I've heard a lot of good things about In the flesh since the airing of its pilot last Sunday. It was supposed to be a brand new approach of the zombie serie, a smart - yet british - reflection about how society would react to the rehabilitation of zombies who tried to eat them a few month ago. Well, I didn't see any of that in this pilot.
A very simple plot.
Basically, some day, as usual, who knows why, dead people started not to be dead anymore and to eat some humans because they were hungry. So, things were done, brains were eaten, zombies got killed - AGAIN, relationships between the living and the undead were'nt that friendly. As the UK government is a huge bunch of unuseless bureaucrats, some rednecks decided to fund resistance armies to defend their town against the zombies. It seems that they succeeded where most of the other survivors from other stories failed, since the society survived the undead rising. Zombies got put into camps and partially healed. A medication allows them to "live normally". Their brain is functional again, but they still look pretty shitty and have to wear make up to look normal, just like Madonna. But they have to take their medication daily, otherwise they might get back to their beasty undead instincts.
Kieren is a zombie. He killed hot girls to eat them. But now he's healing. He kinda feels bad for having slaughtered people. He's a good guy. He has to leave the zombie camp to get back at home, at his parents. Who happen to live in Roarton, the hometown of the main resistance army against zombies, the Human Volontary Force - those people really dislike zombies, and they don't trust the medication. They think a good zombie is a dead zombie, like, really dead zombie.
So Kieren's parents bring him back to Roarton, but they don't tell no one, and they hide him since the UHF and the local people don't want zombies (even healed) in their backyards. He's like an undead Anne Franck hidden under a table in the middle of a Gestapo convention. You'll have to watch to see what happens next.
Review / Thoughts / SPOILERS /!\
I don't see where this show is going. I was told it would be about how humans would accept zombies if they were healed of their illness. It might have been but it is not. Zombies aren't accepted, and if it happened, the show would jump the shark very quickly. The end of the pilot proves it.
There is a strong contradiction in the plot, and it relies on the Zombies' status.
First, we understand that all the undead who don't react well to the medication get "taken care of", meaning they are killed. Then, even though the government tries to rehabilitate zombies, they are hunted like animals once released. A "healed" zombie like Kieren is coldly killed as soon as the HVF finds out about her, and there will probably no consequence for the murderer. Meanwhile, Kieren's family is afraid: they think the HVF might have discovered that Kieren was back, and took weapons to defend their son. Why spend tons of money to heal people to then let them live unprotected among people who wants to kill them ? Shouldn't there be a Zombie protection program ? Shouldn't killing people, even ill, be condemned ?
There is danger for other people if a Zombie doesn't react well to the medication, or if he doesn't take it every 24h. So basically, the government releases into towns people who might start a new zombie killing spree if they don't have a daily cure. Why ? What's the point in the first place ? Do they know how easy it is to forget to take a pill ? ASK WOMEN. The mythology of the show simply doesn't make sense.
Kieren's sister, who is part of the HVF, makes me want to slap her every second she's on screen. She isn't credible at all, nor when she thinks her bro is dangerous, nor when she suddenly decides that he is still her brother even though he is a ugly zombie and she hates zombies and zombies suck but not her brother. The parents, nonetheless, are interesting characters.
It seems the showrunners tried to insert a strong religion factor on both sides of the factions: the zombies refer to the bible, as well as the anti-zombies, yet it goes nowhere, since as we all know, you can make say anything to the bible.
In fact, for the moment, it isn't even a show about zombies or undead people. Kieren could as well be a pit-bull who by mistake bit a baby, hidden by his master/family against a crowd who wants to put him down, since there seem to be no humanity factor in this serie's world. Or he could be a pedophile, or a psychopath, or anybody whose illness made him dangerous. Actually, the second part of the pilot could have been a Midsomer Murders episode, it wouldn't have changed anything.
As you can see, I don't get where all the hype around this show comes from, and it is highly overrated, especially the reviews based on the pilot. It's not that deep, it's not that new yet. For the moment, In the flesh is just mildly interesting. No, a show isn't necessarily brilliant when it has zombies in it.
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