DVD Review: ‘iZombie: The Complete Second Season’

*Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this post. The opinions I share are my own.*

The cult favorite iZombie returns with undead morgue attendant Liv Moore (Rose McIver) and her merry band of crime solvers back for its second season with increased stakes and bigger laughs. As zombie, Moore has the ability to temporarily absorb a person’s memories and personality after eating their brains, which she uses in tandem with her morgue duties to solve murder etc. – and like any good series, iZombie really found its groove during its second season, turning into one of the most underrated gems on television.

Showrunner Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars) is known for his unique blend of snarky dialogue, humor and character development and all three were on display during Season 2. The main story arc of the season revolves around Ravi’s (Rahul Kohli) attempt to find a permanent “cure” for the zombie disease along with the nefarious Max Rager Energy Drink corporation, led by Vaughn Du Clark (Steven Weber), and their attempts to cover its zombie-creating tracks by blackmailing Major (Robert Buckley) into killing/destroying all the zombies living in Seattle.

Meanwhile, Blaine (David Anders) is trying to rebuild his criminal organization from within a funeral home cover, but finds himself injected with a temporary cure – resulting in amnesia. While that sounds like a TV cliché, Anders’ portrayal of Blaine remains a shining point of the series and he has some absolutely hysterical material to work with during Season 2.

All the story lines weave in and out during the season, while also resolving mini-arcs, and providing really fun stand-alone type episodes with Liv’s different brain personalities. Some of my favorites include Cape Town, where Liv has the brains of a street level super hero wannabe akin to Phoenix Jones, and Abra Cadaver where Liv eats of the brains of a celebrity magician.

Everything leads up to the climax-filled finale Salivation Army stuffed with gore, action, twists and a new dynamic shift for the show – oh, and a hilarious appearance from Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas, in a funny call out to iZombie‘s showrunner sharing the same name.

While the quality of iZombie‘s Season 2 episodes are top-notch, the special features are enough to leave any zombie starving for more content. The 4-disc DVD set includes all 19 episodes along with the show’s Comic-Con panel from 2015, edited down to about 30 minutes, plus a handful of mostly superfluous deleted scenes.

The deleted scenes that are probably most intriguing to fans will be a set of three from the episode The Whopper, featuring the appearance of Liv’s oddly absent (for this season) mother and brother. The gist of the scenes have Liv’s brother Evan (Nick Purcha) taking advice from his therapist and coming to confront Liv about all the lies she has kept from him since his accident, and sees the two rekindle their sibling relationship, as well as Evan’s emotional coming out to Liv.

The set does not include a digital HD copy of the season or any other special features not mentioned above – there’s not even a gag reel from the extremely funny cast. While it’s great to have the show out on DVD so fans can pimp iZombie to their friends to bolster the cult fan base, the long-time viewers won’t find much that they didn’t already see in this set when the episodes first aired on The CW.

iZombie – The Complete Second Season is available on Digital HD and on DVD and Blu-ray as of 7/12.

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