Warning: This article contains spoilers for iZombie .
Last season, Liv (Rose McIver) became embroiled in a case that resulted in an attacker assaulting her in her apartment and, as iZombie fans know, she doesn’t live alone. Although Liv defeated her attacker, that episode of iZombie ended with Liv’s roommate Peyton (Aly Michalka) learning the truth about Liv’s zombie status. To say that Peyton handled the news poorly would be an understatement. Peyton disappeared as soon as Liv’s back was turned and her face was not to be seen again in iZombie ‘s first season.
The question for many iZombie fans is will she be back in the second season?
While Aly Michalka has certainly made an impression on iZombie fans , becoming one of the show’s most likable supporting characters, the decision of whether Peyton will be brought back has had as much to do with Michalka’s career objectives as it does with the decisions of iZombie ‘s creative team.
iZombie creator Rob Thomas revealed that Aly had left the show to try her luck with a larger role on another new series. While this may be seen as a setback for Michalka, that pilot was not received well enough to get a series order, which, in turn, frees up Aly to return to her iZombie role.
“We adore Aly [Michalka] and we think the show is better when she’s in it. We’d love to have more of her,” iZombie executive producer Rob Thomas says. “But our episodes do fill quickly, with our case-of-the-week story and our zombie mythology stuff, and we knew we were going to lose her to do a pilot this year, so we had to write her in a way that, if her pilot had gone and she was unavailable this year that it made sense. Because she’s not a series regular, we can’t control her schedule. We can hope that when we write these episodes for her, that she can and will do them.”
Other iZombie news reveals that everyone’s least favorite cop, Lt. Suzuki (Hiro Kanagawa), will be murdered by everyone’s most favorite villain, Blaine (David Anders). This will cause Detective Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) to become fixated on Blaine and lead him closer to uncovering the truth about the zombie apocalypse.
There will also be a greater focus on Liv’s family in iZombie ‘s second season. Thomas revealed that iZombie deliberately shied away from storylines that would give greater depth to those characters, but iZombie ‘s season finale changed that by ending the episode on a note that will ultimately force Liv to deal with them.
If iZombie follows their past schedule, the second season premiere should air in March on the CW network.
[Featured image: Aly Michalka courtesy of the CW network/ iZombie ]