Netflix's "Dead To Me:" On Guilt, Grief, Friendship & Lov
I first discovered the Netflix show, Dead To Me, when my dear friend, Jessica, recommended it when it aired in 2019. Jessica and I became best friends when we were 14 and she went from home-schooling on her family farm to attending my small public school (she thrived and never looked back!). We acted in plays together, went on family vacations together, tons of sleepovers, visited each other at college and beyond, made crazy recordings, dated brothers once, spent every moment we could together. And for the next few decades, we shared almost daily phone calls as teens, to regular calls and letters as we made it through young-adulthood, to almost daily calls again, as we shared marriage and motherhood. We talked about anything and everything—relationships, society, philosophy, politics, families—and also cooking, cleaning hacks, books, tv. When I recommended the book Pachinko, she read it. When she recommended a recipe for a homemade ice cream cake, I made it. So when she recommended “Dead to Me,” I watched it. I remember her saying it was not like any other show she’d seen.
“Dead to Me” is a show about mistakes and consequences—and how you deal with both. It’s dark and funny. It’s tense and poignant. It’s a lot about guilt, but it’s also about motherhood and daughterhood. And at its core, it’s about friendship and love.
I’m actually a little shocked when I see that this show aired in May 2019 because Jessica was battling Stage 4 cancer at the time. She passed away 4 months later.
Shocked isn’t the right word.
Anyone who has lost a loved one knows that Grief kind of jumps up in your face and screams at you at any random moment it feels like. You might pull out a bag from your closet and remember your loved one said she liked it and asked if it was a designer bag, and you said no, you got it from Target. You might be cleaning a drawer and find a letter in your loved one’s handwriting or pull out Christmas decorations and see the peppermint candy cane candle your loved one gave you.
Or you might see that Season 3 is released of the show your loved one recommended to you.
The wind is kind of knocked out of me as my heart settles on the time period of May 2019. That was the beginning of the hardest time for Jessica, when her lungs kept filling up with fluid, and she’d have a chest tube inserted to help drain the fluid (a procedure she knew I could empathize with, as I had this done when I experienced a collapsed lung from a car accident many years ago.). And we talked about motherhood (she had 4 amazing daughters). And losing a mom (she asked me questions about the recent loss of my own mother). And we talked a lot about Grief. She wanted to talk a lot about Grief. I appreciated she validated my losses (I’d lost my mother and my best friend from college), but I also knew, as much as neither one of us would say it, Grief surrounded her too.
The wind gets knocked out of me not only because my chest and throat are filled with so much sadness it’s hard to breathe, but also because it still really does stun me that she’s gone, even 3 years later. 2019 does not feel that long ago. 2019 was the last year we all had before covid-19 became that milestone marker in our lives. It was also the last year we all had Jessica.
“Dead To Me” has had its share of deaths in Seasons 1 & 2, used often as catalysts for guilt and action, and mainly befalling the fate of not-so-likeable men. But while I have only just begun Season 3, I can see already that they are going to be broadening the idea of grief and love—this time in friendship (even if it does not go to the point of loss). I will never forget the moment when Jessica told me she was diagnosed with a rare aggressive form of breast cancer that had something like a 40% survival rate after 5 years. I was driving, in the dark, to visit my mom, who was dying of ALS. Jessica and I both breathed deeply, because she was healthy and young and she was going to be in that 40%. And for a couple of years, we held onto this. Until Spring 2019.
Jessica never saw Season 2 of “Dead To Me” either, and she is the first thing I thought of when I saw Season 2 came out also.
She’s the first thing I think a lot of the time.
Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini are brilliant in this show. Their performances as Jen and Judy are funny, heart breaking, sincere, intense, relatable, endearing. Their friendship goes through a lot. I mean, A LOT. Okay, it’s a tv show. We need some drama. But, how many people can say they have a friendship love this deep?
Christina Applegate announced in Spring 2021 that she was diagnosed with MS. This occurred during the filming of Season 3 (which will be the final season) of “Dead to Me.” If you’re not familiar with MS:
Multiple sclerosis is a disease that impacts the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves, which make up the central nervous system and controls everything we do. The exact cause of MS is unknown, but we do know that something triggers the immune system to attack the CNS. The resulting damage to myelin, the protective layer insulating wire-like nerve fibers, disrupts signals to and from the brain. This interruption of communication signals causes unpredictable symptoms such as numbness, tingling, mood changes, memory problems, pain, fatigue, blindness and/or paralysis. Everyone’s experience with MS is different and these losses may be temporary or long lasting. -National MS Society
MS and all diseases in this neuro-degenerative category are devastating and humbling. You suddenly cannot do some of the things you have loved most in life and also some of the most basic small things in life and your future is scary and uncertain. Having seen my mom go through the struggle of ALS, I continue to be thankful that I can feed myself, take a shower on my own, scratch itches myself. Diseases like this truly make you notice the tiniest things. And if you have this encounter personally, then the Grief of losing these abilities can set in at any stage. I can understand why Christina Applegate said she doesn’t think she will ever watch this last season. That time period will always be marked by her diagnosis, adjusting to what she can, the anger and unfairness and sadness of this disease. She may see where she couldn’t do all the things she had previously been able to do—or she may look back at this time later and realize how much she could still do during that filming.
But thank God for the “human spirit” which, despite this Grief and loss, propels many people forward, adjusting, re-adjusting, holding onto each little thing you can be grateful for, for as long as you can. I saw what my mother went through, being an active community member, wife, parent, grandparent, friend—then very quickly losing many basic abilities, and still facing the public world, trying to participate as much as possible while keeping a smile on her face. It cannot be easy for celebrities to be public about something so personal, to receive commentary from random people about your appearance (why does anyone care about the appearance of celebrities, honestly?). But I appreciate Applegate’s openness, because these neuro-muscular/degenerative diseases need more attention. They need more funding and research to find actual cures, as presently, most of these terrible diseases are incurable.
I started this post saying “Dead To Me” is about Guilt and Love. And it is. And I know we see things through the lenses we bring from our own experience, and I have only just started this final season…But I think maybe one of the most important entities to the show is Grief. Guilt and Love and Grief—And then Love again. Because you can’t have Grief without Love. Let’s end it on Love.
To support research for finding cures to MS or ALS, check out the links below:
National Multiple Sclerosis Society Research: “Our Vision is a World Free of MS. We are a driving force of MS research and treatment to stop disease progression, restore function, and end MS forever.”
ALS Association Research: “We are the largest private funder of ALS research worldwide, and our efforts have led to some of the most promising and significant advances in the field.”