Characters from the show Santa Clarita Diet

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The Hammond Family & Allies

Sheila Hammond

Played by: Drew Barrymore

A perky and upbeat woman who has recently become a zombie. Now she needs to feed with human flesh, but outside of that, she is still a very loving wife and mother.

Affably Evil: Sheila maintains a very jovial (if also creepy) personality, even after becoming a murderous cannibal.
All Women Are Lustful: Post-zombification, she is.
Badass Boast: an unorthodox one.
I can sell your home, I can fuck up your Zillow estimate. I can rezone your neighborhood for horses. I have a notary that will do anything for me. I am a realtor and I can destroy you.
Beware the Nice Ones: Sheila has Drew Barrymore's likability and, for the most part, it's completely sincere. But she alos repeatedly shows that she has no issue whatsoever in killing people to survive and even enjoys it a little.
Blithe Spirit: Sheila's outgoing nature post-zombification has a huge effect on their typical suburban neighborhood. Deconstructed when her advices to make everyone "follow their bliss" causes everyone to do things they shouldn't, like buying cars and making huge travel plans without consulting their partners, start affairs and make Abby and Joel freak out when she starts advising Abby to just quit school.
Extreme Omnivore: Sheila mentions eating a beer bottle just to freak out a group of drunks in the park.
- Within a certain amount of reason. Aside from human meat, Sheila is unable to consume anything that would usually constitute as food for a normal person. Which includes vegetables, wheat products, and even animal meat once she got a taste of human. Her body simply rejects all other things considered food to most living creatures. And even when it's human meat, if it's too old or preserved through some means like formaldehyde, she can't stomach it.
- Sheila *has* been seen to be capable of eating, and enjoying, bits of human bones like teeth. However, according to her, human hair is much less pleasant of a venture as it tends to get caught in her teeth and throat.
Freudian Trio: The Ego of her family, trying to balance out her newfound urges and strengths with her life as a suburban wife and mother.
God Guise: She manages to make Ann believe she is an envoy from god in the season two finale.
Heel Realization: Sheila in Episode 4 after her newfound impulsiveness causes her to continually heckle Joel and to flippantly encourage Abby to drop out of school rather than talk about the reasons for her truancy.
High-School Sweethearts: With Joel. They're also Happily Married.
I Hate Past Me: She dislikes the Shrinking Violet she used to be before becoming a zombie, loving her newfound energy and determination, which makes her have doubts about becoming human again.
Lovable Rogue: Although she does kill people.
Lovable Sex Maniac: Especially because she only has sex with her husband, Joel.
Serial-Killer Killer: Serial killers are allowed on Sheila's menu, though the only serial killer she has killed onscreen so far is Loki.
Villainous Parental Instinct: Sheila frequently hallucinates about killing and eating just about everyone on the show (even those who she loves, have done nothing wrong to her and/or actively tried to help her, such as her husband) due to the strength of her Horror Hunger, but she never considers it in the case of her daughter Abby.

Joel Hammond

Played by: Timothy Olyphant

Sheila's nervous husband. A man trying to keep his family together after what's happened to his wife.

Bond One-Liner: Gets a damn good one in after killing Dan with a shovel.
Dan: Just what are you good at anyway?
Joel: [Hits Dan in the head] I'm pretty good with a shovel.
Cop Killer: Joel kills his neighbor, Sheriff Deputy Dan Palmer, who was blackmailing him and Sheila.
Freudian Trio: The Super Ego of his family, trying to maintain things as normal as possible in spite of their new situation.
Henpecked Husband: Downplayed, but Sheila often blames Joel when he's just trying his best.
High-School Sweethearts: With Sheila. They're also Happily Married.
Nervous Wreck: Over the course of the series Joel becomes more and more tightly wound, and he spends a great deal of time with a forced smile on his face.
Nice Guy: Downplayed, but Joel is very kind in spite of his situation.
Only Sane Man: Downplayed. Despite not being exactly "sane", Joel is usually the most sensible character and has the most appropriate reactions to the various horrific events of the series.
Parental Substitute: Eric all but forces this role on Joel. Eric talks little about his father and hates his step dad, he sees in Joel the father figure he'd like to have and is eager to spend time with him. Joel however finds this role freaky and really wishes for Eric to stop.
Sanity Slippage: Realistic example under the stress of Sheila's...illness.
Sir Swears-a-Lot: Kind of understandable considering the situation he's in but part of his more appropriate reactions to a lot of the new events in his life with the undead include exclaiming the F-word or such a lot of the time upon walking into a situation, a great example being the bloodbath he walks into in Season Two Episode One and his reaction to it.
Stepford Smiler: Although exactly how it's applied is zigzagged. Joel is clearly very happy with Sheila and Abby, but he starts to crack under the pressure. Lampshaded by Anne in Season 2.
The Stoner: Joel is periodically seen smoking pot, increasingly so as a way of coping with his new situation. His friend Rick occasionally joins him.

