All Your Questions About Dead to Me ’s Season Two Cliff-Hanger, Answered

Season two of Dead to Me dropped on Friday, May 8—and we wouldn't be surprised if you've already finished the highly bingeable 10-episode dark comedy faster than Jen Harding (Christina Applegate) and Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini) can split a bottle of wine. Each episode ended on a cliff-hanger that begged for the start of another; by the time the finale came, some loose ends were tied up, but so many mysteries are still left to be solved. (Caution: Major spoilers ahead.)

Yes, Steve Hale—Judy's ex—really is dead, but it was the result of Jen having killed him with her son Henry's ceramic bird and not a gun. And it wasn't self-defense, either. Steve was leaving Jen's property, but only after he screamed the worst things you could probably say to someone, driving Jen to the point of no return. But surprise! Steve's death wasn't the end of actor James Marsden's run on the show—turns out Steve has an identical twin brother, Ben, who is the opposite of Steve in every way. Oh, and Ben has a thing for Jen.

Judy comes to terms with her complicated grief over Steve and enters into a passionate new relationship with Michelle (Natalie Morales), the daughter of a new tenant at the nursing home. Except Michelle's ex is none other than Detective Ana Perez, who doesn't trust Judy, and—small detail—Michelle and Perez still live together even though they're broken up.

We also finally meet Judy's mother in prison, which helped explain a lot. You may have even watched those scenes twice because, like me, you were so taken aback by the brilliant casting of Katey Sagal as Judy's mom.

And then there's Jen's oldest son, Charlie, discovering evidence that links Steve to the Greek mafia, and Jen confessing to Perez that she killed Steve, followed by Perez telling Jen she wouldn't be going to jail because her boys need their mother. (To be fair, she also couldn't find Steve's body, thereby making it easier for Perez not to press charges.)

Just when it seemed that Jen and Judy were in the clear, Charlie finds Jen's letter to Judy confessing everything, a dog finds Steve's burial site, and a drunk Ben slams into Jen and Judy's car, only to drive off. Perhaps the only silver lining is that Jen and Judy weren't knocked completely unconscious and should be okay. Still, with so many questions and developments, we had to get creator Liz Feldman on the phone to break it all down. Brace yourself.

Glamour: There were so many complicated scenes this season. Which one was the most difficult to write?

Liz Feldman: The scene in the second-to-last episode between Jen and Judy, when the shit finally hits the fan between them, where Jen finally has to tell Judy the real version of what happened that night Steve died. So there was a lot of thought and care and crafting that went into that scene. The day that we were shooting that garage scene, we ended up rewriting quite a bit in the moment. We wanted it to feel really raw. What would it feel like to finally be able to tell the truth since these two women have been hiding so much and juggling all these lies? That scene was a real collaboration between the writers and the actors because we all came together on the day we shot it.

That moment in the finale when Jen and Perez talk about their mothers in the car after Jen confesses to Steve's murder was so moving. What was it like writing that scene?

That was a scene and a storyline we had much debate and conversation about in the writers room. I knew that was a scene I wanted to see and had to figure out a way to earn it. It was my intention in season two to reveal more of Perez's character and to make her feel like a real person whose behaviors are justifiable. I knew I wanted those two characters to find a level of commonality, and I wanted them to be able to understand each other on such a deep level that maybe nobody else could. So [cowriter] Cara DiPaolo and I were very particular about the words in that scene. And then Diana Maria Riva (Perez) and Christina (Jen) were just so vulnerable and powerful at the same time. They brought so much of their own humanity into the roles in general, but to that scene in particular.

Let’s talk about the very last scene, when Ben smashes into Jen and Judy’s car. Did you write that anticipating there will have to be a third season?

Of course, in the back of my mind, I want to craft a satisfying, surprising, hopefully delightful season ender that also begs for more story. I would love to keep making the show. I'd love to keep working with the writers, with Christina and Linda, and with our amazing crew. So you intentionally make it so there are more questions than answers. But also I maintain that when I feel like the story is over, it'll be over. I don't intend to make this show a seven-season show. It's on Netflix, and we know that's not really something they do. But for now, especially at the end of season two, it just begs you to give more story.

