Animation
Good Times
Netflix takes a classic sitcom, Good Times, and turns it into a vulgar, violent, sexually-charged TV-MA show.
Welp, it’s the end of the world. Half the population is wiped out, animals are mutating into monsters and zombies are roaming the earth, taking out any stragglers.
Except they’re not zombies. And this isn’t The Walking Dead.
Meet Josh Wheeler. He’s a 17-year-old C-average student (back when there were schools and stuff) whose life wasn’t really anything special before the apocalypse. Now, he’s a katana-wielding man on a mission—to save Sam Dean, the girl of his dreams.
Only, it’s been a few months since everything fell apart and he still doesn’t know where she is. Here’s what he does know: The bomb that hit their city was biological. It instantly vaporized half the population, and the adults who survived were turned into “ghoulies.” With their mindless wandering and hankering for flesh, they certainly seem like zombies, but their bites won’t kill you or turn you. (Unfortunately Josh doesn’t find this out until after he chops off his finger in a poor attempt to save himself from a bite.)
But somehow, the kids survived and formed tribes, sticking to the same cliques they were a part of in high school: the Jocks, the 4-H Club, the Disciples of Kardashia and the Cheermazons, to name a few.
Josh isn’t welcome in any of these post-apocalyptic tribes, and he reluctantly finds himself paired up with Angelica Green, a 12-year-old genius with (ahem) flexible morality, and Wesley Fists, a pacifist Samurai atoning for the crimes of his past on the path to enlightenment. Together, they’ll form their own tribe—the Daybreakers. They hope the name fits, and that they’ll survive to see the dawn of a new, better morning.
If you were to take Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and place it in the middle of the zombie apocalypse with a few Mad Max nods and politically correct references thrown in, then you’d have Daybreak.
The show takes a lighter approach to the end of the world. Sure, you might get a chunk taken out of you by a wayward ghoulie, but you also might find out where you truly belong. Is sports your life? Then check out the Jocks. Are you a fierce, pro-fem warrior? Maybe you should try out for the Cheermazons. Don’t really fit in anywhere? Hello Daybreakers! But no matter where you end up, don’t underestimate your opponents. Because as Josh points out, the apocalypse didn’t get rid of the bullies—it made them worse.
With no adults to make or enforce rules, kids go buck wild. Violence is especially prevalent in this new world. Turbo, the leader of the Jocks, has one of the highest kill counts—and we’re talking other kids, not zombies. Every time he takes a life, he adds a sticker to his uniform—and he has many. And then there’s a mysterious cat known only as Baron Triumph. Nobody is really sure who he (or she) is, but they are sure of this: If he catches you, he won’t just murder you, he’ll eat you.
Language and sex were issues even before the bombs went off. But without someone to so much as wag a finger at the teens’ poor choices, it escalates to new heights. Romantic and sometimes intimate couplings, including between people of the same sex, are as common as zombie attacks. The show touches on subjects such as slut-shaming and gender fluidity while also delving into the realm of consent and underage sex. So, it seems Josh had it right when he said life in the apocalypse is “never what you’d expect.”
Josh introduces viewers to the apocalypse, teams up with Angelica and Wesley, invokes the wrath of the Jocks and explains his desire to rescue Sam Dean.
When a bully flips Josh the bird, Josh attempts to chop off the guy’s middle finger, misses, and hits the guy’s hand instead. He then fends off the injured guy’s friends, all while his sword remains lodged in the bone of the guy’s hand. (One friend gets punched in the groin.)
A group of kids ambush another with water balloons and buckets filled with blood. This is no mere prank, mind you: A group of ghoulies then attacks, attracted by the smell of blood. One boy has his ear ripped off by a ghoulie. His corpse is later seen lying on the ground as another boy is being torn apart by ghoulies a few yards away. (We don’t see the attack clearly, but it’s obvious that that’s what’s happening.)
One guy is dropped into a pit full of ghoulies. He escapes but is quickly killed by a bazooka fired by another guy and his exploded remains fall to the ground in bloody chunks. A ghoulie catches and eats a live mutated squirrel. A biological bomb goes off, injuring and killing thousands of people (one boy’s ear bleeds from the sheer force of sound from the explosion).
Kids arm themselves with and use katanas, axes and other makeshift weapons such as golf clubs with spikes attached. A girl lights a Molotov cocktail. Later, she arms herself with a flamethrower and it is heavily implied that she likes setting ghoulies on fire. A group of teen boys trap and taunt a girl in a church confessional booth.
In a flashback, the school principal says he supports all amendment rights but asks Wesley to stop talking about guns since it would require him to file a report on Wesley that would put the boy on an FBI watch list. In the same scene, a bully pushes Josh to the ground, and Wesley pretends to help Josh up but lets him fall.
In a flashback, Josh denies a “pity peck” from Sam. When introducing himself, people ask Josh if he is “gay Josh or other gay Josh.” A boy wearing a multicolored, sparkly shirt self-identifies his gender as a seahorse. A teenage girl wears a deep-cut shirt. A teenage boy is seen shirtless while tanning.
Wesley frequently smokes marijuana. Josh’s parents are divorced, and he refers to his mom as a “Post-it parent” since she was never around and left Post-it notes with instructions in her absence. A black boy objects to using the word “slave” and his friend suggests “indentured American” as an alternative. Josh talks about purifying water from his own urine. A giant, mutated pug passes gas and poops all over Josh’s safe house. When scouting out a church as a new safe house, Josh says, “Jesus makes a great security system.”
The f-word is heard at least a dozen times with other frequent appearances by the s-word, “a–hole,” “d–n,” “d–k,” “h—” and “a–.” One boy makes a point to not call a girl a rude word “because I don’t want to use bad words to describe young women.” There are several colorful insults exchanged, using crass terminology and objectionable language, and there are also a variety of jokes regarding sex and male and female genitalia. Two people make rude hand gestures.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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