‘Everyone Else Burns’ Gives Hilarious New Meaning To the Term ‘Cult Comedy’
If hell is other people, then it might not require death to reach it. Just ask Rachel Lewis (Amy James-Kelly), born into a family that squashes her dreams and leaves her exhausted from 4 a.m. drills to prepare for the End Times. For this Mancunian teenager, the apocalypse is later, but Hades is now.
Rachel's family belongs to an evangelical, doomsday-awaiting sect, the Order of the Divine Rod. Her father, David (Simon Bird of The Inbetweeners), is a pompous buffoon with a stunningly awful bowl haircut, a nearly supernatural ability to sort mail, and a tendency to use scripture to mask his insecurities. Her mother, Fiona (Kate O’Flynn), is just as pious but deeply dissatisfied by her marriage and lack of career. And her younger brother, Aaron (Harry Connor), can’t wait for the End of Days; he passes the time until that glorious inferno by painting pictures of his dad being violently torn to pieces.
However much this sounds like the setup for a harrowing tale of abuse, Everyone Else Burns is actually a delightful and extremely silly six-episode comedy that premiered on British television earlier this year and begins airing on The CW Oct. 19. The jokes come thick and fast, and though Rachel may be having a pretty miserable time, the viewer won’t.