‘iZombie’ remains fun to watch, hard to describe in Season 4

On Monday, the Diane Ruggiero/Rob Thomas show that started off as a sly way to get “Veronica Mars”-style witty mysteries back on the tube surpassed its more famous forebearer in number of seasons. While “iZombie” (9 p.m. Eastern Mondays, The CW) strikes me as being less popular and less acclaimed than “Veronica,” it always finds a spot on my year-end top 10 lists and it’s getting to the point where the duo’s shorthand descriptor should be “the creators of ‘Veronica Mars’ AND ‘iZombie.’ ”

Behind the wall

This adaptation of a Vertigo comic book is consistently fun to watch, but it’s much more challenging to describe than “Veronica.” As Season 4 begins, part of Seattle has been walled off by a zombie military state – led by Chase Graves (“Veronica” veteran Jason Dohring) – into “New Seattle.” By the design of this oligarchy (the corporation is called Fillmore Graves), both zombies and humans live there, and legacy institutions like the Seattle P.D. continue to operate.

While Ruggiero and Thomas follow in the Whedonian tradition of “bring your own subtext” storytelling, “iZombie’s” current arc resists a thematic label. Last season, when redneck-type humans form a militia to take out zombies, it was tempting to cite immigration fears and the popular Trump-era narrative of a country divided into red and blue states. With the wall in place, it’s tempting to cite split-off communist regimes like North Korea, North Vietnam and East Germany.

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But to the show’s credit and to my frustration as a blogger who can’t come up with a snarkily pointed real-world parallel, those don’t quite fit. The communist and military state labels are broadly appropriate, as Fillmore Graves has set up rules along with the wall: Namely, zombies and humans will live in peace so long as the humans allow their brains to be harvested after they are dead. Mathematically, this gives the zombies plenty of brains to survive, so there need not be any killing.

As always with communism, the math doesn’t hold up for long. If more zombies are created (it can happen with a mere scratch), the numbers get out of whack. There’s also the “human nature” factor (and “zombie nature,” as it were): Some zombies prefer “fresh” brains.

Some humans would like to escape New Seattle (indeed, the Seahawks have moved to Tacoma). And with Fillmore Graves controlling the food supply (their factory turns brains to tasty tubes of mush, eliminating the visions that come from consuming a specific brain), a black market emerges. Watered-down brain tubes sneak onto the streets to serve the hungry.

Sympathetic zombies

But here’s another wrinkle: All of the zombies were very recently human. In Season 1, an energy-drink corporation accidentally starts the plague, transforming an increasing number of citizens, including title character Liv (Rose McIver).

Now, main characters such as Liv’s ex-boyfriend Major Lilywhite (Robert Buckley) and her colleague at the SPD morgue, Ravi (Rahul Kohli), are also zombies. New Seattle consists not of two distinct collectives, but rather a co-existing mix. It’s not unusual to find one zombie amid an otherwise human family, as we see in the Season 4 premiere.

“iZombie” portrays a world changing for the worse, but it’s not as bluntly and stereotypically apocalyptic as, say, “The Walking Dead.” It’s gradual. People go through their daily business. They can’t relax as much as they used to, there’s definitely tension in the air, but life goes on.

This strikes me as quite believable, and as a bonus it allows “iZombie” to stick with its original formula of Liv and detective Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) solving crimes. While the detail-heavy, fast-moving mystery-solving structure smacks of “Veronica,” the difference is the overt humor of Liv taking on the traits of the person whose brain she eats (for the sake of both sustenance and helpful visions).

In Monday’s episode, the Thomas-penned “Are You Ready for Some Zombies?,” Liv becomes a rabid Seahawks fan. Meanwhile, Ravi — newly volunteered as a zombie, as he’s experimenting on himself in search of a cure – takes on the traits of a nudist. While I might’ve wished Liv and Ravi had swapped the brains they consumed, the humor is always as fun for the viewer as it must be for the actors.

It keeps a foot in the real world

It’s also impressive how Ruggiero and Thomas position “iZombie” in the real world. A couple seasons ago, matchbox twenty’s Rob Thomas is killed in a zombie uprising. The Season 4 premiere features the “Monday Night Football” theme, genuine Seahawks logos and gear, and references to Super Bowl 49, Jim Zorn, Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch – indeed, Liv dubs her zombie transformation “Beast Mode.”

Those elements are humorous, but they are part of a larger fabric where “iZombie” insists on examining the socio-political ramifications of the rise of a class of citizens who are just like you or me except they require human brains for sustenance. Unlike, say, Sunnydale being filled with vampires and demons without anyone noticing on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” we don’t have to just go with it. For example, we’re told that the U.S. military refrains from bombing New Seattle because of the significant human population. It adds up.

So while “iZombie’s” storyline resists easy immigration or communism or civil war metaphors, it is about co-existence and the sometimes uncomfortable fact that all humans are humans (even if they are zombies). It’s easy to say that the decent thing for the zombies to do is to let themselves die off. It’s easy to say the zombies have no moral right to take dead people’s brains against their will, or that of their family.

Those statements might be true, but it’s still not easy to say them to a zombie who is your colleague, friend or recently turned family member. And so “iZombie” continues as the most fun and funny moral hand-wringer currently on the air.