After 11 Years, The 5-part Cult Classic Thriller That’s Hannibal Meets Buffy Is Officially Free on Streaming

Before the streaming era, fans of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy stories had to settle for what was closest. The CW became an important channel for many, especially a generation of viewers who wanted to enjoy the traditional trappings of teen romance and drama with higher stakes, be that superheroes, vampires, or zombies.

Even if you only discovered them years later on Netflix or Hulu, you’re probably familiar with classic examples like The Vampire Diaries and The 100. However, one of the best examples of The CW era ran for five seasons, yet never found a wider audience, remaining one of the channel’s best-kept secrets. Until now.

iZombie premiered in 2015, making it one of the last proper CW shows. The series follows a zombie woman trying to lead a meaningful life as she juggles work, relationships, and a craving for brains. As of Aug. 1, the entire series is streaming for free on Pluto TV, making this the perfect opportunity for you to dive into its world and fall in love with all of its strangeness.

Developed by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright, iZombie stars Rose McIver as Liv Moore, a medical resident in Seattle whose perfect life takes a turn when she gets transformed into the undead. After attending a party that’s crashed by a horde of zombies, Liv wakes up with a pale complexion, white hair, and a taste for human brains. Her zombie-fication complicates her life, resulting in her secluding herself from her friends and family, ending her relationship with the perfect fiancé, and taking on a radical career shift. After years as a successful hospital resident, Liv starts working at the local morgue. Her family and friends don’t know it, but it’s the only place where she can get the brains she needs without sparking much suspicion.

This is enough plot to carry a full season in any show, but iZombie doesn’t stop there. Its pilot episode breezes through all of this setup, establishing a playful and irreverent tone while also setting a procedural structure. When Liv eats human brains, she gains access to the person’s memories and talents, making her a medium of sorts and a great tool for solving crimes. This format allows the series to shine, with Thomas developing dynamics and settings that are right up his alley, echoing his cult classic series Veronica Mars. iZombie is chirpy and quippy, but also packed with dark humor that anchors its twists and turns. In one episode, Liv eats a murdered woman’s brain to track down the killer — but she also inherits the woman’s kleptomania, and struggles to contain her desire to steal meaningless objects in the most inconvenient of places.

McIver is a great performer, delivering the right amount of humor and detachment that’s needed to make her sweet yet sometimes deadly zombie work. Through the episodes, she gravitates between a well-rounded cast of supporting characters, including her boss Ravi (Rahul Kohli), a morbidly curious zombie ally on the hunt for a cure; and her detective partner Clive (Malcolm Goodwin), who’s consistently puzzled by her unexplainable intuition, yet always comes back because she makes his job so much easier.

iZombie isn’t afraid to push the boundaries of its format and genre. As the seasons progress, what started as a contained story trailing a zombie girl solving crimes unravels into a wider conspiracy that hits the traditional beats of the zombie genre, including an outbreak and its societal consequences and divisions. It’s something that Thomas himself wanted to explore when first discussing the project in 2014. “We want there to be a real zombie mythology and zombie storylines. I would say in Veronica Mars there was always a big murder case that encompassed the season. In iZombie, there’s a big zombie storyline that will sort of serve as the same role,” he said to Gizmodo.

Image: The CW

Despite the shift in tone and evolving storylines, iZombie always feels like the same show, retaining its romcom essence and quirkiness. One of the series’ most memorable stylistic motifs features Liv preparing the perfect plate of brains, cooking it with different condiments and sauces in sequences that are funny, disturbing, and entrancing, often at the same time, like a PG version of Hannibal.

It’s never been easier to find a show that fits your specific tastes, but a decade ago, it was a different landscape. Finding a series as specific as iZombie felt special, like someone hunted through a goth girl’s subconscious and blended her favorite things: a will-they or won’t-they romance mixed with an addictive serial procedural sprinkled with a zombie innocently enjoying the perfect serving of brains. Sure, zombies are huge pop culture figures, just as prominent as vampires and werewolves, but rarely do they get the main character treatment. iZombie proves that it’s possible to grab the concept of the brain-eating undead and shape it into something fresh.