Dead Like Me
Dead Like Me is a television series that I recently discovered via hulu.com. It is the story of a girl named Georgia who dies, who proceeds to discover that she has been chosen for an afterlife of being a grim reaper. In the series, a “reaper” collects the souls of people who are about to die.
The show seemed interesting to me, so I decided to watch seasons 1 & 2, in order to acquaint myself with the characters and become knowledgeable about the premise.
My friends, it is a very good show. After finishing the last episode of the last season, I was pretty disappointed that it wouldn’t continue. I would highly recommend the show to anybody who shares similar tastes with me.
Warning: the rest of this post may contain spoilers.
Now, a “reaper” is assigned, for a limited time, to remain in the land of the living in order to carry out the task of collecting the souls of the dead and seeing them off to the other side. After a given amount of time (or souls, it wasn’t entirely clear), a reaper is permitted to cross to the other side for themselves. The team of reapers that is assigned to the Seattle, WA area (in the accidental death/murder/suicide department) meets in a local waffle house each morning for breakfast, and for the list of that day’s “reaps”. The reapers must also have “day jobs”; that is, they must work their own way through the world until they are permitted to cross over. For example, one of the reapers works as a meter maid. The reapers must keep a relatively low profile, and must keep their existence as reapers a secret.
Except when used as humor in the opening credits, the reapers do not wear black robes and carry scythes, but rather dress normally. The reapers possess immortality, indestructibility, and the ability to extract souls. They appear to other reapers as they did while living, but take on a slightly different appearance to the living (different enough to not be recognized, but similar enough as to retain basic traits – skin/hair/eye color, height, age, gender, ethnicity, etc…). This is done mainly as a plot device, as the main character (Georgia) is assigned to reap in the town that she died in, and even ends up working for the same temp agency that she was working for when she died.
I could go on and on, but Wikipedia is much more wordy than I can afford to be. And if you’re interested, watch the show! I highly recommend it.
