iZombie EP Rob Thomas gives us a prep talk ahead of season 3 

It’s been almost a full year, but 

is finally returning to The CW on Tuesday for more brainy mysteries. And to help prepare us, we’ve enlisted the help of executive producer Rob Thomas (not to be confused with the singer Rob Thomas, who appeared, died, and whose brain was consumed in the season 2 finale of the series) to refresh our memories and share the three things you absolutely need to remember before you watch.

1. First, we met Vivian Stoll (Andrea Savage) in the season 2 finale. She’s “the head of Fillmore-Graves, a military contractor that employs all zombies,” Thomas explains. “She’s put a question to Liv (Rose McIver), which is: Someday, humans are going to come after zombies and you’ve gotta decide whose side you’re on — humans or zombies?”

2. “The Max Rager portion of the zombie universe is over. That was all destroyed in the big shootout at the end of season 2,” he says, noting that Vaughn Du Clark (Steven Weber) really is dead and gone.

3. “Blaine (David Anders) and Ravi (Rahul Kohli) went to rescue Peyton (Aly Michalka), and Blaine went in guns a-blazin’ and rescued Peyton while Ravi sat out in the car not knowing what Blaine was going to do, but that has affected him in a negative way.”

Thomas also warns that season 3 will follow a bit of a different path than those that came before it. “The first two seasons had very similar shapes,” he says. “We had a clearly defined big bad character in each of the seasons. Season 1 really revolved around tracking down Blaine — who was murdering teenagers and selling their brains — and a big shootout at the end of the season. And then season 2 was built largely around Steven Weber as Vaughn Du Clark, the head of Max Rager, and an even bigger shootout at the end. Season 3 is going to have a much different shape. We have no clearly defined big bad. There’s a really central question: that ‘whose side are you on, zombies or humans,’ question is going to be asked throughout the season.”

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