Well I missed a review for last week’s show so I’ll touch on that before I get to what happened this week. Last week was largely the same as the pilot. It built on the exact same formulas and relationships established in the pilot and failed to expand in any discernible way. It could best be described as ‘an episode of this show’ and didn’t succeed or fail in any interesting or comment worthy way. I couldn’t really think of anything else to say about the show so I didn’t, but needless to say if you liked the pilot then you’d like episode 2 because it’s just more of the same. Other than introducing us to our series antagonist not much noteworthy happened so no notes were taken. This episode is largely the same yet again. This show fell into formula fast and hasn’t really gotten back that interpersonal character interaction that got me going in the pilot. The relationships are still their but there isn’t as much of them. Liv and her boss haven’t spent a whole lot of time together and they’ve managed to really mute the charm he exuded before. The detective has gone from interesting to incompetent and I’d be hard pressed to tell you anything about him that has stood out in the last two episodes. My primary feeling during this episode was boredom.
They do manage to pull out a few interesting character moments from this week’s brain when Liv eats a hitman. They use her cold, calculating heel turn to ask questions about humanity and feeling emotion versus not feeling emotion and play with the idea of which is truly better. The moments that it was the focus were probably the most interesting moments of the show. Usually those brain moments are the most interesting thing about the show because if it weren’t for those this would be no different than, say, Bones but with a supernatural element.
The pilot was so good. Everyone was on point, the characters had chemistry the plot was sharp and the premise was unique but we’ve already hit the routine in this procedural and we’re only 3 episodes in! I was expecting a lot more after than first impression and it’s a shame it hasn’t been able to live up to that but maybe they’re building up to something. They could be saving the best for last and I hope that’s the case because if I’m going to watch it I’d like to enjoy it.
Score: 2/5
Watch iZombie on CW, Tuesday 9/8 C