Brake alert: This interview contains spoilers from the third season of “Dead to Me,” which is now streaming on Netflix.
Writer and executive producer Liz Feldman decided how to end Dead to Me while filming season two in 2020 — but she still felt some pressure when it came time to wrap up such a personal show.
“I felt a little nervous about the idea of the story I chose to tell, even though it’s based on a deeply real, existential character inspired by several, but mostly a friend of mine who died of cancer at 38,” Feldman says. diverse. “I wanted it to be satisfying, but I also wanted it to be a true expression of what it’s like to go through grief and loss.”
In the final season, Jodi (Linda Cardellini) learns she has cancer. While undergoing chemotherapy, she admitted that she was unable to conceive children. Meanwhile, Jane (Christina Applegate), who stays by her side throughout her treatment, becomes pregnant with Ben’s (James Marsden) child. After Jodi selflessly confesses to Steve’s murder — which Jane committed at the end of Season 1 — the best friends head to Steve’s seaside home in Mexico.
Eventually, Judy convinces Jane to be honest with Ben about the baby and everything that’s going on; She is dying with the positivity and optimism she always had. The series ends with Jane, Ben, and her kids in the backyard and she tells him she needs to tell him something. Then the screen turns black.
Courtesy of NETFLIX
“I wanted the ending to still look a lot like the show. I didn’t want to put a period too good on anything. This show always ends with an ellipsis. I didn’t want to get carried away with that,” says Feldman. My experience with grief is that you don’t know what’s going on. That’s why it’s so long-lasting, why grief is so hard to deal with. Because you don’t know, you don’t have the answers. You don’t know where to put your feelings, you just have to feel them. I wanted people to feel their feelings, but also give them a little sense of joy.”
So did Jane tell Ben about Steph – and did he forgive her? “I think it’s there for you and the audience to explore for themselves. If I wanted to explore that, I would,” she says. “These women were imperfect and wonderful, they were flawed and they made mistakes and did some things. I didn’t want to cover it up.”
As the series wrapped, the cast struggled with not only saying goodbye to each other (we’ll get to that later) but also the characters.
“I think there’s something about grief that whenever anyone close to me goes away and that person is larger than life, it kind of leaves an indelible mark in your life that you can’t quite explain to someone… I feel the essence of Jodi is like that,” Cardellini says. How will Jane explain who this person was? How would she try to tell someone how that person in her life was feeling? She is a messed up stranger who went through these crazy events with her. I feel this is what the loss is. Anytime I lost someone, it was like, How do I explain who this person is to my child, who I haven’t had a chance to meet with that person? How will they understand what this person means to me? With Judy gone, I think it leaves that feeling of sadness, like you’ll never have it again, you’ll never be able to explain it again, but life is still growing and progressing from that point on. ”
Courtesy of NETFLIX
Judy’s death at the end was an important part of Feldman’s story, and her “goal” for the season was to give everyone closure and, in some way, connect everything. “Looking back at what Jodi went through, particularly at the beginning of the show, and even before the first season — her whole history with fertility and infertility, which is very much reflective of my life — I felt like, wow, what a way to bring everything kind of full circle. The thing applies. himself on Judy’s story and what it was able to do for Jane in terms of healing from the loss of her mother.”
At first, the idea of Jane becoming pregnant seemed a “crazy” idea to Feldman. But the more I thought about it and other writers talked about it, the more it all came together.
“Being the representative of style that I am when I found out about pregnancy, I immediately made sure I gained 40 pounds. Mind you, that’s pretty obliging,” Applegate jokes. “No, it wasn’t hard. I mean, I was pregnant. My body wasn’t great while shooting, so it worked.”
Applegate was also diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during filming and several days on set were emotional. Feldman purposely waited until the end of filming to shoot Jen and Judy’s last scene together—the farewell scene in bed.
“I almost couldn’t do it. I was about to throw up. I couldn’t even loosen it up,” says Applegate. “If I had really shown what I was really feeling on the inside, we wouldn’t have gotten into any dialogue.”
In fact, there were some shots where they “couldn’t get the dialogue out,” says Cardellini. While crying was written into the script, they had to do the scene a few different takes.
“I knew it was going to be really hard to make it happen, but I also wanted it to feel as weighty and authentic as possible — other than just Jane and Judy saying goodbye, Christina and Linda were saying goodbye, I was saying goodbye and I was saying goodbye,” Feldman recalls. “When we shot that scene, I stood up.” There with Kelly Hutchinson, who is my best friend, writer on the show and one of the inspirations for this relationship, and we just stood arm in arms screaming. Then I realized everyone was crying — the crew, our producers. I think we actually had to adjust some of the voice because it wasn’t just coming from the two women on camera. It was really beautiful.”
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