Netflix’s Dead to Me is one of the streaming services biggest hits. Dead to Me Season 1 started and ended with some gigantic twists. Hopefully if you’re coming here for Season 2 stuff, you’ve at least seen Season 1 of Dead to Me. If not, quick spoiler warning about the next few sentences. The first season of Dead to Me opened with a couple of reveals: Steve (James Marsden) wasn’t dead, and he and Judy(Linda Cardellini) did a hit and run on Jen ( (Christina Applegate )’s husband, Ted, and the season ended with Jen calling Judy because she needed help. Jen had a for-real dead Steve floating in her pool. Now Dead To Me Season 2 just took things up a notch.
Dead to Me Season 2 seemed to have a new twist at every corner. Just when you felt comfortable, and believed you knew where the season was going, it curved to bring you new layers of shocks. The series is doing a great job of building up to go way beyond Season 2 (and a very probable Season 3). Let’s dive into some of Dead to Me Season 2’s biggest twists, and where we think the show may be heading in the future.
Spoiler Warning: We’ll be discussing plots from Dead to Me Season 2. Get out of here if you haven’t seen it yet.
Steve Has A Twin Named Ben
Guess I should pay more attention to James Marsden’s career moves, because I thought the whole reason that Steve died in Season 1 was because Marsden’s schedule was too busy for him to do this and all the other things he’s doing. So color me flabbergasted when he pops up at Jen’s front door as not Steve but Ben! That was the first genuinely shocking moment of the season.
It was even more surprising when Ben was the more flannel wearing, dorky, and nicer brother. A nice version of Steve? Yeah, I knew it was over for Jen then: she was going to fall for the dork. Ben being so likable and Jen’s possible new love interest made the entire twist ending even more heartbreaking, which I’ll get to later.
Perez And Michelle Being Exes
Dead to Me does a great job with Judy’s potential love interests. I was still mourning the lost potential romance between Judy and Nick (Brandon Scott), when the series made me root for Michelle (Natalie Morales) and Judy. Linda Cardellini might just be one of those actresses who has chemistry with everyone. It seemed like Judy was finally going to get a happy, healthy relationship after the toxic one with Steve, but then the other shoe dropped.
Michelle is Detective Perez (Diana-Maria Riva)’s ex-girlfriend that she still lives with. Perez already wasn’t a part of the team Judy fan club, so this really wasn’t going to win her any favors. Michelle kind of left Perez and Judy at the end of Season 2, so I’m not sure if this is the end of her relationship with both women, or she’ll return in Season 3 to sort out her feelings towards both women after all the chaos they caused.
Judy’s Mom Is Alive
Judy is best known for her ability to leave out important details, or just straight out lie, so it shouldn’t have been a shock when her mother was alive. It was less of a shock of her being alive, and more on how she may play a part in future seasons. Dead to Me hired the talented Katey Sagal to play Judy’s mother, which makes me think it's likely she'll be around to play a bigger part in the future. Should Season 3 come to pass and Sagal is brought back, perhaps she'll get parole and head to find Judy.
Jen Killed Steve In Rage, Not Self-Defense
Dead to Me Season 1 made sure to emphasize that Jen has some major anger issues. It was inevitable (since she wasn’t really coping or treating her anger) that it would eventually manifest into some type of destructive behavior. Steve was also not great. So combine someone with anger issues and a jerk that killed her husband and covered it up, then you’re going to get some bloody collision.
Jen told Judy that it was self-defense, but finally revealed to her that she killed Steve in anger when he said Ted was trying to run away from her. The more shocking part was that there wasn’t another twist to his death. I was waiting for something else to come out, like maybe Steve wasn’t really dead or Charlie (Sam McCarthy) really killed him, and then blocked it all out, due to it being so traumatic. More twists might come surrounding Steve’s death in Season 3, but for now, all we know is birds, and their figurines, don’t do well in the Harding residence.
Perez Lets Jen Go
Perez is slowly becoming one of my favorite characters. I’m hoping Nick and she continue to be important minor characters in the future. She’s very loose with the law though, so not a very good cop. After Jen confessed to Steve’s murder (but they couldn’t find the body), the two had a serious conversation and then Perez let Jen go home. They were going to pretend like Jen didn’t confess. However, this might be hard to ignore if Steve’s body was found.
Dead to Me Season 2 ending seemed to imply that the woman and her dog dug up Steve’s body, and that was the call Ben received during the finale. We’ll see just how nice and law breaking/bending Perez is in Season 3, when she might be under more pressure to arrest someone for Steve’s murder, especially with his mom Eileen (Frances Conroy) being around.
Ben Pulls A Hit And Run On Jen And Judy
Oh why, oh why couldn’t Ben just have been the good twin. Instead, at the end of Season 2, Ben’s drinking problem creeps back up, resulting in him following in his brother’s footsteps. He ends up missing Jen’s new stop sign, and crashes right into Judy and Jen’s car. He then takes off before he sees who he hit.
We saw that Judy clearly survived, but Jen could be hurt. This was an interesting twist to close out Dead to Me Season 2 because it took Ben from an innocent party to one of the many criminal and flawed characters. It’s also interesting where this development goes: does Ben become the next on the Judy and Jen kill list? Does this make Ben and Jen equals now? It’s also very fitting that this event took the series full circle. It started with someone with James Marsden’s face committing a hit and run, and it ended Season 2 the same way.
Charlie Finding Judy’s Letter
We saw Charlie discover the letter to Judy in the final episode of the season. Everything we know about Charlie most likely means that he won’t resist temptation. He’ll open Judy’s letter and know everything. Charlie isn’t the type of character that should learn anything important, because who knows how he’ll process it, and what kind of destructive behavior might develop. Hopefully before Charlie gets a chance to open and read it, something (like a call from Judy about Jen) will make him drop it and rush out. Otherwise, they all might be screwed with Charlie having any knowledge of Steve and Ted’s deaths.
Dead to Me Season 2 hit all the right notes. It was fun, surprising, and the right blend of comedic and heartbreaking. We can’t wait for season 3. The entire first two seasons are currently available on Netflix. Stream it here.
