It feels like a lifetime has passed since the second season of Dead to Me came out on Netflix. To be fair a pandemic and Christina Applegate’s MS diagnosis surely put a hindrance on things. Although, it sounds like everyone besides Applegate was fine not finishing the series out, but she insisted the story needed an ending.
And what an ending! Over the course of three seasons, this shows has constructed a very intense web of lies. It feels like when someone finally comes forward with the truth, then another lie gets told. And now police are involved in the lie! But let me tell you what, aside from trying to keep Steve’s murder a secret this season, Jen and Judy really go through the ringer. This is your warning that there are SPOILERS ahead!
First we learn that Jen and Judy got hit by a plastered Ben, who just learned that his twin’s body had been found in the park. He keeps that a secret for a pretty long time and just when you think he’s going to confess, he just asks for AA support from a local cop. I mean, he does come clean to Jen eventually and she forgives him immediately. She did kill his brother though, so she certainly did much worse to him. While in the hospital from the accident though, we learn Judy has some pretty serious stage four cervical cancer. Death is definitely coming for her, so you know Judy is going to try and make things as right as she can.
It’s crazy to see how far this friendship has transformed over the run of this series. Jen, rightly, hated Judy after learning that she was in the car that hit and killed her husband. Now, Jen is desperate to do anything to keep Judy in her life for as long as possible. It doesn’t help that Judy decides to take full responsibility for Steve’s death. That’s right, she confesses to the cops but gets a three week “postponement” to undergo a cancer drug trial. In true Dead to Me fashion though, they end up going on a long beach vacation instead. It’s in those scenes that we learn some early nightmares Jen has is really just deja vu for the real thing.
The strangest twist though is that at 47, Jen learns she is pregnant with Ben’s baby. Why? I suppose it’s purpose is that when someone leaves this earth someone new enters it, a la the circle of life. But it was just so random. And yes, if that last bit didn’t clue you in, Judy did in fact die in the last episode. Really, this whole season contained a lot of tears and I definitely got choked up more times than I was anticipating. It also probably had to deal with the fact that I know what Applegate is dealing with in her personal life. It’s likely this could be one of the last projects she ever works on. Either way though, they did a pretty neat job of tying everything up.
I’ll miss this fun and quirky show. If you haven’t given it a watch yet, definitely do so. The cast is incredible!