After an stellar begin to Season 5, iZombie staggers in the second portion of its last season. As referenced in a week ago's audit, this show has completed an amazing and eager occupation of gradually moving its setting from "certifiable Seattle" with a couple of zombies anywhere to a post-zombie-episode, walled New Seattle under military law.

The season debut was an ace class in adjusting the divergent tones of the show's peculiar, now and then impractically disapproved of homicide of-the-week components and its "we're living under a zombie organization's military law and a periphery bunch is gradually executing zombie warriors" components. "Deadlift" isn't as fruitful.

To be reasonable, "Deadlift" has a great deal of—something over the top—plot to cover. Through the span of this episode, Jordan is executed by the Dead Enders, The Foster Kids make it into New Seattle with Baron slaughtered simultaneously, Liv and Clive discover the comfort store murder was a deception and spread it up, Major professes to execute a portion of his mutinous representatives however frosts them rather, Liv and Major have a "sentimental" supper, we check in with Peyton and Ravi's sexual coexistence, Liv eats the cerebrum of a weightlifter, Oliver turns into a zombie and after that makes his pre-youngster encourage sisters zombies as well, and (fairly counter-intuitively) Peyton pitches the naming rights to the Space Needle. Gracious, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is there, as well.

It's a lot for one episode, and "Deadlift" clasps under the weight. It doesn't support that, in every storyline, iZombie attempts to utilize zombie-ism as a representation for an alternate underestimated network, in the process featuring exactly how hazardous the show's sociopolitical examination can be the point at which it gets excessively explicit without taking every necessary step to acquire any sort of particularity.

In this episode, iZombie endeavors to utilize zombie-ism as a representation for a large number of things—from strangeness to exiles to race—and, in doing as such, its political and social studies are extended unsafely slim. One of the central issue with comparing zombie-ism with genuine underestimated networks is that, in the realm of this show, the zombies we know have a unimaginable measure of institutional power.

Major is responsible for the corporate armed force that polices New Seattle. Blaine has control of the cerebrum supply, making him both the richest and most dominant criminal around the local area. Liv, who is closest companions with the acting civic chairman and great companions with Lieutenant Bozzio, has unfathomably solid associations with the regional government. In geneal, their social gathering pretty much controls this city—a reality that is especially clear in scenes like the one that happens in the third demonstration of the episode wherein Liv's social gathering fundamentally chooses to mislead the general population they have, in different faculties, vowed to serve.

The gang decide to cover up what really happened with the convenience store murder, finding two desperate people to take the fall in exchange for passage out of the city. (I guess the city's justice system is just as opaque as everything else, and therefore people won't ask any questions about why the two people arrested for this crime have not appeared in court? This also implies there is no free and/or independent press in this city, which, frankly, doesn't surprise me.)

iZombie's attempt to equate zombie-ism with real-world marginalized communities is further problematically complicated by the show also trying to explore the identity of zombie members of Fillmore Graves' private army as police-like entities. There are enough shows on TV that glorify the work of police officers; we don't need iZombie to half-heartedly do it, too, especially while it is simultaneously trying to use zombie-ism as a metaphor for blackness. It's really not a good look.

Liv's friend group represents a straight-up oligarchy and, while that could be a fascinating story to explore (especially in relation to our country's own oligarchical tendencies), the show seems to have very little self-awareness of how terrifying it is that this one social group—one that has not been elected (not even Peyton)—has so much power and operates with very little transparency or accountability.

Showing that Major grapples with the frightening amount of power he has is not enough to discount the fact that he is one dude who is in charge of the private miltary force occupying the city. Frankly, I don't really care if he is trying or feels bad about it. If the show wants us to see him as some kind of hero figure, then he needs to do more—like find ways to dismantle Fillmore Graves as an organization without destablizing the city anymore than it already has been.

In many (albeit different) ways, Fillmore Graves is just as scary as the Dead Enders terrorist organization, but, unlike the Dead Enders and their white nationalist tactics, iZombie doesn't seem to be aware of it. They know that rogue Fillmore Graves employees can be very dangerous, but they don't seem to have a problem with the institution as a whole—at least not yet. This isn't surprisingly given that, as a culture, we are not very good at critiquing the U.S. military or the police. Instead, shutting down the conversation before it ever begins, and calling any challenge of either institution's tactics or degree of power and access to resources as anti-American.

I didn't expect iZombie to give us any kind of nuanced take on that deep-seated cultural norm, but I also won't let them play Major off as a sympathetic character just because he isn't as bad as his employees who spend their off-duty time murdering people. I continue to praise iZombie's ambitions. I just hope that, as this final season progresses, they understand where their storytelling lane is and stay in it.

Additional thoughts.

It's like: of course Peyton's boyfriend's buddy got the commerical contract from the city.

Hi, Zombie! is a good name, though.

I guess we're trying to make Liv and Major happen again? I've always wanted to root for these two, but, in the end, this show has rarely prioritized their dynamic, perhaps because these actors don't have a lot of chemistry together. Frankly, they both have more chemistry with Ravi than they do with one another. To put it in Veronica Mars terms, they are much closer to being a Veronica/Duncan than they are to being a Veronica/Logan, and I'd rather the final season of iZombie spend more time on other, better storylines than this one.

"We are an occupying force."

No Blaine this episode.