Abby Hammond

Played by: Liv Hewson

The Hammond's snarky and cold daughter. A girl who has figured out her parents are into something bad and uses this as an excuse to misbehave now. She starts to grow out of it later on.

Bratty Teenage Daughter: Mostly in Season 2, she can fall into this a great deal when behaving delinquently even after her Jerkass Realization.
Character Development: Following season one, she starts being more mindful of her family and friends, rather than finding just some sort of fun all the time.
Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: The tough and carefree Abby develops a friendship with Eric, a nerd with some strange interests.
Deadpan Snarker: Arguably the most frequent offender in the entire cast, mostly with Eric. She plays off of his nerdy, meek, worrisome personality with dry sarcasm:
Abby: Remember when Sven and I went to the fracking site on our "date"?
Eric: Oh my God, you're pregnant.
Abby: Yes, and it's triplets. I'm naming them Hey, Idiot, and Pay Attention.
Delinquent: Abby starts committing various petty crimes around town and gets into trouble at school, using the excuse of her parents' murders and cannibalism to not follow any rules anymore.
Fiery Redhead: She has lighter dark hair, but still.
Freudian Trio: The Id. Eager for thrills and a rule breaker, Abby prioritizes her basic urges and tries to push others to embrace them as well.
It's All About Me: Abby is a very selfish person, which she comes to realize in the season one finale.

Abby: Like with this doctor; she is in town to save my mom's life and all I can think about is that she's taking my bedroom.

Jerkass Realization:
- Abby realizes at the end of season one that she has been extremely selfish and ignored her mom's issues in favor of seeking for some sort of thrill. When she's been sidelined to not help while the group seeks for a cure, she finally comes to the conclusion she might be willingly not taking part in helping her family.
- She has another one in season 2, where she sees her parents juggling balls trying to keep everything together, and admit to being afraid they're raising a monster. Abby realizes she has been adding up to the list of already contrived problems her parents are facing.
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Downplayed, but she is a lot more confrontational, impulsive, and aggressive than Eric.
Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Before hitting a guy so hard with a tray that he goes to the ground for cyber bullying his ex, Abby gleefully greets him in Season 2.
Abby: Hey, Christian. What's up? [smashes him in the face with a lunch tray]
Sociopathic Hero: Downplayed, but the fact that her parents are now murderers, and one of them is a cannibal, seems to have decreased her levels of empathy. As an example, it isn't Goran's gruesome death in Season 2 that scares her but the fact that he had followed her home and could have done anything if Sheila hadn't been there. She also, by her own admission, feels no remorse for physically assaulting a boy at her school because she felt that she "had to" and that he deserved it.

Eric Bemis

Played by: Skyler Gisondo

A nerdy guy aficionado for horror and zombies. The Hammonds accept him among them due to being the most well informed person about zombies they know.

Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: Eric, a definite nerd with some strange interests, develops a friendship with the tough and carefree Abby.
Dating Catwoman: Seems to be attracted to violent, tough women. Especially Ramona.
Dogged Nice Guy: To Abby. Largely portrayed as a positive thing.
Extreme Doormat: One of Eric's defining traits.
Genre Savvy: Eric is well aware of many horror tropes, and will frequently comment on them while following them precisely.
Like Father, Unlike Son: Lisa claims that, while Eric shows to be very smart, Eric's father was really dumb.
Like a Son to Me: To Joel.
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Eric is very gentle, sweet, and non-confrontational, while Abby is hotheaded and angry.
Nervous Wreck: Eric is almost always high-strung and anxious.
Secret-Keeper: Eric, the Deputy's stepson, is brought in to help answer the family's questions about the undead.
Undying Loyalty: To the Hammonds. He'll do anything for any of them, especially Abby.

