writers Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright, but that’s about all they left over from the comics. Set in Seattle, Thomas and Ruggiero-Wright’s version was infused with some of Allred’s comic-book stylings in its stylized opening credits, and its opening theme was a cover of “Stop, I’m Already Dead” by Deadboy & The Elephant Men.

The story followed Liv Moore (Rose McIver), an overachieving med-school student who was out on a boat party when an outbreak occurred on the vessel. Mixing an energy drink called Max Rager and a tainted strain of the designer drug Utopium, the virus in the blood becomes airborne, and several people on the boat are killed. Liv gets scratched by one of the newly-zombified people and, after an hour in a body bag on the beach, is herself newly undead with an appetite for human brains.

Liv’s boss at the morgue, Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli), eventually discovers the source of her new appetite. Ravi, who once got canned from the CDC for sounding the alarm on such a virus, is not at all repulsed or alarmed by the discovery but is instead enthralled and takes it upon himself to find a cure. Meanwhile, Liv begins work with Detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin), who is convinced Liv is psychic. It turns out that her intuition is correct, in that whenever she eats a brain, she also experiences flashes of the dead person’s memories. She also takes on their mannerisms and various personality traits, be they useful (foreign language skills, musical talent) or potentially disastrous (phobias, fetishes, rage issues) that are also usually the key to the whodunnit at hand.

Brains, Baddies, and the Many Characters That Stuck With Fans

Few TV shows can function without a villain, or at least an antagonist, and iZombie was no exception. For the show’s first several seasons, its major bad guy was Blaine DeBeers (David Anders), the zombie who bit Liv and turned her back at the start of the series during the boat party. A dealer of the tainted Utopium from the pilot, he later switched to brains and began infecting high-end clientele to ensure a steady supply of new, dependent customers. Charismatic, manipulative, and damaged by his family history, Blaine was as much an antihero as he was a villain, and for much of the series, an unwilling ally.

As far as comedy goes, it was in the details. Major’s last name was “Lillywhite,” Blaine owned a butcher shop in season one called “Meat Cute,” Ravi and Major’s pet name for their adopted dog was “Minor,” and there was a zombie bar called “The Scratching Post.” Fans also frequently cited the TV series’ brain-based recipes, from Liv’s stir-fry, pizza roll amalgamations, and hush puppies to Blaine’s upscale stuffed medulla oblongata gnocchi.

The most consistently fun element, however, was the vast array of personalities that Liv took on from the people whose brains she consumed. At first it was people she met in her cases, but she also ate the brains of her best friend Peyton, the hardboiled soldier “Rooster” Conner, the 101-year-old Sally, and more, with McIver skillfully mimicking characters from a dominatrix, to a curmudgeonly elderly man, to a LARPing expert on medieval history, to a kids’ basketball coach. In some episodes, it was purely for comic effect, like Lowell eating the brain of a gay man before taking Liv on a date, or Liv, Blaine, and Don E. becoming conspiracy theorists after eating the brains of paranoia-induced victims.

In the fantastic episode “Flight of the Living Dead,” Liv eats the brain of Holly, an old sorority sister who died in a mysterious skydiving accident. Holly, played by Tasya Teles, was adventurous and always lived life to the fullest, traits that Liv has lost in the wake of her transformation and tragic past. Liv being Holly is a reminder that the person she used to be is still there, just buried deep underneath all the different people’s brains she has eaten and their memories, traits, and fears.