We open to Major on the autopsy table at the morgue. So obviously he succumbed to last week's attack and his former roommate is looking for clues. Just kidding! Ravi is stitching up the wounds from Major's major beat down last week because, as a social worker, Major's health insurance covers "like one band-aid a year." Remember how we were going to integrate Major into the plot more organically now that he and Ravi live together? Because the writers don't.
Liv enters the room and freaks out that Major's on the morgue slab. After that's sorted out, it comes out that Major thinks the man who attacked him was the Candyman and that Liv thinks Ravi is much better sewing up corpses than living people, so she takes over in the spirit of not leaving Major with a Frankenstein-esque scar. She also gives him an earful about trying to play cop.
A new delivery boy (who is conveniently much scrawnier than Zombie Uncle Snark Daddy's previous workers we have seen) drops off Jackie's latest order. But it's somehow long on side dishes (why do zombies need side dishes?) and short on brain dishes. The kid offers to go back, but Jackie says she can't wait that long. She impales him on a coat hook to make herself some shish kebob.
(Side note - the continuity here felt off to me. Two weeks ago ZUSD's delivery guys were big zombie thugs who worked for him. Now it's a scrawny, seemingly human kid from a delivery company that at least keeps up with the punny names - "Dig In." Convenient for Jackie, but doesn't really make sense. End aside.)
Liv and Ravi get called out to another crime scene. I understand the show's desire to mix up locations, but plot-wise, does it really make sense for two coroners to keep heading out to possible crime scenes? Sorry, I'll (try to) stop complaining.
Their "new customer" is 300 pounds and died on the stairs to his basement. He's apparently been dead for a bit based on Detective Clive's reaction to the stench. Detective Clive explains that "Simon" was a total shut in. No one had really seen him in years; he got everything he needed delivered to the house. The growing pile of unopened boxes on the porch finally led a neighbor to call the police.
Ravi estimates that Simon has been dead a week or two. (I love it when Ravi does actual Medical Examiner stuff. Hey, if I'm overly nitpicky at times, at least I'm also sometimes easily amused.) Based on Simon's size and the amount of fried food detritus around, Detective Clive is leaning towards heart attack, but Ravi insists an autopsy is necessary due to the victim's relatively young age.
Simon's basement is decked out with an impressive computer setup, and the group finds a birthday card that apparently shot out confetti when it was opened. I mention these things because they will eventually become important to the plot.
This week's ZUSD subplot is much less interesting and integrated into the plot than previous ones. Jackie calls to "complain" that her order never came, but then makes excuses for how she must have just missed it when ZUSD offers to come by personally with a replacement. This is because she hasn't really cleaned up from having her actual lunch of the delivery boy.
At the morgue, Ravi finds more confetti in Simon's eyeball. He's been dead ten days, so his organs (including his brain) have started to liquefy. But there's no sign of a heart attack, and just then Detective Clive comes down to explain that he has reason to believe Simon was murdered. Bottom line - a very reluctant Livvie needs to eat.
Detective Clive explains that Simon was a somewhat infamous and hated online hacker who went by the username SIM Reaper and was a regular recipient of death threats. Word has gotten out, and there is already a website celebrating his demise. Most of his harassment and trolling campaigns were strictly digital, but there is one recording of him excessively berating a customer service agent just trying to do her job.
Liv drinks a brain smoothie, complaining about how gross it is. She also wonders how it will affect her tonight, when she has her first date with Lowell, the musician zombie she met last week. Ravi suggests chasing the nastiness with human food. Liv suddenly has an irresistible craving for the leftover donuts sitting out. Her "great, I ate Homer Simpson's brain" line is funny, though it seems Simon may be more like Comic Book Guy. I would let GK, my resident Simpson's expert, make the call, but she doesn't actually watch this show.
Liquified brains seem to absorb pretty quickly, as Liv has her first Simon flashback. He is chowing down on donuts, but then starts choking and running to get an epi pen. Liv theorizes that Simon died from a food allergy. Only problem with that hypothesis being that Ravi didn't find any "trigger foods" (peanuts, shellfish, etc.) in Simon's stomach at the time of his death.
We check in on Major, who is back to work after last week's beat down and this week's surgical repair in the morgue. He claims he was injured rollerblading, which exactly zero of the teens in the group discussion believe. They tease him for his "Messiah complex" and tell him to stop looking for Eddie and Jerome because they're dead (optimistic bunch, these kids), while he gets a text from his coworker chastising him for showing up looking beaten half to death.
