What is iZombie about?
Olivia “Liv” Moore was a rosy-cheeked, disciplined, over-achieving medical resident who had her life path completely mapped out…until the night she attended a party that unexpectedly turned into a zombie feeding frenzy. Now as one of the newly undead, Liv is doing her best to blend in and look as human as possible. Her appearance passes for “Goth,” with shockingly pale skin and nearly white hair, and her demeanor has gone from exuberant to exhausted.
The change in Liv is baffling to her former fiancé, Major, her mother, Eva, and her best friend and roommate, Peyton, who still has the high-energy, Type-A personality that Liv has completely abandoned. Despite her post-traumatic ennui, Liv has devised a clever way to resist her baser urges to devour fresh human brains – she’s taken a job in the Seattle coroner’s office. In this appropriately dead-end job, Liv can secretly snack on the brains of the many Jane and John Doe corpses that make a final stop in the morgue. Despite carefully covering her tracks, Liv’s brilliant but eccentric boss, Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti, discovers her secret and is surprisingly excited about the scientific possibilities. Dr. Ravi even helps Liv in her search for Blaine, the zombie responsible for her current undead status.
Even with her boss’ enthusiasm, Liv remains resigned to an eternity as a zombie without hope or purpose – until she realizes that with every brain she consumes, she retains a portion of that person’s memories. Liv suddenly begins to experience disturbing and often violent visions from the point of view of the murder victims. Much to the surprise of Dr. Ravi and homicide detective Clive Babineaux, Liv often has detailed knowledge of crime scenes and motives that she can’t easily explain. Posing as a psychic, she works with Detective Babineaux to investigate these crimes and discover who is responsible. It’s not the same as being alive again, but at least she can find purpose in her undead existence by helping Clive solve the murders of those who are indeed fully dead.
Who are the main characters?
- Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti – Ravi is a Medical Examiner with the King County Medical Examiner’s Office. He also becomes Liv’s friend, partner, and confidante, and their relationship is a mutually-beneficial, yet unlikely, friendship that proves to be as solid as they come.
- Clive Babineaux – Clive is a detective with the Seattle Police Department who is partnered with Olivia Moore, an Assistant M.E. with the King County Medical Examiner’s Office. As a detective who recently received a promotion from vice to homicide, Clive has been floundering for his first two months and is in desperate need of making a case. Though dubious at first about Liv’s “psychic” powers, she demonstrates too much accuracy for him not to take her seriously. He has now learned of the existence of zombies.
- Olivia “Liv” Moore, M.D. – Liv is a medical resident who was scratched by a zombie on a disastrous boat party and woke up as a zombie. As a result, at least once a month, she must feed on brains to survive. She took a job at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office in order to have access to the brains she needs. With each brain eaten, she absorbs new memories and traits. She then begins to solve the deaths of the victims whose brains she’s eaten. She also turns to Seattle PD Detective Clive Babineaux who used to think the visions were Liv’s psychic powers, but now knows she is a zombie.
- Blaine DeBeers – Blaine was a zombie in Season 1, but was cured and is now human. He is the zombie who turned Liv, and he ran the underground brain-delivery service in Seattle out of the butcher shop Meat Cute. Now that he’s human again, Blaine runs Shady Plots funeral home that doubles as a cover for his continued brain harvesting and selling activity.
- Major Lilywhite – Major is a seemingly perfect former college football player-turned-social worker. Major was engaged to Olivia Moore, with whom he’s trying to remain friends despite still being in love with her.