Gary West

Played by: Nathan Fillion (Seasons 1-2), Alan Tudyk (Season 3-)

A realtor that

Asshole Victim: He is Sheila's first kill at the end of Episode One and considering that he was in the process of attempting to blackmail Sheila into having sex with him despite knowing she's married and also gropes her, it's not entirely a loss when she eats him. Turned around come Season Two when the Hammonds discover his zombified severed head still out where they buried him and he espouses having had a lot of time to think about his actions and having become a much better person since. He even makes it his mission to ensure the Hammonds help out his troubled niece before requesting they mercy kill him.
Easily Forgiven: A variant. Gary tries to rape Sheila in the first episode. She kills him. After they discover his severed head, he's treated as a quirky friend rather than a would-be rapist.
Ensemble Dark Horse: His talking severed head in Season Two is easily the funniest and one of the best things about the season after he appears again at the very end of the Second Episode.
Jerkass: He gropes and tries to blackmail Sheila into having an affair with him in only his first (and last) episode directly before he becomes Sheila's first victim. Kinda turned around later in Season Two when it turns out he isn't (entirely) dead.
Large Ham: "EEEEEETERNNNNAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!"
Walking Spoiler: Becomes an undead severed zombie head in Season Two as a result of Sheila killing and eating him without destroying his brain, leading his severed reanimated head to becoming a bit of a nuisance for the Hammonds and one of the funniest and best things about Season Two.

Friends and Acquaintances

The Cult of Sheila

Ron

Played by: Jonathan Slavin

An unstable man that Joel meets at the psychiatric hospital in Season 2.

Creepy Good: Genuinely cares about Joel and Sheila, but his mental illness makes him extremely creepy and off-putting.
Hero-Worshipper: Appears to genuinely adore Joel.
Nightmare Fetishist: In Season 3, he really wants to be a zombie, to the point that he breaks in the Hammond's house, tricks Gary to bite him and, later, loudly celebrates his new undead status in a bar after he was done vomiting.
Psycho Sidekick: Downplayed, to Joel.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Accidentally sells Sheila out to the Knights of Serbia.
- In Season 3, he goes around turning other people into zombies just to "share his gift" of being undead.

Jean

Played by: Linda Lavin

A grumpy old woman that Sheila meets when she volunteers for meals on wheels. She's dying and will not be able to see her grand-daughter.

Cool Old Lady: After Sheila turns her, Jean becomes far more energetic, outgoing and overall fun to be around.
Trademark Favorite Food: After she becomes a zombie, she develops a really big taste for ears, which Sheila describes as Onion Rings for the undead.

Tommy

Played by: Ethan Suplee

Paul's brother and a former sniper for the military.

Action Dad: He's a loving father to his daughter and a former military who still remains his skills as a zombie hunter.
Dumb Muscle: It's pretty easy to fool him and he is unusually quick to make rash decisions.

The Neighborhood

Lisa Palmer

Played by: Mary Elizabeth Ellis

The feisty and lustful neighbor of the Hammonds and Eric's mother.

All Women Are Lustful: If she appears on screen, count the seconds before she gets to discussing her sex life or anything sex-related. It'll only take one hand.
Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In Season Two she discusses Eric's penis with Abby, doesn't get more over the top than that.
Character Development: Shows Hidden Depths in Seasons Three as a tough but fair parental figure to both Eric and Abby. She can also read a room when she tries to, and seems to genuinely have feelings for Deputy Garcia.
Comforting the Widow: How her and Anne's relationship started.
Depraved Bisexual: Dates Deputy Garcia and is also extremely sexual and hyper sexualised.
Shipper on Deck: For her son, Eric. Usually for he and Abby but also with he and Ramona during their relationship in Season Two.

Anne Garcia

Played by: Natalie Morales

The town's religious sheriff. She gets together with Lisa in season 2.

