"Proshai, Livushka", Livia's photoshopped head wtf ?
What was the backstory on what, now, is an obvious photoshopping or what have you of Livia's head on another woman's body, I presume ?
shareNancy Marchand, who played Livia, died shortly after Season 2 aired, as Season 3 was being written. Naturally they had to deal with Livia's death, and Chase and the cast and crew loved Marchand so much that they felt they had to give her one last onscreen appearance, I suppose. At the time, this was actually cutting-edge CGI; it cost some tens of thousands of dollars to pull off. And yes, it does look weird, her head doesn't match with the body double they had sitting there, and it's very obvious they're just recycling old Livia lines, making for a weird scene.
Thankfully the rest of the episode is superb, but that scene does stick out as easily the most technically inept in the series. Personally I think it would have been fine if they had just had her die off-screen with no last appearance, just Tony getting the news after not having seen her for a little while. But, as I said, they wanted to send her and her character off. And Livia was actually meant to have a big plot in Season 3, testifying in court against Tony re: the stolen plane tickets. Marchand was already sidelined in Season 2 greatly due to her deteriorating health, so I'm surprised that Chase thought she would've been able to carry a season-long plot like that.