Why Santa Clarita Diet is the Perfect Pandemic Binge
People have watched the movie Contagion en masse during the COVID-19/Coronavirus crisis, and while I get it, meh…not for me. I don’t like to see my experience mirrored quite THAT closely in a horror movie. It’s a little more fun to watch zombies when you’re not being actively chased, you know? Also, why isn’t Outbreak enjoying the same resurgence of popularity? JUSTICE FOR DUSTIN HOFFMAN (and the monkey).
There’s a theory that horror as a genre appeals to us because it allows us to experience our fear in a safe way, to allow our often-repressed, inconvenient anxiety to manifest itself in response to a fictional situation that’s risk-free as opposed to letting it bubble up in our real lives, where it has consequences. Interest in virus-related entertainment right now is probably similar. It lets us freak out about a sickness that isn’t the one in our reality, giving us both catharsis and the ability for that specific freakout to have an end point that we haven’t yet reached in real life — the end of the movie.
While I’m not particularly drawn to watch Pandemic Porn at the moment, I’m not totally immune to the charms of a degree of terrifying relatability…nor am I immune to the charms of Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. This is why Santa Clarita Diet, the 3 season, gone-too-soon Netflix series of 2017–2019, is just the ticket for me.
First and foremost, it’s a sweet, super funny show, for something about a zombie tearing their way through a California town. (The “Santa Clarita Diet” is the new regimen of human-eating that the main character Sheila, played by Barrymore, is forced into after somehow contracting a virus of the undead.) Her husband Joel, played by Olyphant, is down with the situation and accepting of the changes his wife is going through.
There’s no bummery realism bringing Santa Clarita Diet down — they’re not intellectualizing it or making it overly emotional. In the campy reality of the show, the situation is pretty matter-of-fact. Sheila has to eat the meat of humans now to survive, that’s just the way it is! Duh, it’s gonna be better fresh, that’s how zombies like it! This is how life is now, and we roll with it.
One of the nice things about the show is that it exists with an awareness of our real world. That may not be novel in the way it once was when the iconically self-aware Scream came on the scene, but I appreciate that Santa Clarita Diet doesn’t make us go through the rigamarole of explaining what zombies are and how they work without actually calling them that. The only exposition-y scene about zombies is when Sheila, Joel and their daughter Abby suspect she may be undead and go consult the nerd next door, Eric, because they assume he’ll know about that kind of thing. (He totally does.)
The show is gross — there’s a lot of blood, as you might expect, and a lot of barf, which you might not — but when those moments happen they’re just kind of surprising jolts of “Ew” amidst such a sweet show. A good chunk of the action is Sheila and Joel picking evil people to murder navigating how to not get caught, like Dexters that don’t suck in the end. The intrigue! Joel so loves Sheila that he even gets psyched on her behalf about a particularly good looking meal on the way. He’ll salivate over a particularly big dude right alongside her even though he’s not going to be eating him: he’s just stoked that his wife will be satisfied. True love.
Which brings up another point: Santa Clarita Diet is genuinely heartwarming. Take everything else away and the family dynamic is delightful, between the total gameness of Joel and Sheila and their relationship with Abby, who they initially try to keep a parent-y distance away from the craziness, but end up teaming up with.
Sheila is a different kind of zombie. She isn’t shambling and brainless; as a matter of fact, she notes that she feels more alive than ever. Once buttoned up and cautious, Sheila now runs on pure psychological Id, the term coined by Freud as the part of our brains and personalities that’s driven by enjoyment as opposed to being hindered by a sense of responsibility. Sheila isn’t a total Spring Break Cancun 2004 Woo-Hoo Party Monster because luckily, it seems that she still derives enjoyment from being a part of and taking care of her family unit, so that dynamic is intact. See! It’s sweet!
The biggest deal thing about the show for me is Barrymore and Olyphant. They’re imminently likable and look like they’re having so much fun; in particular, Olyphant has an almost-character-breaking twinkle in his eye like 75% of the time. I want to watch them do everything and I want them to be married and doing this in real life. In a meta way, it’s delightful that two Scream alums are in a horror project together. And if you were an alt girl of the 90s you probably love Drew like I do, one of the only celebrities I feel like I grew up with. (Neither she nor I have flashed David Letterman in a good long while!)
A rewatch came to mind recently because of the whole virus thing in our reality but honestly, that’s not even that big a deal in the world of the show. There’s some talk of zombiehood as a virus but it’s cloaked in so much Romanian lore, complete with mysterious ancient spell books, that you’re not going to be cringing your way through it. I was more motivated to get back in there it because it’s one of the most pleasant shows on planet earth to me: funny; short; there are zombies there. Sheila’s nails are enviable and make me consider getting press-ons during every episode. I still want to look and dress exactly like Drew Barrymore. The show’s got it all.
It’s 30 minute, goofy TV that literally never makes you feel bad unless you’re grossed out by gore, in which case, you’ll have some stuff to cover your eyes through. But it’s so worth it! It’s basically a good mood in a can.
Unfortunately, Netflix canceled the show after 3 seasons, landing it in the pantheon of other excellent, gone-too-soon television. But luckily due to the nature of the Netflix Original remaining permanently in their catalog, we’ll still be able to watch it forever. Like Sheila herself, no longer living but also not dead, Santa Clarita Diet is immortal.
