It looked likely for a while that iZombie would become another victim of the TV cull of early May before The CW renewed it for a fifth season.
Loosely based on the comic-book series of the same name, Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright's crime procedural with literal brains has taken a bold leap in season four following the season three finale that saw the existence of zombies revealed to the world.
But what can we expect from season five? Here's everything we know so far.
iZombie season 5 renewal: Is the end in sight?
Fans had only a few days to celebrate the fact that iZombie was coming back before The CW confirmed that season five will be the final season.
But before you set up any angry petitions, co-creator Rob Thomas had hinted before the renewal that they just needed one more season to "get to the end of our story", so at least the show will get to end how they want, much like fellow CW show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
iZombie season 5 cast: Who's coming back?
We can expect all of the main stars back in season five after they survived season four with all their organs in tact.
So that's Rose McIver (Liv Moore), Malcolm Goodwin (Clive Babineaux), Rahul Kohli (Ravi Chakrabarti), Robert Buckley (Major Lilywhite), David Anders (Blaine McDonough) and Aly Michalka (Peyton Charles).
However, Robert Knepper won't be back as Angus McDonough who became an anti-human zombie cult leader in season four. It follows accusations of sexual misconduct against Knepper which he has denied, but The CW boss Mark Pedowitz confirmed to Slash Film that he only had a "one-year deal" anyway.
"His character had a definitive path. You'll find out when you watch the series what happens. That was decided way ahead of time, had nothing to do with the allegations," Pedowitz outlined, and what happened in the season four finale was Brother Love – and his followers – got shot down as they attempted to break out of New Seattle and spread the zombie virus.
It's also likely we'll see Bryce Hodgson back as Blaine's right-hand zombie Don E, but say goodbye to Daniel Bonjour as Liv's zombie boyfriend Levon Patch and Jason Dohring as Fillmore-Graves leader Chase Graves as they both got their heads crushed in the season four finale.
iZombie season 5 release date: When can we expect it?
The final iZombie run will kick off on May 2, 2019 on The CW in the US.
We'd expect there to be 13 episodes like every season other than season two, which ran for 19 episodes. And for UK fans, the show will continue to air on Netflix with episodes arriving the day after their US airing.
iZombie season 5 plot: How does season 4 set it up?
Following a time jump, season four started with Seattle becoming the walled city of New Seattle as the US government contained the zombie outbreak.
Alongside the usual 'brain of the week' murders, it has also seen Liv become the underground leader Renegade after the previous leader was brutally executed, smuggling sick humans into New Seattle and scratching them to save them so they can start a new life as a zombie.
This has put her in the sights of Fillmore-Graves who are responsible for controlling the population in New Seattle and in the season four finale, Chase was about to execute Liv before Major overpowered Chase and Liv finished off the job. This left Major in charge of Fillmore-Graves and his first decision was to make a deal with Blaine and Don-E to smuggle brains into New Seattle.
Before Liv's boyfriend Levon was executed by Chase, his documentary about Renegade was released online, narrated by none other than Paul Rudd to give the season four finale a Veronica Mars and Marvel crossover. Liv then chose to stay on as Renegade with Rob Thomas explaining that the choice was to make sure she wasn't "just a random zombie".
Away from the zombie-human tension, Ravi was working on a more effective zombie cure all season, after Blaine stole the previous batch to sell to the highest bidder. He was about to give Liv the cure, thanks to Isobel's (Izabela Vidovic) brain, but she decided to gift it to Dale (Jessica Harmon) after she got married to Clive, leaving them with a chance to have a baby.
As for what we can expect in the final season, Thomas told TVLine that the fate of Major and Liv's relationship will be resolved.
"I don't know what that resolution will be yet, but it will feel resolved. And that was always one of those things that you're going to hold in your back pocket until your final season and figure it out then," he explained.
"I think we're going to give some sort of answer to the fate of zombie kind. And again, I do not know what that answer will be, but we won't do the Sopranos ending. It won't just be like you're watching the show and then someone just hits stop in a random place. And I say that actually really liking the Sopranos ending, but I suspect that we're going to get more resolution than that."
iZombie airs on The CW in the US and Netflix in the UK.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
