Liz Feldman Says ‘Dead To Me’ Was A ‘Once In A Lifetime’ Experience

Liz Feldman’s beloved Netflix series Dead to Me is sure to go down in the TV history books as a classic. With its third and final season now streaming, fans are mourning the loss of Jen and Judy.

Amid whirlwind press interviews and events, she fit some time in to speak with me, and I asked if she, too, is grieving the end. She’s honest that this is very hard for her. “It comes in waves. Just when I sort of think like, ‘Oh, you know, I think I’m ready to move on, and it was an incredible experience, and I’m looking forward to what’s next,’ I’ll be reminded of a photograph or a memory will pop up. I’ll have this visceral feeling of the loss of the show because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

She explains how rare a show like Dead to Me is. “I’ve come up with many ideas in my life, and I’ve written many scripts, but none of them have connected with an audience the way this has, and I think, in part, it’s because I feel so connected to it. It was a show that really allowed me to work through my own stuff and my own pain, and it was therapy for me. I will miss that catharsis.”

When Feldman’s brainchild first aired on May 3, 2019, viewers were given a beautiful escape into this chaotic and hilarious world. The show would become the most-watched on Netflix in several global territories, and it made the rounds on the Top 10 lists.

The series and its Emmy Award-winning creator received a plethora of awards nominations. Season two earned four Emmy nominations, one for Outstanding Comedy Series. Feldman made history when she garnered the 2020 Writers Guild Award for Episodic Comedy and became the first female LGBTQ writer to win. This classic, and it’s not too soon to refer to it as such, was also nominated for a Writers Guild Award for New Series. The show, and Christina Applegate, were also nominated for numerous awards after the first season, including Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, BFCA, and TCA.

Immediately, there was this undeniable magic with Dead to Me; a click with an audience searching for more than just a good laugh. We also wanted someone to show us that life can fall into pieces, but those pieces can be picked up, one by one, and glued back together into something different and even more beautiful. We needed to know that as flawed as we are, we deserve to be forgiven. As Jen and Judy attempted to claw their way out of a constant loop of havoc, murder and the lies it took to cover it all up, we rooted for them to get away with everything.

How to describe Dead to Me? Even though awards shows lumped it into the comedy category, it’s so much more than that. The show refused to be labeled or boxed into any singular genre. Terms such as dramedy, traumedy and tragicomedy sufficed because the lives of Jen and Judy were simultaneously tragic and hilarious.

Feldman came from the worlds of stand-up, sketch comedy, and multi-camera television, where it’s all about the jokes. Dead to Me, she explained, was different in that it’s funny without trying to be funny.

Feldman recently added director to her resume. She directed the final two episodes of the third season, which centered around Applegate’s Jen Harding and Linda Cardellini’s Judy Hale having to deal with the FBI taking over Steve’s murder case. Jen had to confront her guilt, and Detective Ana Perez (Diana Maria Riva) struggled to cover up her complicity. And James Marsden’s Ben Woods attempted to heal from the loss of his twin brother, Steve.

Fans watched Jen and Judy’s friendship grow in each 10-episode (five-hour) season. And, in the way a romantic comedy or drama makes you long for that perfect partner, this series made you want that best friend, you know, the one who would help you dispose of a body if it came down to it.

In an interview for season two, Feldman described Jen and Judy’s friendship, bringing to mind another classic, the 1991 film Thelma & Louise. “We’ve made various homages to the film, albeit subtly. Thelma & Louise was one of the best screenplays ever written!”

The friendship between Jen and Judy is similar to that of Thelma and Louise. “It’s a type of friendship we all wish for and hopefully can relate to having,” Feldman said.

Behind the scenes, Applegate and Cardellini truly became friends, and Feldman described their chemistry as “natural” and “something you cross your fingers for and hope for but cannot force.”

The entire ensemble cast had chemistry, and their characters’ lives and actions reflected all of humanity at its best and worst. Nothing in life is black or white, said Feldman. “All the beauty lives in the gray. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as good people or bad people. I’m interested in exploring the good and the bad that is in all of us. I am working through my own stuff, recognizing the good and bad in me and the people I love. We are not all one thing, just the way this show is not one thing. It cannot be easily boxed into comedy, drama or thriller because it blurs all those lines, and to me, that’s what life is like.”

In both interviews, we spoke about how she came up with the initial seeds of the pitch that would evolve into Dead to Me. “I was in a particularly dark period of my life. I’d just had a death in my family, and I found out I was not pregnant for the seven-thousandth time,” she explained.

During the filming of season three, Feldman found out her wife, Rachael Cantu, was pregnant, and they have since celebrated the birth of their daughter. “She has obviously been the brightest spot in all this. I found out my wife was pregnant about a week before we were finished with production, so as one major moment in my life was ending, I knew another one was beginning. So, it made the end of Dead to Me a little easier to bear. You know, even though I don’t necessarily subscribe to happy endings in my shows, I got to have one in my life.”

Back to that initial interview and how she came up with the idea for Jen and Judy, Feldman kept thinking about the idea that life can change in an instant. “On any given day, something hilarious can happen, and then you get a phone call and find out something tragic has happened. And you can be a good person and make a terrible choice. We represent how one terrible choice can become an avalanche, and down comes an entire life. This is a topic I am really interested in. It’s easy to think there are good people and bad people and right choices and wrong choices, but everyone and everything exists in the gray.”

Again, we talked about the evolution of her idea, which began to formulate in an entirely different pitch meeting pre-Netflix. “I was meeting with producers looking to find a two-female lead show, and I went into a meeting sort of blindly thinking they had ideas for shows about two women and were looking for a writer. When I showed up, they were tired of their ideas and asked me if I had anything. The truth is, I didn’t because I thought I was going into a meeting where someone would pitch me something. I came up with the basic premise for Dead to Me, and I developed it from there.” She then pitched all the major streamers and premium cable channels, and it landed at Netflix.

Friendship was not only a theme of Dead to Me but a result of it behind the camera. “I have made so many friends making this series, just incredible relationships, and that’s the real-life gift of the show.”

Dead to Me is a rare gem. It is a love letter to female friendships, and though we mourn the ending and may need to form a grief support group for the fans, the beauty of streaming is that you can start the 30-episode (15-hour) binge again.

Feldman has an overall deal with Netflix and is excited about her upcoming series No Good Deed. “It’s coming! Hopefully, by the end of 2023, it will be ready. This series is about the buying and selling of one house in Los Angeles, and it follows the buyers and the sellers and the lies that they tell to get what they want.”