S03.E10: We've Reached The End

[BlueSkies]

13 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I finally finished this up.  I thought it was good, though I wondered about how Judy would go down and how her body would be found. 
 

I liked how their friendship developed.  I’ve had some awesome friendships that ended, but that’s how life works out.  Circumstances change and people change over time.  Not every friendship is destined to last indefinitely, imo.  And, sometimes it difficult to say goodbye to friends.  I think that’s why they may not formally end things.  That’s JMO.  I’ve had to walk away before and there wasn’t a good way to explain why.  
 

My favorite part was when Judy and Jen were riding down the highway, (I presume Federal HW 1) in the sunshine with the windows down and listening to awesome music on the radio!  It’s on my bucket list for sure!  Even though it’s not Ventura Hw, I still envision this song 

Same here with a friend from high school.  I never had the conversation with him but we lead very different lives now.  What we had in common back then that made us close changed over time kind of thing.  Though sometimes I think of stuff I learned from him good and bad.

I'd like to think what Judy told Jen about being honest about everything eventually would have lead her to tell Ben and the kids full disclosure about everything.  

Edited December 11, 2022 by BlueSkies

[Bastet]

6 minutes ago, BlueSkies said:

I'd like to think what Judy told Jen about being honest about everything eventually would have lead her to tell Ted and the kids full disclosure about everything.

(Ben, not Ted).  I think Jen was indeed heeding Judy's advice about being honest with Ben at the end, but I don't think she would - or should - tell the kids at this age or any time in the near future.  Henry can't fully process it, and Charlie can't keep his fucking mouth shut when he has his next teenage tantrum.  Maybe someday, but I can also see her deciding they never need to know, leaving their impressions of their dad, their mom, and Judy intact.

I finished this the morning I left for my Thanksgiving trip, and while on the road I randomly thought about how bittersweet that Judy finally got a family, and a cat, and a genuine moment of love from her mom, all these things she'd wanted for so long, and that's what she went out with, but after having had so little time to enjoy it -- I started crying in traffic.  I still think about the show at random moments; it was so brash, broad, and darkly funny, but underlying it all was this incredible friendship that formed in the most outlandishly unlikely way but was so believably genuine.  They didn't have enough time together, but they permanently changed each other for the better. 

[Paloma]

On 11/21/2022 at 6:38 PM, SoMuchTV said:

And I’m going to ignore that big dust-producing elephant in the room that others have covered, and just ask, what’s up with the cat? Surely it wouldn’t have survived in that house for however many months without being able to get out and snack on beach mice or whatever, or someone coming in to take care of it. I’m going to tell myself it knew very well how to get in and out, and was just guilting the new humans with the pawing at the door. 

As a big animal lover, I am always distracted from the people part of the plot of a TV show or movie when I see a dog or cat that appears to have been abandoned or in distress. We just got back from Israel, where there are street cats all over the place, and I spent almost as much time interacting with them and worrying about them as I did visiting my daughter and granddaughter (the reason for the trip). 

Anyway, I like to think that the cat in Mexico somehow embodied Judy's spirit (remember that she had spent happy times there with Steve) and/or that it was Judy's reincarnation in the final scene when the cat was trying to get Jen's attention by pawing at the guest house by the pool (the place where Judy spent so much time). A silly but somewhat comforting theory.

[SoMuchTV]

Box of Rain came up in my shuffled playlist, and now I’m seeing Judy as Lindsay, dancing in her room after discovering the Grateful Dead.

RIP Judy.

And if you haven’t seen Freaks and Geeks lately, do that!

[Chai]

This last episode was the first time we saw them actually using the pool! It was a wonderful family scene!

[Bastet]

On 11/20/2022 at 3:43 PM, chaifan said:

Speaking of police...  when we left off last season, there was some bizarre sub-plot about Perez's boss being a dirty cop.  Did I miss something, or was that completely dropped this season?  (It served no purpose in Season 2.)

Since I just re-watched season two:  The point of him - beyond being a racist, misogynist thorn in Nick and Perez's sides and the humor of watching them react to him - was that he was Steve's godfather, the ultimate example of how the Wood family had extensive ties with local PD, which was why Judy understood back when Jen was lying about killing Steve being pure self defense why Jen wouldn't just tell the cops what happened -- if that had been true, she'd still have been screwed given the Woods' power. 

When Charlie finally gave Judy Steve's stuff he'd taken from the car, she had the evidence to definitively tie Steve to the Greek mafia.  The crooked cop was a liaison in all that, and Steve had him on tape (as insurance).  She took it to Nick, and told him to listen where his boss couldn't hear himself.

When Perez and Jen are heading back from the woods (where Jen tried to cap off her confession by showing Perez the burial site but couldn't find it), as reception returns to their cell phones, Perez sees the text from Nick that they got the chief.  Knowing they could nail his ass and get him out of their hair was the final push for her to tell Jen to go home and forget any of this ever happened.

