1.2 Brother, Can You Spare A Brain? Hence Blaine (David Anders), a fellow zombie and someone who appears to be the series’ first ongoing villain. He’s great for a number of very clear reasons, and he dominates episode two with snark, charm and menace that sets us up nicely for whatever shenanigans he plans to get up to over the course of the upcoming season. In another echo of Tru Calling (aside from, you know, the entire premise), Blaine comes into the morgue as an ally and potential friend for Liv, offering insight into her condition, someone to talk to on the same level, and possibly even someone who knows what happened to her that night on the boat. But he’s somewhat responsible, and Liv knows it. She’s a Rob Thomas heroine, after all, and doesn’t trust suspicious people. There’s also the underlying possibility that he wants to bring about the zombie apocalypse, so we can’t rule that out just yet either. He’s the only other undead character we’ve met, including in flashbacks, so he certainly knows more than he’s saying. But without Blaine, it really would be your typical episode two, with Liv eating brains that set her on a case, which she solves with the help of Clive and Ravi. Her powers are fleshed out a little more, as we discover that she not only gets the memories of her dinner’s former host, but also some of the personality traits. It’s a shortcut to development, though, and that’s rarely as good as the real thing. The show wants Liv to reawaken to the beauty around her, when in life she was always wrapped up in her ambition, but she gets there by taking on the personality of a skeezy artist who was cheating on his wife with his agent’s daughter. It’s funny, at points, but when done on a weekly basis there’s a chance we’ll lose the real Liv in the process. I’m not too worried, though, as Liv is still an absolute delight in those moments where she gets to be herself, and this episode did a good job of having Clive and Ravi around in the background without them feeling superfluous. Major, Liv’s jilted fiancé, also got some more to do this week, endearing the audience to him by simply rejecting his ex’s advances. He may just break the curse of the bland TV love interest, even if it’s too soon to tell for sure. So this was a good example of a follow-up episode, as follow-up episodes go. Blaine’s a good addition and everything to love about the pilot is still here in episode two. Despite my concerns, the show is still a confident, exciting genre show that’s doing stuff we’re not seeing right now, and for that I’ll forgive a lot. Read Caroline’s review of the previous episode, Pilot, here.
