Season 2 of “Dead to Me” Is Flirting With You Via Natalie Morales

Warning: Medium-to-large spoilers for Dead to Me seasons one and two comin’ at ya.


“You like her.” “I do.”

Five small words. On paper, nothing special. But in the context of the second season of Dead to Me? Game-changing.

But let me back up a little. I watched the first season of Dead to Me two days before the release of the second season. I was just looking for something to put on while I worked, and Netflix had bumped it up to the top of my home screen because of the upcoming new episodes. For reasons I do not understand, no one I knew had ever tried to talk to me about the show. I did my traditional quick search on Autostraddle and nothing turned up, so I knew it wasn’t going to be gay. And since the episodes were 30 minutes long and the snippet Netflix showed me when I rolled over the title page was Christina Applegate hilariously shutting down an over-eager neighbor with dry humor, I assumed it was a sitcom of sorts.

Basically, what I’m saying is, no one prepared me for what this show was about. No one prepared me for how hilarious it was while also being deeply tragic. No one prepared me for how invested I would be in the extremely fucked up relationship between two women whose lives couldn’t be more different than mine. No one prepared me for the intricate and stunning storytelling that would unfold as puzzle pieces of a mystery started to fall into place, all while Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini made me laugh and cry and gasp and laugh some more.

judy and jen smile

A moment of peace in this chaotic world.

I finished the first season in one day. I couldn’t stop watching. These two women, Jen and Judy, were so engaging and interesting and so deeply messed up. They are open with each other in a way they aren’t with anyone else in their lives. They stay up late talking to each other; Judy eventually moves in and becomes something of a second mom to Jen’s kids. Their chemistry was off the charts, and even though I knew they weren’t going to end up together, I couldn’t help but wonder. Even Jen’s son clocked it; he would joke about them “breaking up” whenever Judy wasn’t around for a few days. But what else was he supposed to think? The majority of his experience with his mother before was a quick-to-anger, all-business woman who had been cold in the months before his father died, and all but shut down after. And here she was opening her home to a stranger, being affectionate and gentle in a way that he couldn’t quite wrap his head around. And besides, the show is created by lesbian comedian and writer Liz Feldman; surely it’s GOTTA get gay at some point.

But Jen and Judy aren’t why I’m finally able to write about this show on Autostraddle. No, their relationship is more complicated than that, and isn’t sexual at all. Again, I will reiterate that nothing about their friendship is HEALTHY. Their entire friendship was built on layer after layer of lies, and they absolutely at no point should have been in each other’s lives. In fact, it’s only through trauma bonding they still are. Judy even picked up the same bad habits she had with her abusive ex-husband and just transferred them to Jen. (In season one, Judy and Steve had this back-and-forth pattern where Steve would say something awful, Judy would scold him, he would say “Sorry” and she would respond “It’s okay” like a reflex. The same thing starts to happen with Jen eventually.) These manipulative and unhealthy relationships in equal parts mirror and are an attempt to make up for the fucked up relationship with her mother. It’s bad, bad, bad, but just because it’s fucked up and not something I’d want in real life doesn’t mean it isn’t extremely magnetic and fun to watch.

Also fun to watch? Natalie Morales. A queer actress you know and love, maybe from Parks and Rec, maybe from last summer’s bisexual pop of a sitcom, Abby’s. But I’ve never seen her quite like this.

judy and michelle flirt

I also had an old car that had a couch-like front seat. No one ever looked at me like this while we were in it.

She floats in like cool silk on a hot day and even though she’s looking at Linda Cardellini the whole time you somehow feel like also she’s looking at you? I’ve never seen anyone flirt like this. It’s absolutely electric. There’s one part where she’s leaning on a doorframe and I have never wanted to be a doorframe but here I was, wishing I could be a doorframe.

Natalie Morales rests on a doorframe

O, to be a doorframe, lest you rest upon me.

I also, for a while, couldn’t tell how it was going to go. I could tell Natalie Morales’s character, Michelle, was into Judy. I could tell Judy liked the attention Michelle was giving her. But I didn’t know how it was all going to shake out. Was Michelle going to make a move and scare Judy away? Was Judy going to make a big thing about her newfound feeling for another woman and it was going to be awkward and terrible? Was Judy going to try to lean into this despite not really being into it just because she likes being liked and it was all going to go down in flames? Was Jen going to flip out and try to talk Judy out of her feelings? I’ve been burned so many times that I found myself waiting to find out not whether or not it would be a good storyline, but how the storyline was going to hurt me. But then none of those fears came true. Instead Michelle and Judy flirted and flirted and got closer and closer until Jen saw the two of them interacting and turned to Judy and said, more than asked:

“You like her.”

And Judy answered with hearts in her eyes and no hesitation in her voice, like letting out a breath she’d been holding, “I do.”

It’s not the first time we, the audience, know there’s something more. There’s a point when Michelle is asking Judy about Jen while also trying to figure out if Judy is into women the way we all have had to play Nancy Drew in our lives. She asked if Judy was…not finishing the sentence. Not having to. And Judy answered, “Not with HER.” Simple. Perfect.

