Dead to Me would be great if it didn't undermine its interesting characters

Entertainment Weekly

The relationship between Christina Applegate's Jen and Linda Cardellini's Judy is truly fascinating on their Netflix comedy about grief. "It’s still all too rare for TV to offer an honest, thoughtful representation of a relationship between two women bonding over life’s challenges and disappointments," says Kristen Baldwin. "And yet," she adds, it’s the show that truly undermines these characters. Dead to Me is far less interested in Jen and Judy’s connection than it is in the Big Secret that could destroy it. People say things like 'unless you know something I don’t' and 'you can live in the same house with someone and have no idea what they’re going through'; episodes are peppered with fake-out moments and convenient coincidences that lead Jen to the brink of discovery, only to veer away with a rush of phew-that-was-close cheer...Anyone who has ever seen a TV show can probably guess whether or not the Big Secret gets revealed — which is, of course, another reason it’s so disappointing that this is the thematic hill Dead to Me wants to die on....There’s nothing wrong with wanting a story to have high stakes, but who said grief and healing aren’t high enough?"

ALSO:

• Dead to Me may be TV's first "grief-com": It puts a darkly comedic spin on the grief process
• Dead to Me is the perfect easy-breezy Netflix binge: It gets the job done if you're looking to be entertained
• It’s fun to watch Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini skillfully handle the show’s erratic tonal range as it constantly segues from deadly serious to appreciably absurd
• Applegate and Cardellini are a perfect match with their complicated and occasionally fascinating depiction of female friendship
• Dead to Me looks great inside the space of each scene, but it feels underbaked when you consider the first season as a whole
• There is a winning comedy along the lines of The Golden Girls and a poignant coming-of-middle-age story like Better Things hidden in Dead to Me
• Applegate shines in her career-best role: "You can feel Applegate’s intensity as she stacks Jen’s pieces up high and higher, building a precarious person and sending her swaying"
• Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini discuss their unlikely friendship
• Why Applegate returned to TV after seven years for a "traumedy": "What was interesting in shooting this and living in the shoes of this character is how much I already knew and understood and had lived through. So, going to those dark places was actually easy for me. Almost too easy."