What You Do Matters, What You Don't Do Matters

In this rather short episode we learn that being a grim reaper is a no paying non-volunteer job. And here we see George (Ellen Muth) facing real choices that she never had to think about when she was alive: where she would live and how she would pay rent, for example. She did not have to communicate with others because her parents took care of her. In the afterlife, George has no such ties. Scenes of Muth trying to fit in with the other reapers are particularly entertaining, because she seems to frequently say the wrong thing. Betty (Rebecca Gayheart) is fashionable and perky, but keeps her distance. Roxy (Jasmine Guy) is even less approachable. Marvelous scenes with a confrontational motorist on the street shows that Roxy gives as good as she gets. I am really enjoying Guy's tough girl attitude. Actually, the only reaper George manages not to annoy is Mason. But he died from voluntarily drilling a hole in his head during a drug-induced experiment. And now his latest obsession is knocking over parking meters. George at least seems to realize he is not the example she should follow.

But who is her leader? George is trying to find her place in the afterlife, but she feels lost and often finds herself floundering. When she decides to go on strike, hiding out like she did at her last job, the consequences are much more dire. We see George in the apartment where she has decided to squat, avoiding her assignment, avoiding the other reapers, literally hiding under the bed. Her new home seems to be on Denial Street, an address a lot of us are also pretty familiar with. No longer able to avoid Rube or the gravelings, George ends up in the morgue, where she is mortified (pun intended) to learn what happens when she misses an "appointment" with an intended soul. Death comes anyway, but the soul is trapped in the body. Poor George. She wants to be bad. She wants to be this rebellious teen, but her responsibilities are now pretty serious. Muth plays the stammering teen with humility and stubbornness, refusing to just say she was wrong. Just like your typical adolescent.

Back at her family's home, we see her sister is having a streak of badness and rebellion as well. The actions of Britt McKillip's Reggie show that she is having serious problems dealing with her sister's death. The interesting thing is that apparently her parents (played by Cynthia Stevenson and Greg Kean) live somewhere near George on Denial Street. Dad especially is dodging therapy for Reggie and her behavioral issues. The tension between Stevenson and Kean is malleable but not hostile, as they try to deal with their Sylvia Plath of a daughter.

My favorite ironic twist is seen at the end, when George has obviously decided that life (or Afterlife) goes on, and she has to put forth more effort. She is clearly tired of being hungry and learns a lesson she missed in life. You have to play the game to stay in the race. So she adapts the name of "Millie", and reapplies for her old job. Millie now begins to smile and make pleasantries. Maybe now, George can get and keep a job that she did not want and could not keep before her death. Maybe, she can make the most of her Death, and not squander her time, like she did with her life.