In the Flesh – Series Premiere – Recap: Rehabbing Death

Recap and review of In the Flesh – Series Premiere:

The thing about zombies is that they’re never just zombies. Not subtextually, anyway. In recent history, when a movie or a TV show employs the use of zombies, there’s usually some deeper reason for doing so, some point that’s trying to be made. Racism? Intolerance? Paranoia? Iconoclasm? A good ol’ zombie outbreak can fulfill many of this subtextual narrative functions. And so it goes with In the Flesh, a three-episode miniseries by famed playwright Dominic Mitchell which airs over the next three nights on BBC America. British audiences have already seen the entire run, and it’s done well enough to secure a second series to air in 2014, and I imagine that much of its success is its deft plotting, but also what it brings to the table as a think piece. Here, the zombie affliction is actually an ailment by the name of Partially Deceased Syndrome, or PDS. Sufferers, known colloquially as “Rotters,” immediately assume an outsider role in society, despite their rehabilitated state, and this conflict between the Human Volunteer Force and those sympathetic to PDS sufferers informs much of the first episode.

Credit: BBC

Though they’d once been mindless, flesh-eating creatures, medication and daily injections between the first and second vertebrae have been able to restore the PDS-afflicted to a relatively normal state. Throw in the use of cover-up and contact lenses, and your average PDS sufferer could pretty easily pass for a clean, uninfected human. This allows the show, set in the small, close-minded village of Roarton, to make a point about intolerance that, while a bit on-the-nose, is still remarkably poignant. It’s not hard to see the comparisons between the plight of PDS sufferers and, say, a person having to conceal his or her own sexual identity for fear of being persecuted. And this is merely one of a litany of different readings, as one could easily make the argument that PDS represents a parallel to the persecution faced by those suffering mental illness, or even those suffering from HIV/AIDS in the days before people understood that simply sharing the same drinking fountain was no life-threatening danger. The show is terrific on its own merits, from a storytelling and filmmaking context, but it’s this subtextual richness that makes the show more rewarding than your standard, run-of-the-mill genre series.

While there are many different stories running simultaneously through the village of Roarton, In the Flesh is mostly the story of Kieren Walker (Luke Newberry), an 18-year-old PDS sufferer who must rejoin the world of the living after he’s deemed fit for discharge from the PDS rehabilitation facility in Norfolk where he’s been recovering. We learn that the sudden undead uprising only affected those who died in 2009, and though the outbreak resulted in an undead population in the hundreds of thousands, the HVF was able to put down the uprising, while the government hoarded the zombie survivors for treatment. However, many still see PDS sufferers as unnatural, unholy abominations with no connection to their former selves. This creates a climate of fear, paranoia and hatred against all partially deceased citizens. Thus, Kieren’s presence in his former household must be kept a secret.

Credit: BBC

What’s interesting about the show is in how it plays on emotion before providing the context. Kieren’s mother, Sue (Marie Critchley), breaks down upon seeing her son restored to her for the first time since his death. However, she doesn’t embrace him, instead maintaining physical distance while sobbing into the arms of her husband, and Kieren’s father, Steve (Steve Cooper). This is understandable enough, given that it’s the natural reaction to seeing a dead loved one rejoining the world of the living, but things get stranger once they get home. Steve and Sue play Life with Kieren, in an on-the-nose choice that Kieren seems uncomfortable with (noting all the other board games his parents could have chosen from the stack in the corner). Then Sue insists that Kieren, who no longer eats (as a result of his condition), to pretend to take part in the family dinner they’ve planned for his homecoming. Things get more complicated once Jem (Harriet Cains), Kieren’s little sister/best friend, returns home from her day out with the HVF, of which she’s a member. She flips out and insists she won’t come to dinner unless “that thing” leaves. Kieren slinks off to his room, hurt by his sister’s words, and plagued by constant flashbacks to his time as a flesh-eating “Rotter”. Only after Jem confronts Kieren to see if any vestige of the brother she loved still remains, do we learn just why Sue was so distant, and why Jem was so hostile. Kieren killed himself back in 2009, opening his wrists after learning of the death of his best friend, Rick, in Afghanistan. He blamed himself for Rick’s death, rationalizing that he’d never have enlisted had it not been for Kieren. Though Jem accepts that this is still the Kieren she loved, she doesn’t exactly forgive him for the hell he put them all through, particularly since he didn’t even bother to leave a note, leaving his family to wonder just what drove their kindhearted, mild-mannered son to suicide.

