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slayernina · 11 months

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Speculation Time: season 6

Season 5 had his highs and lows and surely it’s divisive among the fandom. For me, it has some of the best ideas of the show but badly executed. Since the fandom more or less agreed about how rushed everything was on season 5, what would you have changed in the case season 6 was green lighted? What would you have cut, or change, or rearrange, or extend from season 5 into season 6?

The episodes are separated into Plot A (Liv’s brains) and Plot B (what characters do outside the murder of the week, during the full season).

My ideas:

During season 5

From 5x01 to 5x06 everything is more or less the same, but most of scenes related to Plot As and Bs are separated and rearranged:

• Plot A. Rose McIver will continue to entertain us with her acting abilities and over the top brains, but the brains are used again to make Liv reflect on her undead life, like on season 1.

• Plot B. Instead of a terminal disease, Evan joins the Renegade team on 5x01. Liv and Evan work together and had all that deleted plot of Evan’s sexuality. He starts living with Liv, appears regularly and hangs out with the heroes during season 5 and 6. Evan could help Liv with a case and after an episode full of sibling banter, reveals his sexuality (and his boyfriend). Eva also appears mid season 5 a couple of times.

• Plot B. Martin should have been introduced earlier on season 5 and should have stood around more, both as Liv's dad and as an antagonist, so his murder was more impactful (and the fact he was the creator of Utopium too). He would have been killed around 5x11 anyway. In that episode, a Martin/Eva flashback of their relationship would have been good.

• Plot B. Enzo/Major are more or less the same as the real season 5, and both are expanded well into season 6 (their character arcs and ending are also the same). Justin is a frenemie during both seasons, but we see how he got into the Big Brother cult. There is also at least one Liv/Justin scene discussing their past relationship.

• Plot B. More Dale interacting with the heroes in all episodes until the end of season 6. She has Baby Olivia at the end of season 5.

• Plot B. More Darcy, at least one scene in half of the episodes. How she went so hard into Don E? Why she was so on board with Blaine’s gang? Introduce her formally as Don E’s girlfriend to the heroes and make them interact with her. Of the good guys, she only met briefly Major and he never asked why she was there, when clearly she wasn’t a zombie, a drug dealer nor a prostitute… The fact Blaine tried to hide Darcy in the basement with him can spark several fics itself lol. Maybe Liv or Ravi can brought up Isobel to her, and she reacts with “I’m not a sick angel or a placement goldfish” reaction. We could have had an exploration of another type of sociopath, or just how sick people =/= good. Her death and why she died would have happened around the end of season 6.

• Plot B. Until 5x10 aka the Noir Episode, more Candy. I just love her. We never really knew why she went on Blaine's side so willingly even when she was human, and given how she was the only "bad" zombie character surviving, she deserved more scenes. For those who watched Lucifer, the Candy of that show acted like a dumb bimbo but it was all a charade. At the end, this seemed to be her case.

• Plot B. Dolly Durkins is clearly the Big Bad of this season. She confronts Peyton in public over and over again and mess with Fillmore Graves in secret. At the end of the season, she has become Mayor because she spilled Peyton’s idea of how she got the budget for the HiZombie webshow. When she is about to take charge, one of Mr. Boss minions kills her on live TV.

• Plot A. Ditch Sporty!Liv, it didn’t add anything to the plot, the character and it wasn´t fun to watch (except the kegel exercises and the Pavi sex scene). Keep the scenes with the Death Enders and choose instead another brain.

• Plot A. Liv eating the brain of a drug addict. Let's watch the show from "the other side". Plot B could be an investigation at the Scratching Post, but following the everyday of the workers instead (this must happen before 5x10 aka the noir episode). Candy went from one scene Trivial Genie, to cosmetologist, to the only human at a brain zombie scheme, to mutineer, to Madame, to the only member of Blaine´s gang getting away (and surviving). Tanner was one of Major’s kids that went wrong and we never explored that. Darcy became Don E’s girlfriend. Why. I need more of those people. You know your society doesn’t work if regular people are better under someone like Blaine than having a normal life in “the system”. Blaine and the Eberhard twins could count this in regard to Mr. Boss, so a flashback or conversation of how they ended working for Mr. Boss could have been great. Bonus points if Tanner’s sister makes a cameo and is played by Julia Garner aka Ruth from Ozark (after all, Blaine’s accountant is called Marty XD).

• Plot A. Brain of a journalist. Liv investigates something and the episode brings back Steph (it’s a news camerawoman), Shawna (she is a blogger) and Rachel (she is a journalist and made a cameo on the real season 5). The three of them roast Ravi and Major together. Plus, Al Bronson is around that and joins the investigation and non-officially the hero group in the following episodes.

-Major trashes the place while Liv is hiding, drama with both Major and Justin.

-Clive (and somehow Ravi) spend a full episode learning to be a father with puppets, Dale is Liv´s investigator partner.

-A brief scene of Blaine, Don E, Darcy or Al going to the morgue for whatever reason, to find out it’s the afternoon shift instead and Liv and Ravi were on their free day XD. Bonus points if there is a girl like Liv and a boy like Ravi. More bonus points if Liv 2.0 is played by Kristen Bell and Ravi 2.0 is Raymond Ablack (there’s no budget and schedule limit for imagination lol).

