In a situation that’s dripping with dramatic irony, Dead to Me has been dead to us for a very long time at this point, as Netflix’s smash-hit black comedy has been absent from our screens for a full two and a half years. Unfortunately, the acclaimed series was initially delayed due to the pandemic, along with the rest of the entertainment industry, and then again once star Christina Applegate was diagnosed with MS.
After such an uphill battle to get it made, Dead to Me season three is finally now available to stream. However, given that many of us probably haven’t seen season two since it released back in May 2020, a lot of Netflix users may be in dire need of a reminder of what the heck happened last time we checked in on Applegate’s Jen Harding and her best friend/partner-in-crime Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini).
To be fair, Netflix does precede the new batch of episodes with a brief two-minute recap video, but it doesn’t really go deep enough to bring those with very hazy memories back up to speed. After reading the following recap, however, you’ll be all ready to hit play on that final season premiere.
Everything you need to know going into Dead to Me season three
Let’s start our recap way back at the end of season one, when Jen killed Judy’s ex-husband Steve (James Marsden). The two women disposed of his body and spent the rest of the second season attempting to cover up their crime, something only complicated by the arrival of Steve’s much nicer twin brother Ben on the scene, who proceeded to embark on a romance with Jen.
By the season two finale, Jen had reached her limit and decides to tell all to tenacious detective Perez (Diana-Maria Riva), slightly rejigging the truth to paint Judy as completely innocent with no knowledge of Steve’s death — remember, she also previously lied to Judy that she killed Steve in self-defense, when actually she lashed out at him with her younger son Henry’s (Luke Roessler) wooden bird figurine. Surprisingly, Perez has sympathy for Jen and allows her to go free, electing not to report the murder.
Less fortunately, Jen — figuring she was going straight to jail — had left letters for her loved ones which basically spelled out her crimes. Her letter to Judy is discovered by her older son Charlie (Sam McCarthy), who had already been nearing the truth all season after he discovered Steve’s car in storage, and initially figured it was a present for him.
The season two finale’s big cliffhanger saw Jen and Judy seemingly back to normal, driving a new car Jen had bought Charlie for his birthday. However, when pausing at crossroads, they are plowed into by another vehicle who takes off, in a dark mirror of the hit-and-run incident that killed Jen’s husband (which we know Judy and Steve were responsible for). Jen is badly injured in the crash, with her life on the line.
What’s more, it turns out the driver who collided with them was Ben, who had gone on a drunken bender after his brother’s body was discovered in the woods by a hitchhiker. Yes, despite Perez letting Jen off the hook, the police have uncovered his corpse, anyway. Luckily, his ties to the Greek Mafia make them the chief suspects, but maybe Judy keeping the dirty money hidden in her recovered paintings from Steve’s art gallery (a front for his nefarious activities) wasn’t such a good idea, after all.
And that’s everything you missed on Dead to Me. Find out how Jen and Judy’s crazy story ends by catching the 10-part final season on Netflix.