But this was the first time Jen learned. And Jen just smiled at Judy and said they were good together. Judy smiled and says she feels like the most herself when she’s with Michelle. And that’s the extent to which they talk about the fact that Jen had previously only known Judy to date men, and now she’s dating a woman. Two grown-ass suburban rich ladies just rolling with the queerness. It’s possible, and it’s beautiful.

Of course, because this is nothing if not a roller coaster of a show (my friend Megan described it as “fun stress”) there are plenty of other complications in their relationship, but the queer aspect of it is never the hurdle. And have I mentioned how perfect Natalie Morales is? (Also when we meet Michelle she’s living with her ex, which is such a relatable gay experience it’s not even funny. While also being hilarious.) And Natalie and Linda have a heat usually reserved for teenagers. In fact, they even stole a page from Emily Fields and Maya St. Germain’s book.

judy and michelle kiss in a photobooth

PHOTOBOOTH KISS. WE LOVE TO SEE IT.

It’s also, so far, Judy’s healthiest relationship. It’s one of the first choices we see Judy make purely for herself. Almost everything else we’ve seen her do so far was for someone else; to appease Steve, to help Jen, etc. But in that photobooth, when she leans in and kisses Michelle for the first time, that’s just for her. Because Michelle doesn’t demand anything of her, she doesn’t owe Michelle anything. Judy just wants Michelle, and Michelle wants her back, and in that moment, it’s the purest, happiest, least complicated thing in Judy’s life.

I love that this show, while being about Jen and Judy’s ex husbands in a…very specific way, is actually about their relationship with each other. In all its complicated glory. These are two women who make a lot of bad choices and continue to hurt each other and other people and yet, you can’t help but root for them. You just want them to be happy, despite all of the terrible things they’ve done. It’s a perfect show about imperfect people, and while I don’t recommend emulating any part of your life on anything that happens on this show (unless you can get Natalie Morales to flirt with you), I do highly, highly recommend watching it.

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Valerie Anne

Just a TV-loving, Twitter-addicted nerd who loves reading, watching, and writing about stories. One part Kara Danvers, two parts Waverly Earp, a dash of Cosima and an extra helping of my own brand of weirdo.

Valerie has written 608 articles for us.

16 Comments

  1. Fun stress is the perfect way to describe this show! I went in knowing nothing about it as well and it was amazing.

  2. THANK YOU! How is it that no one else is talking about this show?? It’s so brilliant and queer. I need to watch season 2 again now that I know they are not queerbaiting us. I was so worried it was going to a Jane Austen style lingering glances and that’s it. But nope! Sexy time was had and it was amazing.

  3. “She floats in like cool silk on a hot day and even though she’s looking at Linda Cardellini the whole time you somehow feel like also she’s looking at you? I’ve never seen anyone flirt like this. It’s absolutely electric. There’s one part where she’s leaning on a doorframe an`d I have never wanted to be a doorframe but here I was, wishing I could be a doorframe.”

    GREAT WRITING VALERIE ANNE

    i love natalie morales in this role SO. MUCH!

  4. I thought this season tried to do a little too much in a short time, which I found mostly good. I really can’t wait to see where they take season 3. Also, am I the only one who hates these story lines of lgbtq women who happen to be cops?

  5. This show is WILD! Its both funny and super creepy and those things make each other stronger somehow! Fun stress for sure!
    When so much of the show is this big shocking twists they have to figure out, it was really awesome that the gay story wasn’t one of them

  6. My gay brother (I’m a lesbian) clued me and our mom into this show and I binged my way right through both seasons and the queer storyline was such a delightful addition to this twisty show. Thanks for writing about it.

  7. I was hoping to see a write-up of the show here! I love this relationship for them. The flirting really is out of this world.

  8. Yay! Thank you for writing about this show! The SECOND Natalie Morales ambled onto the screen I was immediately like “Are these cowards finally making it gay??” And then they DID! I have such a crush on both her and Linda Cardellini. The chemistry between their characters is insane. I hope we get to see more of them in S3.

    My only criticism of this show: too much James Marsden. Especially in S2 when there was *literally* no good reason to bring him back!!

  9. As soon as I saw Natalie Morales in a muscle t, my expectations for season 2 went through the roof, and I loved season 1, despite its lack of gay (unless you count the ode to Facts of Life). Totally agree with the flirting – Morales is fire in this role.

  10. I dove right into this recap without looking at who wrote it until I stumbled on the sentence “There’s one part where she’s leaning on a doorframe and I have never wanted to be a doorframe but here I was, wishing I could be a doorframe” and my brain went: “That sounds like Valerie Anne”. Right you were, brain, right you were. And what an excellent recap about the different show-driving female dynamics it was.

    • This makes me happier than I could possibly explain, that you recognized me this way. YOU HAVE MADE MY DAY.

  11. This was exactly how I felt watching it, I was initially expecting Michelle to hit on Judy and there be some kind of horrible awkwardness and I was SO relieved when I realised that nobody’s sexuality was going to be an issue. Which really says a lot about how much uncomfortable queer represention still exists.

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