Diksha Sundriyal
Starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini in the lead roles, ‘Dead to Me’ starts as the story of two women who bond over their grief. Jen is sharp and not prone to making friends, while Judy is more open-hearted and easy-going. After Ted, her husband, is killed in a hit-and-run accident, Jen joins a support group, which she doesn’t seem to like that much. Judy’s reason behind being in the group is the death of her fiancé, Steve. Despite Jen’s disinterest in making any friends, she warms up to Judy. What she doesn’t know is that there are a lot of things she doesn’t know about her new BFF.
Dead to Me Season 1 Recap
The first blow to Jen and Judy’s friendship comes when she discovers that Steve is not dead. On confronting Judy, it is revealed that the reason they separated is due to Judy’s many miscarriages, which is the real reason why she joined the support group. With everything cleared up, Judy and Jen go back to normal. However, there is another thing that Judy has been lying about.
Jen also encounters more problems in her family. Her older son, Charlie, starts dealing in drugs and is found with a gun in his possession. Her younger son, Henry, too, faces trouble at school. Jen’s mother-in-law, Lorna, gives her a hard time, and it is also revealed that she is addicted to pills.
Ted’s Death
The cops never caught the person who killed Ted. When the investigation reaches a standstill, Jen investigates by herself. She is looking for any car that shows the signs of an accident. Unbeknownst to her, it was actually Judy’s car. She was the one who accidentally killed Ted. She wanted to go back to help him, but Steve convinced her otherwise. The guilt has been eating at her since then, and this is why she decides to reach out to Jen and help her in whatever way possible.
Several things don’t add up about Ted’s death. For instance, what was he doing on the street in the middle of the night? It comes to light that he and Jen had been having troubles in their marriage. One of the reasons behind that could be his music career, which never took flight. They had an argument, after which Ted went out for a walk to calm himself, and that’s when the accident occurred.
When Jen logs into his laptop, another secret unravels. It looks like Ted was having an affair with a waitress named Bambi, whom Judy tracks down. He had told her that his wife had died of breast cancer.
Judy’s New Boyfriend
Judy and Jen go on a grief retreat, where Jen gets drunk. Judy meets Nick, who is grieving over the death of his best friend. It turns out that he is a cop, though off-duty. When Jen asks him if he has ever solved a hit-and-run, he says “yes,” which leads Jen to bring him on the case. The investigation leads them to the girl who had found Ted. She gives a part of the car that had hit him, which turns out to be a 1966 Mustang. They start tracking the owners, and Judy begins to panic because she is on that list and also because she thinks she might be pregnant. She finds ways to stall them, but Nick eventually figures out the truth.
The Ending
Judy’s guilt finally makes her give in, and she comes clean to Jen. She also tells the cops about Steve’s money-laundering operations. When Jen tells Ana Perez that Judy confessed to her, she tells her that Judy cannot be arrested because she is testifying on Steve’s case. This makes Jen more furious, and she hopes for payback. She also starts carrying a gun, which comes into play when Steve visits her.
To assuage her guilt, Judy withdraws a large sum of money from her and Steve’s joint account. With the cops on his tail, he starts looking for Judy and eventually ends up at Jen’s place. While talking to her, he slips in the detail that he had been there the night Ted died. He pins the blame on Judy, saying that he wanted to stop, but she didn’t. Jen, however, sees through his bullshit, which leads to a heated argument between them.
Meanwhile, Judy ends up on the spot where Ted was killed. To punish herself for it, she steps in front of a car, which swerves just in time. Before she can make another attempt, she receives a call from Jen, who asks her to come home. The last scene of the season has Judy and Jen by the pool, looking at Steve, who has been shot on the back.
