Dead to Me Season 2: A Genuine Celebration of Complicated Female Friendships

As a Bloodline watcher, I can’t help but constantly expect Linda Cardellini’s Dead to Me character to say, Rayburn-style, “we’re not bad people, we just did a bad thing.” Because, essentially, that same sentiment is at the center of Liz Feldman’s diverting dark comedy series. Two women forge a friendship through grief, and then discover that their relationship is really built on lies—and neither is as innocent as they seem. And yet, neither is really fully guilty. Further, the men in their lives are not that great, but also, not exactly awful enough to justify what happens to them.

Such is the muddled moral message of Dead to Me, which in its second season inverts the relationship dynamic between Judy (Cardellini) and Jen (Christina Applegate). In Season 1, Judy is hiding the fact that she was involved in the hit and run that killed Jen’s husband. In Season 2, Judy knows that Jen killed her ex-fiancé Steve, although there is ultimately more to that story. There always is! It’s part of what makes the show such a good binge watch, even if every episode’s cliffhanger ending is resolved within the first minutes of the next installment. But by then, as Netflix knows, you’re already hooked and invested in what comes next.

There are copious twists and spoilers in this new season to navigate around, but what I can say is that the show is still at its best when focused on the complicated friendship between Judy and Jen. There aren’t many series that really explore such a realistic dynamic of female friendship. “You break up a lot,” Jen’s younger son opines after she declares that Judy will not be in their lives anymore, only to invite her back over the next day. The early episodes of the new season do a lot to solidify the bond between them, including the idea that they are both each other’s “person.” Romantic relationships may come and go, but Judy and Jen continue to fight for one another (and often with one another). “It’s getting a little co-dependy,” Jen says at one point, but who can stay mad at Judy when faced with Cardellini, the Queen of Sad Smiles?

Like Bloodline, Dead to Me is getting to the point in Season 2 of needing its characters to pay for their very real crimes, no matter how lovingly we feel about them. And yet, we do want them to escape. What does that say about us? The show addresses this quandary late in the season while offering up a new twist for another potential run of episodes, but nothing about the plotting (much of which meanders in the middle and takes some obvious turns) is as satisfying as the relationships between the series’ women. Crucially, the dialogue between Jen and Judy is emotional without being saccharine. “You need to forgive yourself,” Judy counsels her friend. “Ew,” Jen immediately replies. “I know, it’s gross,” Judy acknowledges. A similar exchanges takes place moments later, when Jen tells her friend to start saying “no” more, while admitting “I know, it’s disgusting.”