Grieving Process
Story By: Mike D. McCarty
Written By: John Esposito
Michelin-level chef Richard Nance (Sachin Sahel) cooks a gourmet breakfast for his beloved wife April (Rachel Drance) as a celebration for her big promotion. As the happy couple sit down, April's live-in younger sister Jean (Mae Mae Renfrow) congratulates "the boss lady" for her first day in her new position as she goes back to bed. While April eats, she and Richard discuss the possibility of them starting a family, to which they happily agree before she leaves for work. That evening, Richard whips up a candlelit dinner with a charcuterie board and wine, waiting for April to get home. Hours later, after texting April repeatedly, a call comes from her phone. When Richard answers, the person on the line, Detective Kiernan (Elfina Luk), tells Richard that there's been a situation. Richard rushes to a crime scene where April, covered in blood with a large gash on her throat and in critical condition, is loaded into an ambulace. Kiernan explains to Richard that April was savagely attacked by an unknown assailant as she was walking to her car, just as a little girl with a bicycle walks away from the scene. The culprit managed to escape capture, but as soon as the ambulance leaves with Richard inside, Kiernan notices and picks up a white flower on the ground near April's car.
Sometime later, April is released from the hospital, but Richard and Jean notice changes in her behavior, as she pulls herself away from their touch and vomits when she tries Richard's food. Deciding to give April some space, the pair sit in the living room to share some whiskey. While there, Richard tells Jean that his family usually runs from trouble, prompting Jean to share how she was similarly attacked in college, as she was returning from class one day. The incident traumatized her, but April never gave up on her, taking her in and letting her recuperate for as long as she needed. Hearing this, Richard agrees that both he and Jean need to do whatever they can to help April recover. Days later, Richard and Jean check on April, but they find the bedroom shrouded in darkness and frigidly cold. As Jean suggests that the hospital released her too early and that she needs a doctor, April suddenly rebukes her in a fury, declaring that her college assault turned her into a freeloader and demanding she leave the house, after which she starts crying, gradually turning into maniacal laughter. As the heartbroken Jean leaves, she sees the little girl from April's crime scene, holding the "Welcome Home" balloons she released into the sky and disappearing when Jean looks again.
Days after Jean is thrown out, Richard has tried and failed to nurse April back to health, the staircase having been lined with plates of rotting and uneaten food. At that moment, Dr. Spence (Rebecca Davis) makes a house call to check on April. While he's somewhat glad that help has arrived, Richard forlornly tells the doctor that the woman he married is essentially gone. As Dr. Spence goes upstairs and enters the bedroom, she finds April standing rigidly by the bed as she shuts the door. As he returns from a walk, Richard hears a thud and rushes up the stairs. He finds the bedroom a bloody mess, and discovers April feeding on Spence's corpse. Richard also discovers that April has gained black eyes and sharp teeth, constantly repeating "Hungry!" when not feeding. Horrified, Richard starts calling for help, but April softly grabs his hand and softens her expression, convincing Richard that his wife may still be in there. Richard instead moves Spence's body down to the basement as April unnaturally crawls after him. Wanting to help her however he can, Richard tells April that he’ll see what he can do with the corpse.
In a montage, Richard proceeds to kill random strangers through all sorts of different methods, taking the bodies back home and turning their flesh into gourmet meals for April to devour. During this time, Detective Kiernan calls Richard to ask how April is holding up, to which he answers that she's doing better. After delivering one of his latest bloody masterpieces to her, Richard tells April he has something special planned for their anniversary. Jean soon returns to the house after calling and texting several times, asking how April is doing after experiencing nightmares about her potential death. As she enters the kitchen, Richard grabs a frying pan and whacks Jean in the head, sending her tumbling down the basement stairs. As he's explaining the truth, April, whose face has turned into that of a vicious monster, drags Jean away and devours her alive.
The next day, Richard sits in his car looking for April's next prospective meal, when something suddenly bumps into it. The culprit happens to be the little girl with the bike, having crashed it into the car and injuring her knee. Richard hopes to get the girl, giving her name as Daisy (Kingston Chan), home to her family so they can take her to the hospital, but Daisy tells him that she doesn't have a family to go home to. Hatching an idea, Richard tells Daisy that he's a doctor and that he can take her to his "office" to fix her up. Richard brings Daisy to the house and tells her that his "nurse" is in the basement. As Daisy heads down the stairs and Richard locks the door behind her, Detective Kiernan suddenly enters, showing Richard a white flower similar to the one from April's crime scene. She also tells him that several people have gone missing, and that there might be a link to their disappearances. Daisy suddenly screams, prompting Kiernan to whip out her pistol and force Richard to open the basement door.
