Gimme a Break

While late night browsing Netflix, looking for something to watch, I stumbled across Daybreak. Netflix Originals are always a hit or miss but I’m a big fan of apocalyptic movies and shows, so I figured I’d give it a chance. 

Daybreak takes place in Glendale, California after biological weapons are dropped all over the world. This weapon kills off the adults, and those that do survive are turned into “ghoulies,” zombie-esque creatures that mindlessly walk the streets. While the zombie schtick is well over played, the writers had some fun with it: their bites are not infectious and they talk, but they are only capable of speaking whatever their last thought was. For example, a store clerk is seen mindlessly walking around asking himself how to pronounce La Croix, and it’s mentioned that Jonah Hill’s last thought was, “I’m Brad Pitt’s friend.”

With society in a downward spiral, and no adult authority figures to keep them in line, teenagers in Glendale have balkanized. The city is split into territories run by different cliques, fashioned after their fabricated highschool identities. The Jocks, the high fashion party teens, the nerds, the agricultural students (promptly named 4H), and even a hit squad of gamers have all laid claim to their territory in this post-apocalyptic city.

While there’s plenty to say about society dividing along, albeit fabricated, identities, it’s the characters featured in the show that intrigued me the most.

The main character we follow in this series, Josh, doesn’t fit into any of these cliques. In fact, Josh has no identity at all, not even a socially fabricated one. Josh is a white guy who recently transfered to the high school, from Canada, after his parents divorced. Other than skateboarding, Josh has nothing special about him, he’s a blank slate. Throughout this first season, his entire purpose in the show is to rescue his girlfriend. Nothing substantial, nothing special, just an empty vessel.

While it’s no surprise that the white male character is as plain as a cracker, there was much more effort put into the secondary characters.

Angelica is a foul-mouthed 11 year old girl with a genius level IQ. As part of her backstory, she mentions how she always “wanted to be a gangsta” and goes into detail about how she created this new way to make and sell drugs called slime. Slime would have whatever prescription pill she duped her psychiatrist into prescribing her. Even though she was homeschooled, she’d hang out at the high school and sell this drug to all of the students. Netflix writers found a way to turn an 11 year old girl into a a post-apocalyptic Walter White.

Wesley Fists is a gay African American who once sided with the Jocks before attempting to culturally appropriate Samurai culture. While honestly the most interesting character to follow in the series, he’s an amalgamation of everything the Left wants people to be: a minority, gay, in an interracial relationship, a good balance of masculine and feminine, and peaceful. Outside of Angelica, he has the most character development in the series.

The series continues this progressive trend with its characters. Whether it’s a feminist group hunting down and killing men, led exclusively by minorites, or mindless or cruel white characters, they’re all there. Daybreak is a good look into what the future of America holds. That’s not to say that America will be in a post-apocalyptic state with zombies, but that it will be full of forgettable white guys, foul mouthed children, and gay interracial relationships; Netflix is just cashing in.