The chief got fired and was off to federal prison.  So his story was resolved in the season two finale, and there was no need to mention him this season.

[tvfanatic13]

Late to posting. To me this was a true friend love story. It was so poignant and beautiful and everything I want in a bff. I hope Jen didn’t tell Ben the truth. I like their little world. Kudos to Christina Applegate for her heroic efforts to get this season finished up. My heart breaks for her. She and Linda both deserve all the awards that they will undoubtedly be nominated for. 

[Chai]

Netflix.com/tudum/articles/dead-to-me-series-finale-ending-explainedhttp://Netflix.com/tudum/articles/dead-to-me-series-finale-ending-explained

[Bastet]

I just posted a couple of interviews, one with Linda Cardellini and one with Liz Feldman, in the Media thread, both of which contain nice bits of behind-the-scenes information.  Including that the last thing they shot for the series was that final scene between Jen and Judy in this episode, when they're in bed saying goodbye without saying it.  Nobody could get through it in the table read without breaking down, so they knew that had to be the last thing they did, as no one would be able to regroup and go shoot something else. 

[30 Helens]

I rewatched the first two seasons before watching the third, and seeing the entire show in a continuum was really satisfying. Yes, the plot twists could be a bit much at times, but all the contrivances and coincidences never bothered me because in the end, it was all window dressing for a really beautiful story about the unbreakable bond between two women. I loved both characters, and will have a hard time letting them go. 

I never liked Married With Children, but I have loved everything else Christina Applegate has been in. I am a big fan, and I’m really sad to know that this is likely the last filmed performance she will ever give. But I hope she feels proud of what she accomplished here, because it was magnificent.

I believe that Jen was about to confess the truth to Ben, because that’s what Judy wanted. She would not only want to honor Judy’s wishes, she would want to live up to her expectations. WWJD— this is going to be a guiding force in Jen’s life from now on. I didn’t think the ending was a cliffhanger. I think we had already been given all the information we needed to know what happens next, including how Ben will respond.

[Bastet]

The finale had almost as much impact on me the second time around.  Between this and Grace & Frankie, 2022 let me see two wonderful odes to best female friends as life partners (no matter how icky the word, it's what they are) go out with series finales befitting all that came before, such beautiful love letters to the characters and their relationship.

I love that it opens full-on Thelma & Louise, shifts to Beaches (complete with "The Glory of Love"), but is always very much its own thing.  Their final "permanent vacation" conversation was perfect (especially Jen having her usual "eww" reaction when Judy says she filled the hole in her heart, but then saying Judy changed her life) and I like that Judy left her the bracelet along with the note.  That's pretty much the one thing of Judy's Jen didn't burn back when Judy confessed, and they had that cute moment where Jen says maybe she left it behind so they'd have to talk and Judy asks "Did it work?"  It's quintessentially Judy, so I like that it transfers to Jen -- and, especially, that Jen wears it on the drive home, but doesn't have it on in the flash forward; it's not her style, so she's not going to wear it regularly, but you know every time she opens the drawer it's in, a teary smile happens.  And she may give it to Joey someday.

There was so much sweet stuff in their final weeks together, especially that Jen - who, before she knew Judy was terminal, protested she couldn't just leave on an impromptu vacation - suggests relocating her entire family to Mexico and learning to sell real estate there just to spend the rest of Judy's life with her.  And, of course, that Judy won't let her.  LOL at Judy following up the reasoning of not wanting any of them to suffer through that with telling Jen she has to go back, she doesn't want to miss Henry's concert, and Jen saying, "Yes, I do - desperately.  Have you seen that kid dance?"  This show always knows when to give us a laugh.

I love their outlaw names, them dancing at the restaurant, one last "Sorry/It's okay" with this time Judy being the one apologizing, them being so excited the fetus is a girl, and The Facts of Life being funnier in Spanish.  I love Judy running over to grab Jen a golf club when they discover the car (so she could bash the shit out of it like she did that car she thought was the instrument of Ted's death back in season one, when she was on such a desperate quest) and Jen saying she can't hate the car as it brought Judy to her.  (I love it so much I refuse to even calculate whether Steve would have had time to restore it even if he had, contrary to everything he'd ever said, decided it was more important for Judy to retain the car she loved so much than to destroy the one piece of evidence that could ruin them.) 

Most of all I love them saying they've had the best time together.  <SOB>  And Judy going out the way she wants, while acquiescing to Jen's request she leave a note.  Jen finding the footprints and boat drag marks is such a great visual representation of how we most frequently experience death -- we're not there in the end, the person is just suddenly gone. 

