The Santa Clarita Diet may have invented a new genre of entertainment: the zom-com. Its an entertaining mix of a family sitcom, romantic comedy, slapstick horror and gory uh… weirdness. It’s probably not a TV show that everyone can easily digest. Questions of moral relativism are answered this season, such as, is it OK to eat a white-power Nazi, if he also happens to be paralyzed from the waist down?
If you are new to Santa Clarita Diet, its a very bingeable series available on Netflix. Drew Barrymore stars as a mom, a realtor and the undead. Together with her devoted husband played by Timothy Olyphant and their daughter, Abby, played by Liv Hewson, the cohesive unit deals with the ups and downs of being mostly dead (or is it mostly alive, I’m not sure). This season, the crew’s focus is mostly on trying to stop the apocalypse and evading the police. How is the show both family friendly — one of the goriest shows on TV — and consistently funny? I’m not sure. The show really doesn’t have the right to be as good as it is, to be honest.
Santa Clarita Diet spends this season showing off just how smart and sharp its writing is. I was talking with other fans of the show and the word everyone seems to keep using is “weird.” This is a show that seems to thrive on just how far down the rabbit hole it can take viewers. Barrymore and Olyphant have beautiful chemistry, almost too good for the small screen. Barrymore plays such a likable, soft character, you can’t help but like her, even if she does occasionally eat her neighbors.
Kudos also go to the special FX team for some rather spectacular Zombie kill scenes. Not all of the gore is practical, but what was done the old-fashioned way was done well. The set decorator also was on their A-game for devising the Dexter-ish looking kill room in the show. “Does our kill room look too much like a kill room?” Yes, Hammonds… it does.
This season, Netflix gave us 10 episodes. I managed to watch all of the episodes in one night, despite having a thousand other things I was behind on, already. The show has an addictive quality and the episodes are easily digestible, pun intended. I can’t say that The Santa Clarita Diet is the best sitcom ever, but I can say it is the best horror-comedy show on now, even surpassing Ash vs. Evil Dead. As much as I am a fangirl of, well, basically anything that stars Bruce Campbell, honesty forces me to admit the writing on Santa Clarita is much better. That’s right. I just said The Santa Clarita Diet surpasses Ash vs. Evil Dead. The writing on Santa Clarita is much more cohesive and less bogged with characters that seem forced into the storyline.
Santa Clarita Diet is currently streaming, but Seasons 1 and 2 are on Netflix. I suggest settling in one night and just streaming the entire series.