Category: Directed by Geeta V. Patel

Dead to Me (2019) s01e10 – You Have To Go

This season finale is a trip.

And not in a good way.

Though I guess Geeta Patel directing probably saves it from being any worse, no matter how insipid writers Liz Feldman and Abe Sylvia’s plot points get. Like when forty-one year-old Linda Cardellini, who’s all spiritual and worked in a retirement communities for however long, but has never heard the Jewish take on the afterlife.

Or when Christina Applegate discovers teenage son Sam McCarthy has taken grandma Valerie Mahaffey’s pills to sell again at school and ends up apologizing for being such a bad mom he had to steal guns and sell drugs. “Dead to Me”’s interesting in how it never manages to be cringe because you’re too busy rolling your eyes. Can’t wait for the season where McCarthy pulls a Brock Turner and Applegate says he can’t be responsible because affluenza.

There’s some more Diana Maria Riva being the terrible uncaring detective—seriously, of anyone on the show, Riva should fire her agent.

There’s also Max Jenkins getting his wish and influencing Applegate’s younger son, Luke Roessler, to get baptized. It opens with Jenkins sitting next to Applegate like he didn’t destroy her career two episodes ago. Do the writers not even watch the show? I mean, I get it. I’m only writing about it in three hundred word bursts and it’s exhaustingly insipid. I can’t imagine working on it, day after day, and it never getting any better.

There’s a blah argument between Applegate and Cardellini, which comes after we’re supposed to hate all the prospective buyers for a property because they don’t want a gross sandwich roll from Applegate, but pretty soon Cardellini’s just off trying to drink herself to death while James Marsden shows up at Applegate’s.

They have some real talk and he tries to hashtag feminism at her, then dramatic season finale cliffhanger.

Interestingly, the show tries to bookend a little with Suzy Nakamura (from the first episode and scene I think) getting to come back and hang out with Applegate. Nakamura’s not cool, however, and she’s a gun-freak so very uncool.

Until Applegate wants to learn how to shoot.

So I guess they have a shooting lesson in the backyard of Applegate’s house? No one calls the cops in L.A. for shootings? In White neighborhoods? Unclear.

It’d be a lot to hope the show’s creators had seen The Crossing Guard—during Cardellini’s big dramatic, predictable scene I thought about how it could be done well… then remembered it had been done well with that film. However, you’d think the creators would’ve at least seen Sunset Blvd. but apparently not.

Actually, no, I can believe they’d haven’t seen Sunset Blvd.

Anyway. I’m sure all problems they never worked out this season will magically resolve next season.

Not.

But maybe they’ll get better writers and directors?

Dead to Me (2019) s01e09 – I Have to Be Honest

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.