Action Girl: She doesn't take shit from anyone, has a very intimidating demeanor, and doesn't hesitate to pick a fight with a much larger man:
Chris: I'm an enormous man. I'm not afraid of her.
Anne: [gets in Chris' face] Cool, why don't I turn off my body cam and we'll see where this goes?
By-the-Book Cop: She seems pretty tightly strung and mentions being bogged down by the red tape of her office and superiors.
Butch Lesbian: Downplayed but she is a pretty tough and serious cop who is dating Lisa come Season Two.
Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Her interactions, especially with Joel, are so hilariously strange due to the combination of Joel's nervous awkwardness and her unending seriousness. When alone with her thoughts, she paints pictures of all of the clues (Gary's finger, Dan's murder, Joel) to the murders in Santa Clarita and doesn't connect everything even with it quite literally staring her in the face.
Comforting the Widow: She and Lisa get together less than a couple of weeks after Dan's disappearance.
The Comically Serious: She's always very monotonous and serious.
Determinator: Good God. Every time the Hammonds seem to have outsmarted her, she always finds another way to follow up her case. Example: she has a strong feeling that the evidence against Dan was merely planted. So, the Hammonds use Gary to leave a phony message on Dan’s cell phone to prove her wrong. Her next move, take the phone and find out if any messages were deleted to find out if the message was genuine. She just never gives up on anything.
Easily Impressed: By the end of Season Two, despite that what she saw has really impressive, she was convinced rather easily that Sheila is some sort of "messiah".
Fantastic Catholicism: She is a devout Christian and constantly espouses about Jesus and God when speaking to people such as the Hammonds.
Put on a Bus: Three episodes into Season 3, she breaks up with Lisa and leaves town to give Joel and Sheila some space.

Other

Ramona

Played by: Ramona Young

The store clerk that works at a Rite-Aid near the Hammond home.

Age-Gap Romance: She's 20, and at one point sleeping with the 16 year old Eric.
Ascended Extra: In the second season Ramona gains a much expanded role, even having sex with Eric.
Asian Airhead: Downplayed, but she seems very slow on the uptake. Whether this is a lack of intelligence or her aforementioned trouble with social cues is unclear.
Catchphrase: "My manager noticed that you've been staring at the [X] for, like, a really long time". This is a phrase she uses whenever she approaches a member of the main cast who's looking at the shelves and pondering about their lives.
Creepy Monotone: Ramona always speaks quietly and in a very flat voice.
Easily Forgiven: Unlike Sheila, she doesn't try to focus on killing bad people, like murderers and Nazis. Instead she settles for random joggers. The Hammonds never hold her accountable to this, and let her leave alive, basically unleashing a Serial Killer on the world.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Being undead did a serious number on her sense of right and wrong. When she tries to take Eric on as an unwilling Familiar, the Hammonds have to spell it out for her just why this is a bad thing. It takes a while for her to comprehend what they are saying.
Femme Fatale: Surprisingly when she has sex with Eric.
The Danza: Ramona, played by Ramona Young.
Nightmare Fetishist: She keeps her Mr. Ball Legs in a terrarium like one would a pet lizard, despite him being a terrifying spider-like creature with unknown needs.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Her stoic facade cracks when fighting the Hammonds, and she screams about how she wants what they have and doesn't want to be alone anymore.
Put on a Bus / The Bus Came Back: She leaves Santa Clarita for Seattle midway through Season 2, then returns for an episode in Season 3.
Rewatch Bonus: It's easy to miss, but Romona's personality shift between appearances is a clue to her transformation. In her first appearance, while she is quiet, she seems to be just bored with her job, emotes somewhat, and all in all seems like just a deadpan snarky young woman. In her second appearance, her affect is completely flat, she speaks in a near whisper, and comes off seemingly otherworldly.
The Stoic: She almost never emotes and always speaks in a flat tone of voice, coming across more as a robot than a person. This becomes a plot point, as it's actually a symptom of her undead status. According to her, she used to be a high strung and emotional Auctioneer, but always wanted to be quiet and stoic, so that's what she became when zombified.
Wham Shot: While flirting on the phone with Eric she opens up her fridge to reveal it stuffed with human body parts.

Enemies

Dan Palmer

Played by: Ricardo Antonio Chavira

A corrupt cop in Santa Clarita and Lisa's husband who torments her son and creeps the Hammonds out.

