NetflixFrom the cannibalism to the cavlier humor about cannibalism, there's just something about Santa Clarita Diet that you may not be ready for.
Zombies on TV have gone from slow and terrifying (The Walking Dead) to quippy & occasionally moody (iZombie) to hilariously carefree in Netflix's Santa Clarita Diet, which stars Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant as a suburban married couple who suddenly find themselves with an interesting problem.
That interesting problem? Sheila (Barrymore) now appears to be a zombie, and can only eat human flesh. Fortunately, she has the world's most supportive husband, so at least her marriage doesn't appear to be in immediate danger, and their realty careers also seem solid for the moment (once they can get past some really inconvenient vomiting). Unfortunately, their teenage daughter is not prepared to deal with her mother eating humans. Oh yeah, Sheila has to start eating humans now. So all is not well.
Who should she eat? What should she tell her daughter about it? Is it OK to eat people if eating people sort of makes you into a better person? These are all questions asked in the first few episodes of the series, which comes from Better Off Ted (RIP) creator Victor Fresco, and features that same Better Off Ted sense of dark, deadpan humor. This time, it's just very we're-eating-people-but-so-what dark deadpan humor.
While everything we've seen so far is hilarious (and ridiculous. Ridicularious?) the first three episodes are kind of WTF hilarious. Then, episode four had us giggling and cackling for half an hour straight at things like Barrymore's character gleefully making people smoothies and Olyphant's swinging his hips.
Speaking of Olyphant, sure, he was great on Justified and Deadwood and Damages and even as himself on The Grinder, but this is possibly the best Timothy Olyphant we've ever seen. As Sheila's husband Joel he's just barely keeping it together, but he's doing it with a smile on his face that just becomes more and more strained as the season goes on, and the people-eating gets more and more out of control.
Together, he and Barrymore make a weirdly perfect and oddly scary suburban couple.
The show is, admittedly, not for everyone. It's weird as hell, but if you are delighted by gore, suburbia, The Grinder reunions, and absurd sight gags related to murder, then this very well may be the show for you.
However, we'd suggest not watching it while you're eating lunch, or dinner, or breakfast, for that matter. It'll knock the appetite right outta you.
All 10 episodes of Santa Clarita Diet hit Netflix on Friday, Feb. 3.