‘Santa Clarita Diet’ Review: Season 2 Gets Better as it Gets Weirder…

Netflix

To label Santa Clarita Diet a weird, little show is dead-on accurate. Not only does the Netflix comedy focus on a suburban real estate agent who turns into a zombie and — while killing and eating people on the side — still wants a normal life, but creator Victor Fresco’s peculiar sense of humor makes his series stand out all the more. And cultivates an even stronger menu for its second season. A fearless comedy that was allowed to inject itself into an outrageous premise.

The combo of story and tone might be too much (or too mis-matced) for some viewers, but for those who’ve taken to the zombie-comedy like Sheila (Drew Barrymore) takes to a human body part, Season 2 will serve as an outrageously, double serving of shocking, entertainment.

Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant’s Netflix zom-com is full of great jokes, magic, and the gore oozes out like a torn and half-eaten kidney (if you’re a member of a Nazi zombie team or Serbian) be prepared to be afraid.

The cliff-hangers left in Season 1 are pretty quickly dispensed with in the opening episode, as Joel (Timothy Olyphant) gets out of the insane asylum, Abby (Liv Hewson) finds the bile she needs to keep her mom’s disease from spreading, and the family agrees to let Sheila live outside the basement — even though she violently murdered someone in their kitchen — because they just can’t live without her.

Picking up right where we left off, Season 2 of Santa Clarita Diet finds the Hammonds trying to adapt to Sheila’s now-advanced undead state — or as normal as can be when mom’s eating leftover eyelids off the ceiling fan.

Even though she’s desperately working to hold on to her suburban lifestyle and not be defined as just another monster.

For instance, if Sheila is chained up in the basement, then why not dress up the basement and slap a fresh coat of paint on the ugly situation?

You have too, right?

Unfortunately — while the family has become markedly better at murder — the number of missing people in Santa Clarita is starting to pile up and it’s no longer going unnoticed.

Curiously enough, in spite of all the high stakes life and death undead material, Joel and Sheila still worry about their real estate job and it occupies a reasonable part of the season. That might seem like a considerably less important aspect of the show, but the everyday up-heals of a ‘realtor’ justifies just how much they need to keep that aspect of their life as normal as possible.

The characters are largely what bring that humor to life. Barrymore and Olyphant are incredible leads. They have great chemistry, which elevates their individual abilities, and also the marriage aspect to life. Their comedic timing, especially in scenes with each other, makes each episode laugh-out-loud-funny.

Season 2 also focuses on the rest of the Hammond family including their daughter Abby, played by Liv Hewson, and their neighbour (who thinks of himself as their son) Eric, played by Skyler Gisondo.

The kids go back to school, and from there, the kids get sucked into a friendly, quickly evolving game of relationship tag — he’s got a girlfriend (undead!), then she’s got a boyfriend, then they kind of like each other, but no one makes a move.

Typical teen stuff.

Abby is still the highlight here. Not only is Hewson natural and engaging, but she’s given the chance to cut through the bullshit, but is able to hold her parents accountable for their actions.

That means she gets real moments of sincerity, instead of fake sincerity played (by the characters and actors) for jokes. When she starts engaging in environmental activism, it’s believable because we’ve seen her take things seriously. She feels like an actual human being.

The focus on family brings more heart to the show. It allows you to care about these characters even as they are conflicted between murdering their neighbors and saving the world. It brings a good balance to the series.

Remember, Ramona, the aisle girl? Dead-pan, and always helpful soul of the convenience store?

Yeah, she’s a zombie too, and has sussed out that the Hammonds have a stop-gap for Sheila’s zombie problem, so she seduces Eric to get her hands on it.When he finds out she’s a zombie (by discovering a body in her tub), he calls Abby for help and she (sort of) rushes right over.

But Ramona doesn’t kill him, she deflowers him.

We always felt like Nathan Fillion’s, character (Gary) was underused in the first season, and we are glad he’s back (err, just as a head), and it seems he wants a favour, where his last wish is that the Hammonds deliver the deed to his summer house to his niece Kayla, who is a young single mom that Gary always took care of.

Nathan Fillion is a welcome addition to pretty much anything and he is very funny as Gary’s severed head. He berates/advisers/nags the couple to hell.

Also, there’s a lingering police investigation from next-door-neighbor Anne (Natalie Morales).Meanwhile, Joel and Sheila’s murder-happy misadventures still go down under the nose of Deputy Ann (Natalie Morales), who’s only a few doors away? Big questions are asked (how, why?) she can’t piece together the facts of a host of disappearences, and killings?

The show has returned with some new neighbours, gaining several new cast members for season two in Joel McHale (Community), Maggie Lawson (Psyche), Gerald McRaney (This Is Us) and Zachary Knighton (Happy Endings).

For Joel and Sheila, they have their eyes on a new housing development that would be a serious get for our resident real-a-tors (solidarity with Sheila, even if it’s incorrect). Their boss (the always-delightful Andy Richter) says that development is on hold since Gary’s disappearance, but if the Hammonds can land a fancy-pants listing for the firm, he’ll let them move forward with the development.

And that is where the show introduces us to Joel and Sheila’s estate nemeses. This is another terrific bit of casting because Joel McHale is highly skilled at playing a d-bag and Maggie Lawson is quite the Gal Friday for him.

McHale and Lawson will star as Chris and Christa, a pair of married realtors in Santa Clarita – and more successful, aggressive versions of Sheila and Joel.

Reaching the end of the season, Paul (Zachary Knighton) and Marsha (Jee Young Han), are the mysterious duo who have been shadowing the Hammonds as they uncover the origin of the zombie outbreak in Santa Clarita, and are getting uncomfortably close to the truth.

And now that they’ve destroyed the cause of Sheila’s condition — those strange red clams found off the coast of Serbia — they’re setting their sights on the undead, which spells bad news for the Hammonds.

Reaching the end of season 2, Fresco introduces an intriguing mythology that’s discovered via the Hammond family’s fun and frequent mini-missions.

Yet it’s not until the literal last line of the season that it becomes clear what “Santa Clarita Diet” has been missing all along: a sharp right turn into Weirdville.

You can view the trailer for Season 2 of Santa Clarita Diet below.

Season 2 of Santa Clarita Diet drops globally on Netflix.

Season 1 subsisted on the shock value of Sheila’s transformation — the reveal of Sheila’s condition via intense, prolonged vomiting surely held everyone’s attention — but Season 2 takes too long to find fresh flesh to chew on.

Season 2 introduces an intriguing mythology that’s discovered via the Hammond family’s fun and frequent mini-missions.

There’s just one thing it really needs, especially if Season 3 earns a green light. “Santa Clarita Diet” needs to get even weird. Instead off relying on simple gross-out gags, the show should fully embrace the crazy, terrific world it’s building.

We hope it does, too.