Abusive Parents: He's Eric's step-dad. And not a nice one.
Asshole Victim: He blackmails Joel and Sheila into committing a murder (and tries to get them to kill someone else) for him. No one, not even his wife or step-son, are crying after Joel bashes him over the head with a shovel, killing him.
Big Bad: The closest thing to this in Season One, especially after he starts blackmailing the Hammonds into committing murders for him.
Comically Serious: Turns out he does just REALLY hate ants. Problem? It leads to him finding Gary's finger.
Dirty Cop: Turns out after his death at Joel's hands that he had been stashing tons of weapons, explosives and drug money in a secret compartment in the garage of his house. This helps the Hammonds in forming a scapegoat after Gary's murder.
Hate Sink: Dan is pretty much this In-Universe. Nobody in the neighborhood likes him really. He's so disliked that if it came to light what really happened to him, it's not too far-fetched to think that no one in the neighborhood would try to have Joel charged.
Jerkass: He's a dick to basically everyone around him from his neighbours, the Hammonds, to his wife and even his step-son. No one's really all that upset after Joel kills him by whacking him over the head with a shovel. Even his partner Ann admits he was awful.
Spicy Latina: Unusual male version, but he's Latino and very angry.
Wicked Stepmother: He's Eric's stepfather and treats him like shit.
Wrong Genre Savvy: He seems to think he's in a suburban version of The Shield, and acts accordingly. He never learns of the supernatural goings on, completely misjudges Joel and Sheila.

Loki Hayes

Played by: DeObia Oparei

A drug dealer and criminal that Sheila and Joel have to deal with due to an agreement with Dan.

Arc Villain: Appears in Episode 5 and becomes a threat in Episode 8 of Season One and is pretty quickly dealt with.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When going over his long list of felonies after Dan tells him to kill him, Joel explains how Loki is a gang member who has murdered three people, committed larceny and once impersonated a forest ranger.
Asshole Victim: He's a convicted murderer and gang member who also once impersonated a park ranger, thus the Hammonds don't really feel all that bad when they go to kill him. Turns out he's less dead than they think after Sheila bit him and he turns back up come Episode 8 as an undead like Sheila now living a happy life to the fullest as a country folk singer where the Hammonds finally deal with him.
Crazy Jealous Guy: Towards Sheila after he turns out to be undead and turns back up in Episode 8 to speak to Sheila, coming to feel a connection to her due to being the only undead people and then trying to kill Joel to be with her, leading to the both of them killing him.
I Love You Vampire Mom: Zombie-variant, but he believes he and Sheila only understand each other.
Scary Black Man: Comes off this way when he first appears in his gang get up when Joel and Sheila first show up to his apartment to kill him in Episode 5. A lot less so after he's bitten and turns thanks to Sheila since he becomes a much more jovial and happy country music star.

The Knights of Serbia

Petra

Petra Blazek, Grand Knight Prior

Played by: Kerri Kenney-Silver

"People hear Grand Knight Prior and expect a 6 foot warrior princess riding a horse and swinging a burning skull, but me? I like comfortable shoes and a four-door sedan."

The Grand Knight Prior of the Knights of Serbia, a top-ranking official who is known and earned her title by slaying the last known undead in the US.

Beware the Nice Ones: She's a very cheery and good-natured middle-aged woman but she is just as militant in killing zombies as the rest of the group and even carries guns and torture devices in her purse alongside candy.
Expecting Someone Taller: According to her, it happens all the time, as "Grand Knight Prior" is not a title that fits her looks or personality.

Paul

Played by: Zachary Knighton

A Knight of Serbia searching for Sheila with his wife.

The Unfought: By the time Sheila and Joel find him, he's retiring to start a family with his wife and leaving his brother Tommy in charge.

Serbian Embassy

Poplović

Dobrivoje Poplović

Played by: Goran Višnjić

A sadistic Serbian man obsessed with the undead.

Bad Boss: He's an awful boss to his men, horribly punishing them for the most minor slip-ups and generally being rude and unpleasant. His main two henchmen eventually abandon him because of it.
Big Bad: He's the main threat of Season Three.
Evil Plan: He intends to harvest zombies and sell their blood, which stops aging, to beauty companies and make himself extraordinarily rich.
Faux Affably Evil: He can be very charming when he needs to be but shows his true monstrous nature regularly.

Characters / Santa Clarita Diet

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