Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dead To Me’ On Netflix, Where Christina Applegate And Linda Cardellini Play Unlikely Friends Joined By Grief

People mourn the deaths of their loved ones differently. Some people curl up in a ball, but some soldier on because they have a family to take care of. No way to mourn is right or wrong, just different. The new Netflix comedy Dead To Me pairs two women who are mourning in very different ways but are bonded by the fact that they are grieving. Read on for more…

DEAD TO ME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An overhead shot of a casserole dish that looks somewhat like nachos.

The Gist: The recipient of the weird “Mexican lasagna” is Jen (Christina Applegate), who is getting tired of neighbors and friends feeling sorry for her and asking her how she’s doing. When the neighbor who made the lasagna asks how she’s doing, she responds, “like a woman whose husband was hit by a car and died violently.” She’s a tightly-wound real estate agent to begin with, but her husband’s sudden death has rendered her even more angry and cynical, to the point where she stops and writes down info on cars that have front-end damage, just in case. She also likes to unwind by listening to speed metal at top volume in her care.

When she goes to a beachfront grief support group for the first time, she’s befriended by Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini), a free spirit who lost her fiance. Judy is willing to share in the group, while Jen refuses; she slightly opens up at Judy’s encouragement. At the end of the meeting Judy gives Jen her number, just in case she can’t sleep and wants to talk.

That night, she does, and the two of them bond, talking about their departed SOs as well as their shared love of The Facts of Life. It leads to them becoming quick besties, with the two of them becoming near inseparable. Then one night Jen decides to go to the massive house Judy claims she lives in; when she gets there, she sees Steve (James Marsden), the supposedly dead fiance, very much alive. He tells her that the two of them broke up a few weeks ago.

Pissed, she confronts Judy at the next meeting, dropping one f-bomb after another. Judy admits she lied about Steve, but not to con anyone. The loss she really is mourning is the fact that her fifth miscarriage finally put an end to their relationship, and her loss is not only all the potential children she lost, but the idea of giving birth.

Days later, a chagrined Jen finds Judy at work, and assisted-living facility that has given her a room to tie her over until she finds a new place. Jen apologizes and invites Judy to stay with her and her two sons; Judy can live in the guest house.

Our Take: Liz Feldman, the creator of Dead To Me, has mostly been known for writing for broad CBS comedies like 2 Broke Girls, but she strikes the right notes here, not only with the various ways people grieve, but in the relationship between these two completely mismatched women.

Though we like both Cardellini and Applegate, especially their chemistry with each other, Applegate definitely has more of the emotional heavy lifting in the first episode. Her emotions over her husband’s tragic death are still raw, but mixed with Jen’s penchant for anger and her detail-oriented personality makes for a mix that’s fascinating to watch. Cardellini has her emotional moments as the free-spirited Judy, but she’s more the supportive friend — and ultimately an admitted fabulist — in this first episode; she’s helping Jen grieve her way, something Jen has desperately wanted since her husband was killed.

So the pilot had us with its dark humor about death and mourning, and the relationship between Jen and Judy, even through the twist that revealed Judy’s lie about Steve. Their quick reconciliation left us a bit skeptical, but we understood it was needed in order for the series to go forward. But the last scene made us wonder where this show was going. Is this going to be a show about two women bonding over death or a ticking time bomb where Judy tries to keep Jen from finding out her big secret? Having that hanging over the season makes it all feel more contrived than it needs to be, but we need to see more to see how Feldman and her writers treat it.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: Judy takes things out of her storage unit to bring to Jen’s guest house. She looks at something that shows she’s hiding a huge secret. We won’t say what it is here.

Sleeper Star: It certainly looks like that’s Telma Hopkins as one of the members of Jen and Judy’s grief group. Too bad she wasn’t given a lot to say.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Jen and Judy tell each other which Facts of Life character each is, Jen claims she’s Jo because she’s from Brooklyn. She tells Judy she even had an accent: “I tawked like dis,” in an accent no Brooklynite has had since the ’70s.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Dead To Me has a lot of potential in the pairing of Cardellini and Applegate, but its overhanging twist might kill the story before it gains any narrative momentum.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Dead to Me on Netflix