Warning: This post contains spoilers forDead to Me’s final season.
Jen is pregnant with Ben’s baby.
Ben is working through the grief of losing his brother.
Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini in ‘Dead to Me’ season 3.Saeed Adyani/Netflix
Oh, and Judy receives aterminal cancer diagnosis.
It’s alot.But Feldman is intentional with her storylines.
Well, admittedly, she did not initially plan for that surprise pregnancy.
Linda Cardellini on season 3 of ‘Dead to Me’.Saeed Adyani / Netflix
“At first I was like, ‘No, that’s crazy.
That’s so crazy.’
‘Oh, that’s so cruel to do that to Judy,'” she tells EW.
Christina Applegate and James Marsden in ‘Dead to Me’ season 3.Saeed Adyani / Netflix
That was just a few years ago.
I wanted to honor her and her spirit by infusing some of that into Judy.
But I do want to assure everyone that I love her just as much.
James Marsden and some creepy dolls in ‘Dead to Me’ season 3.Saeed Adyani / Netflix
So, it was really hard to write.
Once I came up with the idea, I ran it by my trusted writers.
I ran it by Linda.
What was the intention behind making it ambiguous?
She’s going to be okay?"
Because that’s what happens when these diagnoses hit the people we love.
And you don’t really know what happened.
And we don’t really know where people go when they’re gone.
You don’t see her pass away.
You don’t see where she goes.
You don’t see how she goes there.
Our brilliant writer Jessi Klein said, “What if Jen gets pregnant?”
And at first I was like, “No, that’s crazy.
That’s so crazy.”
I was like, “Oh, that’s so cruel to do that to Judy.”
In season 1, Jen has a double mastectomy storyline inspired directly by Christina’s own experiences.
The entire season was written in 2020 and we were about halfway through shooting when Christina received her diagnosis.
And we shoot completely out of order.
It leaves the door open for more of this world.
Would you revisit this world and these characters in the future?
I mean, listen, like I said, everything you see and you don’t see is deliberate.
So I will never say never, but I do feel like this story came to a close.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Dead to Meseason 3 is streaming on Netflix.
