'iZombie' Creator Rob Thomas Teases Season 2: Liv 'Will Not Be a Celibate Zombie'

Brains, more brains — that’s what you can expect from iZombie in its second season.

When the delightfully bloodthirsty, banter-y CW drama debuted last year, it was everything we’d come to expect from Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright, the team behind Veronica Mars. Plucky protagonist? Check. Quirky mysteries? Check. Romantic angst? Oh yeah. In Season 1, Liv Moore (Rose McIver) went from med student to a zombie coroner who ate the brains of the corpses in the morgue she worked at. Her transformation alienated her from friends, family, and former fiancé Major (Robert Buckley). But on the plus side, she gained the ability to see visions of the murder victims and help solve their cases.

And at the end of the season, Liv’s boss, Ravi (Rahul Kohli), managed to formulate a cure. Unfortunately, events in the finale forced them to use it on Liv’s nemesis… and Major. Now, her secret was (mostly) out, but she’s still estranged from her loved ones. Will things turn around for Liv in Season 2? Yahoo TV got the scoop on all things iZombie from the brains behind the operation (heh heh), Rob Thomas.

What would you say is the arc for Season 2?
Season 1 was largely about zombies going after humans. Season 2 is a lot about humans going after zombies. Max Rager [the corporation responsible for creating the zombie virus] set out on a course to eliminate all zombies, and we’re going to have fun with that construct in Season 2. It makes very strange bedfellows out of Liv and Blaine [David Anders].

At the end of the season, Major and Peyton [Aly Michalka] both found out Liv’s secret, and their reactions were pretty negative. Will Liv still be on the outs with them when Season 2 starts?
Yeah, Liv is very disconnected from the main people in her life. Outside of Ravi, she doesn’t have much of a support system. Even Clive [Malcolm Goodwin] is a little miffed with her because he does not believe Major’s story about the night at Meat Cute, and Liv is serving as his alibi. So, there’s a little bit of tension between the two of them as well.

I wondered if Major would find out Liv’s secret in Season 1, or if it would take longer. Did you plan the when and how in advance? And why do it in a way that separates Major and Liv even further?
I can’t say that every year we have everything mapped out, but the big things we tend to have mapped out. When we were trying to convince Robert Buckley to play Major, I pitched him the end of Season 1. I pretty much pitched him the final episode. So, that was always part of the plan. But I think it’d be a boring show if we played Liv and Major permanently on the outs. Certainly, at the beginning of Season 2, he is still stinging from the revelation. Less that she is a zombie, but more that she didn’t tell him.

Though she felt she had to break up with Major, Liv did have some romance last season with Lowell. By the way, I’m still pretty mad about what happened to him.
[Laughs] It’d be a lie to say that we were prepared for the reaction to Lowell’s passing. It’s funny, it’s the first season of television I’ve done where it’s a midseason show and we shot the whole thing before it ever aired. So usually, when I have a show on the air, we’re writing episodes, we’re usually three or four episodes ahead. We know how fans are reacting to certain things. Operating in a vacuum with Lowell — we thought Bradley [James] was great, but I don’t think anyone on the iZombie staff was quite prepared for how much the audience clearly liked Lowell. It’s a pleasant surprise. You know, I couldn’t love Game of Thrones more, and they keep killing my favorite characters.

Will she find a new love interest this season?
I would say there is no world where we will ever abandon Liv’s quest to have some sort of romantic life. She will not be a celibate zombie. I do want her to have some bit of romantic entanglement in her life. It’s on the agenda! She will have some love life.

So, let’s talk about some unresolved threads from last season. Will we find out in the premiere if Liv’s brother, Evan [Nick Purcha], lives or dies?
I will promise you that not only do you find out in the premiere episode, you find out in scene 1 of Season 2.

And Aly Michalka will be back as Peyton, so we’ll find out what happened to her after learning Liv’s secret?
Yeah, though Aly is not a series regular of ours, we’re never quite sure when we will have her. But she was doing a pilot as we wrapped Season 1, so we had to write her in a way where we weren’t sure if she could come back. If her show had gone, we probably wouldn’t have her in Season 2. But she is available, and we are using her and very excited to see her back.

A lot of Season 1 was Liv figuring out how to be a zombie and dealing with the insights she got from eating people’s brains. Is she more used to it now?
There still isn’t a day that she doesn’t wish she weren’t a zombie, so I don’t think she’s reached acceptance. She wishes she didn’t have to eat brains, and she could have a normal sex life and dream of having a family someday. She’s certainly not content being a zombie, but in terms of what we’re playing on screen, it has become a bit more easy for her. We probably spend less time with her lamenting her existence as a zombie.

There’s still the possibility of the cure. Will Ravi try to duplicate it?
It’s the Holy Grail for Ravi, trying to get his hands on our magical ingredient, that tainted utopium from the boat party. We’re having a lot of fun having him struggle to get that.

Everyone loved seeing Rose play all those different brains. Will we see more of that this year?
Yeah, I think that’s even dialed up a little bit. Part of that is, you start a show and figure out what works, what plays, what doesn’t. After the pilot, Liv ate the brain of a Romanian prostitute and she ends up speaking a couple of lines of Romanian, and like the prostitute, she is a kleptomaniac. And then toward the end of the year, Liv ate the brain of a high school cheerleader and it affected more of her personality. We ended up having a lot of fun with that. We’re pushing more in that area, which makes an even bigger acting challenge for Rose each week. So like, the first three weeks out the gate — in Episode 201, she eats “grumpy old man” brain. Sort of a “get off my lawn” guy. Second episode, she eats a good-time frat-boy brain. Then, the third episode, she eats a Real Housewife brain.

I always wondered what would happen if Liv made a smoothie of, like, 10 brains.
Yeah, we’ve pondered that as well. We haven’t explored it because we haven’t quite figured out the answer to that.

iZombie returns Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 9 p.m. on The CW.