Richard and Kiernan slowly descend into the basement, now housing severed body parts everywhere. As Kiernan asks where the girl is and Richard pleads for her to understand the situation, the detective finds Daisy staring at the wall. As she goes to take her home, Daisy promptly reveals herself to be the same kind of creature that April became, pouncing on Kiernan and brutally slaughtering her. Richard is horrified, but as Daisy returns to normal, she reveals that she was the one who attacked April, having replayed the bike crash/knee injury routine she played on Richard to bite her and turn her into one of whatever she is. Since then, Daisy claims to have been searching for April and Richard so she can have a family just like her. She and April then hold out bloody dishes and repeat "Hungry." to Richard, who submits to his final fate. April and Daisy watch as Richard slowly and miserably goes upstairs, waiting for him to keep finding, killing, and cooking more people for the pair; his new "family".
This episode contains examples of:
- And the Adventure Continues: The end of the episode has Richard surrendering to his new role in life and trodding upstairs to go out "shopping" for more "ingredients" to feed his monstrous new family.
- Apologetic Attacker: Before he hits Jean with the frying pan, Richard tells her how sorry he is for what he's about to do.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Daisy finally gets the family she's always wanted, and all it took was infecting April with her ailment and turning Richard into their food slave.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: In the beginning of the episode, Richard and April optimistically discuss plans for starting a family. Come the end of the episode, Richard gets that family in the form of flesh-craving ghouls who beg him for more and more food.
- Bittersweet Ending: Richard ends up getting the family he and April wanted, at the cost of being forced to continue killing people to feed them.
- Black Eyes of Evil: As she devours Dr. Spence, Richard discovers that April's transformation has given her pitch black eyes.
- Broken Record: Once her condition passes the point of no return, April devolves into a feral monster that constantly repeats "Hungry!"
- Cannibal Clan: Richard's wife becomes a cannibalistic ghoul, and his "adopted daughter" is the one who turned her into such a ghoul in the first place.
- Cannibal Larder: As he keeps killing, Richard preserves and piles up the leftover parts of his victims in his basement.
- Chill of Undeath: As Jean gives her sister a welcome home hug, she takes note that her skin is freezing.
- Classical Music Is Cool: Richard is big on classical music, having a sound system rigged up in the kitchen to hear Beethoven while he cooks, as well as when he waits for April to come home for their dinner date. He later kills people and turns their body's into April's gourmet dinners as "Ode to Joy" blares in the background, and his luring Daisy to the basement is underscored with the composer's 5th Symphony.
- Cop Killer: Daisy gets the drop on Kiernan and eats her alive.
- Creepy Basement: Richard's is dark and spacious, and the longer he keeps April down there, the more body parts start piling up.
- Decoy Damsel: Daisy finds her victims by pretending to injure her knee after crashing her bike into their cars, after which she pounces when they check up on her. She similarly takes care of Kiernan by pretending to be trapped with the monstrous April and begging to go home.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: The cause of April's transformation is Daisy, a seemingly ordinary little girl hidden in the background for only a couple of scenes.
- Eaten Alive: As April goes feral with hunger, she no longer recognizes her own sister and devours her while conscious. Daisy later does the same to Kiernan as she and Richard head to the basement.
- Enfante Terrible: Daisy is the human-hungry ghoul who turned April into one of her own so she could have a family, playing up a lonely, injured little girl to get the drop on her victims.
- Evil Chef: Richard, as he's forced to bring new victims to his flesh-hungry wife.
- Fed to the Beast: The fates of Jean and Kiernan, victims of April and Daisy, respectively.
- Fluffy the Terrible: The monstrous little girl who turns April into a monster is given the name "Daisy".
- Food Porn: Disgusting as it may be, Richard's "dishes" after he kills people are given plenty of focus.
- Forced into Evil: Richard becomes a serial killer who turns his victims into gourmet meals just so he can keep his monstrous wife fed.
- Foreshadowing:
- Richard and April's talk about starting a family, which technically comes true by the episode's end.
- For that matter, Richard and Jean's talk about how traumatic experiences "change your DNA".
- Daisy leaves a flower where she attacks April, and wears it behind her ear when she pretends to crash into Richard's car. Kiernan later finds the flower in Richard's backseat, coming to a conclusion about what's been going on.
- Daisy can also be seen in the background of April's crime scene, leaving with her bike as Kiernan talks to Richard. She later appears when Jean leaves the Nance house, watching her intently.
- Frying Pan of Doom: Richard uses one to hit a random stranger, and later Jean, over the head so April can get to them.
- Get Out!: As her attitude turns for the worse, April rebukes her mentally-scarred younger sister Jean as a freeloader and yells for her to get out of the house.
- Hates Being Touched: April has this as one of her symptoms early in her transformation, yanking her arm away from Richard and Jean.
- Here We Go Again!: The episode ends with Richard going back out to kill more victims for their meat. The only difference is that now he has two mouths to feed.
- Horror Hunger: Daisy and the transformed April tend to devour human flesh regularly.
- Human Resources: Richard uses the bodies of his murdered victims to make special dinners for April.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Daisy only bit April and infected her with her ghoulish nature because she desperately wanted a family.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Daisy and anyone she turns crave only human flesh as a food source.