Kieren’s story is the best of the episode, even when it’s dealing with elements that won’t pay off right away, such as the pro-undead website that Keiren’s Norfolk roommate directs him to before his death, which provides access to the same mysterious drug that necessitated his being put down in the first place. The website also features a video from a masked, voice-modulated leader, proclaiming the ascendency of the undead and invoking The Bible in his sermon. The story doesn’t really go anywhere this week, but it’s interesting worldbuilding for down the road. The stuff of more immediate interest is among the townspeople. The sermon of the masked webmaster is contrasted with the anti-PDS rhetoric of Vicar Oddie (Kenneth Cranham), who rouses the villagers with his alarmist sermonizing. Vicar Oddie has concerns of his own about the PDS-afflicted, and employs a young man named Phillip to investigate his own mother, Shirley, as Oddie suspects she’s aiding PDS sufferers. This leads to a rather amusing bit where Phillip claims to be surfing the net for porn when his mother catches him snooping around her laptop. “This is what I do to relieve stress. I think I might be one of those sex addicts. I’m not sure yet.” Shirley lets it slide, and it’s just as well since Phillip has the info he needs: he’s discovered that his mother, a nurse, has trained with the Department of Partially Deceased Affairs to help PDS sufferers. Though he doesn’t get the names of all of his mother’s patients (such as Kieren), he does get the name of one patient, and the resulting conflict makes for the tensest moments of the episode.

Credit: Des Willie/BBC

Bill Macey (Steve Evets) and Ken Burton (Ricky Tomlinson) are noted anti-PDS advocates, with Bill being the militant head of the HVF regiment in Roarton. We learn that Bill’s son is Rick, Kieren’s best friend who was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. Poignantly, Bill and his wife, Janet (Karen Henthorn), light a birthday cake in their son’s memory every year, and their grief is palpable to such a degree that one could almost understand why Bill is such an intolerant, militant jerk about those afflicted with PDS. It’s simply an externalization of his grief, and it has the added bonus of giving him something against which to direct his grief-fueled rage. But then, it isn’t even as if his son’s death is the result of one of the PDS sufferers, so his rage seems especially misplaced, particularly once we come around to the finale. Ken Burton, one of the most vocal supporters at Vicar Oddie’s rally, has apparently adopted his anti-PDS stance as a cover, to throw suspicion from the truth that his wife, Maggie, has risen and is living with him, having gotten her PDS under control with medication. The Walkers, who’d assumed that the HVF was coming for Kieren, is armed to the teeth for what they expect will be a massacre, with Steve arming himself with a nail-covered 2×4, Jem loading a revolver, and Sue revving up a chainsaw, of all things. But when the HVF comes to the door, it’s only because they want Jem to join them for what’s to come.

Credit: BBC

Maggie pleads for her life, and Ken begs Bill to spare his wife (at first lying by saying it was his wife’s twin sister who died in 2009). For a brief moment, it seems as if Bill will see reason, as he asks Maggie to remove the contact lenses that allow her eyes to appear normal. Maggie and Ken are relieved, thinking she’s going to be spared, before Bill looks into Maggie’s eyes and hates what he sees. He blows her head off with his shotgun while Ken rushes to his wife’s body, utterly destroyed by grief, in what is the episode’s most heart-wrenching moment. The HVF drives off as if nothing has happened, and Bill returns to his home, similarly at peace with his actions. However, he comes home to discover a military official speaking with his wife. Rick has been found. Bill suspects they simply mean his body, but Janet says that isn’t the case. “So he’s alive then!” Bill beams hopefully. Janet, with tears in her eyes, can only muster a single word: “Partially.” And like that, Roarton’s biggest monster could become its biggest hypocrite, if he doesn’t do the same to Rick as he did to Maggie Burton. Given the nature of the series, and the subtext running underpinning much of the narrative, it was only a matter of time before hypocrisy was introduced to the narrative. Good on the show for cutting to the chase (although, with three episodes, do they have any choice?).

This was a strong premiere for In the Flesh, as the narrative is both tight and focused, while also providing subtext for viewers to really sink their teeth into. Also, the cast is uniformly stellar, particularly Luke Newberry, who imbues Kieren with a sad-sack, awkward sensibility that makes him immediately endearing. Given that the series ends Saturday, viewers could do far worse than to give the show a look, since it won’t require much in the way of time investment. It really is a great little piece of television that’s solid from top to bottom.