While it’s not yet known if Netflix will greenlight a season four (suddenly somehow cognizant of all the money they’ve been shelling out without much concern for the profits), the final episode of Santa Clarita Diet‘s third season ends on a note that seems to highlight a latent–then blatant–notion that’s been waiting to bubble to the surface since the beginning of the series: if Joel (Timothy Olyphant) truly loves Sheila (Drew Barrymore) as much as he says, then why shouldn’t he want to spend an eternity with her as a fellow undead?
The answer comes as the two prepare for their launch party for Hammond Realty, finally deciding to go into business for themselves as “real-a-tors.” A feat that will be manageable with their more coiffed competition, Chris (Joel McHale) and Christa (Maggie Lawson), out of the picture thanks to being publicly shamed by Anne (Natalie Morales), the Hammonds’ neighbor and police officer who, when we last left her in season two, had bowed down to Sheila as some kind of god (or conduit thereof) instead of being horrified by her zombie antics. Side note: she’s very religious.
Though at first, Sheila is happy to have Anne on their team, her overzealousness ends up resulting in such things as planting a story in the paper about Chris and Christa’s seedy past, tipping off the sole Knight of Serbia in the Santa Clarita region, Tommy (Ethan Suplee), a sniper who has only taken over the job since his brother decided to move to Hawaii. Convinced Christa is the one-half of a married real estate duo he’s after, he begins to pursue her. But Joel and Sheila’s guilty consciences propel them to stop Tommy, all the while as they’re being unknowingly stalked by two Serbian consulate workers, Radul (Dominic Burgess) and Janko (Stephen Full), rocking the license plate “SRBSRUL1” (with regard to their goonishness, one wonders if there’s enough of a Serbian presence in America to call out the negative portrayal of Serbs in the media–then again, this is the only recent memory of Serbs being portrayed at all, perhaps serving as a substitute for Russians, sick and tired of depictions like the ones in Red Sparrow).
As their (mis)adventures escalate throughout the season, Sheila, who has already asked Joel to think about becoming undead so as to spend eternity with her in one of the earlier episodes, is likely wondering in the back of her mind why Joel wouldn’t want to keep up this excitement forever. In a way, it’s akin to Ilana (Ilana Glazer) from Broad City not fathoming why Abbi (Abbi Jacobson) wouldn’t want to continue their antics in New York for all-time instead of leaving the city (which all “lifer” New Yorkers equate to death instead of rebirth). But for Joel, his hesitancy about joining the ranks of the undead stems less from disgust for eating people and more from a fear of finding that monogamy–what’s left of it–can only function under the terms of mortality. In essence, yes you can love someone forever–but not if it’s actually forever, without death as a respite from the marital contract that binds (though, as we all know, not really).
To put pressure on Joel and his lack of response over the course of the season, Sheila decides to use their new assistant/foundation of their company, Gary (voiced by Alan Tudyk as Gary is now just a floating zombie head), as a metaphor for her own need for an answer. So it is that when Gary says he want a commitment from the Hammonds about his future at the company (he’s been given another offer since his job is all phones and internet, prompting him to prophesy, “In ten years, no one’s going to have a body anymore”), Sheila tells Joel as they make preparations for their party in the kitchen, “I think we commit. Tell him we’re in it for the long haul. Everybody wants clarity about their future, Joel… Any more thoughts about immortality?”
Seeing that, despite Sheila’s own infinite amount of time, Joel’s is out when it comes to giving her a yes or no, he still tries to deflect with the remark, “I love you more than anything else in this world.” Sheila then cuts him off with, “But you’re not sure you want to be with me forever, just say it.” Searching for the best way to explain his reluctance, Joel posits, “I don’t know if two people can be together forever. What if love is only possible because life is fleeting? That knowing it’s going to end is the reason why people cling to each other.”
His sentiment isn’t without warrant, especially for men both hetero and homo, so prone as they are to boredom and flitting. For it’s easy to promise words like “forever” and “eternity” when one knows it can’t actually be a reality–that there will be a finite end. In Sheila’s defense, however, she will always look the same, and so, too, would Joel–eradicating the risk of losing attraction to the object of one’s affection as a result of the physical deterioration that comes “naturally” with being human. The same goes for keeping the sharp, intact mind (relatively speaking) of their current age as opposed to risking the decrepitude of a post-fifties brain.
Even so, Joel can’t seem to be convinced, and the passive aggressiveness Sheila feels toward him augments in the scenes at their party, as when Joel comes up to her to say, “We have a problem.” Sheila retorts, “Is it that you can’t love me for all eternity?” Joel counters, “No, it’s that I think it’s possible the human condition requires the certainty of death in order for us to be capable of unconditional love. And that’s not [the problem I’m talking about].”
Not buying his excuses, Sheila flatly asserts, “Your philosophical musings on love are bullshit. You were scared to get married, you were scared to have a kid and I’m tired of dragging you along. So if you don’t want to do this then the hell with it.” And though, in fairness to Joel, his reasoning holds some water, much of it is the inherent aversion men feel toward the scariest word of all: forever. Particularly with the “shrewish” and “controlling” species that is woman, a being that just wants to subjugate, subjugate, subjugate (like Candace Bushnell said, “Man may have discovered fire, but women discovered how to play with it”).
With a tagline that reads, “‘Til Death?,” the final scene of Santa Clarita Diet‘s third season leaves us wondering if that’s really what’s going to happen between Joel and Sheila (or if she might be spending her eternity with an entirely different creature altogether). If it does and season four happens, we’re going to get a very Only Lovers Left Alive depiction, minus the interesting scenery as Santa Clarita is about as generic of an American milieu as it gets–hence the strategic symbolism of creator Victor Fresco setting up a colony for the undead there.
