Analysis 1: Sublime Death

In the television series Dead Like Me, the heroine, Georgia Lass, dies and becomes a Grim Reaper. In this excerpt from the end of the pilot episode, George faces her first assignment: taking the soul of a little girl. After saving the girl’s life in a train wreck where she should have died, George must face her boss Rube. Rube proceeds to explain to George that if she doesn’t let those destined to die do so their souls will “go bad” and “wither and die.”

This is only the beginning of a long series in which George and her fellow Grim Reapers are forced to come to terms with death, its merciless and senseless nature. As George states at the end of this scene “for me, death was just a wake up call,” and thus the show tells as much the story of George’s coming-of-age as a naïve young woman as it does the absurdity of life, death, and fate. These are heavy topics, ones that Dead Like Me consistently approaches with a grace and grandeur that can only be referred to as sublime.

To choose one scene to exemplify the show’s sublimity is no easy task, but using the pilot’s final scene gives a good overview of the general approaches the show takes. To begin with, it’s clear that Dead Like Me demonstrates Longinus’ first source of sublimity, greatness of thought. Dealing with the nature of death is a naturally weighty topic, and as Longinus states “words will be great if thoughts are weighty” (139). Thus Rube’s dialogue with George in the pilot’s final scene is frequently sublime thanks to the weightiness of the topic, death, and the ways in which Rube attempts to explain it.

Moreover, Rube’s lines follow many of Longinus’ points on use of language to create sublimity. One thing that stands out is his point on the use of everyday words, “phrases [that] come within an inch of being vulgar, but they are so expressive that they avoid vulgarity” (Longinus 147). Thus, an interesting effect is created when Rube states, “It is cruel, it’s cruel she’ll never know what life is really like, it’s cruel she’ll miss out on so much love and pain and beauty. That’s sad for everyone in the world, except for her. She won’t give a rat’s ass, she’ll be doing something different. That’s just the way it is.” By using a phrase like “rat’s ass,” Rube’s point seems almost ironically casual, and yet it becomes all the more weighty. Rube speaks bluntly, and by doing so he powerfully exemplifies death’s inevitability.

He also uses metaphor and what Longinus calls visualization, specifically when he tells George “You know what happens when you keep a soul around after its time? Same thing happens to milk – spoils, goes bad – souls go bad in all kinds of ways” and that if she doesn’t take the little girl’s soul it will “wither and die and rot inside her.” These are powerful images that express the show’s entire dilemma within a few lines.

Ultimately, the crowning element of sublimity for this scene comes after George has accepted what she must do, and tenderly takes the girl’s soul. The girl goes off into a dazzling display of lights that descend from the sky to reveal what looks like an amusement park, as the song “Qué Sera Sera” plays in the background. What makes this moment feel so strikingly sublime is its juxtaposing of multiple emotions. As Longinus says, emotion is one of the most important elements of the sublime. More than just pure emotion, Dead Like Me works with ones that are constantly shifting and highly ambivalent, creating a sublime sense of how quickly death can steal away life, how life is fragile and filled with both joy and sorrow. In this way this scene shows us “not a single emotion, but a complex of emotions” (Longinus 140), and these create its greatest sublime effect. As the little girl departs from the earth and George and Rube “walk off into the dark unknown, or whatever you want to call it,” as George puts it, we have a sense of hope combined with the knowledge of the severity of death’s power. “Qué Sera Sera” contributes to this, and we see that life goes on even in the face of tragedy. The ending of the pilot is thus ambivalent and unified in being so, demonstrating Dead Like Me’s overall sublime nature.

Works Cited


Longinus. “On Sublimity.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. 136-54. Print.


“Pilot.” Dead Like Me. Writ. Bryan Fuller. Dir. Scott Winant. MGM, 2003.