Liv and Major are in bed together after some non-intercourse sex. Major assures her that he's fine with what happened and Liv says that they have to be honest with each other this time around. He assures her that being with her is enough, and Liv warns him that when she heats a brain her personality changes.
At the hotel hosting PrestoFest, a magician walks down the hall. A maid goes into a room and screams at what she finds A magician is dead inside, a card embedded in his throat. Clive and Liv soon arrive at the scene, and Clive explains that the victim is Syd Wicked. The card has a razor-sharp metal edge and there's no signs of forced entry. Syd's laptop has a video of himself talking about facing off death as part of his routine. Clive and Liv talk to the maid, Irina, who confirms that the door wasn't tampered with. The maid says that she heard Syd earlier, yelling at the angels. Ravi calls them up and explains that the smell in the room came from rotting food in a gift basket in the waste basket. Among the items is a rotting fish head. Liv figures that the person who sent the basket is a good first suspect, and Ravi explains that there are at least 200 magicians at the convention.
At the morgue, Liv points out that Ravi can have sex with his girlfriend Steph an d tells him to stop complaining. She then eats Syd's brain and starts doing magic tricks. Ravi, an amateur magician, is impressed. Clive shows Liv and Ravi the video of the hallway outside the door. Three security guards go in after the maid screams, and Ravi figures the murder is a magic trick.
Later, Ravi is at home and finds Peyton in the kitchen in a skimpy outfit, dancing to music as she makes a smoothie. He finally interrupts her and Ravi worries that Steph changed her Facebook status to "in a relationship." The coroner worries that Steph is getting intense, and Peyton refuses to discuss it. Major comes in and Peyton asks if Liv is cramping his style. He assures Peyton and Ravi that everything is good, except for the fact she's sending him texts about death. Ravi explains that she ate a death-obsessed magician's brain, and Major asks Liv how wild her mood swings are from eating brains. They're less than reassuring.
At the morgue, Liv lights candles around Syd's corpse and practices practicing magic with a Tarot deck. As she turn over the Death card, Blaine comes in with news that three of the five missing businessmen were zombies that bought brains from him. he wants her help to stop whoever is killing off his customers. Liv isn't interested, and Blaine says that Dale is the investigator. If they find out what Dale knows then they can get ahead of her. She still isn't interested, and Blaine points out that the missing men had families and more people will go missing if they don't solve the disappearances. Liv reluctantly gives in and Blaine leaves just as Ravi comes in and Liv tells him about her new partnership.
Later, Clive and Liv interrogate Syd's assistant, Angel. Clive wonders why Syd was yelling at "the angels," and Angel says that Syd saw her hanging out with another magician. She says that she was in the lobby when Syd was murdering, and invites Clive to check the security cameras. The assistant says that Syd made his career exposing other magicians' signature tricks so no one would hire her. A lot of the people Syd exposed were at the convention, and Angel suggests that they talk to Houdina and the Magnificent Magnus first. Liv goes to the morgue and Ravi offers to check Syd's Tweet to see who hated him. She invites Ravi to come with them to interrogate a magician that night, but Ravi says that he has a date.
That night, Ravi returns home and Steph shows him all of the English decorations that she's put up for Guy Fawkes Day. She's dressed like a beefeater and assures Ravi that he's worth it, and Ravi chugs the warm lager Steph offers him.
At the hotel bar, Houdina is performing her routine and Clive and Liv watch. She calls for a volunteer, while Liv explains to Clive how Houdina does her tricks. Houdina calls Liv up and has her hold a stalk of celery in her mouth. The magician then cuts it in half with a razor-sharp card and has Liv put the remaining half on her head. As Houdina prepares to cut it again, Liv gets a flash of Houdina telling Syd that they're done as she gives him ring back to him. Once the trick is done, Liv goes back to her table and reveals that she took Houdina's deck. There are four face cards missing, and one of them is the card sticking out of Syd's throat. Liv describes her vision and figures that Houdina used the Queen of Diamonds to make a point. On stage, Houdina makes herself disappear to finish her act.
Clive and Liv go to Houdina's room and she claims that Syd is pulling a stunt. She asks for her deck back and Liv points out that the Queen of Diamonds is missing. Houdina casually says that she tossed it away when the edge dulled, and Liv points out that she got an engagement ring from Syd. The magician admits that they got engaged when they were young, and Syd wasn't so death obsessed initially. He became more obsessed and when he wanted a Wiccan to perform the wedding ceremony, Houdina broke up with him. Syd exposed her best trick, then modified it and made a career out of it. She admits that she hated Syd, but was onstage when he died. Room service arrives and while Houdina gets her soup, Liv confirms Houdina's alibi in the program. Clive says that he has to leave and Liv realizes that he has a date with Dale.
