iZombie kicks off its third season this Tuesday and while things are looking more hopeful for Liv and her friends in some respects, there are plenty of new concerns as well – most notably a group that claims to have Liv’s best interests at heart, but whose actual plan remains murky and questionable.
On a visit to the Vancouver set of the series -- where cast members working that day took time during their respective breaks to sit down with me in Liv's apartment set -- Rose McIver (“Liv Moore”), Robert Buckley (“Major Lilywhite”) and Malcolm Goodwin (“Clive Babineaux”) explained what to expect in this season.
Season 2 ended with a big surprise for Liv, as she discovered the existence of a paramilitary group of zombies - part of the company Fillmore Graves and headed by Vivian Stoll (Andrea Savage), who told Liv she had a plan to make Seattle a safe haven for all zombies.
So what does Liv make of this supposed new ally and her plans? “I think Liv is understandably apprehensive,” said McIver. “She doesn’t know what these people are fighting for, particularly. They speak as though they have the best intentions and it’s very unlike her approach. She’s trying to keep things very undercover and maintain as much normalcy as she could... but she’s wise enough to know that getting a zombie army on her bad side isn’t good either. She’s starting Season 3 working out what exactly [Fillmore Graves] plan to do and how and what the implications of that would be for her world.”
Fillmore Graves will get a reaction from everyone, particularly Major, who is also a zombie. Said Buckley, “Where the season jumps off, everyone’s very curious. We didn’t get a whole lot of info [initially] but these people show up and kick ass and save our heroes' lives, so the season opens with a lot of natural curiosity and speculation. I don’t think they’ve decided what side of the issue they’re on with them but there’s potential for a zombie ally... or potentially new enemies.”
With Clive only recently discovering zombies exist at all, much less that Liv is one, Goodwin said his character is being "very careful and very cautious. I think Clive probably believes he’s one of the only human beings in law enforcement who knows about this and he also knows that if the information gets out it can cause chaos. So he’s doing everything he can to bring this to an end and solve this. He thinks he has an answer. They all think they have an answer.”
McIver noted that Vivian’s idea “sounds very utopian, the idea of zombies and humans living side by side. And I don’t know if Liv’s necessarily convinced that that will be a simple thing but it’s a nice idea. She’s very on the fence I would say. She likes the idea of it being normalized and living in harmony with the people around her and her family but I don’t know if she’s convinced yet of how simple that’s going to be.”
Will Liv and Major agree on how to deal with this group? Said Buckley, with a laugh, “Well, if we’ve learned anything from Liv and Major, it’s that they’re so rarely on the same page with anything. I think it would be safe to assume there’s the potential for them to fall on opposite sides of that. But, on the same token I wouldn’t rule anything out. It’s not that they don’t want to be on the same page. They just sort of find themselves in spots where they can’t be.”
With Clive now in the know about what Liv is, all of her close friends are finally on the same page. And as the cast noted, this allows for much more of a group dynamic on the series.
Said McIver, “Now that Babineaux knows, it’s kind of like a Scooby gang is how we’re treating it. So Liv, Major, Ravi, Payton and Babineaux are all on the same page now and informed of the same stuff. Blaine appears to be - although I’m sure Liv has hesitations. He has a lot to overcome. There seems to be a big team working together and that’s to uncover what is happening with Vivian and work out what to do about Mr. Boss, who is still alive, albeit not as strong or empowered as he had been. So that’s kind of where we kick off.”
For Clive, Goodwin explained, “You get to see him go through the process of accepting this and incorporating this into his day to day.” His new knowledge definitely helps though, since Goodwin noted, “It doesn't have to be hidden [now]. It can be put out there more. Liv doesn’t have to hide it or control it. She’s like ‘You already know I’m on the brain. This is what I’m going to do. I need to do this to get the vision.’ So she gets to go a lot further around Clive and it leads to some hilarious moments.” That being said, Goodwin remarked that watching McIver play these different personalities, “leads to a lot of breaking on camera. A lot of cracking up.”
Goodwin said he loved showing the team dynamic, and that when it came to the situation with Filmore Graves, “[Clive] has a part in it. Ravi has a part in it. Major has a part in it. So he’s trying to do his best to do what’s required of him. But at the same time they have to be normal. They still have to go to work and do cases, but have that underlying thing.”
iZombie will still get plenty of mileage out of the different brains Liv eats each week and how they change her, but McIver explained, “The brains that she eats tend to have very strong implications in other elements of the story. I think that’s been integrated incredibly well this season.”
While McIver said there was a good variety -- giving her plenty of different personalities to play -- she added, “One of my favorites is me eating a brain of a father and Buckley eating the brain of the teenage daughter. We have a pretty good dynamic there where he’s very bothered by me all the time and I’m trying to help. We had fun with that one.”
Said Buckley, of that episode, “It was so much fun. I eat the brain of a fourteen year old, ice skating enthusiast girl. The writers had seen me do a bit where I act very melodramatic and do a very whiny, girl voice. And they were like ‘We had this idea of you playing a teenage girl.’ The only thing that was weird about it was how little of a stretch it was for me. I had to do zero prep. It was so much fun. Major has had moments of levity and had to do his Major bits but this was a whole different type of comedy, swinging for the fences because it’s a brain and we’re allowed to do that. It was so much fun. I can’t wait to see what it looks like. I came to set thinking ‘I’ll just swing for the fences and they can dial me back.’ To my surprise, instead they were like ‘Go a little further.’”
Goodwin was especially excited about the brain aspect in Season 3, with a lot of praise for Buckley in that aforementioned teenage girl storyline, saying, “We just couldn’t keep a straight face when he was being affected by those characteristics.”
McIver also said, "We had a dominatrix brain which is a slightly different flavor for Liv and poor Ravi and Babineaux get the tail end of that. I just did a 'hot mess' brain that was fun -- sort of a train wreck style brain and Liv is all over the place and unreliable, but that’s very fun and I’m excited to see it. We haven’t seen any of it yet so I’m as eager as all the fans to see it come together."
While we won’t see the affects of brains on Major that frequently (for a story reason fans will discover), Goodwin noted, “We’re coming off of some of our favorite brains for Rose and she kills it on a level. If you were amazed in the first two seasons, watch her on this season with these brains. My gosh, she takes it to another level.”
iZombie: Season 3 premieres Tuesday, April 4th on the CW.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at http://ift.tt/LQFqjj.
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