Hungry for some new episodes of iZombie? You’re not alone.

It’s been almost a whole year since The CW’s zom-rom-com ended its second season on quite the cliffhanger, so thankfully when Liv (Rose McIver) and the rest of Team Z return for season three, the drama is picking up right where it left off. After all, when you end a season with a full-on zombie attack and the introduction of a secret zombie military operation planning to go public, you really can’t do a time jump.

When Nerdist visited the iZombie set in Vancouver, in between eating brains (seriously), the stars of The CW’s hit series sat down to reveal everything there is to know about season three from the new big bad to potential new zombie cures and, of course, all the braaaaiiiiins Liv will eat.

There’s a Growing Zombie Army

McIver revealed the new zombie military force Fillmore Graves (another win for the pun-inclined series) will be a “huge” part of the new season. In fact, while they may not appear to be “evil” in any way, they’re actually season three’s big bad, and it’s a new kind of “villain” for the series to tackle.

“That’s the big new realm that we enter,” McIver said. “We spend a lot of time in [the Fillmore Graves] offices and their environment and with those characters, so they play a very significant role this year. Liv is still kind of trying to work out throughout the course of it quite where she stands with them, whether she’s on their side or not, whether she agrees with how they plan on handling this potential zombie outbreak or not.”

…And Someone We Love Will Join Their Ranks

At the bow of season two, Liv, Major (Robert Buckley) and Clive (Malcolm Goodwin) were still in shock at the mere existence of Fillmore Graves. By the end of the season three premiere, however, at least one member of Team Z will join up with the mysterious new pro-zombie operation.

“It’s going to pose some interesting questions for everyone in the group,” Buckley teased. “It is a main component of Major’s arc this year. Fillmore Graves, the people he meets and is friends with and the relationships he forms. It’s a big part of his journey.”

The Race For the Cure is On

Meanwhile, Ravi (Rahul Kohli) will be working harder than ever to stop the zombie outbreak before it starts by finding that cure. Right now, Ravi has a cure for zombie-ism … but it wipes out every memory a person has. It’s really not a good option.

“While it works, it causes amnesia. So he’s now attacking it from two angles,” Kohli said of Ravi’s hunt. “So he spends the season or a good part of it trying to cure two different things. But just like how there were different phases of the cure—some were deadly, some didn’t work, some did work — the same kind of situation happens with the amnesia cure as in it’s not exactly perfect, and that in itself and the methods he comes up with and the solutions he has aren’t particularly good, and they cause him to have his own little drama.”

…Before it Kills. *gulp*

Adding even more pressure to an already strained Ravi is the fact that Major is living on borrowed time with an older version of the cure in his veins that eventually will kill him.

“At the moment, the best that we can do is cure it, but lose your memory, and that’s the situation we’ve had which is why no one else has taken the cure, like Liv,” Kohli said. “So Major’s on borrowed time and his journey and what he goes through will obviously motivate Ravi. … [T]o lose the Major we know and have a cured dude who doesn’t remember anything, doesn’t remember us, doesn’t remember Liv? Does he give in and we lose Major altogether?”

Blaine Goes Good Guy?!

Currently suffering from the effects of Ravi’s latest cure is former series villain Blaine (David Anders). Now a human with no memory of his life before he took the cure, Blaine doesn’t even remember that he was a bad guy. Could he actually become a member of Team Z and have a real relationship with Peyton (Aly Michalka)?

“We were surprised, too,” Michalka said with a laugh. “We all didn’t think Peyton would fall for a guy like Blaine. Especially because she’s the kind of girl who has a good head on her shoulders; she seems very practical. Blaine, it was one of those things where it came out of left field and even surprised her that she was attracted to this guy. After finding out that he’s the one who turned her best friend into a zombie, that obviously gave her caution, and finding out he’s a murderer as well. The one thing that was his saving grace is he lost his memories. He doesn’t remember any of this part from himself from the past.”

“It’s been an opportunity for him to reinvent himself,” McIver agreed. “Best thing that could have ever happened to a villain, isn’t it? Like lose that history, lose the memory of anything you’ve ever done wrong and it’s very hard for anybody to hold something against him. And we also have information about his backstory and the more we come to understand his father and where he’s from, kudos to the writers for being able to build a three-dimensional villain who we can understand a lot better. And with the device of losing his memory, we’re able to forgive and open up a whole different kind of realm for Blaine to play in and he does it incredibly well.”

