Letter #10: All of Us are Dead

Good morn—well, I guess it’s afternoon, for now, huh? Okay, then:


Good afternoon, Erin.


So, as I mentioned the other day, I watched high school zombie series All of Us are Dead, this weekend, as Netflix once again snookered me out of a carefully set show-watching plan. Which can only mean one thing: you get to hear all about it. Which I’m sure is half the reason you come to work. Well—a quarter of the reason. Don’t want to sound conceited.


Now, as with other shows I know you haven’t seen and, therefore, have no point of reference for, I’m going to keep this one short, only sharing some broad impressions and some non-spoilery points I think might be worth mentioning. 


Or, at least, that’s my intention, as I type up this preamble. I think we both know I can’t be trusted to stick to that.  


So, without further ado—let’s talk teen zombies:


1. Okay, big point number one, which I already mentioned, before: I recognized SO MANY people from the cast! I’m getting pretty okay at spotting people I know from other shows (not immediately knowing who they are, but definitely recognizing them (and, in the case of my frontrunner #bestgirl in Our Beloved Summer, recognizing some people from absolutely nowhere but swearing that can’t be true)), but this was a smorgasbord of old friends:

  • Evil Advisor from Goblin as the science teacher

  • Glasses-Wearing Paralegal Guy from Vincenzo as the gym teacher

  • Mean Step-Dad from Start Up as the principal

  • Main Girl’s Dad from My Name as the dean of students

  • Ms. Choi from Hotel Del Luna(!!!) as the politician 

  • Lee Ji-eun’s Friend Guy in My Mister as one of the protagonist students


2. There’s this really clever (though I dunno how original…but I still liked it) bit in the early goings of the first episode where all the students in the school are shot moving as this horde, all running to get into the school before the bell rings or rushing out of the classrooms to get to the cafeteria. It was a subtle way to frame them as zombies even before the outbreak.


3. All the various buses I saw were Hyundais. So. Best show ever. 


4. One of the characters changed how she was wearing her hair, a couple of episodes in. And the show was like, “Daryl won’t recognize you, if you do that,” so she was eaten by zombies, and I didn’t have to struggle to figure out who she was. So that was nice. 


4A. …except I liked her, so it wasn’t all that nice. 


4B. My #BestGirl list needed a lot of revising, over the course of this show. And not because my picks stopped being awesome. 


5. There are some really terrible kids, in the show, just these awful scumbag bullies, and the show does this really interesting thing with them, when the zombie outbreak happens, where their scenes are tense not because you’re afraid they’re gonna die, but you’re afraid they’re gonna make it.


6. One of the main protagonist boys reminds me of a young Brandon Routh. And good for him. 


7. There was one dup in the show that I was super-shipping, but they were just building towards a deep and meaningful bond of true friendship, it turns out. Laaaaaaame. 


8. Insofar as there’s a villain…the villain’s haircut is sooo right out of a comic book. It looked stupid as hell, but I bet it looks great in the original web-comic. Have I checked? No. Because of course I haven’t. 


9. For the most part, I think all the deaths are narratively where they should be. But there are a couple that I just…cannot get behind. Not even that the characters died, but how it happens didn’t work for me. (And, no, not because they were adorable girls I wanted to spend more time mooning over. (Well…not just because….)) One in particular was really unsatisfying. 


10. There were a few instances of story-stretching, as things wore on, but it wasn’t anything any worse than the good seasons of The Walking Dead, so that’s fine. 


11. They did a time skip. A really subtle one, but it was there. And it was…okay. Not great. But okay. 


12. There may have been some smooching. And it may have been passable. Maybe. Who knows. 


13. And what the heck was that ending?! Is there a season two? Why did…what was…???


And those are my thoughts on that.


I can practically hear you setting it as your “Watch Next” as I write this, so tempted are you by my incomparable analysis. 


…I mean, watch it, if you’re in the mood for some zombie stuff. It’s fine. Not great. But certainly a decent watch. 


On to your next recommendation, which, three episodes in, I’m calling as a daisy-chain of love triangles, rather than a love dodecahedron—despite there being a dozen individual little love stories they’re already suggested. 


We’ll see if I’m right. 


--Daryl

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