• Plot B. Al is introduced like she was on 5x04, but she goes on a full relationship with Blaine. Meanwhile she “investigates for the article”, she helps Liv with cases since she has access to more information, and helps destroying some minor Blaine and Dolly’s business. It looks for the audience like she was sent as a mole by Blaine, but at 5x13, turns out she was destroying him, Liv, and all Mr. Boss enemies, and her real identity (and the article) is revealed.

• Plot B. Blaine spend season 5 living his best life, fluffy scenes with Al included. He got everything he wanted but at the end of season 5 he is annihilated by Mr. Boss and Al´s article and his last scene is going to prison.

Season 6

• Plot B. Call-backs to other seasons, after all is the last one. Make it feel like a big reunion. Bringing back characters like Johnny Frost, Johnny Frost's unknown wife (insert someone like Godess Gina Torres here lol), the lawyer, Jimmy, Vampire Steve, Pam, the group of superheroes… Also call-backs to past brains or jokes.

• Plot B. Evan betrays the Renegade group because Enzo took his boyfriend, but at the end of season 6 he is the one killed at the news station in a dramatic way after shooting Enzo instead of that what’s-his-name-teacher.

• Plot B. More Ravi (and Blaine, Don E…) reacting to brains. The brains used on other characters other than Liv was severely underused.

• Michelle is killed at the end too, but we get to see Clive-Dale-Michelle coparenting before.

• Plot B. 6x01. Season 6 would have happen during 2020, so this would have been one of the shows that got cancelled or halted because of the pandemic XD. I propose to use it for plot reasons. Seattle is fully safe because of the wall. People are dying outside everywhere, so Mr. Boss uses all those extra brains to feed the city. He is appointed as the new Mayor because people, humans and zombies alike, prefer to be feed and safe. Riots of people in favour and contrary to Mr. Boss ensue. Mr. Boss and Al are a powerful Evil Team, like Vaughn Du Clark and Rita were, but this people did love and care for each other. But around 6x10, Blaine goes on full berserk and kills everyone (they are just humans after all).

• Plot A. 6x02. Brain of a dull office worker ala Colin Robinson from What We Do In The Shadows. To compensate the boredom of the brain, the rest of the characters should be bonding. The show is severely lacking on terms of family bonding overall. Clive introduces Dale to his parents (or viceversa) and we discover they are amazingly embarrasing XD. Plot twist at the end of the episode: turns out the office worker wasn’t killed, it was a suicide. Liv and the other zombies reflects on how being undead have make them alive and make things they wouldn’t have done, retaking that Liv/Blaine conversation about being a zombie of 2x06.

• Plot A. 6x03. Brain of a housewife/househusband with vivid imagination, thus creating a musical episode. Liv eating Rachel Bloom's brain and not turning anything into a musical only in Liv's imagination was a waste of a brain. Plus half of the cast can sing/play instruments so… Insert here over the top Moulin Rougesque musical numbers. At the end of the episode, we discover the housewife used musical numbers as a way to cope with their abusive partner.

• Plot A. 6x04: Surgeon doctor in a hospital episode. A what if episode of Liv reflecting what she could have been. Plot B could be more exploration about the Freylinch kids. They were crucial but we only know "they are super cheerful, macabre kids". One of them was the victim and other was the murderer. Let's explore terminal diseases (yes, I watched The Midnight Club) and how that affect people and their caretakers. Darcy should take the centre of the stage here. Eva Moore helps with the investigation too.

-After the hospital episode, she joins the Renegade team. Cue to hilarious scenes in which a Karen follows all the characters (I would kill for a scene of Eva confronting Don E and asking for the manager XD). Despite everything, she is useful around, though.

• Plot A. 6x05. Religious zealot. Also bringing back some Brother Love fanatics, their ideology shouldn't have disappeared like that. Maybe Liv has to eat that brain in secret because the family didn’t want “the corpse corrupted” or whatever. In a show of undead people, I’m surprised the idea of souls/aftermath/etc only gets briefly explored in a couple of throwaway lines during a Chase/Blaine scene.

Plot B. Angus tried to play matchmaker with Liv and Blaine. Blaine and the Eberhard twins worked for Martin. Something must be done with this, please.

• Plot A. 6x06. Bridezilla. Liv eats a paranoid soon to be bride, and the episode is full of Lilymoore scenes. In the heat of the moment, bringing back her one night stand with Chase to create drama with Major. At the end, Liv and Major agree to get married… someday. We see Dale and Clive parenting, and Michelle on her own too. Pavi scenes. Ravi trying to introduce Peyton to videogames. Ravi and Peyton have an honest conversation, she doesn’t want to be a mother and they agree to be a childfree couple.

