Johnny Frost and the Joy of iZombie’s Eccentric Side Cast

Humans have been obsessed with zombies for decades, if not centuries, but the living dead have perhaps never been more popular on television than they were in the 2010s. The most prominent example was The Walking Dead (2010–2022), a cultural juggernaut with a rabid fan base and a sprawling narrative that dominated the cable networks. But there was room for lower-budget experiments and more idiosyncratic takes on the genre as well, like Netflix’s splatter-fest horror-comedy The Santa Clarita Diet (2017–2018). Somewhere in between was iZombie, a supernatural procedural dramedy that aired on The CW for five seasons. It never achieved blockbuster ratings or cultural ubiquity but developed a diehard fan following for its snappy wit, lovable cast, and offbeat premise that wedded weekly crime-solving to serialized zombie mythology.

It was based on a Vertigo comic book series of the same name by writer Chris Roberson and artist Michael Allred. The comics follow Gwen Dylan, a zombie gravedigger in Eugene, Oregon. Eating a human brain every 30 days keeps her memory and brain activity intact, and her closest confidants are a 1960s ghost and her were-terrier sidekick, Scott “Spot.” Together, they solve supernatural mysteries and battle an array of otherworldly foes like vampires, mummies, and wizards. For their TV adaptation, Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright kept the general premise but changed everything else. Set in Seattle, the primary influence from Allred was the show’s comic book-style opening titles sequence, which was accompanied by a cover of the Deadboy & The Elephant Men song “Stop, I’m Already Dead.”

Liv Moore was on her way to becoming a promising medical doctor when she and her fiancé, Major (Robert Buckley), left a boat party on Puget Sound only to find it a zombie massacre. The bloodbath had been caused by mixing a new version of the energy drink Max Rager with a contaminated batch of the designer drug Utopium. Scratched by a zombie in her escape attempt, Liv found herself the next morning on a beach inside a body bag, having been turned undead. She broke up with Major to keep him from being her next victim and soon drifted apart from her childhood best friend, Peyton (Aly Michalka), though the two of them remained friends for life. Liv also began working at the medical examiner’s office as a lab tech to keep herself supplied with brains.

Liv’s boss, Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli), soon discovered her secret. A former CDC employee canned for “questionable judgment” when he tried to warn his colleagues about the risk of such a virus, Ravi immediately took an interest in Liv as a medical anomaly, and set out to find a cure. Liv also teamed up with Detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin), who, in another one of the show’s comic touches, thought she was psychic. Liv started experiencing random flashes of memory whenever she ate a brain; in addition to personality traits (the luck of a gambler, a foreign language spoken fluently, the penchants and phobias of the recently dead), Liv also gained pieces of their memories, often enough to provide clues about their killer.

Brains, Baddies, and Beloved Characters

Every TV show needs a bad guy, and iZombie’s was Blaine DeBeers (David Anders), the zombie who bit Liv at the boat party. A drug dealer in season one, Blaine found a new calling as a brain trafficker, infecting the wealthy and making them his addicted and captive customer base. A smooth operator with a violent streak and a tragic family life, he was a sympathetic and compelling villain, and over the years, often ended up allying himself with the squad, if grudgingly.

It is in small touches like this where the comedy came through. Major’s last name was “Lillywhite,” Blaine’s butcher shop in season one was called “Meat Cute,” Ravi and Major adopted a dog named “Minor,” and a zombie bar was known as “The Scratching Post.” Fans also took joy in creating menus based on the show’s brain recipes, from Liv’s home concoctions (brainless stir-fry, pizza roll blend, brain hush puppies) to Blaine’s more upscale offerings (gnocchi stuffed with the medulla oblongata).

Another running thread was the will-they-won’t-they romance between Liv and Major. While this was supposed to be the core love story of the series, many fans favored Liv’s relationship with Lowell Tracey (Bradley James), a British rock star she dated in season one. After a zombie outbreak took away his performing career, Lowell and Liv found solidarity and understanding in their shared secret. The two of them had some touching scenes together, and his friendships with Ravi and Peyton were also fan-favorites. Lowell was killed in action when he attempted to take out Blaine, a plot point that famously earned Anders a “boycott the show” message on his Reddit profile from incensed fans.

The Show’s Decline and Cliffhanger Finale

Adapting a serial format to a cable network reality wasn’t easy for iZombie. While the first two seasons were more coherent in terms of murder mysteries, the second part of the run saw the episodes losing steam and becoming more episodic. The series finale, pushed up by The CW’s transition to The CW Max just two days after airing (an event that led to major industry turmoil and several prominent layoffs), came as a result of a rushed and last-minute cancellation and left fans with a disappointing and underwhelming send-off.

iZombie remains an endearing oddity in a decade of small-screen undead. Mixing murder-of-the-week plots with mysteries about Liv’s state, it combined savvy crime-solving, random brain puns (the character Blaine cooked in his brainhouse was played by Graham Norris, the actual brother of David Anders), and deeper character studies about life and death, love and family, one delicious brain at a time.