Netflix’s Dead to Me Season Two Early Review

With a surprisingly fast turnaround time, Netflix has released the second season of this crime dramedy, Dead to Me, giving viewers something to watch during these isolating times. (For our review of the first season, click here.) The first season was great at both setting up a strong, layered mystery and tying it to the themes of grief and loss. While setting itself up with a cliffhanger for another season of dark, morbid storytelling, could it continue to hit the same emotional and suspenseful beats as its predecessor? Only time will tell.

The main story of Dead to Me season two revolves around the aftermath of Jen (Christina Applegate) killing Judy’s (Linda Cardellini) ex-fiance Steve (James Marsden). Dealing with PTSD, Jen and Judy try to dispose of the body, struggle with their ongoing grief and trying to cover up a mystery that is way deeper than meets the eye. It was very easy to be skeptical about the series as the first season felt like an idea for a good limited series thus diving back into this world for a second season could possibly caused more damage than good. The beats could have felt repetitive or too similar to other stories within this subgenre such as Big Little Lies. The story could have felt contrived or so absurd that it made zero sense. The characters could have become less likable which can be an instant killer for any series. Thankfully, this was not the case here despite featuring some of the same pitfalls of the first season.

The chemistry of Applegate and Cardellini as Jen and Judy is great and definitely drives this show forward as it takes two opposites, a cynic and optimist, and brings them together in a series of weird ways. They deal with grief in different ways, and while more of Jen’s “dead to me” attitude throughout would have been nice to see, their smaller emotional moments helped to bring a decent pace to this season. This can also be seen through the development of secondary characters that are either returning or new, although some find themselves bordering on annoying in order to explain how they would change their perspective. It is weird, because many of these characters almost come across as comical in contrast to the leads which makes the story feel tonally off at times, a major problem that the first season dealt with.

This of course continues through the writing which was inconsistent throughout. It deals with grief in some great ways, but it also feels lazy and dull at other moments leading to a cyclical thought process of “wow that episode flew by” to “how was that only 30 minutes?” These feelings are remedied by strong episodic cliffhangers, but in the end, a story needs to be more than its final moments.

What did you think of the second season of Dead to Me? Let me know in the comments!

*still courtesy of Netflix*

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Dylan Phillips