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Santa Clarita Diet is back — and funnier than ever.
We are so thrilled Santa Clarita Diet is back — and for the record, even funnier and gorier than we saw during its first season.
Last season, Santa Clarita Diet left us with the mystery of what the future holds for the Hammond family. If you recall, Sheila was left tied up with chains in the basement to prevent her from acting on her “urges,” and Joel was shipped off to the psychiatric ward after trashing the principal’s house.
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Santa Clarita Diet season 2 begins exactly where season one left off and dives right into the heart of this season’s story — how did this happen to Sheila and what can be done to prevent her condition from worsening?
While many shows fall into a sophomore slump, Santa Clarita Diet has no issues continuing the hilarious, crude momentum of last season and left us wanting more by the end of season two. Now, let’s dive into the recaps, shall we?
No Family is Perfect
When the first episode begins, Joel is seen at the mental ward and has a roommate named Ron (Jonathan Slavin) who is quite unstable but somehow manages to click with Joel anyway. The reason for Ron’s behavior lies with the fact that his wife recently passed away. Because Joel is able to communicate and empathize with Ron, the ward releases him.
His first stop? To find Serbian bile for the serum Eric and Abby are working on. While Joel is busy trying to acquire the bile, Abby is attempting to find some on her own by perusing through the internet. Luck is on her side when a named Goran responds to her request. While she does obtain the bile, the creepy guy follows her home because he claims to have formed a connection with her.
After convincing Eric to let her out of the basement to find Abby, Sheila and Eric come home to find Goran trying to inch closer to Abby. Sheila’s zombie rage kicks in and Goran becomes her meal of the day as Sheila destroys him and the kitchen along with it. Joel comes home to see the kitchen in a bloody mess with body parts hanging all over the place.
However, Eric manages to create the serum which will keep Sheila from getting worse (thank goodness!). The family decides to chain up Sheila in the basement again as her rage is obviously not in her control. Joel and Abby can’t seem to accept their family’s fate and go down to sleep with Sheila in the basement.
During this episode, we also see more of the Rite-Aid girl, Ramona, who seems to be crushing hard on Eric as he is looking for cleaning supplies to clean up the ghastly kitchen mess. Little does he know, she is a zombie herself! What are her intentions towards Eric? And why is she so interested in Sheila? Read on to find out!
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Coyote in Yoga Pants
The second episode presents the Hammonds with a whole batch of new problems–namely their enemies in the real estate business, Chris (Joel McHale) and Christa (Maggie Lawson). While the zombie problem takes up most of Joel and Sheila’s time, they do still have jobs to do.
They have aspirations to work on a new residential development but their boss, Carl (Andy Richter) says that the project is on hold after Gary disappeared. If you recall, Gary was bitten, killed, and buried by Sheila and Joel last season. The only way he will move forward with the development is if they can get a big listing for the firm.
They set their eyes on an elderly woman who loves her pet dog more than life. Joel and Sheila seem to be making progress with her, that is until Chris and Christa show up to ruin their day. The four go back and forth trying to convince the woman that they are the right ones for the job.
Chris and Christa inform her that they have a client who knows Johnny Depp’s manager and have arranged for her to visit him on set. With not many options left, Joel “accidentally” lets out the woman’s dog and blames it on Chris. With Sheila’s newfound passion for running, she goes and saves the day by rescuing the dog and winning over the woman’s heart.
Things take an unfortunate turn when Sheila and Joel realize the housing development is exactly where they buried Gary’s body. When they go to dig up his remains, they hear Gary’s voice coming out from beneath the dirt. It appears Gary is undead now after Sheila bit him and despite being dismembered, his severed head remains undead.
Eric realizes that if Goran is reported missing, the email trail will lead straight back to him and Abby. In an effort to destroy evidence, the both of them retrieve Goran’s finger from storage, so they can use his fingerprint to log into his computer.
On their way out of Goran’s apartment, they run into a woman and a man breaking in. It appears the mysterious couple is also in search of Serbian bile. Does this mean other people are trying to create the same serum?
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Moral Gray Area
The focus of this episode was on Gary and fulfilling his last wishes before Sheila and Joel killed him once and for all. What was his last wish? To make sure his niece, Kayla, is taken care of. He asks Joel and Sheila to deliver his summer house deed to her so she can have a place to live with her kid.
