Dead Like Me/Dead Girl Walking

Dead Girl Walking
Season 1, Episode 2
Airdate	July 4, 2003
Production Number	101
Written by	Bryan Fuller
Directed by	Kevin Dowling
Stream
← 1x01 Pilot	1x03 → Curious George
Dead Like Me — Season One

Dead Girl Walking is the second episode of the first season of Dead Like Me. George tries to deal with the ethical quandary of what she sees as taking peoples' lives while her sister (and Mason) takes to petty, symbolic theft.

Starring: Ellen Muth (Georgia Lass), Callum Blue (Mason), Jasmine Guy (Roxy Harvey)

With: Cynthia Stevenson (Joy Lass)

And: Mandy Patinkin (Rube Sofer)

Guest Starring: Rebecca Gayheart (Betty Rhomer), Greg Kean (Clancy Lass), Britt McKillip (Reggie Lass), Christine Willes (Delores Herbig)

Co-Starring: Colin Lawrence (Businessman), Catherine Barroll (Sheila Moore), Linden Banks (John Moore), Patti Allen (Claire), Philip Granger (Guy), Matthew Robert Kelly (J.P. Davis), Robin Webb (Monty), Andy Thompson (Morgue Attendant), Patricia Idlette (Waitress), Laura Boddington (Un George)

Plot Overview

George is still having a hard time coping with her recent death and rebirth as an undead grim reaper, but Rube isn't interested in her excuses, especially after the incident with the train. For her next reaping, George is paired with Betty as a chaperon but having a more experienced reaper by her side doesn't help matters. If anything, Betty's cool demeanor in the face of death unnerves George. The two claim the soul of a man who picks them up hitchhiking on the highway. Rube tries to give her one of his speeches about expiration dates and relates waffles to people before handing her off the death notice of the man behind the counter. She takes his soul, but doesn't feel very good about it.

That night in her apartment, which has been almost entirely packed up by the deceased owner's parents, George decides that there's nothing that the powers that be can do if she decides to desert her job. She stays home the rest of the day and watches cartoons, doing her best to ignore Rube's yelling and the post-it note that floats under her door. Eventually the time of death comes and goes without the soul extraction. A few minutes after missing the deadline, George sees a Graveling appear in her room and kill the power on her television. She assumes that this is some kind of obtuse message.

Meanwhile, Mason starts a petty crime spree directed at parking meters. Late one night, he knocks the head off of one of the meters and pummels it with a baseball bat. When that doesn't bust open the contents of the contraption, he steals Roxy's universal key to get to the petty change inside. He pays for breakfast using this change on the day George decides to duck out of work, tipping off Roxy that something isn't right. With Roxy's key in hand, he starts raiding several meters and offers his then accomplice, George, a bag. Out of nowhere, Roxy slams into Mason with her meter maid cart and takes back her key, still lodged in the most recently robbed unit.

Now reunited with her meter key, Roxie informs George that she needs to meet Rube at the morgue and she has no say in the matter. The two drive down to the morgue where Rube informs her that she "fucked the dog" and that just because she doesn't show up doesn't mean that the guy isn't going to die. In fact, it means that his soul is trapped inside his body while he's dying and even after he's dead, throughout the autopsy process and all. George realizes how awful it must be for J.P. Davis to go through a similarly traumatizing "unlife" experience and frees his soul. She insists that she can't do the reaping anymore, but Rube convinces her otherwise. He insinuates that if she gets removed from her post, she goes to a place where she doesn't "get to like anything anymore."

George isn't the only one having troubles coping, however. Her sister Reggie has started to cause trouble by stealing the toilet seats out of her school's restrooms and out of neighbor's houses. She tries to contact the dead with an Ouija board in her own restroom and when she's caught taking Claire's toilet seat, she runs away from home to sleep under a tree where her stolen goods are displayed on the branches.

After seeing this display of the bizarre, George decides that she's not done with liking and not liking things. She decides to go back to the lousy job that she escaped from in her death: Happy Time Temporary Services.

Notes

Deaths

• G.H. Garson: Killed 11:42PM by a car wreck. Garson blew a flat after dropping George and Betty off on the highway. He swerved out of control and crashed over a guard rail. Presumably, the car rolled for a bit before exploding and creating the burst of flame visible to the hitchhikers.

• Monty A. Roth: Killed 9:56PM by debris stemming from an explosion. Two teenage hoodlums put lit a cherry bomb and flushed it in the bathroom of Der Waffle Haus, but the bomb caused a much large explosion than they anticipated. It blew the sign off of the wall above the counter and hit Monty on the head.

• J.P. Davis: Killed 8:11PM by unknown means. The only visible wounds on his body are from the autopsy incisions, no hints are given to what happened to cause the death itself.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Mason: It's revealed that Mason died in 1966 as a result of a self-inflicted power drill wound. Although it was technically suicide, Mason didn't mean to end his life. He was, instead, attempting to expand his consciousness by allowing more blood flow into the brain. Though, as George comments, logic dictates that a hole in one's brainpan would let more blood out than in. Mason can't quite explain the logic behind the drilling, but he insists that someone gave him a very good explanation. It is also shown that Mason was born in 1939, making him 27 when he died.

• George: George finally comes to grips with her reaping and tries to soldier on ahead by getting a job at Happy Time. Although, that also likely had to do with her needing to pay rent on her squatter's flat.

Trivia

Behind the Scenes

• Bon Voyage: This is the final episode of the series written by creator Bryan Fuller. Fuller remained on staff as creative consultant, head writer and as a producer until episode four when he quit to develop Wonderfalls for FOX.