iZombie Cast Dishes on Major's Teenage Girl Brain Episode

On tonight's episode of "iZombie," "Zombie Knows Best." The second episode of the show's third season will find Liv and Major consuming the brains of a father and his teenage daughter -- with a twist. For reasons to be made clear in the episode, Liv will eat the father while Major eats the daughter, which forces the two characters into a strange, but hilarious father-daughter dynamic. During a set visit, the "iZombie" cast discussed what it was like to see Robert Buckley take on the personality of a fifteen-year-old-girl.

"A father and his fourteen-year-old ice skating enthusiast daughter die in a car crash. Liv ends up eating the dad, so Major has to eat the fourteen-year-old girl -- and guys, I just went wild," Buckley shared. "The writers had kind of seen me do a bit where I'm highly emotional and melodramatic, and so they were like, 'Just kind of do that. Just riff.' And the only thing that was weird about it was how little of a stretch it was. Like, I'd love to tell you that I Daniel Day Lewis-ed it and I watched 'Mean Girls.' I did nothing. I learned my lines and I was just like, 'I'm just going to let my inner Mean Girl fly.' And I'll tell you what: she soared."

"Guys, I sing like four times this season," he added. "This next episode, I have another singing thing. I am the worst singer on the show. There's the David Anders and the Rose McIvers, and then on the other end of the spectrum is the Robert Buckleys, and that's the one you try to stay away from or earmuff it. I think I sing four times, but yes, in that episode, I jam out to Katy Perry. By the way, that is not a karaoke favorite. She is hard to sing. You ever tried? Don't."

Though Buckley has a harsh take on his own singing voice, Rose McIver -- who plays Liv Moore -- found it delightful. "I mean, one of the earliest ones we see -- which I love so much -- is Liv and Major on father/daughter brains. Liv is the father and Major is the teenage daughter, so it's the part Robert Buckley was born to play: sixteen-year-old schoolgirl. He's singing along to pop songs on the radio in just a beautiful falsetto," she said.

Buckley will also give Ravi some much-needed love advice during the episode. "Major giving Ravi love advice on Peyton while on teenage girl brain, so basically it's a fourteen-year-old girl being like, 'Is she the most selfish person in the world?' And then, on the turn of a dime, he's screaming Katy Perry in his face and being like, 'This is so you and Peyton!'" Buckley recalled. "So watching Rahul play off that, being just 'What?', is so great. It's just like one extreme and the straight man. So yeah, he killed that stuff."

Unfortunately, Major's advice won't help Ravi in the long run. "It doesn't do so much for Ravi's relationship as it shows the two different brains that both Liv and Major are on, because obviously one eats the father and one eats the teenage daughter," explained Ravi himself Rahul Kohli. "So Ravi, who's going through his own sort of drama over what he's just learned about Peyton and Blaine, seeks advice from Liv and he gets one aspect of that, and then he gets Major, which is the teenage daughter brain, and he gets these conflicting things. It's a great scene! Again, it has nothing to do with Ravi; it just shows how great Robert Buckley is at that character. He really killed it. It's a fun scene."

Executive producer Dan Etheridge also revealed his excitement for the upcoming episode. "I forget who it was -- in might have been Diane [Ruggiero-Wright], I can't remember -- in the writers' room, someone came up with Major being the daughter, and everybody erupted in laughter and said, 'That's it,'" he recalled. "We were looking forward to that since someone came up with that in early June. We were so excited about it, the expectations were so high, and they really nailed it. I mean, it's funny, because with this one, Liv is almost in some ways the straight man, because seeing Major as the daughter is the real comic gold. When you have a chance to see that, they knocked it out of the park. We knew they would."

According to the official episode description,

When Liv (Rose McIver), Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) and Ravi (Rahul Kohli) arrive at the scene to investigate a fatal car accident, they begin to suspect foul play was involved. Both starving, Liv and Major (Robert Buckley) consume the brains of the accident victims, a well-meaning father and his angsty teenage daughter. Meanwhile, when Clive is brought in for questioning about a family that was murdered, he’s forced to reveal his past history with them. Lastly, Peyton (Aly Michalka) extends an olive branch to Ravi (Rahul Kohli), and Major hits a road block in his search for Natalie (guest star Brooke Lyons “The Affair”). David Anders also stars. Jason Bloom directed the episode written by Diane Ruggiero-Wright.

Based on the Vertigo comics series by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, “iZombie” follows the story of Liv Moore, a former medical resident who got turned into a zombie. In order to satiate her appetite for human brains, she takes a job at the Seattle coroner’s office and feasts on the cadaver.

Airing Tuesdays at 9 pm EST on The CW, “iZombie” is produced by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright, the creators of “Veronica Mars,” and stars Rose McIver as Olivia Moore, Malcolm Goodwin as CliveBabinaux, Rahul Kohli as Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti, Robert Buckley as Major Lilywhite, David Anders as Blaine DeBeers, Aly Michalka as Peyton Charles, Andrea Savage as Vivian Stoll, and newcomer Jason Dohring as Chase Graves.