Braindead CBS
show creator Michelle and Robert King’s new series BrainDead will air every Monday on CBS CBS

After ending Good Wife's seven-year run, showcreators Michelle and Robert King returned with their new series BrainDead that premiered on CBS on 13 June. Touted as a thriller, the show revolves around Capitol Hill staff, Laurel, and her discovery of mysterious bugs that have eaten the brains of a large number of Congress members and Hill staff.

The concept of the show has critics wondering about its future, however, the Kings feel that the series is in stark contrast to the Good Wife. "In BrainDead we wanted kind of the reverse — we wanted one extraordinary event that takes our lead character into worlds of absurdity and she's not able to handle it," Robert told Hollywood Reporter.

Like previous shows, the thriller series also has a female lead protagonist and Michelle claimed that Laurel is an "intelligent female character".

Speaking about her character in the latest CBS series, Mary Elizabeth Winstead who plays Laurel said, "Once she's in it, her natural competitiveness and her innate political side come out. She's someone who has a real need for truth and authenticity in her life. Once things get weird with the bugs, she feels like there's so many layers to break through to get to what's actually going on, so she keeps picking away and picking away and picking away. I think it starts out as almost a compulsion of just needing to get to the truth ... and her nature of wanting to help people makes her want to see it through to the end."

Further, Michelle explained that blending a political story with a "bug eating brains" element was kind of metaphorical. "We're able to go a lot more absurd and go more to analogy and metaphor through comedy. If we went straight at the politics, it could become very earnest very quickly."

Episode 2 of the CBS show is titled Playing Politics: Living Life in the Shadow of the Budget Showdown - A Critique. The synopsis of the episode reads as follows.

Laurel continues to investigate the death of esteemed Dr. Daudier, while bugs infect more citizens of Washington, D.C. Rochelle Daudier (Nikki M. James), the deceased doctor's daughter and Gustav Triplette (Johnny Ray Gill), an eccentric genius, both encounter the bugs separately and begin to question exactly what is happening.

BrainDead airs on Monday nights on the CBS network.