Santa Clarita Diet: Episode 19

19. Suspicious Objects

Joel investigates Ruby’s Clams, a mom-and-pop clam hobbyist who started breeding red clams her brother found in a deep dive in Serbia and smuggled into the US. The good news is that she has only ever sold them to Japopo’s. The bad news is that she is about to deliver the 5,000 newly-bred infected clams all over the state the next day. Joel gets one of the clams for Eric to experiment on, but nothing seems capable of killing it. Abby sees a page of the Serbian book where they see the plague killed by fire. She suggests that her parents steal all the clams and bring them to the fracking site, where she plans to blow up a trailer as an anarchist anti-fracking statement. As Joel and Sheila sneak into Ruby’s garage to pack the clams, Ruby comes home earlier than usual, and a confrontation ensues. The three of them survive a rocket launcher attack from the two strangers Eric and Abby met at the Serbian guy’s place. The infected clams are gone, but Anne pursues her theories and gets a go signal for a homicide investigation.

Well, well, the writers have been procrastinating here. I am not complaining, though, because they did a great job in keeping us amused with all the worthwhile distractions and subplots. This episode is the one to see if you want quick answers regarding the big mystery, which are already hinted on in clues scattered all throughout the season anyway. It turns out that the two strangers are a couple too, and the husband is a descendant of the sacred knights who got rid of the plague centuries ago. While the bigger threat of a zombie infestation has been taken care of, the writers bring us back to the main concern of the show, which is the welfare of the Hammond family. The world is safe for now, but the family and, to some extent, Ramona are now under the threat of legal persecution from Anne’s side and from extermination from that couple. I suppose the next episode will be another cliffhanger season finale unless they double the run time. There are just too many conflicts to resolve and 30 minutes is too short for that.

"Teenagers. They even make the apocalypse about them." –Joel Hammond

<<Episode 18                Episode 20>>