Liv and Ravi get called to an art studio to examine the body of Javier, an artist who gets a paintbrush to the eye and there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of suspects, ranging from a wife, multiple mistresses (including the 18-year old daughter of one of the artist’s friends), and a very angry ex-boyfriend. Though, it seems like there’s a bit of truth to Babineaux’s saying, “it’s always the wife.”
The pacing of the investigation, though similar to many other crime dramedies, continues to add something fun with the undead aspect and makes it a bit more character-driven in the sense that we’re seeing Liv rediscover certain aspects of herself as she eats each victim’s brain.
This week’s brain gave Liv something that she seemed to have been missing since she’s been changed…passion. From the moment she ate Javier’s brain, it seemed like Liv came to life a bit with that infusion of drive and desire to accomplish things, like completing that new painting. It’ll definitely be interesting to see how she changes from week to week as she eats another victim’s brains and if she’ll preserve parts of previous victims’ brains to keep that trait.
David Anders’ introduction as Blaine DeBeers was really entertaining as he meets Liv in the morgue and they inadvertently bond over the undead life including their lack of enjoyment out of foods and drinks they used to love and general changes in their life. It was pretty easy to see from the minute we got to meet Blaine, that though he may become a bit of an adversary for Liv, in terms of their undead ideology and how they choose to live, he might become a favorite.
We see Blaine kind of stray from how Liv has decided to live her undead life as he sells brains to Jackie, the woman he had met at a bar and then turned into a zombie. It should be fun to see these differing undead styles going through the series.
I can see this whole “eating brains leads to assuming the deceased’s personality” thing becoming a problem for Liv in the sense that while getting caught is a very real possibility, her changing her personality like this would never let her really connect to her family and ex-fiancé like she’s wanted can also be a problem.
It seems the case towards the end of the episode during the confrontation between Major and Liv. At that moment, you just can’t help but feel bad for the pair considering the circumstances. Though, Liv’s realization as a result of that moment was really great to see.