One thing leads to another when the pair arrives at Kayla’s house. Kayla tells them that she no longer has a car because her ex-boyfriend stole it and to fulfill Gary’s request, Sheila tells her they will get her car back for her. Upon arriving at the ex’s house, they quickly learn that he is a Nazi–which bodes well for Sheila who has hit the jackpot or “lobster tank” of people to eat (given that he also plays on a softball team full of Nazis).
This was a throwback to season one when she and Joel were looking for people that Sheila could eat, aka “A young, single Hitler.”
Meanwhile, we learn that Ramona is also falling apart as Sheila has been and even has an ear that fell off but she Velcroed. Being the clever one, Ramona is aware of the serum that helps stop the deterioration of the zombie condition and decides to seduce Eric into giving it to her.
After sharing their first kiss, Eric heads to the bathroom to prepare for sex but finds a body in the tub instead. He frantically calls Abby to tell her what he’s discovered because he’s afraid Ramona has brought him over to kill him. Instead, he loses his virginity to her (three times!) as Abby comes rushing in a tad bit late to find them in bed together.
This moment translates into Abby expressing her concern for Eric’s well-being and that she expected him to be more careful. Things are starting to heat up between them, so can they get together already?!
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The Queen of England
Abby finally tells Sheila and Joel about Ramona being undead which really thrusts forward the narrative of the second season. Not only is there someone else like Sheila out there, but there must be a connecting factor that caused them to become undead. They begin investigating to find any links between Sheila and Ramona but fail to do so.
However, do you recall the tiny red ball that Sheila violently vomited out in season one? It appears Ramona has one too except hers is “alive” and has legs. Meeting Ramona also sheds light on all the recent murders taking place in Santa Clarita–she has been chomping away at the early morning joggers.
Ramona clings onto Eric tightly after her encounter with the Hammonds and forces him to be with her, or else. A badass fight breaks out between Abby and Ramona because Abby is willing to do anything to protect Eric.
Abby’s frustration with her life translates into a rage but in a more productive way–saving Eric or saving a girl at school from being ridiculed by hitting a bully with a lunch tray. This pushes Joel and Sheila to realize that their focus needs to be on Abby.
Things start to simmer down with Ramona after she expresses her loneliness with being a zombie. While Sheila and Joel have prospered with a long marriage, Ramona can’t have the same expectations from Eric.
In all of this hot mess, Joel manages to somehow keep it together, courtesy of Gary. Gary tells Joel that he has two options: begin to carry resentment towards Sheila for their lives changing or embrace the badass Sheila is.
Ramona decides to leave Santa Clarita and head off to Seattle, but not before Joel discovers that she also ate clams a restaurant called Japopo’s the same night Sheila did. Could this be the missing link and the answer to why they are both undead?
And before the episode ends, Gary decides that he no longer wants to be killed and wants to stay “alive” to make sure his niece lives a good life. Oh, Gary you softie.
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Going Pre-med
Joel heads to Japopo’s to see what he can learn about their clam special, the very one that may be responsible for Sheila and Ramona becoming undead. Joel asks for the receipts, but unfortunately for him, the owner recognizes him from Yelp (Joel is famous for his Yelp reviews, apparently) and asks him to leave positive reviews about their restaurant before he helps him.
Remember the Nazi Sheila was deadset on killing? Well, she can’t seem to get it done so her and Joel get a storage unit that will be used for the sole purpose of killing and keeping the bodies in the freezer. It is here where they ask Boon to meet them who brings along a friend with him…in a wheelchair.
This puts a wrench in their plan to kill Boon, but after wheelchair guy makes a negative comment about Sheila, the two are dead meat. Literally.
Joel’s roommate from the ward gets released and wants to introduce Sheila to his friends that are into the paranormal. This doesn’t bode well for Sheila who is surprised to hear Joel would talk about her condition with anyone.
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And although there is a moment of friction between the beloved couple, they found a way to come to an understanding, as they always do. To our surprise, we learn that Ron’s friends are the same two individuals that Abby and Eric saw in Goran’s apartment. They are keen on meeting with Sheila because they are somehow connected with everything that is going on.
Abby finds herself lashing out in this episode by hitting a bully with a tray and then setting her sights on protesting against fracking. Since she is unable to control what is happening in her own life, it appears she is looking for ways to control other events and dilemmas. And amongst all the hot mess that is her life, Abby seems to make a connection a guy from school named Sven who asks her out. Poor Eric.
