🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

The third and final season of Dead to Me is set to wrap up the sordid, wine-soaked tale of two women brought together by grief and guilt. (Naturally, it’s a comedy.) Soon-to-be-besties Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) and Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini) first meet at a support group following the deaths of their partners. But it turns out Judy’s fiancé isn’t dead… and, in fact, she’s responsible for the death of Jen’s husband. Against all odds — and another death later — the women become roommates and best friends. Their close bond sees them through some pretty heavy stuff (and weaves a pretty tangled web of secrets), so it’s natural that you won’t remember everything that happens in the first two seasons. That’s why we made this refresher, which will pair well with an ice-cold chardonnay. Pour yourself a generous glass, and catch up with the biggest characters and events heading into Season 3. 

Dead To Me Season 2 RecapCatch up on everything that happened before season 3.

OK, so who are the people we’re talking about here?

At the center of the story are Jen, a Southern California realtor dealing with the loss of her husband, Ted, in a hit-and-run, and Judy, an oddball caretaker in an on-again, off-again relationship with the controlling sometime art dealer Steve (James Marsden). The two women meet at a grief support group led by Pastor Wayne (Keong Sim).

Jen lives with her two sons, defiant teen Charlie (Sam McCarthy) and introspective Henry (Luke Roessler). She works with real estate partner Christopher (Max Jenkins), until he decides to part ways, and she goes back to work with Lorna (Valerie Mahaffey), her mother-in-law and former boss. 

The first season centers around the mystery of Ted’s death, which is being investigated by Detective Ana Perez (Diana Maria Riva) and, privately, by former cop and brief Judy love interest Nick (Brandon Scott). 

The second season focuses on the aftermath of Steve’s death and introduces Steve’s kinder and much shyer twin brother, Ben Wood (Marsden), and the brothers’ mom, Eileen (Frances Conroy). While Jen begins a relationship with Ben, sparks fly between Judy and Michelle (Natalie Morales), the daughter of one of Judy’s patients. Michelle is also the ex-girlfriend of none other than Detective Perez, the woman who suspects Judy of murder. We’re also introduced to Judy’s mother, Eleanor (Katey Sagal).

How do Jen and Judy end up living together? 

Despite their very different demeanors — Jen is a tightly wound alpha, Judy is a free spirit — the women immediately discover that they have much in common. To start, they both feel desperately alone in their grief. Jen is mourning the loss of her husband, and Judy is coming to terms with a series of past miscarriages and the ravages of her ex Steve’s emotional manipulations. It’s a classic case of opposites attracting. 

Of course, their friendship is not without its complications. For starters, Judy is the driver who hit Jen’s husband. The secret burrows deep into her soul before she eventually confesses the truth. Jen kicks Judy out, but they’re brought back together when Jen accidentally kills Steve in the Season 1 finale. Judy moves back in, and the duo spend Season 2 processing their respective traumas as they discover how much they’ve begun to rely on each other and, most importantly, how they’ve learned to forgive each other. 

Wait, so these women accidentally killed each other’s partners? 

Well, yeah, pretty much. Ted’s death happens a few months before the series begins. As we learn over the course of the first season, Judy wanted to stop after the collision to make sure Ted was alright, but Steve, in the passenger seat, forced her to keep driving. 

In the Season 1 finale, a frantic Steve shows up at Jen’s in search of Judy, who turned him in to the police for money laundering and working with the Greek mafia. Although Jen has kicked Judy out of the house — Judy had just confessed to killing her husband, after all — she refuses to tell Steve anything. As Steve’s furious threats and verbal abuse escalate, Jen can’t take it anymore. She bashes Steve over the head and he falls into her pool. Although she initially tells Judy that the incident was self-defense, Jen eventually comes clean and reveals that she hit Steve out of rage. By this point, Judy has realized how toxic Steve was and doesn’t hold a grudge against Jen. Judy still misses him, though.

Hold on. What was that about the Greek mafia? 