When I interviewed Linda last week, I said, "There is no way Liz wrote that finale without having some sort of commitment from Netflix that we're going to get a season three."

[Laughs.] At the moment of this call, we do not have an official pickup from Netflix. We have a great relationship with them, and I've already been in touch with [Netflix executives] Ted [Sarandos] and Cindy [Holland], who are all incredibly supportive and encouraging about the show. But it's still a business at the end of the day. I'm sure they want to see how the second season does. We'll have to see. Like everything in this business, you cross your fingers and hope you've given them a reason to give you another season.

How much have you started outlining next season in anticipation?

Well, I literally just finished season two. But when you're in a writers room, like we were last season, stories will come up or things will be pitched, and we're like, "That's great. We should do that next season." So we definitely have some things in our back pocket, and I have a direction that I'd like to take season three. We have to be sensitive to the fact that things change and so can ideas. When I first started thinking about how I wanted to do season three, we weren't in a pandemic. We weren't in this incredibly trying, traumatic collective experience. As a storyteller, I want to be respectful of our audience as a whole. The show isn't meant to just be a dark tone about lies and mysteries. I want it to be an escape. I want it to make people feel good also. I feel like it would be irresponsible in a way to not just sneak in the current collective circumstance and really meditate on that before we launch into whatever antics Jen and Judy are going to find themselves in.

Makes sense. Let’s go back to this season, and talk about James Marsden. At what point in the series did you know Steve was going to have a twin, and how did James react to that?

It's funny you should form the question like that. I was not instantly intending for Steve to have a twin. But after season one premiered, and the feedback was really lovely and people seemed to really like it, James and I had been emailing back and forth and he made a joke saying, "What are the odds that Steve could survive? Because I'd love to keep working with you." He's so sweet and incredible, and I would happily work with him every season. I stepped away from my email and was like, "Well, obviously, I'm not going to bring a character back from the dead." That's a bridge too far, even for this show. But I was like, "God, I would love to bring Marsden back, but [Steve is] dead." And then, of course, the idea of him playing his own twin popped into my head. I started laughing out loud because it's so silly and preposterous. And then I sat down to have lunch with Kelly Hutchinson, who is a writer on the show and one of my best friends, and I told her about James's email. We just looked at each other and were like, "Twins?" We started laughing so hard because it's so stupid. I was like, "If we're going to do twins, which obviously is a classic trope, then we have to make it as real as possible and ground this character in the reality of the show. We have to make him a fully realized person, with dimension and vulnerability."

We also just wanted to give him something really different to play to entice him to come back. So that's how it happened. When I pitched it to him, he started laughing immediately too. I explained to him, "I know it's crazy, but here's X, Y, and Z reasons why this might actually work." And to his credit, he was like, "I trust you. I'll do it."

What about Katey Sagal? How did you get her to come on as Judy’s mother, and how much did Christina, who played Katey's onscreen daughter in Married With Children, play a part in that?

We knew we were going to bring on Judy's mom, but so often what happens when you're trying to get a great guest star is you have to have the script written and give them their scene so they can make an informed decision if they're going to do the show or not. So by the time we had the script, we were thinking about the right person to offer this to and Katey Sagal's name came up. Again, it was one of the things where we started laughing because we were like, "Oh God, that is wonderfully ironic." When we took a step back and really looked at Katey, we were like, "Oh, she actually looks like she could be Judy's mom."

Katey absolutely embodies the qualities we were looking for in that we wanted her to be comically sharp but also a bit dark and sinister. You're going to be learning a lot about Judy just by meeting this woman. So then Christina stepped in because she was so excited at the idea of bringing Katey onto the show. They're still very close, and she absolutely helped us land Katey.

You must have thought about having Jen meet Judy’s mom in an upcoming season.

Wouldn't that be fun?

