iZombie hit the ground running in its premiere, picking right up (well, 2.8 minutes later!) from where Season 2 ended, with Vivian and her group of zombie soldiers making their presence known. Given how much occurred in Season 2’s final hours, including Clive finally finding out the truth, it was good not to have a time jump here and rather see all the fallout and questions dealt with that would naturally rise up.

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iZombie: "Heaven Just Got a Little Bit Smoother" Photos 6 IMAGES

Vivian so far is a an intriguing, enigmatic presence. It seems she has other zombies best interests in mind (she has a school for kids no less!), but there are still some troubling questions about what she has in mind for humans when “D Day” occurs. Major joining up with Fillmore Graves by the end of the premiere looks like it could be setting the stage for some conflict between Major and Liv, given Liv already had her guard up more than he did. While Major’s moments finding out he was still not past the “Chaos Killer” label were a bit heavy handed in the first half of the episode, they did help establish that he was already feeling notably ostracized, making him more open to Vivian’s offer of sanctuary.What’s also very notable about the premiere is iZombie getting a lot more direct with metaphor, as that kid Clive knew, Wally, and his whole family, were murdered because of (true) rumors they were zombies. The idea of zombies being targeted as a dangerous “other” insidiously hiding among us, and violence resulting from that, is clearly a pretty topical concept to explore. It needs to be handled carefully, to be sure, but Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright are skilled showrunners and this is sort of thing other great genre shows like Buffy (which iZombie shares several positive similarities to – underlined by the Scooby gang joke in the premiere) have done in the past.I’m very glad to see Aly Michalka finally made a series regular (hey, tweaked opening credit Allred art!) but the material between her and Blaine feels very disconnected from the rest of the story right now and hopefully becomes better integrated down the line. Meanwhile, as a big Ravi fan, it’s hard to see him in down in the dumps “She likes the other guy better” mode, though at least he’s self-aware to realize that he’s “spiraling.”Bullet points!-I can’t say I’ll miss Drake too much, but it was very wise how the premiere dealt with the fact that for Liv, she had just had to murder her boyfriend. Having her be on a brain that helped her push that aside, only for the grief to suddenly hit her as it wore off, was a very effective, emotional beat.-Like with Veronica Mars, Thomas/ Ruggiero-Wright shows are great with long-term continuity. The premiere didn’t forget that Major still wants to find Natalie, and we had a fun character return with BSG’s Aaron Douglas reprising his Season 1 role as Chuck Burd.-The fallout from the other Rob Thomas’ death in the Season 2 finale was awesome, including the Santana shout out that gave the episode its title.-Also an especially funny line was Clive deadpanning “That’s not how I’d do it” to Ravi, after an especially convoluted science-y spiel.-On a “some actors are really busy” front, it was funny to see the ever-great Robert Knepper in his return to iZombie airing at exactly the same time Prison Break, featuring Knepper, was also making its return over on FOX. (Knepper will also be in Twin Peaks when that comes back on Showtime in May). Angus and Don E working together is also a pretty inspired move, as far as unlikely pairings go.