‘iZombie’ season finale, part 1 recap: ‘Dead Beat’

Who among us, fellow “iZombie” fans, hasn’t wondered from the very beginning of this CW series when Clive would find out that he’s partnered with a member of the walking undead?

That his “psychic” sidekick isn’t clairvoyant?

That all those missing (and discovered) brains actually mean something?

That the Meat Cute massacre and the Chaos Killer are inextricably linked?

That the boat party was no ordinary kegger gone bad?

We have our answer now. It happens in the episode dubbed, “Dead Beat,” which serves as the first of the show’s violent, gory, glorious two-part season ending.

It’s the scene that I, for one, have been hoping to see for a very long time. But I understand why it couldn’t come sooner. It perfectly sets up the 19th hour of season 2, which perfectly sets up season 3. (Hint: there’s a new Big Bad Villain in town, and she eats pop stars’ brains and drinks barrel-aged whiskey.)

There’s no sense in burying the lead, so here goes: Liv Moore (Rose McIver) tells Det. Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) everything. She has to come clean because there’s no other way to save Major. She runs through the litany of lies she’s been telling and dispenses with them all.

To wit, she solves his cases because she absorbs the memories of the victims after eating their brains. And she’s not the only zombie around. Major is in that camp, too, and he’s responsible for the butcher shop murders, but only because he was stopping an organized serial-killing and brain-peddling operation.

Clive laughs. He thinks it’s ridiculous, and he doesn’t believe her. Then she jabs a knife into her gut, goes full-rage zombie, pulls it out and finishes her story. That’s when he gets it, even though his mind is completely, irreparably blown.

Tell me, fellow fans, that you felt an incredible wave of relief at that moment. Weight. Lifted.

Liv and Clive are friends, and they’ve become so much closer over the past weeks. He’ll stand by her, won’t he?

He has to shake off the idea of what he’d called “a weird brain cult,” and try to grasp the whole zombies-roaming-Seattle phenomenon. But yes, he supports her. Sadly, it means he loses his smokin’ hot girlfriend, FBI Agent Dale Bozzio (Jessica Harmon). They were so adorable together!

Dale isn’t the only casualty in “Dead Beat,” in which the zombiesicles disappear from their deep freeze, Major gets arrested (then re-arrested, then released), Blaine plays good Samaritan and Vaughn sells what’s left of his soul and puts a hit out on Liv and Major.

So many characters, not just Clive, learn the truth in this hour.

Liv finds out that her ex-fiance Major Lilywhite (Robert Buckley) has been kidnapping zombies only because he was being blackmailed by Max Rager to do so and only to keep her safe.

She also learns that he didn’t kill any of them – he put them on ice instead – so her boyfriend-undercover cop Drake is still alive.

Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) turns to Liv’s BFF and his former flame, Peyton Charles (Aly Michalka) when he needs shelter. Heavy sigh.

The still-amnesiac Blaine de Beers (David Anders) sees Don E for the extortionist he really is, and Vaughn Du Clark (Steven Weber) launches himself into the billionaire’s club via a Max Rager sale to a shady military contractor.

Short aside: how fantastic is it to have another “Veronica Mars” alum on the dram-rom-zom-com? Guest star Ken Marino pops in to play Brant Stone, the sleazy protein bar-stealing attorney that Vaughn hires to spring Major from jail.

And about that other stiff? It’s the heartless Janko, Vaughn’s right-hand man and in-house fixer who attacked Liv at the morgue and would’ve wheeled her away on a stretcher if it hadn’t been for Ravi.

Yes, our beloved medical examiner does have a dark side, but only when his friend is in danger. Ravi returns to the morgue with bagels only to see signs of a struggle.

He catches Janko just in time to retrieve a drugged Liv, but gets into a fight to the death with the muscle-bound goon. He ends up shooting Janko full of sedative – an OD level – and is so freaked out by the self-defense murder that he suggests dumping the guy’s body in the river “under cover of night.”

Liv, groggy from tranquilizers, has a better idea. Spread his brains on one of those bagels, like lox, and gets a peek inside the Max Rager secret dungeon.

When she does, she sees the zombiesicles, alive and (fairly) well.

On to hour 2 of finale night, dubbed “Salivation Army.”