Ravi and Liv are sharing their "food allergy but no food in his system" conundrum with Detective Clive. They notice that the birthday card they found was hand-delivered, and Detective Clive knows from his paperwork that Simon's birthday isn't for another four months. Detective Clive smells peanuts on the card and the crew realize they have discovered the murder weapon, a "peanut powder delivery system."
Date time! Liv gets ready, then heads out of the apartment, where she proceeds to have a panic attack. But it's not first date nerves! It seems the reason Simon never left his house is that he was agoraphobic, so now Liv is too. She hilariously calls Lowell and holds her nose to try and sound sick while she leaves a message cancelling. Halfway through she remembers she's talking to another zombie and can just explain that she had a "bad batch of agoraphobe brain."
Detective Clive and Ravi discuss a body found by hikers. It initially looked to be a bear attack, though Ravi notes that the bear injuries are postmortem, whereas there are wounds on the neck that look more like they came from a claw hammer. Detective Clive has also identified the body as a foster kid. Ravi also finds this odd, since the kid had about $500 of crazy nice food in his stomach. Detective Clive asks what Liv thinks, and Ravi says she’s home sick. Forensics couldn’t get anything from Simon’s laptop, so Detective Clive was hoping Liv could work her “psychic” magic. Ravi offers to bring the laptop over to Liv.
“Are you expecting me to eat the hard drive?” is Liv’s response. But then she opens the computer and enters the password from Simon’s muscle memory. It immediately opens into Warlock Forest, a multiplayer online role-playing game. While Ravi and Liv debate the merits of gaming (wasn’t this woman engaged to Major?), SIM Reaper’s minions notice his return and explain that SIM’s mortal enemy in the game (“Full Auto”) is claiming to have killed SIM. They are awaiting revenge instructions. Ravi tells Liv she needs to play – Full Auto may be claiming to have killed the SIM Reaper in the game because they know they killed Simon in real life.
Luckily, Simon’s memories and muscle memories are enough for Liv to get started. Ravi, who is of course an experienced player (“Arf Raider,” a wereterrier with healing abilities – hee) promises to run home and join the game to provide backup.
Eventually Liv gets totally into the game, commanding her army on how to deploy their orbs, diviners, gem spells, and shields. Liv’s mom chooses this moment to come by with supplies, because she heard Liv was “sick.” She’s confused at Liv’s shouted orders, but happy to see her engaged in something. Liv assures her mom that this is import police business, then goes back to ignoring her.
After her mom leaves, Liv isolates Full Auto, then switches off the voice modulators that have helped them disguise her identity. She identifies her (real) self and pulls up a visual on Full Auto . . . a 14-year-old from New York. Another lead bites the (peanut) dust.
Liv and Ravi are having a post-game/unsuccessful murder accusation debrief when Liv’s doorbell rings. It’s Lowell, doing his best to charm us all by bringing Liv some anti-anxiety meds he has left over from a time when he ate a brain with PTSD. They engage in flirty banter that leads to Liv admitting that she's nervous in part because she used to be engaged. Ends up Lowell moved to Seattle for a girl who is no longer in the picture, so the zombies bond about their human exes. Not my recommended first date activity, but you do you.
Earlier in the episode one of the shelter kids showed Major a bunch of YouTube-like footage from the skate park. So Major has spent the last several hours watching it all and looking for his attacker. Major, there’s determined and there’s obsessed. You’re trending towards the latter. Anyway, he’s convinced that one recurring blurry face is the guy who attacked him, but he can’t find a clear picture. Ravi points out that Major popped a stitch, so Major plans to go over and ask Liv to fix it. Which seems like an extreme solution to a problem you hadn’t even noticed. Like, maybe wait until the morning. But of course, this is all set up to force Ravi to break it to Major that Liv in on a date. He’s obviously disappointed.
Back on the date, Liv and Lowell are telling their respective origin stories. Liv talks about waking up in the body bag after the boat party. Lowell drank too much at a friend’s bachelor party and woke up in the drunk tank with a scratch on his leg. He gets his brains from a funeral home where he pays off the mortician. And about a week after transforming, he went into full-on zombie mode on stage from the adrenaline high during a show, so now he only plays in the studio to keep from infecting the audience or his band mates. Lowell goes in for the kiss . . . and Liv freaks out, seemingly equal parts from the attempted kiss and from a Simon flashback when she glimpses the screensaver on his computer.
Detective Clive shows up at Meat Cute. That can’t end well. ZUSD is closing up shop, but Detective Clive shows him a picture of the foster kid he and Ravi were discussing earlier. Meat Cute is one of the few places in the city that sells the combination of meat and truffles that Ravi found in the kid’s stomach. Detective Clive has an unwitting close call when he hears a thump in the back after ZUSD said they were alone. ZUSD offers to let him have a look around, which we (and the chef lady waiting with a knife behind the door) know would have been the end of Detective Clive. Liv saves the day by calling right at that moment to share her newest insight into Simon’s death.
