The second season of Not Dead Yet has just dropped on Hulu. It's a sitcom about a journalist stuck with a low-prestige job writing obituaries. The gimmic: the ghosts of the deceased haunt her until she's done writing, and get involved in her personal life. Obituaries aren't very long, and the family furnishes all of the biographical details, so no research is necessary -- wouldn't you be done in like 30 minutes?
Every episode is stylized as "Not...yet": "Not Friends Yet"; "Not Well Yet," "Not Feeling it Yet." Episode 2.1 is "Not Owning It Yet."
Scene 1: Nell is writing the obituary for Teddy Thompson, Pasadena's Number One real estate agent, whose catchphrase is "Don't dream it..."
The ghost pops up. "Own it!" Darn, I thought it was going to be "Don't dream it -- be it," the line from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" that inspired a generation of gay men to come out.
He hangs to brag about his 10-million dollar deals, and criticize her condo as "depreciating."
Teddy Thompson is played by Nico Santos of Superstore, who was named one of the Out 100 in 2018. He is married to Zeke Smith, who sits on the board of directors of GLAAD. Zeke's marriage proposal made the New York Times list of the top 10 proposals of 2023. Talk about A-Gays.
Back to Nell: Roommate Edward pops in to complain about the refrigerator stinking. "Oh, I'm out of money, so I'm eating last week's leftover soup." Don't journalists get paid?
Scene 2: At work Nell asks Sam (a girl), "Am I depreciating?" She's been there a year, and still doesn't get any major stories. Boss Lexi and her lackey Mason drop in to tell them that the Big Boss coming today, so clean their cubicles: no personal items. He hates that!
Dennis (Josh Banday) and his partner Ben are fostering, so he has a lot of pictures of the kids in his cubicle; he wants to hide them from the Big Boss in Lexi's office.
I checked to see if Ben is actually a guy, or a girl with a guy's name as a queer tease. He's a guy, played by Rory O'Malley, who appears in two episodes.
Rory's Instagram tagline reads "Dad, husband, actor," which usually is meant to identify the guy as heterosexual, but in this case he has a husband, Gerold Schroeder.
Back to Nell: The Ghost pops in to suggest that this would be a good time for an upgrade: ask for more responsibility. But Boss Lexi says no, it's the wrong time: "The Big Boss needs to see the best of our newspaper, and you're the worst."
Scene 3: The Big Boss, who happens to be Boss Lexi's cartoon-villain father: "You're looking more and more gruff every day!" They air-hug. After seeing Boss Lexi lambast Nell, he asks who she is: "An insignificant nobody who I hate; I gave her the worst job I could think of, obituary writer."
"Great! I'm getting older, and need someone to write my obituary, so I can screen the content in advance. I'll have Nell do it."
"But Nell is awful at everything. Her obituaries are terrible. Surely you'd prefer someone more competent?"
"Nope, Nell it is."
More after the break