Great question. Not only was Steve a bad guy who emotionally abused his fiancée, he was also literally a bad guy, in that he was a criminal who used his art gallery to launder money for the Greek mafia. Judy turned Steve in for the money laundering just before his death, so when he goes missing — his body is being stored in the deep freezer in Jen’s garage — his family and the FBI are looking for him.

By the end of the second season, and thanks to incriminating evidence that Charlie discovers in Steve’s car (we’ll get to that), the members of the Greek mafia conspiracy — including the police chief — are sent to jail. 

Back up a second. So there’s a dead body in the garage? 

Oh –– no. Jen and Judy end up burying Steve’s body in the Angeles National Forest. When the guilt consumes Jen, she confesses the incident to Perez. But when she tries to show the detective where he’s buried, she can’t find the body. Perez, who knows that Steve was bad news because of the whole Greek mafia connection thing, tells Jen that sometimes these situations work themselves out. Jen seems to have gotten away with it, but in the final minutes of Season 2, a hiker discovers what could be Steve’s remains. 

OK. And the car thing? You mentioned a car. 

Yeah, turns out that cars becoming evidence in police investigations is actually a major thing? In the first season, Steve is able to manipulate Judy because they’re hiding the car that hit Ted. (They eventually destroy it.) And in the second season, Jen and Judy hide Steve’s convertible so that people looking for him might think he’s fled the country because of that whole Judy-turning-him-in situation. Unfortunately, Charlie thinks Steve’s car is a secret present for him and takes it out for a joyride with his influencer girlfriend (yes, Charlie has an influencer girlfriend). She posts photos of their sweet ride, causing plenty of complications for Jen and Judy. Luckily, when Charlie realizes the truth about the car, he also realizes that the bag he took from it, containing a burner phone and a digital recorder, was kind of important. The bag ends up being the evidence that puts the corrupt police chief and his co-conspirators away.

This sounds like a very intense friendship. Is there any romance on the show as well?

Yes, lots. In the first season, Judy has a dalliance with Nick, and in the second she begins a new relationship with her patient’s daughter, Michelle (Perez’s ex). Jen, meanwhile, spends the second season slowly falling for Ben. Yes, the twin brother of the guy she killed. 

Yeah. Is that relationship going anywhere? 

There’s plenty of room for forgiveness in this show — we’ve all made mistakes, right? Maybe not on Jen and Judy’s level, but life’s a continuum, isn’t it? — but it’s unclear how Ben will respond when, or if, he learns of Jen’s role in Steve’s death. On one hand, the brothers were not close. (Steve was kind of a jerk.) But on the other hand, it seems like he won’t react well to Steve’s body being discovered. In the final moments of the second season, recovering alcoholic Ben drunkenly crashes into Jen and Judy’s car — which is actually a gift for Charlie — and drives off. 

What else do I need to know before Season 3? 

So glad you asked. Money is a major factor in both Jen and Judy’s storylines. Jen is $15,000 in the hole, and Judy is unexpectedly rich thanks to some laundered money she kept for herself. (It was hidden inside her paintings — like, literally in the paintings.) Judy uses some of the money to buy a car for Charlie — he did get the Greek mafia off her back, after all — and she uses the rest of it to buy Jen’s mother-in-law, Lorna, out of her portion of Jen’s house. Heading into Season 3, Jen and Judy are officially co-homeowners and have pledged their love and support for each other.

This sounds like a complicated mystery. What questions do we still need answered? 

Oh, sooooo many. Were Steve’s remains actually found? If so, will Jen have to answer for his death? (She did confess to it, after all.) What will Charlie think now that he knows his mom and Judy are involved in some shady dealings? Will the ladies’ romances with Michelle and Ben continue? Will Ben confess to the hit-and-run once he realizes who he hit? And how will Ben react if he ever learns the truth about what happened to Steve? 

Find out if we’ll get those answers when Dead to Me returns for its final season on Nov. 17.

Dead to Me Season 3 Main Trailer