10 Unexpectedly Awesome Netflix TV Shows That Need Binge Watching
8. Santa Clarita Diet
Husband and wife realtors Sheila and Joel Hammond are living fairly bored and boring lives with their teenaged daughter Abby until a batch of bad clams claims Sheila’s life in an explosion of projectile vomit. When she wakes up, Sheila’s still dead… and craving human flesh...
Victor Fresco’s horror comedy didn’t initially look promising: zombies in American suburbia with Drew Barrymore as a middle-aged mum coming to terms with becoming undead? Thankfully, Santa Clarita Diet is absolutely, gruesomely delightful, thanks to a fast-paced script with more zingers than a KFC freezer.
Timothy Olyphant is a joy, ditching the laconic cool of Justified’s US Marshall Raylan Givens to give us the over-the-top performance of a lifetime as the good-natured, anxious Joel. Meanwhile, ironically, her untimely death gives faded wallflower Sheila a whole new lease on life. She gains confidence she never had, and a sensuality and a lust for life that Joel has a hard time keeping up with. Yes, technically this is necrophilia. No, it’s best not to overthink it.
The mythology surrounding the undead is also given a makeover. No more non-specific viruses, no more baffling collapse of global infrastructure. Sheila’s Christian friend even believes that God made her this way as part of a higher calling - not so much the zombie apocalypse as the zombie apotheosis.
Add to that a sweet slow-burning romance with the nerd next door for Abby, and you’re left with three seasons of a laugh-out-loud gorefest with a heart that’d brighten up anyone’s end times.