Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The more I talk to people about Santa Clarita Diet, the more I find that my generally unbridled enthusiasm about the show is a minority opinion. I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews on the series, as well as a few outright pans. It’s tough to say they’re wrong; it’s a comedy, after all, and so much of comedy ends up being in the eye of the beholder. I’m in love with Santa Clarita‘s cheerfully dark tone, its shocking-yet-matter-of-fact violence, its story of self-actualization-through-human-flesh-smoothies. As heightened as the performances from Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant are, I find that they complement each other and make for one of TV’s most interesting marriages.
But even with people who really don’t care for the show at all, I beg them to stick around until episode 9. That’s when Portia de Rossi shows up. De Rossi has been a TV star in America since the early days of Ally McBeal, but it was Arrested Development that showed de Rossi’s gift for comedy that she’d been hiding under a bushel.
After Arrested Development, though, de Rossi’s career threatened to be subsumed by her celebrity status as Ellen DeGeneres’s partner. That’s when Better Off Ted came around. Created by Victor Fresco, the sitcom was a tonally bizarre look at corporate culture in a dehumanizing multinational conglomerate. De Rossi shined in a featured role as Ted’s boss, Veronica. Her cheerfully amoral character got some of that show’s best lines, and she knocked them all out of the park. She really nailed a tricky tone.
Which brings me to Santa Clarita Diet, another tricky tone to nail, another comedy from Victor Fresco, and another show on which Portia de Rossi shines. She shows up at the end of episode 9 as a scientist researching the very condition that Sheila (Barrymore) is suffering from. When she shows up at the Hammond’s doorstep, Dr. Wolf proves to be yet another pragmatic character who doesn’t seem to realize when she’s being morbid or callous or out of bounds. (Joel: “Fuck! How is that helping?” Dr. Wolf: “I could ask the same about your girlish hysteria.”)
On a show where the comedy lies in the exact sweet spot between horror and humanity, de Rossi threads that needle better than anyone. Santa Clarita Diet leaves things off on a bit of a cliffhanger; we don’t know yet whether Dr. Wolf will be able to help Sheila. But we can hope that Portia de Rossi is around for the hysterics through.