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Pasion
Joel decides to go and find the other man, Thune, who ate clams from Japopo’s (according to the receipts). Things start getting tense because the man is most definitely a zombie and his lust for human meat is beginning to get the best of him.
Sheila spends the episode with Carl to get work started on the housing development they worked so hard to obtain. However, her zombie-ism has changed her into an outspoken person which rubs Carl the wrong way. He expects her to smile and be “obedient” and go along with whatever he is saying.
This sends Sheila into a world of stress as she begins biting her fingernails which leads her to bite off her finger during a meeting. Since she cannot walk around with a severed finger, Eric wraps a Band-aid around it, which manages to keep it together.
She tells Joel that the stress is getting the best of her and that she may not be able to balance a life of being undead and having a career. Will this be the end of Sheila, the real-a-tor? We sure hope not!
During this episode, Abby finally goes on a date with Sven, which unfortunately doesn’t go as one would hope. When Sven begins asking her about who she is, she shares the joy she felt in hitting the bully with the tray.
It appears she felt euphoric from it which turns Sven off because of her dark, foreboding nature. After everything she has been through, Abby’s stress levels are sky-high, and the only way she can deal with it is through channeling it into something productive.
With the date turning into a disaster, Abby takes the opportunity to use his camera to take pictures of the fracking site to show Eric. She has come up with ideas on how to vandalize a billboard and knows if anyone will come to her aid–it’s Eric. Can these two get together already?!
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A Change of Heart
This episode pushes Joel and Sheila to spend some time focusing on Abby–given that she doesn’t seem to be doing that great. After Eric tells them about her incident in the cafeteria, they realize she is struggling and needs their attention. They decide to start off with having Abby apologize to the kid she with the tray and drive her over to his house.
The kid is all sorts of horrible and condescending, and it all makes sense when we realize he is Chris and Christa’s son. Instead of accepting the apology, Chris and Christa take it as a confession and blackmail Joel and Sheila. They say they won’t have Abby expelled if they give them the listing they stole from them.
Joel, Sheila, and Abby head over to Principal Novak’s house so Abby can come clean about what she did, but of course, he is scarred from Joel’s last visit and panics as soon as he sees them and proceeds to expel Abby when she confesses.
Matters get worse when Sheila’s finger falls off and into Novak’s home. However, they twist the situation brilliantly by claiming Novak shut the door on her finger and he promises not to expel Abby as long as they don’t sue him.
Related Story: Barrymore and Olyphant talk tone of Santa Clarita Diet
All the while, Eric heads to Japopo’s to investigate further into the clam mystery but winds up getting caught by the owner and locks himself in his office. He calls Joe to come and get him and shares that the night that Sheila turned after eating Japopo’s, the clams came from a vendor called Ruby’s Clams. Plot twist, indeed.
Sheila goes to another meeting regarding the housing development and is at ease because she thinks Carl won’t be there. When he shows up, she starts to freak out while sitting in the car. Something odd happens when she appears to have some sort of blackout and wakes up from it at 4:00 A.M.–still sitting in her car but now on her driveway.
She is covered in blood and chowing down on a human heart. With no recollection of what’s happened, her and Joel start to panic over who Sheila may have killed. Was it Carl? Keep reading to find out!
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Easels and War Paint
Convinced that Sheila killed Carl during her blackout, Joel, and her head into work fearful for what news awaits them. However, Carl shows up in his stand-offish glory and but a heated argument between him and Sheila leads to him firing her. This is a devastating moment for Sheila who has identified herself as being a realtor alongside Joel.
Unfortunately, Joel can’t quit his job because the family still needs one person working to bring in the money. Later on, in the episode, he realizes this line of work means nothing without Sheila and surprises her with a business card that says Hammond Realty.
Still unclear what events took place the night before, Sheila learns that she spoke to Lisa and Anne the night before. Uh oh, a cop? That can’t be good. It appears not all was bad because Sheila convinced Lisa to get baptized since Anne is extremely religious and told Anna to channel her creative side instead of focusing on the investigation 24/7.
The mystery of who Sheila killed is solved when Abby finds the dead Nazi in their freezer and Lisa starts mentioning a “lobster tank” that Sheila was referring to the night before. Where did this murder take place? At the towing company, the Nazi worked at.
When Sheila and Joel arrive at the towing company to find any evidence of the night before, they realize there is a camera on the premises that has recorded everything Sheila did.
