Dead Like Me

Premise

Grim reapers, portrayed without the traditional black cloak and scythe, are an integral part of the cycle of life and death. They remove the souls of the living shortly before death and escort them until they move on into their afterlife. Death has a list of who is scheduled to die and when. The foreman gets the list, transfers the first initial and last name of the person, where they are to die, and their estimated time of death (ETD) to a Post-it and assigns them to the reapers. It is said that death is non-transferrable: each person's soul is assigned to a reaper, and only that reaper can remove that soul. That person must be reaped at the time of their intended death, or the soul will "wither and die and rot inside" them.

Related Topics:
Soul - Afterlife - Post-it

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Reapers collect souls until they reach a quota. Once that quota is reached, the reaper moves on and the newly collected soul takes his or her place. (Pet reapers, who collect animal souls, also appear during the series, but it is unclear how they are chosen or replaced.) As such, reapers are undead. Reapers have a physical body and may interact with the living and the dead. They do not age, but reapers cannot fly, disappear or walk through walls, so they need to find their reap by conventional means of transportation. In fact, the only real power besides collecting souls is an ability to heal quickly, allowing a quick recovery from any physical harm incurred on the job. Reapers also have the same emotional needs and drives as living humans.

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To remove a soul, a reaper must touch the body, though direct skin-to-skin contact is not necessary. This is shown with a wisp of light on the reap. When possible, the reap is done before death to minimize emotional harm to the soul, especially "for violent deaths as a courtesy". After the death, the soul sometimes exists for a short time as a ghost. These ghosts retain the physical image of the being as it was reaped. When reaped before death, the ghost does not show any injuries suffered during death. Souls reaped after death show injuries: a man's head was damaged by a flying canoe, a woman was mauled by a captive bear, and many people displayed injuries suffered by a malfunctioning piece of exercise equipment. Also, a woman with Alzheimer's disease retained this condition after her death, indicating that existing conditions remain.

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Ghosts cannot communicate directly with the living, only with and through the undead reapers. The passage into the afterlife is shown as a bright light, generally something pleasant to the deceased.

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Reaping is divided into various divisions. George died in an accident, so her division is "external influence": people who die in accidents, by suicide or homicide. Other divisions mentioned and/or encountered are infectious and parasitic disease, circulatory system disease, malignant neoplasms, plague (a virtually unemployed division in the modern age) and natural causes. Reapers do not get paid, so they must find ways to get money, whether a day job, or "living off the land". Reapers often take things from their reaps, sometimes with permission from their ghosts.

Related Topics:
Suicide - Homicide

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It is important that the living do not figure out that reapers are among them. This makes it taboo for reapers to enter into romantic relationships with the living; it is allowed (though frowned upon) for reapers to develop platonic friendships, and there appears to be no explicit taboo on reapers engaging in sexual relations with the living (or each other). It is likewise frowned upon for a reaper to gain notoriety among the living (for example, when George receives a promotion at work, she is encouraged not to accept it). Apparently reapers are never noticed in the immediate aftermath of a death, even when arguing with their reap. Ronnie, a schizophrenic, could apparently see reapers at work, as well as gravelings, another normally unseen creature involved in deaths (see below).

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As long as there are persons from their time still alive, reapers look different than they did in life to the living, though fellow reapers see their original appearances. George says her appearance resembles someone familiar "with crack cocaine, ten-dollar blowjobs, and maybe even a trick baby or two". On Halloween, however, reapers regain their original appearance for the day, meaning the recently deceased need to wear masks. This effect continues into All Saints' Day; George's sister, Reggie, apparently recognizes her on that day. To date, only George's and Mason's assumed faces have been shown on screen.

Related Topics:
Halloween - All Saints' Day

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