The long-awaited Season 4 of The CW zomedy-drama iZombie premieres tonight (February 26) at 9PM ET on The CW, and if you’ve got brains, you would know that it’s a show worth watching. The new season of the show sees its world “building that Wall” — literally — as there are now zombies all over Seattle.
“There are multiple big bads, and they aren’t really big bads, as such,” actress Rose McIver (Liv) teased us when we visited the set of iZombie late last year.
“They are sort of nuanced shades of big bad and different kinds that antagonize different portions of the zombie or human population. We have Angus, who is running a zombie church. He’s pulled out of the well and decides the words that he has heard from while he was in the well, which were actually from his son Blaine, were the words of God and he’s sort of lost his mind a little bit.”
“He begins running this church that is very zealous and pro-zombie and anti-human,” McIver continued. “We see Fillmore-Graves and their approach, which certainly antagonizes many people, Liv included. And, then we have Blaine, who is continuously this big bad that, for many reasons, Liv has to keep at bay and without too much conflict, because they have a lot of common friends and common enemies. It’s a very challenging position for her to be in. I think she still struggles with that because she clearly hates him and everything he’s done to her and the people she loves. But, he can also help her. He has friends in high places and she has to dance between those two things quite a lot.”
Speaking of love, Liv’s relationship with Major will definitely see some conflict. “It’s really challenging. They love each other dearly. There’s a world in which they could have been a great couple and maybe ultimately are able to get to that place. But, right now, politics are very much in the way,” McIver told us.
“The way I think about it is in my life, not so much with romantic relationships but with friends and loved ones, there’s a lot of political activity that people feel very strongly about in various different ways. It’s very, very hard to maintain your cool and connect and respect each other, when there’s such a decisive situation going on. There are many decisive situations going on. I think Liv deals with that with Major. She doesn’t think his approach is the right approach, or that Fillmore-Graves is, and really struggles to respect him in that time and has to assume a healthy distance in order to protect any friendship they may have in the future, or dynamic that they have,” she continued.
There is also someone new coming to Liv’s life. “She gets a new boyfriend, at some point, during the season,” McIver confirmed. “His name is Levon. I was very excited that their shop name would be Livon, which was clearly no accident knowing our writers. He’s completely different to her boyfriends we’ve met in the past. I fear for his safety, as I do for all Liv’s love interests. It’s different, it’s new and he’s a documentary filmmaker. It’s a version of a person Liv connects with that we haven’t seen before, which is cool.”
Might the whole zombie truth being out there give a reason for Liv to reunite with her family?
“You know, I’d love that,” Rose said. “We have so many storylines that we are servicing in this show, and we have so many regulars with their own storylines, that it hasn’t made sense quite yet for that to be a focal story point. It’s definitely hovering there. I hope we come back to that soon. I am fascinated by Liv’s Dad, who he is. There was talk about trying to bring it in this season, but it’s been such a dense plot. I think the writers have focused, at the moment, on what’s going on in Seattle,” she explained.
And finally, McIver wouldn’t tell us how Liv will react to the Ravi cliffhanger at the end of Season 3.
“It’s a surprise,” she said. “There’s a lot of surprise in how things come about. It’s unlike what we’ve seen before. It allows for more humor and certainly their dynamic is not compromised. Ravi is as enthusiastic as ever to create a cure. It’s really worth watching how that unfolds. I think it would be a disservice to the show to tease too much because it really pans out in a way I think will surprise and intrigue people.”
You can see video of our interview below, and some preview images as well. iZombie airs Mondays at 9PM on The CW.