- Invited as Dinner: When Jean heads back to the house to check on April, Richard hits her with a frying pan and sends her tumbling down into the basement, where April makes short work of her.
- Karma Houdini:
- Daisy ends the episode getting away with infecting April into one of... whatever she is, and getting the family she's always wanted.
- Since Daisy kills Kiernan before she can arrest him, Richard also gets away with killing several people for his wife to eat, and ends the episode preparing to go out and get more food for her and Daisy.
- Laughing Mad: As her condition progresses, Richard spies April manically sobbing in bed, which turns into deranged laughter.
- Madwoman In The Basement: Richard keeps the monstrous April chained up in the basement as her condition progresses, and Daisy later joins her down there as his new "daughter".
- Meaningful Name: Daisy wears the flower of the same name behind her ear, and she leaves it at April's crime scene as a calling card.
- Model Couple: Richard is a gourmet chef who worships the ground his wife walks on, and April similarly acts as a bundle of sunshine to him and her sister, caring for her after she was traumatized from being assaulted in college. When the latter is bitten by Daisy and turned into a flesh-craving monstrosity, Richard goes out of his way to kill people and turn their corpses into five-star meals for April to eat, wanting his wife to be happy and cared for even as a monster.
- Mythology Gag:
- The ashtray appears near the end of the episode, sitting on one of the bloody shelves in Richard's basement.
- Richard locking his monstrous, flesh-hungry wife in the basement and luring people down there so she can "feed" comes straight out of Pet Sematary.
- Ninja Zombie Pirate Robot: We don't know what exactly Daisy is, but she's apparently some kind of ghoul who craves frigid temperatures and darkness like a vampire (which April is identified as on the cover), devours human flesh and turns others into the same creature via biting like a zombie, and can shift her face to a more monstrous visage like a werewolf.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Daisy disappears from Jean's view when her back is turned.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: April is just as devoted to Richard as he is to her, but after Daisy bites and gradually turns her, she develop a very obvious attitude problem, refusing to be touched, vomiting when she tastes Richard's cooking, and calling her sister a freeloader and demanding she leave. By the time Dr. Spence checks on her, Richard fears that the woman he married is gone.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Daisy is some kind of flesh-eating monster who can turn others into one of her species by biting them, not unlike a werewolf or zombie. She can also change her face into a more monstrous look with sharp teeth and black eyes, and her bite gradually turns her victims nasty and anti-social. She also holds the balloons Jean let into the sky early in the episode, indicating that she can either teleport or fly.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Detective Kiernan, who tells Richard that the cops are looking for April's assailant and is sorry for what happened to her. She also allows him to ride in the ambulance with her, calls him to ask how she's holding up, and comes by the house herself when she's in the area. When people start disappearing, she shows Richard the flower Daisy left in his backseat, and while she initially gives him the benefit of the doubt, she pulls her gun on him when she hears Daisy yelling from the basement.
- The Secret of Long Pork Pies: Richard turns his victims' bodies into ghoulishly gourmet meals for April, as he thinks she's still in there at some point.
- Shout-Out:
- Richard cooking the bodies of humans he kills so his wife can eat them, and making them exquisitely crafted in the process, comes straight out of Hannibal.
- As the monstrous April follows Richard to the basement, she crawls down the stairs just like Samara.
- Daisy's hunting technique, feigning being struck down by a car while bicycling, is identical to that of Homer, the child vampire from Near Dark. Her staring at the basement wall to eat Detective Kiernan is also resemblant of The Blair Witch Project.
- Sibling Murder: The feralized April no longer recognizes Jean after she insulted her and she left, and tears into her as just another meal Richard brings home.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: "Ode to Joy" plays at full blast while Richard kills and cooks unsuspecting victims for April, as well as during his call with Kiernan.
- Supreme Chef: Richard is a Michelin level chef who creates everything in his kitchen to the best of his ability. He continues to put his culinary magic to "good" use by turning human victims into exquisite meals for his wife.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: April becomes a lot nastier for the first couple of weeks after Daisy bites her.
- The Unreveal: What exactly Daisy is, and what she turns April into.
- Villain in a White Suit: Daisy wears a white outfit throughout the episode.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: When April tastes Richard's food after being bitten by Daisy, she vomits straight into a nearby trash can.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Richard only becomes a serial killer who turns his victims into food so his monstrous wife can be taken care of even in her new state.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The entire episode is an homage to Santa Clarita Diet, as it focuses on a woman who becomes a monster that craves human flesh, leaving her husband to do everything he can to keep her happy and well fed.
- Would Hurt a Child: Before Daisy's true self is revealed, Richard was planning to have her enter the basement so April could get her hands on her.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Daisy is a little girl who is also a monstrous person-eating ghoul. Twice in the episode, she pretends to crash her bike into her victims' cars and grievously injure her knee. When April checked up on her, she revealed her true self and attacked her. When Kiernan interrogates Richard, she pretends to plead for help to lure the detective down there herself.
