I’m curious about “Dead to Me”’s writers’ room. Did they talk about how Sam McCarthy stole a handgun, brought it to school, sold drugs, yet is totally back to petulant White teenager with no consequences this episode or did they just think… well, petulant White teenager, of course there aren’t consequences. Because when McCarthy decides this episode it’s time for he (and apparently Luke Roessler) to go live with grandma Valerie Mahaffey (who is phenomenal this episode) and there’s no talk about how he got a gun at Mahaffey’s and took it to school.
“Dead to Me” is so White it doesn’t even realize when it’s being White. Though we finally get to the big reveal scene for Linda Cardellini and Christina Applegate and… wow, people on this show are dumb. We have also found out at the point of the reveal a number of new things—like Cardellini and James Marsden have been committing felonies together for years and—after Brandon Scott questions Marsden—it’s every person for themself and so Cardellini sells Marsden out to cop Diana Maria Riva, who has two more scenes of being the disinterested Latinx person who’s missed spotting numerous felonies occurring in front of her.
We also find out Scott’s off the force because he’s on psychiatric leave. And Applegate’s never seen Jurassic Park. And the reason dead husband Ted started cheating on her was because he was disgusted by her post-mastectomy body. And the reason he was out walking the night he got hit was because she threw him out. And he tried called Mahaffey, who didn’t pick up, so she feels guilty.
Oh, and Applegate’s been lying the whole show about not knowing the combination to the gun safe.
What else….
Marsden’s hot for Applegate’s bod.
Oh, and Applegate was Mahaffey’s protege and screwed her over. “Dead to Me”’s got one heck of a story hook but all it’s got is that hook. It’s like if you made the MacGuffin into the the whole thing.
Nice Ed Asner scene, actually pretty good direction (from Geeta Patel), but then the big band music is back. The big band music fits when Applegate’s doing her dance class at the beginning. Not so much the rest of the time.
It’s not so much the characters don’t have self-awareness (they don’t but whatever, they’re just not actualized), it’s they don’t even have autonomic self-preservation skills. They need timers to remind them to keep breathing their behaviors are so breathtakingly stupid.
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