• Plot A. 6x07. Evil Mafia Lord. We have seen Liv eating a psychopath and being a racist asshole, but we have never seen Liv been truly awful. Like using her body to get what she wants, betraying her friends or killing someone in cold blood for her own interest because she is a serial killer or something. A plot dealing with the aftermath of her actions for several episodes could have been interesting. Blaine, Mr. Boss or even Don E making an insight about it and challenging her perceptions of what it’s right or not. Liv pulling off a Stocker piano duet scene with Blaine. After that conversation about being a zombie in 2x06 and their fist showdown on the noir episode, those two didn´t interact again with deep conversations. That could have been the moment in which Blaine could have brought up the fact Liv technically created him while pouring her drink at the boat party.

• Plot A. 6x08. Fanfic writer/tumblr/Reddit fan of Peyton's webshow. Another wasted opportunity for a thousand of internal jokes and a take at toxic/incel fandom. It could be great if the characters go to a Con in Zeattle and we have Clive and Ravi together nerding around (and being the investigator partners of the episode). Bonus: Ravi meets Henry Cavill and nerd over Warhammer.

• 6x09. Brain of one of the show writers. A meta episode explaining how they got pitched by the network despite this bonkers idea. Plot B: a full flashback episode. What the characters were doing before the boat party, and Freudian explanations about how they reacted to events later. We could have had Liv's mom pressing Liv and how her life was a Gone Girl/Luckiest Girl Alive scenario in which she tries to be perfect. How Lilymoore human ship really was and all the cracks under the surface. Ravi and his days at the CCDE, later expulsion. Peyton and her dull, boring boyfriend chosen by her parents who never challenges her and pressures her to be just a housewife and have babies (that could explain why she fell so easily for bad boy Blaine –twice- and why she didn't have any stable romantic relationship until that point). Blaine being a loser and everyone’s bitch, and his obsession with status and money. Scott E and Don E relationship with an insight about their home lives, including Scott E being so against being a father. Bonus points if they pull off a Lost flashback and all the characters cross paths (like sharing an elevator, waiting on the line at the supermarket…) but without interacting or acknowledging each other.

• 6x10. Brain of a rockstar or a groupie. I just want Rose McIver on rock/punk clothes, ok? Bonus points if it's a lesbian rockstar. Why this never was brought up (but in my mind everyone is bisexual until proven otherwise)? Lowell ate that gay brain… Plot B could be Peyton side plot as the producer dealing with all the shenanigans of her webshow. She has a road trip with Don E. She needs to get budget and sponsors outside Seattle, he smuggles her out. Turns out Don E used the road trip to visit Scott E’s child in secret. He admits to Peyton in a sincere conversation that he prefers the child is in foster care instead of his care (or his mom) because that would result in another Eberhard mess.

• 6x11. Also, since it was 2020, you have a cop show, and one of your protagonists is a black cop, #BlackLivesMatter. It’s impossible to not touch the matter. Liv eats the brain of a black guy killed by cops. In the other side, Cavanaugh is killed on service. Liv and Dale go on an investigation. Episode full of prejudices and a white guy as the real killer pulling off a Amy Dune strategy. Ravi, while being European and brown, can also have an input about how racism works in other countries (instead of the USA “hey a cop just shot me!”). Hopeful scenes of humans and zombies joining forces to catch the murderer of the week (all the call-backs mentioned earlier, reunited in an Avengers Assembly moment). That scene with everybody happily dancing at the Scratching Post always gets me T_T.

6x12 and 6x13 more or less as the original 5x12 and 5x13 but:

• Plot B. A darker plot for Blaine during the full season. He escaped somehow from prison on 6x01 (maybe the last good thing Don E did?) after a very, very bad time there (implied beatings and rape and everything). He stayed at Don E’s basement again, this time more depressed and deranged, but Don E ends fed up with his attitude (“I don’t want another junkie like Scott E living here!”) and throws him out. He ends homeless, addicted, alcoholic, pimping himself out for a shot, like he was while being human but way more insane and desperate. All the scenes in which he appears or interact with the heroes we see him more and more spiralling out of control. He kills Tanner and Darcy mid season 6, kills later Mr. Boss and Al. Insert a monologue ala Cruella because I think David Anders can pull off something like that in front of his grandfather’s tomb. Don E helps him to kidnap Peyton because he is afraid about the consequences of not doing what he wants. Thanks to an old chat founded on Darcy’s phone about Darcy and Don E hosting a rave at the McDonough Mansion, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are the ones guiding Liv there (that would be the explanation on how Liv arrived on the real 5x13).

• Liv arrives on time to have a final conversation/fight with Blaine, but Don E interrupts them throwing Blaine at the well while ranting his final speech. Liv abandons him instead of killing him to look for Peyton’s corpse (and happy reunion instead).

• I'm ok with the time skip to the future, but I would have prefer watch the characters doing stuff with Liv’s voiceover: we see Lilymoore hid at the island. The Babineaux-Bozzio family everyday, with online D&D sessions on full cosplay including Vampire Steve and Jimmy. Ravi working at the CCDE and Peyton as District Attorney (someone enters into Peyton´s office and she closes quickly a window with the Sims or COD lol). And Don E sits at the office of his club having a reunion with Mafia Lords and hinting he is the new Blaine/Mr. Boss. Even a shot of corrupted zombie Blaine at the well (but maybe that’s too much).