After major moments for all of the characters in the season finale of The CW series iZombie, it’s a good thing that the show has already been picked up for a second season, so that viewers can find out where it all goes next. And thankfully, Collider was able to chat with co-creator/executive producer Rob Thomas to find out what fans can expect when the show returns.
During this exclusive phone interview with Collider, Thomas talked about being excited about the character arcs for next season and the fun stuff they have planned, the mission statement for Season 2, why Liv and Blaine might find themselves on the same side, possible fall-out from the zombie cure, Ravi’s own Holy Grail, and why he’s interested in maintaining Liv’s secret identity. Be aware that there are some spoilers.
Collider: You leave everyone in really interesting places, by the end of the finale. Whose arc are you most excited to explore for Season 2?
ROB THOMAS: I’m really pretty excited about Major’s arc. We’ve got fun stuff for him. I’m excited about everyone. Ravi and Clive are so naturally ingrained in the case-of-the-week that I never have issues with getting them enough screen time. It’s Blaine and Major that exist in the zombie mythology. Their stories aren’t generally in the A-story. The two of them and Liv are really the tentpoles for the mythology stories. I think we’ve got fun stuff coming up.
What can you say about where Liv is headed next? Do you want more people to find out her secret?
THOMAS: The mission statement for Season 2 is in the finale. You hear Steven Weber, as the head of Max Rager, saying, “We’re gonna take out all the zombies.” That is a big storyline for Season 2, and it may create some strange bedfellows. It puts Liv and Blaine on the same side. Liv was searching out Blaine for much of the season, so we couldn’t really play that many scenes with them. We got to have a couple episodes with them, at the beginning of the year, and then a couple quick scenes in the middle, but we want to get them on screen together, next season. So, making them uneasy allies for some of Season 2 is something we’re looking forward to.
Blaine was cured, and Major was infected and then cured. How will Major deal with learning that zombies are real, that Liv turned him into one, and becoming human again, all before he could actually process that any of that was happening?
THOMAS: And there will be some fall-out from that. There will be side effects, next season, that will factor heavily into what Major is doing.
Will Blaine have any new-found humanity that will impact his villainy, in any way, or is he just a villain, no matter how you look at it?
THOMAS: He’s pretty villainous. It just may not be directed towards Liv, for much of Season 2. He will have bigger fish to fry and bigger enemies to face. Who knows where we’ll go, but he’ll at least be starting human. And he has many zombies that he’s responsible for feeding, so he’s going to be up to his eyeballs in problems. He’s no longer able to create zombies or create new customers, but he has to keep feeding the ones that he has.
Now that Liv has used up all of the cure that Ravi made, will he try to recreate it, and will he be upset with her for using it all up?
THOMAS: He won’t be pleased about that. He asked her pretty nicely not to do it. The thing he needs to be able to recreate the cure is this tainted Utopium that existed at the boat party, and that will become Ravi’s Holy Grail in Season 2. That will be the thing he is searching out and needs to find, if he wants to cure any more zombies. And we still don’t know what the fall-out will be. Is the cure permanent? Does it have side effects? Those things will come into play, as well.
After the massacre at the end of the episode, it seemed like Clive Babineaux is getting suspicious or at least curious about some of the things going on and the reasons he’s being given for them. Have you thought about whether to let him in on Liv’s secret?
THOMAS: It’s funny, how many years did Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane not know that Clark Kent was Superman, and yet, if I read Twitter, it feels like the audience all want Liv to tell everyone now. A lot of them reference Buffy, who had the gang doing all of that stuff with her, and I understand that, but I remain interested in the secret identity. I don’t think Liv wants to tell anyone she doesn’t have to. The more people you tell, the more chance there is that it becomes an open secret. She thinks that would be bad, and I think it would be bad, if all of Seattle knew that there were zombies wandering among them. So, telling Clive is not on the agenda. But while most people on the Seattle police force are going to want to make a hero of Lieutenant Suzuki and say that he foiled this Meat Cute crime thing and went down swinging, Clive isn’t going to believe that version of the story. He may be getting closer and closer to learning that Major was, in fact, involved.
iZombie will return for Season 2 on The CW.