She paused, then added, “I don’t trust him. I’m still very sketchy about him in general. That’s Liv and Rose speaking. It’s a journey, but he’s proving himself so far to be well intentioned and definitely loves Peyton and seems to be trying to make up for things, so, what can you do? Just let it unfold as it will.”

Much to Ravi’s chagrin, Peyton will continue to explore a relationship with Blaine now that he’s changed into a caring, empathetic person with no memory of his shady past.

“Peyton looks at that as maybe this is a good thing; maybe he is a great guy deep down,” Michalka said. “At the beginning of this new season, he’s still comforting Peyton throughout this trauma that we left off on last season. Now that zombies are possibly going to be found out from society, that puts everyone on a high stakes sort of scenario. Her and Ravi’s relationship is definitely still there; you can see there’s a great connection there and a great friendship. But at the end of the day, she’s still struggling with these feelings she has for Blaine. We’ll see where it leads them.”

Major’s Got Major Issues

A big aspect from season two being carried over into season three is the accusation that Major was the Chaos Killer. He totally was the Chaos Killer—even though he didn’t actually kill anyone, thanks a lot Max Rager, yadda yadda yadda—and he has been publicly cleared of all charges, but that doesn’t mean the public will apologize to him anytime soon.

“Holy smokes. It’s not something that Major is going to escape easily,” Buckley said. “It’s not like a bad haircut people are going to forget about. A large amount of the population thinks he’s in fact a serial killer. And even if he’s not a killer, he’s someone who kidnapped people and destroyed families and homes. That is something that will impact every aspect of his life: his love life, his employment. That is something that he will be struggling with a lot this season. He really hasn’t had much of a life. His love life is in shambles, he has no job, he has no real personal life outside of a couple of friends. He’s trying to find who Major is again.”

So what does that mean for Major and Liv, romantically speaking?

“I think both Liv and Major would love to see it work. But as we’ve seen in the two years, they are just absolute stars at not having the stars aligned,” Buckley said with a laugh. “They are just the champions of not having a successful relationship ever since their engagement. I think we will see them continue to try and navigate the waters and see if there is a shot.”

So don’t give up hope just yet if you ship Liv and Major. “In my heart, I still think there is a shot,” Buckley said. “I root for them. We’ll see this year. But from the jump, I’m holding on to hope.”

A New Mystery Character Arrives

Of course that makes us wonder: does season three’s addition of Jason Dohring add a wrinkle to any potential Liv and Major relationship? So far, the cast is staying mum on who the Veronica Mars alum is playing.

“Every time [showrunners] Rob Thomas and Diane [Ruggiero-Wright] bring back characters they’ve worked with before we know it’s because they really love the experience of working with those actors and, so it’s always a gift when they arrive on set,” McIver said. “He’s got some great ideas for his character. I can say it’s not something you’ve seen him do before, and you’ll be very interested, and Liv is still trying to wrap her head around quite where he fits in into the bigger picture.”

The New Braaaaiiiins are Better Than Ever!

But what McIver is most excited for fans to see from this season of iZombie are all the different kinds of brains that Liv is going to eat, and all the personalities she’ll become as a result.

“One of the earliest ones we see, which I love so much, is Liv and Major on father-daughter brains,” McIver said. “Liv is the father and Major’s the teenage daughter. It’s the part Robert Buckley was born to play—a 16-year-old school girl who sings along to pop songs on the radio in a beautiful falsetto.”

Along with that comedy gold, McIver reveals Liv will eat a “dominatrix brain.”

“That’s a lot,” she said with a laugh. “Poor Clive and Ravi definitely bear the brunt of that. And especially, now that Babineaux knows about Liv’s reasons for the way she behaves, he’s having to put up with things in a different way, so that’s a very funny episode. Liv’s on a Dungeons and Dragons brain, like a dungeon master, which has been like learning a foreign language for me. I didn’t know that world growing up, but the good thing about that is because it’s somebody who narrates and who is able to command groups and has a sense of adventure and this imperious kind of voice throughout it, that flows into her own life and her ability to kind of manipulate situations and make decisions for groups and encourage people to adventure.”

The brain that surprised McIver the most with how easy it came to her, though, was a “hot mess brain.”

“That was my favorite,” she said. “Very Amy Schumer/Trainwreck/can’t remember where she’s left anything, hasn’t got anything together. I didn’t expect that to be as easy to play as it was.”

What are you most excited to see from this season of iZombie? Tweet me your thoughts at @SydneyBucksbaum!

Images: The CW

iZombie season three premieres Tuesday, April 4 at 9 p.m. on The CW.