‘Dead To Me’ season three praised in first reviews: “A potent goodbye”

Dead To Me’s third and final season has been mostly praised by critics, who have described it as a “potent goodbye”.

Created by Liz Feldman (2 Broke Girls), Dead To Me is a dark comedy series about the friendship between Jen (Christina Applegate) and Judy (Linda Cardellini) after they are brought together by grief.

Other cast members in the series include James Marsden, Max Jenkins, Sam McCarthy, Diana-Maria Riva, Brandon Scott and Valerie Mahaffey.

The final season was released on Netflix on Thursday (November 17), with reviews praising the dynamic between Applegate and Cardellini in the final bow.

A positive review on AVClub reads: “Dead to Me maximises Applegate and Cardellini’s sublime talent and chemistry to deliver a potent goodbye that’s jarringly overdramatic. (At times the show edges towards we’re-going-to-cry This Is Us territory.) Yet the eps still hit hard because of how committed both actors are to these roles.”

The review adds: “The mystery of the show remains cyclical, but Dead To Me is still binge-worthy and engrossingly funny to the bittersweet end.”

Collider awarded the third season a ‘B’ rating, writing: “There are so many gasp-worthy plot twists, developments, and revelations that cannot be mentioned (seriously so many) that drive the story to its finish line. This definitely keeps the final season from being at all predictable, though the flood of new information could also perhaps be too much for the audience to take in and digest in such a limited amount of time.”

Despite issues around the amount of twists, they described the show’s callbacks to previous seasons as “reminding us why we fell so deeply in love with Jen and Judy in the first place”.

A positive review on MovieWeb describes the final season as overcoming some “slow pacing” to deliver a satisfying conclusion. “The show’s final season took a while to make it to Netflix and small screens across the world, but it remains victorious,” it reads.

In a ‘C-’ review however, IndieWire was more critical of the show’s “convoluted” plot lines. “New conflicts, characters, and solutions are more convoluted than ever – but if you’ve made it this far you not only expect, but relish that, though the payoff might fall short.”

After Dead To Me was renewed for a final season in July 2020, filming on the third season was delayed by the pandemic and Applegate’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2021.

On Twitter at the time, Applegate wrote: “It’s been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people that I know who also have this condition. It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some asshole blocks it.

“As one of my friends that has MS said, ‘We wake up and take the indicated action.’ And that’s what I do. So now I ask for privacy. As I go through this thing. Thank you xo.”

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