Now that my Santa Clarita Diet OTP is finally together, let’s talk about married love and teen love, and how this show gets both right.
Yes, it’s possible to make good communication, boundaries, consent and friends-to-partners sexy. (With a dash of brain-eating, here and there.)
From the first episode of this Netflix show, I found myself weirdly drawn to the premise of this shamelessly bloody story, because it was so full of sunny cheerfulness and heart that it was impossible not to love.
And now, as ancient fans of three seasons of a show that still doesn’t get old (kind of like Sheila), we’re in the perfect position to look back at everything Santa Clarita Diet has done right. For a comedy show with a very dark premise, and no qualms when it comes to explicit language and depicting overtly gorey situations, it’s done an amazing job at depicting meaningful romance, both between teens and between adults.
Spoilers for season 3 of Santa Clarita Diet below!
True partnership
Sheila and Joel’s relationship, despite the murdering-people aspect, is still one of the healthiest marriages ever depicted on screen. From the very beginning, they were committed to protecting each other and making sure no one got left behind.
Joel’s main priority since Sheila “died” has been to help her find a way to live with her “condition.” He’s (partly) sacrificed his career, his morals, and his comfort zone to care for her and find a way to survive in the new world they’re suddenly inhabiting. And while Sheila sometimes gets distracted by her own hunger and survival instincts, she never goes too long without appreciating Joel’s hard work, and finding ways to offer him the same love and support he gives her.
Comedy shows often feel the need to reduce romantic relationships to overused formulas. It’s easy to imagine a world where Shelia and Joel would have become estranged because of Sheila’s zombie-ification, but this show is a firm believer in the strong bond that holds their marriage together — and the fact that love between two mature people doesn’t have to be full of drama to be entertaining.
But they aren’t the only ones. Since season 1, Abby and Eric have formed a strong partnership as they’ve faced increasingly weird situations. And their friendship has progressed from exasperation to actual love as they’ve become a strong team, playing off of each other’s strengths. Which leads us to:
Chemistry that’s natural, not forced
TV romance between teens always seems to come down to the same things: sex appeal and dramatic romantic contrivances, which are often childish and sometimes even insulting to teenagers.
But with Abby and Eric, we hardly got any of these tropes. While Eric’s initial interest in Abby is obvious to everyone, including Abby herself, that’s never really a factor in the way their friendship develops. Instead, Abby and Eric bond through shared experiences, developing a loyalty and emotional connection through trial and error, as Abby learns to open up to others and allow herself to be vulnerable, and Eric becomes more confident in the face of his fears and willing to stand up for himself.
They go through all the stages of an ordinary friendship, growing together and laughing together, before ever really approaching romance in any serious way. They both have some degree of romantic experiences before getting together, and establish a good emotional connection over three seasons that only enhances their romantic chemistry when it finally happens. And that’s the healthy teen romance we need to see more of: not the stereotypical horny teens who like each other because of social pressure, or who are treated like star-crossed lovers while being bratty to each other all the time. Abby and Eric are really great friends, and that’s what makes them a really great couple, much like Abby’s parents.
Sheila and Joel, of course, have a more mature approach to this. On top of their inside jokes and united front, they also have great chemistry together, proving that a healthy marriage also involves sex, and it doesn’t have to be graphic to be believable. Sex isn’t the most important element of their relationship, but it’s a factor that comes up now and then, and that’s great. Being undead doesn’t mean you don’t have needs!
Good communication
In season 3, Sheila and Joel faced the prospect of eternity. What would Sheila’s eternal life look like, without Joel? And what would Joel’s life look like, if he decided to turn? The question of whether or not love comes from the ephemeral nature of life was handled impressively well, as both Sheila and Joel grapple with their ideas of what love is, and how far their dedication to marriage really goes.
Most importantly, this subplot of season 3 was a perfect example of how Sheila and Joel communicate with each other in complicated situations. While both have their flaws and at times became passive-aggressive with each other, they managed to overcome their selfish interests and instead have a proper conversation about the pros and cons of keeping Joel alive or turning him undead. Sheila apologized genuinely when she realized how unfairly she had pushed Joel: and Joel was willing to understand where Sheila was coming from. In fact, he eventually changed his mind and decided he would like to become undead eventually… not because Sheila pushed him, but because he made the decision for himself. And he communicated openly and honestly, instead of pettily sticking to his “side” of the argument.
(And then the choice was abruptly taken away from him with the final scene of season 3, but I digress. The point was made.)
Good communication means setting good boundaries, and just as Sheila realized that Joel’s life and death weren’t hers to made decisions on, Abby and Eric had their own journey. Best of all, they spent this entire journey constantly communicating about their feelings… even wondering if they should kiss out loud, pretty often.
Both had moments where jealousy threatened to take over, but they pushed past it and kept their friendship strong, allowing each other an independence that only strengthened their relationship. And when Abby tried to set Eric’s boundaries for him, excluding him from her plans to protect him, Eric was quick to stand up for himself and start a conversation about how they should treat each other.
It was this type of honest, open communication free of fear that led Abby to embrace her feelings for Eric, and finally express them to him in one of the cutest, most understated romantic moments ever on screen. As she climbed into bed with him, both in their pajamas, in a scene that was neither unnecessarily sexual nor immature — rather, it was a tender moment between two mature people who are still discovering how they feel — we all felt the pure, powerful love of the moment.
Santa Clarita Diet has done a truly phenomenal job at depicting romance in a healthy, relatable way that also feels completely natural, proving that we don’t need overdone drama and unhealthy communication to make for good entertainment.
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