Santa Clarita Diet's Big Twist Makes It Darker (and More Disgusting) Than We Could've Imagined

When Netflix's upcoming comedy Santa Clarita Diet was announced last March, the main attraction were the two leads attached to it: Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. In fact, the vague and bland description of the series did nothing to drum up excitement, as it alluded to another comedy about a discontent married couple going through a miserable midlife existence.

"Married couple Sheila and Joel (Barrymore and Olyphant) are real estate agents in Santa Clarita, California. The couple's lives take a dark turn after Sheila goes through a dramatic change." Whoop dee doo, right? First-look pics didn't help things much, with boring photos of Barrymore holding a smoothie and Olyphant surprised to see his on-screen wife.

Well, new info fresh from Netflix hints at what that dramatic change is, and all of a sudden Santa Clarita Diet has gone from "I'll watch it when I have a free hour which is never" to a show that can't get here soon enough for me. (For the record, it debuts Feb. 3 on Netflix.)

Picking apart new episode and promotional photos, it appears that the titular Santa Clarita Diet isn't quinoa-kale cakes or other leafy green snacks. It's another green... think soylent green. That's right, Santa Clarita Diet is (almost certainly) about cannibalism.

Let's take a look at the photos to support that claim. First up we have Sheila snacking.

Cool! A diet that lets you eat straight from the package. I like that! Uhhh, but it appears to be raw meat. How very paleo and current, but hey, whatever it takes to lose a few lbs. It's also an unusual brown tint, maybe it's chorizo? However, we're here to confirm that this is human flesh we're talking about, and this does not do that. Let's move on to photo number two.

That's probably not catsup or a thickened borscht. That's blood, ya'll! Sure, maybe she's going straight for the cow and chewing off some live burger carpaccio, which would be a pretty particular diet and the basis for some solid comedy, but the jump from eating out of a styrofoam container to being covered in blood hints at something a little more extreme. Still, no conclusive evidence that we're talking about the C-word here. On to the first promotional picture.

The puns have arrived! "Get a killer body today!" hints that Sheila and Joel may get their lunch from unwilling ingredients, and if chewing on someone's arm means I can look like Timothy Olyphant, then hand me a hacksaw and sign me up. But still, no solid proof we're talking about cannibalism here. Let's see if we can get something more definitive from the final promo photo.

"Eat whoever you want." There it is, cannibal confirmation in my book. Well, that and the fact that Sheila's juice glass is filled with eyeballs and thumbs. Nothing like a tall glass of flesh bits on a hot Cali day.

Now, who wants to come over for lunch?

Santa Clarita Diet premieres Feb. 3 on Netflix.