Santa Clarita Diet Season 3 Review

March 30, 2019 at 1:43am
By Jason Stettner

This is a Netflix Original Series that follows a family that attempts to deal with the undead. This is due to the mother, Sheila (Drew Barrymore ) having become a zombie essentially. She’s paired up with her husband Joel (Timothy Olyphant), and their daughter Abby (Liv Hewson). For this third season, the group is dealing with a growing knight presence, other zombies that are growing in numbers and of course feeding. The team is bonding throughout the season and once against Olyphant steals the show. Abby continues to grow as a character, and gets more into the action as things progress.

This season also focuses more on the idea of living forever as a zombie, and how that might affect others. It’s a different pace as everyone is more confident, and this leads to less of the hilarious hijinx. Half of the magic was the fact they had no idea what they’re doing. That’s still there, but just less present. It also gets a bit odd this time around as certain cast members have vanished, leaving some empty holes. This alters some narrative elements as well, since story lines had to be adjusted.

Side characters get more of a showcase here, yet the original neighbors continue to sort of vanish in terms of visibility. There are of course some fun surprises, and the wild action never stops. It can be a rather intense show with high levels of gore, and violence. It does keep things relatively light however as the comedy shines through.

It’s a bit more serious in nature, but still carries the fun. It’s great to see how Abby has grown with this shift in life, getting really into things as this particular season progresses. By the end of these ten episodes, I am slightly less into it than I have been at the end of other seasons. I’m just not all for where they might be headed with this in the future. This certainly sets the stage for some possibly neat continuations, but I’m not exactly sure where they want to go.

The Conclusion

Santa Clarita Diet Season 3 doesn’t quite entertain like in past seasons, but is still a blast with a great cast. Olyphant is just magic here with a wit that steals the spotlight every time he enters the scene. I also found that Eric (Skyler Gisondo ) was a far better character this time around as he grows more confident. I wasn’t particularly fond of their new included classmate, but their presence is limited. It’s an interesting season, many things get done and the state of their society changes a lot.

Some of the narrative elements are left hanging, and I’m curious if they’ll be forgotten or just picked up later. Its weird how some characters suddenly leave, you can feel the holes they left with the quick wrap-ups that happen near the start of the season. This was a fine next entry, but I still desired more as I’ve loved the past two seasons so much. Perhaps I just generally expect a lot from this group.

Santa Clarita Diet Season 3 Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Screening was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 7.5