Later, Liv and Blaine stakeout Dale's house. While they wait for Dale and Clive to go to a movie, Liv reads Tarot cards. Blaine isn't interested and they watch as dale closes the drapes. Liv talks about death and says that they have to come back the next morning.
Ravi wakes up with a hangover, and tells Steph that they need to talk. She realizes that he wants to break up with her and leaves.
Liv picks the lock on Dale's apartment once dale goes to the gym. The whole file is out on the table, and Liv and Blaine split up the work. There's a reference to Alan York's hair at the Meat Cute locker, and a photo of one victim's dog. The mailman drops a letter from the FBI test lab, and Blaine rips it open. The report confirms that Suzuki kept human brains in his mini-fridge. Blaine is glad to throw it away, but Liv points out that Dale will realize something is wrong if the report never arrives. She offers to doctor it to show that that the brain belongs to a cow.
Later at the hotel, Clive and Liv talk to the Magnificent Magnus. Magnus explains that Syd was his opening act. When he refused to give him more opening time, Syd got mad. Liv gets a vision of Syd giving Marcus an insulting statement for Magnus' autobiography. She quotes the blurb to Syd, and Clive points out that the blurb matches the note on the fish head. Magnus admits that he sent it to Syd as a prank, and he was having stand-up sex in the men's room with a fan. There were no cameras and Magnus didn't get her name. As Clive leaves, he realizes that a magician stole his watch.
At home, Liv stares at a dead bouquet of roses and laments its death. She admits to Major that her current brain is kind of dark. Major assures her that he wants to know what's going on with her, and Liv explains that the dead rich people are zombies and someone is taking them out. She worries that she could be next, and Major promises that won't happen to her.
Peyton goes to the funeral home and tells Blaine that Boss visited her. She warns that Boss may know that Blaine is her contact. Blaine gives Peyton his number so she can call if Boss visits her again or she just needs a friend.
At the morgue, Liv rigs the FBI report while Blaine reads Syd's Twitter account. Two of his haters were local comedy magicians Smoke and Mears. Syd wrote back to them saying that they're next, and threatened to expose their famous trick of Smoak dropping an anvil on Mears. There's no further tweets from Smoak & Mears, and they figure that they have a lead.
Smoke and Mears are filming a video for a premium cable special when Clive and Liv find them. Mears doesn't talk, and Smoke says that they just liked screwing with Syd. Smoak says that he was Houdina's show, and she disappeared during her closure and never returned. As they leave, Liv points out that Houdina's alibi doesn't check out.
Clive and Liv go back to Houdina and confront her with the flaw in her alibi. Houdina explains that the cocktail waitress at the end of the show is her, and points out that the best tricks put the answer right in front of the audience. Liv realizes that there's only one person they know they went into Syd's room at the time of the murder: Irina the maid. They talk to the hotel manager, who admits that Irina was undocumented and has disappeared since the murder. Liv looks at the staff whiteboard and realizes that Irina is still in the hotel.
Back in the showroom, Liv spots someone and tells Clive and the manager to go on with them. Clive goes on stage where Smoak & Mears are filming a spot, and Clive comes out and arrests Mears. Liv wheels out a cart and puts on a show. She announces that Mears was the killer and pulls off "his" wig and mustache. Mears is actually Irina, and Liv explains that Smoke & Mears knew Syd was going to expose their signature trick. Mears got a part-time job posing as Irina, went into Syd's room, and killed Syd. She saw Irina's writing on the whiteboard and realized that it was the same as Mears'. Smoak insists that he had nothing to do with the murder, and Liv pulls the sheet off the cart. Destiny, the woman who had sex with Magnus, is underneath. Liv has Destiny point out the man that hired her to have sex with Magnus away from the security cameras: Smoak.
Liv goes to Dale's house with the doctored FBI report and slips it into the slot. She walks away, unaware that a woman is watching her from across the street.
Peyton goes downstairs and makes sure that the front door is locked. Ravi comes up behind her, startling Peyton, and she suggests that they hang out and watch Vertigo. Ravi agrees and starts to kiss Peyton, and admits that he broke up with Steph. Peyton worries that it's a bad idea, and assures Ravi that he's a good man. She figures that they can still hang, but Ravi goes up to his room instead.
The woman watching the house goes up to Dale's house and starts to ring the doorbell. Inside, Clive and Dale is in bed and Clive reads the report. He figures that he's chasing ghosts, and Dale points out that he appears disappointed the brain wasn't human. Clive admits that maybe he is.
Outside, the woman finally leaves a large envelope addressed to "Occupant" on Dale's doorstep and walks away.
Major comes home and finds Liv wearing a black shroud and using an Ouija board. She hears him go upstairs and calls to him, but gets no response.
Written by Gadfly on Nov 18, 2015