What I’m Watching: Santa Clarita Diet

Santa Clarita Diet: Season 1, Episode 4 “The Farting Sex Tourist” (B)

This show has such a peculiar way that it looks at the zombie problem its characters are currently facing, with Joel stopping by a number of antique bookstores to research cult books on zombies and Sheila going to Eric for answers that for some reason are deemed definitive even though there’s no proven factual basis for any of the things that he knows. What’s good is that Sheila got through an entire episode without eating people, and she even got up in the miserable principal’s face, close enough to take a bite out of him, to threaten him and make sure that he wasn’t going to penalize her daughter for going through what she described, inaccurately of course, as normal teenager angst. The casting of Thomas Lennon, who currently stars on “The Odd Couple” and who I remember from his role in “I Love You, Man,” as Principal Novak was perfect. I’m also really happy to see Mary Elizabeth Ellis getting featured a lot as Lisa since I felt that she should have been more in the spotlight on “The Grinder,” and it’s nice that this new Sheila is spending so much time with her newfound best buds Lisa and Alondra, played by Joy Osmanski who I always associate with her first credited role a decade ago on “The Loop,” even if the advice she’s giving isn’t always sensible or helpful. At the very least, there’s so optimism to be found in the knowledge that love can still triumph over all, and it was Joel’s declaration that stopped Sheila from turning a problem into her next meal.