Daybreak: What You Need to Know About Netflix's New Post-Apocalyptic Teen Comedy

According to Daybreak,  Netflix's latest genre-bending series, any kid who's navigated the fraught landscape of high-school is more than prepared for the apocalypse.  Part horror, part action, part dark comedy, this kitchen sink of a series stars Captain Marvel's Colin Ford as Josh, a nerdy teen on a quest to find his girlfriend after a nuclear bomb destroys most of California. Along the way, he'll team up with flamethrower-toting middle-school genius Angelica (Alyvia Alyn Lind), and Wesley (Austin Crute), an ex-bully who's taken up the way of the samurai to atone for his past sins.

Now that all 13 episodes of the show's first season have dropped on Netflix, here's a quick rundown of everything you'll need to know about its history, characters, and universe.

It's Based on an Indie Comic

Originally independently published in the mid-'00s as three graphic novels and re-released as a single volume by Drawn & Quarterly in 2011, Brian Ralph's Daybreak comics were lauded for their complex world-building and art-house sensibilities. Through simplistic, monochromatic illustrations and a unique second-person narrative structure, the reader is guided through the zombie apocalypse by a one-armed teen who helps us find food and learn to fight, all the while spouting dry, dark one-liners.

Knowing this, you'd be forgiven for thinking of this project as yet another apocalypse comic turned TV show, but if you come in expecting the gravitas of The Walking Dead, you're in for a surprise. This adaptation retains the humor of the comics, but takes things in a zanier, pulpier direction. Tonally, the series seems to have more in common with the Kick-Ass movies and comics. Both universes revolve around schlubby nerds compelled to heroism, foul-mouthed tween girl sidekicks, a barrage of profanity-laced banter, and shocking bursts of violence. The teaser trailer's rallying cry of "strap in, douchewaffles!" feels in particular as though it was yanked from the speech bubbles of the Kick-Ass comics.

Teens Rule This Universe

It's not yet clear exactly how this happened, but due to the nuclear strike,  most adults appear to have mutated into bloodthirsty, zombie-like creatures called "ghoulies," leaving the under-18 crowd to craft a new society. As a consequence, high school cliques have evolved into Mad Max style tribes: there's an Amazonian gang of former cheerleaders, a Matrix-looking band of nerds, and apparently even a 4-H club. And though he never really had a tribe of his own back in the pre-bomb days, rather than feeling intimidated by the brave new teen-driven world, Josh feels empowered and exhilarated by it. After all, a world with no rules is far more fun than a world where the football team regularly kicks your ass.

It's Packed With References and Easter Eggs

Most apocalyptic fiction, teen-driven or not, tends to assume that nobody wants the world to end, but Daybreak begs to differ: life after adults is actually a little more fun. And rather than making vague, elegiac references to the time before, these teens see no reason to stop referencing the movies, games, and slang of their previous lives, making meals out of pop culture jokes with the same vigor as the adults make meals out of human flesh.

But the pop-culture influences don't stop with snarky dialogue. Astute viewers will spot a shockingly broad spectrum of influences in the look and feel of this universe, from Ozploitation to Kurosawa to 21st century prestige dramas like Breaking Bad (though it's set in Glendale, California, Daybreak is shot in Albuquerque, which accounts for the familiarity of some of those desert vistas).

Narratively, the series seems to borrow most heavily from Lost's flashback-driven structure. Action jumps back and forth between pre and post-disaster scenes, with a different character taking the spotlight and the flashbacks in each episode. However, Josh's fourth-wall-breaking antics in the pilot recall nothing so much as '80s teen comedies like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which is hardly an accident when you consider the sole adult role with a boldface name attached to it.

Matthew Broderick May be the Show's Biggest Easter Egg of All

Though viewers of a certain age will definitely feel old when they see the most iconic teenager of the 80s as the graying, out-of-touch principal he once antagonized, it's fun to see Broderick back in high school (although you'll feel even older when you realize he was already on the other side of the desk twenty years ago in Election). The post-apocalyptic fate of Broderick's Principal Burr, is unclear, but if the overall tone of the preview is any indication, Broderick's likely to have a blast bringing us something both gruesomely audacious and packed with references to his teen-comedy past.

In fact, "gruesomely audacious and packed with references" might be a good way to sum up Daybreak as a whole.

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Jessica Liese has been writing and podcasting about TV since 2012. Follow her on Twitter at @HaymakerHattie.