"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Thursday, March 5, 2015

In the Flesh (2013-2014)


I’ve been hitting so many TV jackpots lately:  Nikita, Agent Carter, The Bletchley Circle, 12 Monkeys (I’ve not written about that one on the blog yet, but expect a few remarks when its debut season ends,) and now In the Flesh.  Since I’m well-acquainted with my aversion to zombie narratives, I’m glad a friend recommended it so strongly, because there’s no way I would’ve sought it out on my own and I totally should have.  I just finished this short-lived British drama, and I’m in love (admittedly, it helps that there’s no infection angle – people don’t turn after being bitten.)



Something of an outlier in its genre, In the Flesh is a post-post-apocalyptic story, taking place in a small English village four years after a zombie rising.  In that time, scientists have discovered a treatment that doesn’t reverse the zombie-ism, but it gives the undead their minds back, stops their hankering for cerebellum, and, as long as they take their medication faithfully, keeps them from turning “rabid.”  Armed with their daily shots and flesh-toned makeup/colored contacts to help them look more like the living, the newly-dubbed “Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS) sufferers” are being gradually reintegrated into a society that’s wary at best about rubbing elbows with undead “rotters.”  Our hero is Kieren Walker, an 18-year-old lad with PDS just discharged from the treatment center.  Sensitive Kieren is unprepared for the harsh backlash he meets when he returns home.  The zombie-fighting Human Volunteer Force (the HVF, which includes his sister) is calling for his blood, social segregation is de rigueur, and his parents are completely at a loss for how to treat him.  Meanwhile, flashbacks to the horrors he unknowingly committed in his “untreated state” are a side effect of his medication, the innocents and neighbors he killed.



It’s an immensely rich series that uses zombies as a parallel to examine social stigma in many forms, everything from ableism to homophobia, but it also avoids heavy-handed “Get it??  It’s a metaphor!!!” anvil-dropping.  Instead, the commentary is woven into a smart narrative that examines a lot of thoughtful zombie-specific details.  As one example, take the HVF.  These are people who protected lives during the Rising by killing the undead.  They know what PDS folk can do in their untreated state and can’t simply forget the atrocities they saw.  In that sense, it’s understandable and maybe even natural for them to hate the rehabilitated zombies.  At the same time, the revelation that PDS can be managed with medication means that every “rotter” they killed during the Rising is someone who could have been treated and recovered their minds.  Suddenly, they’ve killed just as many neighbors as the untreated PDS – some HVF members, upon realizing this, are horrified or at least deeply conflicted, while others double down on their insistence that those with PDS aren’t human and should be put down before they turn rabid again.  Meanwhile, HVF members are commemorated for their valor while PDS folk are barely-tolerated sub-members of society who deserve, at minimum, to face up to what they did when they couldn’t control themselves.  It’s just such a fantastic series; in just nine episodes (will it rise again?  your move, Netflix/Amazon,) it provides a phenomenal well of creative, emotional storytelling and insightful themes of otherness, discrimination, and what it means to be alive.



Warnings


Violence (including zombie attacks, black undead blood, and braaaains,) language, drinking, a little sexual content, and strong thematic elements.

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