Stir-Fried Brains and Hot Sauce: The Culinary Horrors of iZombie

Zombies are as immortal as we like to pretend they are. But 2010s TV gave us a zombie bonanza, with breakout hits like AMC’s prestige juggernaut The Walking Dead (2010–2022) and Netflix’s offbeat horror-comedy The Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2018). Somewhere in between those mega-blockbusters is iZombie, an undead detective procedural with crime-solving edge, macabre horror elements, and boneheaded comedy sensibilities. The CW series, which ran for five seasons, distinguished itself from the competition by finding magic in its weirdness.

iZombie was never a big mainstream hit, but it had an enthusiastic, steady fanbase thanks to smart scripts, earnest performances, and a delightful original take on the zombie formula. Series creators Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright were inspired by the Vertigo comic series iZombie, written by Chris Roberson and illustrated by Michael Allred, and the first season drew from its source material, although the connections were always a little loose. The comics focused on Gwen Dylan, a zombie gravedigger in Eugene, Oregon, who is forced to eat a human brain every 30 days to maintain her memories, and was accompanied by a ghost and a were-terrier. The TV show, on the other hand, is set in Seattle and stars Liv Moore, a type-A overachiever and pre-med medical student with an exclamation mark in her name—go ahead, roll your eyes, the casting team wants you to.

Liv’s secret is safe with Ravi until her incessant shifting in personality is revealed to be the result of eating brains. The brainiac doctor absorbs not just the memories but also the personalities of the people whose brains she eats, a catalyst for an endless parade of unique, lovable characters and a convenient hook for McIver to play an eclectic grab bag of weirdos week after week, and she shines in every brain-induced situation. Whether she’s getting into a latex bodysuit to play the perky, sassy, bullet-proof dominatrix Xion, shuffling around the office grumbling like a crusty old man, cooking books in the guise of a romance novelist, a magician full of tricks, or even channeling her inner pub trivia nerd to be a disarmingly wholesome hitman, Liv embraces each brain with empathy and earnestness.

Brains also hold the clues to the murders the corpses were victims of, which also enlists Liv into an odd partnership with Det. Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin), who—at least in the beginning—thinks she’s psychic. She also has Ravi to help her crack cases while balancing her compassion for the dead with gleeful glee at her more outrageous personality shifts (okay, maybe not when she had a PhD scientist brain; he was a little irritated by her then).

Brains, Bad Guys, and Bittersweet Goodbyes

All good shows need a villain, and iZombie found its worthy adversary in Blaine DeBeers (David Anders), the snarling, ice-cream-scooping cad responsible for scratching Liv at the party. Blaine’s comic-book smugness and dashing presence conceal a character who has no morals and is selfishly self-serving, even when it puts himself and his community in danger. His story arc is the logical and well-explained extension of a privileged rich kid who starts out dealing bad batches of the tainted Utopium drug and eventually becomes a brain trafficking kingpin to meet the demand of high society zombies who become addicted to the euphoric sensations from eating human brains. Blaine is an aristocratic hooligan with daddy issues, so of course, he’s utterly irresistible. We all wanted him to die, but I didn’t want the show to go on without him.

The iZombie machine also churned out memorable supporting characters: Jessica Harmon’s FBI agent Dale Brazzio eventually becomes Clive’s CSI partner, Bryce Hodgson’s season-one guest star Scott E. was such a fan-favorite character that the writers devised a way to bring him back as twin brother Don E., a drunk, ginormous muscle man who becomes Blaine’s sidekick. Guest stars like Daran Norris’ sleazy weatherman Johnny Frost and Steven Weber’s corporate snake oil salesman, Max Rager CEO Vaughan Du Clark (complete with zombie daughter Rita, played by Leanne Lapp) were welcome one-offs that have had lasting fan appeal and provided series-long problems too.

Seasons three through five, for all their strengths and highlights, lost some steam, and the show’s finale felt unfinished and rushed, which was especially frustrating since the actors and crew had put out a public call for fans to submit what they wanted to see in a proper send-off. But iZombie still pulled off a rarity, the ability to make an absurd concept endearing. From the clever scripts to the on-point puns (Major Lillywhite, her favorite bar is The Scratching Post, Ravi’s dog is named “Minor”) and creatively grotesque brain cuisine (brains mixed into stir-fry, baked into hush puppies, added to protein shakes), the silliness had soul.

My favorite episode, “Flight of the Living Dead,” features Liv eating the brain of free-spirited, twentysomething party girl, sorority sister Holly (Tasya Teles), a Seattle-native whose skydiving “accident” kills her and offers a special kind of reckless abandon Liv eventually channels to break free of her self-imposed limitations. The Holly brain (season 1, episode 9, if you want to watch it back to back with the one I’m recommending today) was one of several flashpoints in her journey of living again, reminders that the heart of iZombie was the story of one woman coming back to life through all the bodies, brains, and blood around her.

Yeah, there were zombies. There was also gore. Murder was never in short supply either. But there was heart.