Jen naming the cat Sammy is a call back to the conversation they had while tripping on mushrooms; Jen was petting Judy's hair, said it felt like a cat, and Judy shared her childhood cat story (she briefly had one, and was deciding between two names [one of which was Sammy] when her mom left the door open and the cat never returned, so, in Judy's woo-woo world, the cat was never hers).  Contrast with this cat, who kept coming back.  That was a sweet enough reference, but the name really touches me.   Okay, probably Judy had already been calling the cat that, or referenced it in her note, but I like imagining trippin' balls Jen unthinkingly registered their conversation, and when it came time to bring the cat home with her (despite her previously being anti-cat), she remembered and picked the name she hated least from that story.

Jen making it to Henry's concert just in time and finding all of Judy's cranes overhead was so powerful (I love her reaching up to touch one of them), that in that way it was like Judy said, wherever she is, she'll still be with Jen and the kids, and I like that one last moment of Lorna being Lorna was there to provide a little break in the grief.  Again, this show knows timing.

"Grief is just love with nowhere to go" made me sob the first time, and it got to me again.  I'm glad we got a final scene at the grief group.  Jen was angry at herself - which she turned outward onto everyone and everything in the world - for how she mishandled her mom's terminal illness and death, and this time she set aside her terror to do right by Judy.  It's a great moment in the grief continuum that is life.

Liz Feldman said she cut the final scene when she did so viewers could decide on their own what Jen says.  So maybe she - prompted by the deja vu and seeing Sammy pawing to be let into Judy's old guest house - takes Judy's advice and tells Ben, or maybe it's another of the numerous times in this series someone says "I have to tell you something" and then tells something much smaller than their big secret.  I have no doubt she'll tell him at some point, so it doesn't matter to me when she does it.

On 11/25/2022 at 6:57 PM, Baltimore Betty said:

Also, are we supposed to believe that Judy rowed herself off to the horizon in some sort of Viking funeral or did she take the whole bottle of pain meds to sail off into the sunset and die?

Adding to the reasons I listed before for assuming it's the latter: I noticed on re-watch the pill bottle and water glass from the night before are missing when Jen wakes up and finds the note and bracelet. 

Edited January 10, 2023 by Bastet

[tennisgurl]

Very late to post, but I thought this was a great finale for the show. Very sad but also happy, which was I think one of the themes of the show. Bad things happen, good things happen, people do bad things and good things, that's the beauty of life. Linda Cardellini and Christina Applegate were amazing and their chemistry really held this show together. 

[Chai]

I just noticed on rewatching that Rebecca Asher directed this. She’s the daughter of Elizabeth Montgomery and William Asher. 
 

ETA: we just watched an episode of Bewitched where EM was pregnant with Rebecca. Finding out she directed my favorite show Dead To Me - I said Wow!

Edited January 17, 2023 by Chai

[TV Anonymous]

How did Jen import that cat into the United States without any paperwork?

[stewedsquash]

I am on the episode before this one so I am not peeking but I wanted to comment in the final episode while I am thinking it.

Perez and Prager need a show of their own together. Those two actors together in scenes have lightning in a bottle in acting with each other. Impeccable performances by both of them.

[stewedsquash]

Finished last night and it’s good that this show is over. This season was pretty much filler with some funny parts. Perez and Prager for the win. 
 

Mad props to Applegate for being a champ!

[Baltimore Betty]

7 minutes ago, stewedsquash said:

Finished last night and it’s good that this show is over. This season was pretty much filler with some funny parts. Perez and Prager for the win. 
 

Mad props to Applegate for being a champ!

Maybe a spin off, "Perez and Prager Murder Mysteries." I'd watch.

[stewedsquash]

@Baltimore Betty It could be anything and I would watch. I rewound two particular scenes several times just to catch a new perfect timing between those two: when he says she makes the face and when she tells him to sit. 
To be fair, everyone delievered on this show it was just a bit of a letdown story wise. 

Edited January 19, 2023 by stewedsquash

[Niuxita]

I kept waiting for the reveal (probably via flashback) that Jen had named her daughter Joey because Jo was Judy's favourite character on The Facts of Life. That would have been cute and less on-the-nose than naming her Judy. 

[Chai]

I liked how Charlie would surprise Jen with a question and she would suddenly have to think up an answer on the fly……”cuz”….. while looking like she knew exactly what he was talking about. Lol! All through the 3 seasons!

[Calvada]

On 1/9/2023 at 4:00 PM, Bastet said:

Jen making it to Henry's concert just in time and finding all of Judy's cranes overhead was so powerful (I love her reaching up to touch one of them), that in that way it was like Judy said, wherever she is, she'll still be with Jen and the kids, and I like that one last moment of Lorna being Lorna was there to provide a little break in the grief.  Again, this show knows timing.

For a variety of reasons I couldn't watch this final season until now.  I loved it.  And Bastet, I loved your entire post, but I'm highlighting this paragraph because that scene with all the cranes was so wonderful and I especially like that the kids were singing "Get Happy."  I love Judy Garland's version of that song, and I thought it so fitting that they used what I think of as Judy's song to encapsulate the character Judy.