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Recap / I Zombie S 1 E 6 Virtual Reality Bites

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Clive, Liv, and Ravi investigate the death of a much-reviled computer hacker.


  • Asshole Victim: The Victim of the Week was one of the most hated people on the internet, and within hours of his death going public, websites went up celebrating that he died. After what he did, it's hard to argue he didn't have it coming.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Liv complains about how their first suspect turns out to be a fourteen-year-old who lives on the other side of the country. Ravi is disappointed... that a fourteen-year-old could be that much better than him at an MMO.
  • The Cracker: The Victim of the Week had a serious malicious streak. He got a doughnut shop shut down because they accidentally served him peanut oil, to which he was allergic (an honest mistake due to a factory mix-up beyond their control) and completely ruined a customer service representative's digital profile because she couldn't help him with his problem.
  • Cross Player: Liv playing in the Victim of the Week game account.
  • Didn't See That Coming: The victim never thought that his activities would come back to bite him. Justified as he hid himself well, and didn't think someone would be determined enough to try or capable of succeeding.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: See The Cracker above.
  • Driven to Suicide: The motivation of the murderer; the cracker ruined his sister's life to such an extent that she couldn't take the abuse anymore so she jumped off a bridge.
  • Evil Is Petty: The Asshole Victim forced a couple's Donut shop to go out of business and drove a woman to suicide by exposing her private information online. Why? Because the couple gave him donuts he was allergic to, and the woman kept him on hold at the call center.
  • Hollywood Hacking: Averted. The only hacking we see (with Liv using Sim's skills) is a perfectly realistic SQL injection. And just like real hacking, the biggest obstacle isn't a firewall, but the fact that the information she hacked is poorly organized and takes hours to slog through.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Jackie kills the delivery boy this way, impaling him in the neck on a coat rack.
  • Instant Expert: The Sim Reaper's brain made Liv an expert at his favorite MMORPG, in addition to remembering his passwords and hacking skills.
  • Internet Jerk: The online gamer who issued a death threat over the Victim of the Week permakilling his combat pets? A fourteen-year-old boy living across the country, who meant the threat in-game and didn't even know where the victim lived.
  • Ironic Nursery Tune: The birthday card that killed the victim played "Ring Around the Rosie". Sent by the brother of a girl named Rosie whose life he ruined. As we see the moment of the victim's death, we're not sure if he even realized that.
  • Mythology Gag: Ravi's character in the MMORPG featured in this episode is a were-terrier, like Scott was in the comics.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The episode trailer implied that allowing brains to rot before eating them makes them less effective, and Liv's starting to lose her mind. Turns out the brains worked perfectly, and Liv's slurring her words because she's drugged to the gills to deal with a crippling case of inherited agoraphobia.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Liv believes that she can find the victim's killer by tracking down a fellow MMORPG player who threatened to kill him after an in-game slight. Given that MMORPGs are played by people all over the world, this has the results one would expect: She gets to talk to the player on video chat, only to discover that he lives clear across the country and had no idea who the victim really was or where he lived.
  • This Is a Drill: Blaine kills Jackie this way because she not only killed and ate his delivery boy's brains, but also because Clive investigated the butcher shop.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Liv is not happy about having to eat the victim's rotten brains.
  • Was It Really Worth It?: The murderer says spending the rest of life in prison is worth it since the victim ruined his sister's life.
  • Wham Episode: Thanks to Major's going through countless YouTube videos to find the "Candyman", Liv and Ravi realize what the audience already knew: that Blaine was lying about getting his brains from grave-robbing; he's been getting them by murdering kids from the Skate Park; and that most of them are Major's kids. And it moves the show from a Mystery of the Week scenario to one more focused on a story arc.
  • Who Murdered the Asshole: Liv tries to find out who killed an infamous hacker named "The Sim Reaper". Unfortunately, he has so many enemies trying to take credit for his death that finding the real culprit proves difficult. In the end it turns out to be the brother of a woman whose life he ruined.
  • You Have Failed Me: Jackie eats the delivery boy when her weekly brains aren't in the delivery. But she fails to dispose of the body properly, leading to Clive investigating Blaine's front operation, and Blaine killing Jackie in retaliation.

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