John Bernardy
Series Creator Liz Feldman announced the news on Monday that Dead To Me will be returning to Netflix in 2020 with a 10-episode Season 2. And this is music to our ears.
A number of us at 25YL have become fans of this series starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, so we welcome the news, even though it seemed like a foregone conclusion. I’ve written how this show gives me a Desperate Housewives vibe in all the right ways, and that assessment held true to the end. I have full faith it’ll be fun watching the ladies get out of all the plot twists from the back half of Season 1.
Cardellini’s Judy got the ball rolling by getting her beau Steve (James Marsden) in trouble for money laundering. Why? Because Steve convinced her to keep driving when they hit a jogger with her car.
Nick (Brandon Scott)—Judy’s newest boyfriend and also suspended detective who’s frustrated at Judy for going back to Steve—told investigating Detective Perez (Diana Maria Riva) that Judy and Steve were in it together with the hit-and-run.
And Applegate’s Jen later tells Detective Perez that Judy confessed about the hit-and-run, but this was before Jen figured out Steve was coercing Judy and that Steve was in the car that night.
So Judy’s going to jail for driving away from the scene, right? Nope, because she’s protected as a witness for Steve’s business dealings. And now, because Jen didn’t know any of this, she kills Steve on her property because he revealed he was also in the car, then threatened her. She won’t be going to jail because of some Stand Your Ground statute, right? Maybe.
Jen just killed the guy Judy was trying to get in trouble for money laundering the night after Judy made out a cashier’s check to Jen because Judy was wracked with guilt over killing Jen’s husband. Looks suspicious to me, especially if I was the detective who was already on the hit-and-run case.
See how trauma fuels everyone’s reactions, but it then complicates the story’s plot? The reactions come from a real place, yet it all dovetails into the soapiness rather flawlessly. The show is fairly surface—character motivations are explained in fairly cut and dry ways—but that doesn’t matter. It’s all about what characters are hiding from each other where the complications come from. There’s a delicious web for us to untangle. That’s as fun as it is cathartic to watch the two women navigating through their various traumas.
It’s good to know that Jen and Judy seem to know all the pertinent information about each other now when it comes to Ted, but I know there’s still a mountain to overcome with the mess they’re in.
For one, there’s their cat and mouse situation with Detective Perez, who will have to prove that the ladies are connected before she can arrest people. But that well-meaning cashier’s check may be enough to get one or both of the ladies in jail for a while. And this time Steve won’t be there to bail anyone out because he’s swimming with the fishes (I couldn’t help myself).
What’s Pastor Wayne going to think about all this? I guess we’ll find out in about a year. Until then, what’s the over/under on how many plot twists will happen in the next ten episodes?
