The Dead To Me Creator Says Her Series Finale Idea “Felt Very True To The Show”

Fans have had more than two years to process their grief over Netflix ending Dead to Me with a third and final season. “From start to finish, Dead To Me is exactly the show I wanted to make. And it’s been an incredible gift,” creator and showrunner Liz Feldman told Deadline in July 2020 of the dark comedy starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini. “Telling a story sprung from grief and loss has stretched me as an artist and healed me as a human. I’ll be forever indebted to my partners in crime, my friends for life, Christina and Linda, and our brilliantly talented writers, cast, and crew.”

Shortly afterward, Applegate, who plays Jen Harding, shared those sentiments, tweeting, “I will miss these ladies. But we felt this was the best way to tie up the story of these women. Thank you to all the fans. . . . Much love.”

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter a month later, Feldman also revealed exactly when she knew how she wanted to end Dead to Me. “I always had the sense that I wanted this show to be a relatively short-running one,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in August 2020. “Halfway through shooting Season 2, an idea came to me that felt very true to the show — and I realized that it could be a really great way to end it. … Sometimes I think I’m making a mistake, letting go of this incredible alchemy we have with Christina and Linda, but it just feels right to me that this is how we should close out the story.”

Meanwhile, production on Season 3 was delayed multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then again when Applegate was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. So she took off about five months to seek treatment. “There is no better, but it was good for me,” she said in a recent interview with The New York Times. “I needed to process my loss of my life, my loss of that part of me. So I needed that time."

Despite the physical challenges, the actor added that she was determined to complete Dead to Me’s final season, nonetheless, even when that meant being transported to set via a wheelchair. “I had an obligation to Liz and to Linda, to our story,” Applegate explained. “The powers that be were like, ‘Let’s just stop. We don’t need to finish it. Let’s put a few episodes together.’ I said, ‘No. We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it on my terms.’”

Meanwhile, Sam McCarthy, who plays Applegate’s onscreen son Charlie, also saw the show ending as a bittersweet moment. “It was such a pleasure to work on the show, and it was a real great thing to be able to come back every year,” he recently told Distractify. “But, I think for the sake of the show, creatively and commercially and everything, I think three seasons is a good amount.”

Continued McCarthy, “It’s very easy to get sick of characters — though these are wonderful characters, of course. I think it’s wrapped up nicely. And I think that's a good ... I think it was bittersweet to be honest, that it was the end.”