They break into the office to delete the surveillance and find Sheila’s red boot that she left behind (which Anne and Lisa saw her wearing the night before). Watching herself on video shakes Sheila up who hasn’t ever seen this perspective of herself before. She feels like a monster and doesn’t know if being around people is the best thing for her.
Abby is dead-set on destroying the fracking site and begins making plans for it. She even gets Eric’s stepdad’s night-vision goggles but is ambushed by Lisa who dolls her up because she thinks Abby and Eric are going on a date. Eric confesses to Abby that he does not support her plan to blow up the site and backs off from the plan.
The episode ends on a slightly scary note as we realize Anne has been channeling her energy into painting items related to the investigation, including a painting of Joel called “Nervous Neighbor.”
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Suspicious Objects
This episode focuses on the mystery behind Ruby’s Clams once again. Joel looks up the location of Ruby’s Clams while Sheila tries to find out what Anna is starting to put together. Joel learns that Ruby’s Clams is owned by a woman living in the desert and operating out of her garage.
He convinces her that he wants to learn more about clamming and sees her entire operation full of red clams. Where did they come from? Ruby’s brother brought back the clams from a cave in Serbia–yes, Serbia and she is about to ship them all over the state of California.
Joel takes one back to show Eric in hopes that he can figure out what makes these clams unique and what about them causes people to become undead. The red clam behaves violently, and the group decides that they have to steal all of Ruby’s Clams before there is a zombie apocalypse and burn them.
Related Story: Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant talk Santa Clarita Diet season 2
The night of their plan takes a dramatic turn when someone blows up the garage where all the clams are baking. Remember the two people from Goran’s apartment? They are behind the explosion and have indirectly handled the Hammonds’ problem.
Joel and Sheila’s neighbor, Rick, confronts him because he can tell something is going on with Joel and is upset that he won’t share it with him. He decides to end their friendship over this because Joel refuses to open up about their family’s zombie problem. And all the while, Eric, and Abby are not getting along because Eric refused to help her with the fracking site.
Joel and Sheila reflect on the clam situation and start to blame themselves for how it all went down the night Sheila ate at Japopo’s. What does the season two finale have in store? Let’s find out!
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Halibut!
And just like that, we are at the season two finale! Things come to a head in the finale when Anne inches closer to figuring out that Sheila is behind the killings. The reality of leaving Santa Clarita becomes stronger and stronger as they begin making plans. They come up with one more idea to fool Anne which involves Gary recording a message about meeting in Mexico with Dan.
Anne hears the message disheartened but has her tech team try to dig up any deleted voicemails and recordings that were on the phone. This bodes horribly for Sheila and Joel who recorded multiple messages in an attempt to get the perfect message from Gary.
The Hammonds immediately start packing so they can make their escape and decide that they will drop Abby off in Phoenix on the way (and not tell her till they’re there). She finds out their plan and tells them she isn’t leaving them and that they have to stick together.
While packing up their car, Anne shows up, and they lie and tell her they are donating everything in the car. Hilariously, she takes her pick of random items in the car as the tech team calls her to tell her that the burner phone was so outdated that the company doesn’t keep deleted messages.
For a moment there is a big sigh of relief for the Hammonds. However, Anne starts putting it together when she wears the bangles Sheila gave her and moves them around on her wrist. She immediately realizes the same noise was in the voice message she heard from Gary. Uh oh.
After putting the pieces together, Anne tracks Joel and Sheila to the desert where they are finally killing Gary based on his wishes. Before they can finish, Anne shows up informing them she knows that it was them all along.
There is an extremely sweet moment between Joel and Sheila when Sheila comes forward taking the blame. Sheila comes clean with Anne about what happened, and of course, Anne doesn’t believe a word she has to say. That is until Anne shoots Sheila and nothing happens to her. Things worsen for Anne when they show her Gary’s severed, talking head.
Being the religious person she is, Anne takes to mean that Sheila has risen from the dead and is doing God’s work by killing those who deserve it. Simultaneously, as Anne asks for a sign from God, the fracking site behind them blows up courtesy of Eric and Abby. In a last-minute romantic gesture, Eric offered to help Abby after all.
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The season ends on this note, with Anne knowing everything and the Hammonds quite possibly free from further investigation. If there is a season three, there will be a lot to process given the shift in the story with Anne and the looming mystery of the two people from Goran’s apartment. And with Gary still alive, could we see more of Nathan Fillion, please?