Netflix announced today via YouTube video that they will be renewing Santa Clarita Diet for another season. After polishing off the first course with mixed reviews, the show will be moving on for “seconds.” The announcement may come as a surprise for some, who were not among the demographic of those who enjoyed the highly stylized, campy, and slow humor buildup of Santa Clarita Diet. It is safe to say that Santa Clarita Diet greatly appealed to some; but left others with an unpleasant taste in their mouth which may have left doubt about a second season.
Santa Clarita Diet is the story of a married couple, Sheila (Drew Barrymore) and Joel (Timothy Olphant), who are engaged in a constrant struggle to satiate Sheila’s insatiable undead desire for human flesh after she becomes a zombie about ten minutes into the pilot episode. Oh, and they also sell houses in sunny Southern California and raise their teenage daughter Abby (Liv Hewson). The show is a horror-comedy at its core, and not exactly the thing you would sit down to watch while eating dinner. Unless dinner is a human foot.
Santa Clarita Diet was unveiled on Netflix on February 3 of 2017, with all ten episodes going live simultaneously in Netflix binge-watching style. Now less than two months later, the script for Season 2 is already in the works, according to Deadline Hollywood. Season 1 left off with Dr. Wolf (Portia de Rossi) unable to complete a cure for Sheila’s zombie virus, Joel arrested and subsequently committed, and Sheila tied up in the basement to prevent herself from hurting her family when her virus sends her violently out of control. Not to mention the looming responsibilities of real-estate creeping up on the couple.
Though according to viewership numbers from sources like Decider, Santa Clarita Diet did not do as well as the new A Series of Unfortunate Events with Neil Patrick Harris, it was still a high-performing cannibalistic comedy for Netflix. And maybe Santa Clarita Diet did not blow up like Orange is the New Black or Stranger Things, but it does provide a unique opportunity for a few cheesy zombie puns.
So whether you were dying for more, or simply admired the deadication of Barrymore, it looks like Netflix is chomping at the bit to start Season 2 of Santa Clarita Diet.