Santa Clarita Diet

I watched Santa Clarita Diet based on all the buzz surrounding the recent Netflix offering. I like Timothy Oliphant and Drew Barrymore; putting them in a zombie satire skewering modern suburbia seemed like a formula for success. Turns out it was a formula all right, but whether or not you think it’s successful has a lot to do with the moral lenses through which you view it. 

In case you aren’t familiar with the premise, here’s how Romper summarizes Santa Clarita Diet:

[Sheila’s] actually a loving mom, wife, and hardworking realtor who just so happens to wake up one day as a member of the undead, at no fault of her own… Instead of abandoning her or destroying her in a rash response of fear or disgust, Sheila's husband and teenage daughter decide to rally around her and figure out how to navigate this transition as a family. Of course, the biggest obstacle is figuring out how to keep her fed. No one particularly likes the idea of murder, but Sheila needs to eat to survive. So they decide to only kill really terrible people who deserve to be eaten. This way, Sheila gets to live while performing a service to society. 

So how good is the Santa Clarita Diet as a satire? A lot of people seem to love how the show uses this unusual dilemma to explore how our culture navigates ethical dilemmas.

Longmire (Seasons 1-5)

My first impression of  Netflix’s Longmire (based on the Walt Longmire Mysteries series by Craig Johnson) was positive. Set in the fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming, Longmire is a cop show that is so much more. Much of what I like about the show concerns Walt's friendship with Henry, one of the local Cheyenne, as well as the tension between the county and the local Cheyenne reservation.

We hear a lot about racial issues in our country, but we seldom see a TV series that addresses the oldest racial tension of all. There were quite a few episodes during which I felt far more enlightened than entertained. I appreciate a show that manages to embed a strong social justice message in a way that doesn’t seem preachy and is yet at times profound. The crimes are interesting, I suppose, but far less riveting than watching a very human drama that is equal parts funny, poignant, and disturbing.

My second impression – let’s say midway through Season Three – was that Longmire was in danger of becoming a soap opera. At time it felt like the show was getting its momentum from sexual tension. I was about ready to bail when one of the relationships fell apart and I realized something important: they are telling a morality tale.* The writers are letting actions have consequences. While I could use almost any of the characters to show what I mean, I will focus on three.

Scream Queens

Season One of Scream Queens, Fox's star-studded horror comedy, has been nominated for two awards (Golden Globes and Satellite) and won another (the Critic's Choice TV Award in 2015 for Most Exciting New Series). In spite of a declining audience throughout Season One, it appears to have enough of a following that Fox will likely renew it for another season.

If you are not familiar with Scream Queens, imagine the Simpsons, Mean Girls, and Scream mashed together. The result is a funny, satirical, shocking, violent, crude, and occasionally insightful comedy/horror show that intends to offer a cutting commentary on college culture. That's the intent, anyway.

Scream Queens takes place on a college campus where coeds are being killed rather horribly (if not creatively). All the girls in the featured sorority scream a lot - thus the title of the show - but nobody sheds a tear. Well, not real ones anyway.

True Detective

"Touch darkness and darkness touches you back."

"Matthew Coniglio's Georgia home held a trove of child pornography, more than 50,000 images and videos stored on laptops, external hard drives and thumb drives. Among the stash, hidden in a bedside table turned around to conceal the doors, authorities made an even more horrifying discovery: 56 8-millimeter cassette tapes they say show him raping and molesting girls. All were unconscious, apparently drugged, FBI Special Agent William Kirkconnell, who viewed the tapes, told The Associated Press. Some were so incapacitated they were snoring. The camera was always turned off before they awoke."   -The NY Daily News

I read this story in my local paper two days after I finished watching Season One of True Detective. If you've seen the show, this news story probably sounds eerily familiar. There are monsters among us. It's not a pleasant thought. If you are looking for a fictional story to help you come to grips with that kind of horror in the world around us, True Detective will do just that.


Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Eric "Marty" Hart (Woody Harrelson) are assigned to investigate a horrific murder. They discover it is just one soul-searing link in a chain of evil formed by dozens of victims, many of whom are very young. Unfortunately, even those whose cause is just cannot escape the stain of that kind of sin. They must subject themselves to the hell of seeing and documenting horrors that should never see the light of day.There is a price to be paid for even knowing about this kind of corruption. No matter what Rust and Marty were when they first became detectives, they are both damaged goods now.