I was off sick yesterday, which gave me the chance to watch an ENTIRE TV SERIES, as you do these days with Netflix & Stan giving you access. I watched some of The Bold Type (brilliantly shit) before moving on to Dead To Me, the much-hyped Netflix black comedy starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini.
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The premise is this – Jen (Applegate) recently lost her husband to a hit and run accident. He was running at midnight when he was struck by a car, which left him to bleed out. She meets Judy (Cardellini) at a grief counselling group, and the two become fast friends. The rest I can’t tell you about without ruining the excellent twists that seem to hit you every damn episode, but I’ll try and review it all minus spoilers!
The hype around the series often centres around the twists – but while they’re pretty shocking, I didn’t find the series to be as gasp-inducing as, say, The Sinner. There’s definitely a fun plot here that surprises you on occasion, but to be honest I found it all a little predictable – things could have unravelled to more interesting places, I guess.
But then again – in many ways I think the enjoyment of watching Dead To Me is about the characters and their relationships.
Obviously a big part of this show is the exploration of grief – how it manifests in different individuals, other things besides death that can cause grief, and how often we judge people’s responses to it. The show does this so well – Applegate is phenomenal, really nailing all the emotional nuances of someone grieving, the ups and downs and guilt, all of it. But Cardellini as Judy is also experiencing grief of a different sort, and her journey and the way she portrays this broken character is equally fantastic. Together they really cement this series, it’s brilliant casting in my opinion.
There’s also the humour. It’s dark as FUCK but in the best way, in a very real way as anyone who has gone through the loss of a loved one would probably attest. Grief isn’t 24/7 crying, it’s feeling frustrated and guilty and happy-then-guilty-for-feeling-happy, and trying to move on, dealing with shit people connected to the deceased – all of which this show perfectly demonstrates. It really nails the waves of grief, and the messy journey that moving on is.
Finally, it’s worth watching this series for the friendship between Jen and Judy. Fuck I love strong female friendships in film. Theirs is a complicated friendship – there’s some secrets going on that I won’t tell you about because – SPOILERS. But overall these are two women going through shit, coming together to support one another. It helps that Applegate and Cardellini have great chemistry and bounce off each other so well.
Anyway, I’ll stop rambling on about it and just tell you to go and watch it. The plot isn’t the most brilliant, but it’s absolutely still worth a watch. Here’s hoping they give us a Dead To Me season 2.
