CAUGHT DEAD—half-hour teen dark comedy.

“Like a fluttering sparrow or darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.” Jewish proverb

Season Summary

Wildling high school junior—CLEO—wakes from what feels like a giddy dream about a dreamy boy. Not in her teenage bedroom but the dark confines of a coffin in the middle of her own funeral. Back from the dead into a life she half-recognizes, CLEO must navigate the social awkwardness of the reputation she killed herself; face strained relationships with her parents and spoiled younger sister (not to mention get an after-school job to pay off  funeral expenses)…while revelations about who she was, and how she died may not be as cut-and-dry when examining the evidence for herself. Realizing a second chance can be a curse or a superpower.

Episode 1, Red Herring

Days dead, Cleo rises from her coffin as horrified by her pink tweed skirt-suit as the funeral goers are by her resurrection. Mother is peeved by the upending of the perfect ceremony and sister has already moved into her room. Dazed by some kind of formaldehyde, death-induced amnesia, Cleo must solve the mysterious around her death, squire a job to pay off her funeral debts and resist crushing on her handsome attending doctor. Thank God her BFF is there to help, or is she?

Episode 2, Declension

After several job rejections and superstitious judgements, Cleo finally lands the only job that will have her: gravedigger. On the clock, Cleo hears voices—are the dead speaking to her? In Latin? Her first attempt to find out almost gets her sacked. Cleo reluctantly attends a banal suicide group unexpectedly led by her priest nemesis, but outside the nearby local bar, she runs into the handsome doctor. Will romance spark? If, only.

Episode 3, Bait and Switch

Cleo, still in the dark on what happened and feeling less trusting of her friends, takes handsome doctor’s advice and makes a new friend—an old lady recluse with an old romantic house, a loner herself. When a housekeeper finds Cleo in the house alone, she is arrested for trespassing. Resisting being thrown out then slightly sedated, Cleo seems to catch a glimpse of the night she died as she’s being hauled away to jail.

Episode 4, Shocked

Cleo’s parents bail her out of jail in an unusual gesture of kindness. Cleo opens up about her confusion over her new-old life and hearing voices of the dead. Her mother feigns understanding but betrays her, dropping her off at a mental hospital. Just before they shock her brain with ECT for hearing voices, Cleo gets a jailbreak from her old lady friend only to find out as she wanders free on the town streets, a news clip: her recluse friend is a missing person.

Episode 5, Quid Pro Quo

When Cleo returns home unexpectedly, Mother insists she undergo an exorcism. It’s a chaotic, embarrassing failure that sends the priest running. Doctor saves the day by showing up to check in, taking some responsibility. He was on call when Cleo died likely due to his negligence that night. Maybe her young body enabled her to withstand the freezer and formaldehyde. Mother insists doctor tell the local paper where she advertises her real estate business, relieving them momentarily of the taboo and scandal Cleo’s resurrection has caused.

Episode 6, End of My Rope

Struggling with home sales, Mother gets a much needed chance to sale the grand (possibly haunted) home of the missing recluse. Cleo is forbidden to ever enter the house again but BFF, Ben, Zane, and Cleo rekindle their friendship in a night of truth or dare. Can Cleo see into things more than before? They all feel exposed but deny her spot-on insights. Mowing the yard, Cleo finds a buried rope leading to a possible clue: a connection between herself/her friends and the recluse's dead granddaughter.

Episode 7, Do-Over

Cleo’s regular grave-digging is paying off her debts. Mother gifts her a not-so-cool dumb phone, but finally she’ll be somewhat normal. Things are looking up, but not for long. A young ghost—the recluse's dead granddaughter—sits on her bed looking for friendship, Ben wants to hang out just the two of them, and the police are suspicious as they look for answers on the last whereabouts of the missing old lady recluse, questioning Cleo.

Episode 8, Hacks

Cleo overshares with BFF about the ghost and ails over her missing recluse friend—where is she? BFF suggests off-loading items related to the ghost as these may be attracting her, and some hot yoga to destress. When Cleo declutters, another possible clue emerges—a pill. Cleo seeks the doctor for advice on what kind of drug this is, and finds him alone at his cabin, disheveled, soused, and confessional: he’s attracted to Cleo after all.

Episode 9, Ghosted

Cleo’s revved by a slightly romantic overnight interlude with the doctor, and BFF has been up to her own schemes. At school, all Cleo wants to do is return to doctor’s mountain cabin and fan their flame, but a celebration for Ben's Yale acceptance and a run-in with the doctor’s estranged wife interferes. He’s married?! Seeking explanations, the doctor is unfindable. Cleo refocuses on the task at hand—what do the girl ghost and the pill she found have in common?

Episode 10, Pillar of Salt

Just as Cleo gets close to finding answers, the young ghost reappears to lure her into a new game. Cleo insists the ghost leave her alone once and for all. Her wish is granted but not without consequence, a huge mound of salt-like substance appears in her bedroom. BFF knows exactly what it is, and tells her drug-dealing brothers they have competition, but Ben intercedes before they rough Cleo up, demanding answers on why she is trying to one-up them, this is their territory.

Episode 11, Illumination

Ben has fallen for Cleo but doesn’t know how to tell her. Cleo is thankful for his protective friendship, the two throw caution to the wind and take a taste of the drug that is still piled in her room. In a newbie style drug-induced stupor, Cleo finally lets loose with Ben for some innocent fun jumping on trampolines and running around their hood. But things get weird when visions of the past come alive full throttle causing her to run for her life shutting Ben out. Cleo cleans up her room, off-loads bags of the drug mound at the graveyard.

Episode 12, Lost and Found

The next morning, Cleo's deaf gravedigger colleague finds her asleep and hungover on a grave, and helps solve a plaguing riddle—something she believes the first dead person said in episode 1 in Latin. In the process of translating, they find the missing recluse: she's been dead all along.

Episode 13, The Reckoning

The doctor reappears to apologize for ghosting her, offering restitution: a medical chart with information on how the young ghost haunting her died. That info, leaves Cleo unnerved, burdened with guilt and wanting to end it all again. On the ledge of the doctor’s empty cabin deck, Cleo jumps to her death. But through a thicket, Cleo lands in water alive, the same waters she died in the fist time. Swimming past remnants of her sunken car. Emerging cold and disoriented, Cleo sees a smoke plume coming from the fireplace of a nearby cottage. When she approaches it for refuge: it’s the nemesis priest’s house. Feeling doomed to exposure, Cleo makes a sincere confession: she killed a girl and the ghost is haunting her.

Episode 14, Full Circle

The time has come for BFF to stop Cleo's for good and protect the fallout re their culpability in the ghost girl’s death, for all their futures. BFF confesses her real feelings of love for Ben whose feelings for Cleo are now undeniable to everyone, and warns him not to come to Cleo’s rescue for Yale’s sake. If/when Cleo confesses to the crime, they're all implicated and doomed. Ben heads off in reluctant agreement with whatever plan she’s cooking up. BFF takes matters into her own witchy hands, the priest rats Cleo out to the cops, and Ben’s heroics come too late; all hell breaks loose.