Detective Clive interviews a couple (with a still agoraphobic Liv dialing in via Skype). They owned Best All Around Donuts, whose logo Liv saw in the flashback where Simon had the allergic reaction. And they celebrated his death with a $1,000 bottle of champagne. They accidentally delivered donuts that contained a trace amount of peanut residue, which is what caused the reaction in Liv’s flashback. The SIM Reaper then started an online vendetta against them that eventually ruined their company. So, you know, motive. Plus opportunity since they were among the few who knew where he lived. They swear they didn't know that bitter donut guy and one of the internet's most infamous trolls were the same person.
On Skype, Liv tells an empty room that she doesn’t think the couple was lying. Detective Clive wanders back in and Liv realizes she’s been talking to herself. She reiterates that her gut says the couple is innocent. They realize that Simon said he would take his business “elsewhere.” Since they know where he lives, they can figure out who else delivers donuts to that area.
Back in the Jackie/ZUSD subplot (which at least wasn’t given too much screen time), ZUSD shows up to ask Jackie why the police are looking for his dead delivery boy. Wait, he’s making some of the skate park kids delivery people? In addition to not matching up with his previous levels of security, why wouldn’t one of them go back and warn the others? I guess they could be zombies, but why use them when you have a meat locker full of meat heads? And the kid didn’t seem like a zombie. But if he was, what would eating his brain do to/for Jackie? Am I overthinking again?
Anyway, bye-bye Jackie. We didn’t really get to know you and this was an odd way to get rid of you.
There were boxes from another mom and pop donut shop, Donuts Etc., at the crime scene. Liv uses her newly acquired skills to hack in and get an employee list, but she has no way of knowing who still works there or who does deliveries. Liv flashes back – the fatal “birthday” card played Ring Around the Rosie.
A drunk-looking Liv fumbles her way into the police station. Seems she took (at least) a few of the pills Lowell dropped off to allow her to get out of the house. Side effects being that she thinks her feet are hovercraft and can’t remember how to say “suspected.”
She explains that the card had a music chip that must have fallen out, which is why they hadn’t known about it before. She thinks it was a calling card for the killer. They make a (long) leap that “pocket full of posies” implicates Sean Posey, from the Donut, Etc. employee list. Liv looked him up and recognizes him from the crime scene. Amongst all the gawkers, he was the one who wanted to know if Simon had suffered. So that looks bad for him, though I am still doubtful about the chain of "logic" that led them to him.
Remember way earlier in the episode where there was a recording of the SIM Reaper berating a customer service rep? Ends up that the rep, "Shanie," was Sean's sister. Shanie posted the recorded conversation on Facebook, it went viral, and SIM felt he had no choice but to follow through on his threat to ruin her life. He did a full-on assault to all of her social media accounts, posted fake pornos of her, put her on the no fly list, faked a criminal record for her, etc. After a year, Shanie killed herself by jumping off the Aurora bridge.
This led Sean to go on his own mission for vengeance. He figured out the donut connection and got jobs at three different local donut shops until he found Simon and got his revenge. Sean thinks spending the rest of his life in jail is worth it. Liv (yet again) learns a lesson about living life and not holding on to the past.
Livvie finds Lowell and kisses him. Yay, Livwell! (I kinda like that portmanteau.)
Major tells Ravi that he finally found a clear shot of the Candyman. Ravi looks at the picture and recognizes ZUSD in the background. He calls Liv and they start to comprehend the scope of ZUSD's operations.
We end with ZUSD again closing up shop. Liv's mom walks in and places an order. She notices that Meat Cute is hiring and thinks it might be a good fit for Creepy Brother Evan. You don't see me complaining. No clue as to whether ZUSD knows who he is talking to.
Sorry for the lateness this week, but thanks for sticking with me. As you can probably tell, not my favorite episode, but see you next week!
And I've decided to start putting a few choice quotes at the end of each recap. Here you go!
Ravi (on Major): The man's too good looking. I'm giving him character.
Liv: MUST. HAVE. DONUTS. Great, I ate Homer Simpson's brain.
Liv: Hey, Lowell. So sorry to do this on a message, but I have to cancel. I'm literally seconds away from puking. It hit me out of nowhere. And I'm calling you from the bathroom floor right now. I hope you understand. Oh, my God. I'm such an idiot. I totally forgot you're a zombie. I can just tell you. I had a bad batch of agoraphobe brain and can't get out of my apartment. Okay. Bye."
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