Of course. That’s why I'm sure you have. [Laughs.]

Yeah. Wouldn't that be fun?

Ha, I see what you're doing there. Moving on, those scenes with Linda and Katie in prison were so important for Judy’s development. It felt like Judy finally stood up for herself by telling her mother she wouldn’t bail her out or write a letter to the parole board.

We were excited to give Judy a moment of real empowerment and a moment of healing this wound that has been inside of her since she was a little girl. Honestly, it felt like Judy deserved to have that moment for all that she's gone through for these last two seasons. She's really trying earnestly to look at how she ended up this way. But while it was a wonderful moment, it’s still just a moment. The way that we all grow as people, even in a straight upward line, we ebb and flow in our ways, and ultimately I think we are who we are. So it becomes incredibly difficult in real life to suddenly become a completely self-actualized person. It’s great to give this character that increment of growth, but in the end, she is who she is.

Let’s talk about the love story that develops between Judy and Michelle, played by Natalie Morales. It was so poignant that no one commented on the romance between these two women since Judy had previously been only with men—as far as we know. The silence on that spoke volumes in such a beautiful way.

First of all, thank you so much for saying that because it was incredibly deliberate. By design, I wanted to have Judy organically begin this relationship with a woman without ever needing to explain that's what it was. Because I'm an out, proud gay woman and I've been very lucky to be in this business for a long time, I've had a lot of opportunities to tell the coming-out story, which is an incredibly worthwhile story to tell. But it's a story that I think a lot of us have heard by now. I wanted a different, fresh approach to revealing that relationship. In my life I don't have to explain what's happening because it's normal, and I wanted it to normalize it as much as possible. It's strange, but the way to normalize a same-sex relationship is to not comment on it and not have to justify it and not have to have Judy sit her best friend Jen down and say, "Hey, look, I have to tell you something." So that's the direction we took. I'm so glad that the silence stood out to you because that is exactly the point. I just didn't want to add to the narrative that we have to brace people to accept us.

It was so beautifully done, and now I’m going to need a love triangle with Perez, Michelle, and Judy next season.

You'll just have to wait and see.

The finale ended on so many cliff-hangers, aside from what will happen to Judy’s love life. There’s Ben driving under the influence when he crashes into Jen and Judy. There’s the dog in the woods that finds where Steve’s body is buried. There’s Jen’s son, Charlie, finding the letter Jen wrote Judy when she thought she was going to be arrested. What excites you in terms of those open-ended storylines?

To be honest, they all do and that's why they're in there. Hopefully, by the time you're watching the show, you're watching moments that have been very carefully crafted to become jumping-off points for the following season. All of those dangling threads excite me. They obviously give us a lot of potential for stories for season three. But what excites me more than anything, always with the show, is just being able to write more of this complicated, twisty friendship between Jen and Judy. Because at the end of the day, that's what the show is. It's a show about these two friends who are inextricably drawn to each other, perhaps for the wrong reasons, but in the end, their friendship just feels right.

Right. As fun as the mysteries and lies are, it’s Judy and Jen’s friendship that is at the heart of this show.

Yes, exactly. That's another reason why I say I don't see this being a seven-season show, because it's going to strain credulity at a certain point if four more seasons of terrible things befall these characters. But that is to say the show will always be what it is—a traumedy, if you will, about two women getting through the worst things in life together.

How did you come up with the name Jen and Judy? Have you ever spoken about that?

I haven't ever spoken about it, actually, and I'm going to pass on that. But I will tell you that we purposely picked first and last names that match so they're both J H. Maybe I’ll open up about their names one day.

Understandable. I'm just so amazed by your writing and how you come up with these stories.

It's really nice to hear that, and I really appreciate it. We all have our purposes in life, and I think I'm lucky in that one of mine is to mine my own darkness and grief and loss, and turn it into something that's hopefully entertaining.

Jessica Radloff is the Glamour West Coast editor. You can follow her on Instagram @jessicaradloff14.

Originally Appeared on Glamour