#dtm s2 spoilers

[aardvaark]

its really interesting that despite the fact jen is definitely closed off and defensive, she’s the one who actually expressed her feelings and problems verbally and clearly (even if not calmly, lol) in s2e9. we’ve been shown constantly that jen is not great at expressing her feelings, and often lets them build up until she lashes out, even physically (at like a car or something usually, thankfully). 

but in this episode, the audience can start to see that judy is actually equally as bad at opening up, if not worse. the difference is she is quieter and generally kinder in day to day life, and when she is pushed to that point, she takes it out on herself. but still physically, violently, angrily. up til now, we mostly hadn’t recognised the true intensity and heaviness of what judy was experiencing. 

the role reversal of jen trying to be calm and judy unleashing her anger... a perfect parallel and yet simultaneously a juxtaposition between those two - where we know jen is sometimes aggressive outwardly, judy is clearly aggressive inwardly - is formed. 

and on top of all that, we get quite a major character arc turning point for jen, where she is shown to have grown as a person and is seeking to express her feelings in a healthier way for everyone involved, and is actually at least beginning to talk about these things - we see later she has gone back to the grief group, which i’m sure will be good for her too.

and on top of all THAT, we see something we have likely been missing; we’ve been focusing on jen being closed off which has made us not even realise that judy never expresses her feelings either, gets angry (with herself) and hides her guilt and sadness (which has previously culminated in an almost suicide attempt). 

[side note: i like how this worked, with the audience only really getting a chance to piece all those things together at the same time that jen realises how deeply its affecting judy. maybe even judy was not so clued in to the extent of her own emotions, because its a very sudden and horrible change in dynamic when she begins to hurt herself, and not much comes off her when shes literally telling her best friend about a suicide attempt earlier in the scene, which implies she isn’t fully processing it. so i like how the audience got to feel the same effect as the characters, especially since anything along those lines doesn’t happen often because the show has a lot of dramatic irony and we often know more than the characters. this was very different, so well played writers]

like we really got hit by a million different plot points all coming together at once and thats why it’s such an emotionally intense scene imo.

#dead to me #dead to me meta #judy hale #jen harding #meta #dtm meta #dtm #dtm s2 #dead to me season 2 #linda cardellini #christina applegate #dead to me s2 #dead to me s2 spoilers #dtm s2 spoilers #dtm spoilers #sorry if none of this makes sense #im very tired #idk what else to tag #its only 8:24 i shouldnt be tired

[darlingvita]

the fight scene in 2x09 may genuinely be one of the most heart-wrenching and best acted scenes i’ve watched on tv in a LONG time holy shit emmys for christina applegate and linda cardellini PLEASE

#dead to me #dtm spoilers #i’m reeling you guys #i’ve never reacted like that to an episode of tv since like...god knows #holy FUCK #if anyone else has finished or is almost finished with s2 please message me omg #k.txt

[theatrelesbabe]

it’s what they deserve

#judy x michelle #dead to me #dtm s2 #dtm spoilers #linda cardellini #natalie morales #my art

[aardvaark]

i know everyone gets mad at judy for always checking things like whats happening in the police precinct with the crimes or talking to detectives about those cases and all. i can totally see why jen and all are having a problem with that (steve is technically another example but he can - and lowkey did - die in a hole). it does look dodgy and weird and the situation is stressful for her (”her” being jen - from now on im just gonna refer to jen bc ew steve, so yeah sorry).

i mean i dont like that jen was still being rude or speaking to her like a child except worse and more angrily. she was condescending. but i do understand, at least, the fear resulting in anger at judy.

but ive been thinking about it, and i think the reason judy has a hard time sticking out of these issues is probably because she has previously had to solve every single issue shes experienced alone, when she was young. and she had to be constantly aware - has someone noticed my mother isnt going to school events? has someone noticed that im cooking and cleaning for myself? has someone noticed im tired and stressed? because if a teacher finds out, theyre going to do something, and i dont want to upset my mother because im sure somewhere deep down she really does care and love me sometimes. i dont want to upset anyone at all. 

you’d fear massive changes in your life - everything needs to stay the same, even if its not stable, theres a kind of makeshift stability in constant instability. in always having to manage a crisis. theres steps, theres a mental checklist, theres things to do. she probably thought change would still be worse than this; a total upheaval in the short-term. no guarantee of stability in the future. as things were, she had the guarantee of instability, but it was still a guarantee. 

she’d have to just reason that she could cope with anything. its what i always hear about kids in neglectful or abusive situations, its a pattern i think a lot of us have experienced: “you’re so mature for your age!” / “you’re special (or smart)” / “you’re so grown up!” / “you’re so responsible!” / “you’re sorry kind and sympathetic to your peers!”. this isnt meant to hurt, it doesnt necessarily hurt, its often from other adults who have no idea whats happening. but the behavior theyre seeing is more along the lines of: quiet, constantly alert, anxious, sad, upset, fearful. 

[imo, theres a harmful misconception that quiet/stressed/rarely happy = growing up, becoming more mature. i do think its kind of awful that you’re not meant to have that child-like fascination and excitement with the world when you get older, but its true that just does often go away a little with time, completely naturally. but it can also be harmful to make that A Thing, because childhood depression and anxiety or experiencing potentially traumatic or otherwise stressful and upsetting situations can also lead to showing similar signs - just faster, earlier. and these can be misread as just being very mature for your age. but thats a separate issue i have with the world, lol.]

anyway, so shes found the only option is to hide the problems and present as totally fine. make excuses. lie. keep secrets. these behaviours have stuck with her, too. and so would the feeling that there is constant danger. she must know what the exact extent of the danger is at all times because she must monitor everything. she needs to be on the lookout for threats, because there are always threats. she has to check, be responsible, no one is going to help her, theres an order to the disorder, theres a way to manage the chaos and only she knows how because this is just another crisis. her average state, a day-in-the-life of judy hale.

shes always had to do that, in the context of her growing up. but although its the same feeling of stress, its a different context now, and that behaviour is a lot more suspicious in this situation. especially now, because shes an adult. and now shes not alone in the stressful environment, other people (eg jen w/the murder) want and need a say in how problems are being sorted out. and jen is kinda right, you know, you cant go around checking in with the police, it looks pretty odd. judys form of crisis management isnt applicable here, but judy doesnt really think about that, shes thinking about how best to keep herself safe. and thats how she thinks she is going to be safe, because thats what has worked. in fact, she was doing it because she wants jen to be safe, too. 

shes doing the best she can with what she has, but her childhood was terrible and she never had the opportunity to form normal, more effective, adult-life socially applicable crisis management skills. all she did get was what she had to do as a child, to protect herself in a horribly twisted way, because she was a child who did not get to grow up in the way everyone else did. she missed out on a lot of things that you gain when youre not under extreme pressure just to survive and hide major problems while also having to live with those major problems. she didnt get to learn how to find more subtle ways of getting information, or when it was better to just not interact at all. 

what she learnt let her live back then, it prevented her world from unravelling. how can she be expected to let go of those makeshift survival skills? how can she be expected to go against the instincts that have clearly saved her before? how can she be expected to confront her slowly growing understanding that her life should never have been like that, that she was robbed of her childhood, that she has had a horrible thing happen to her, that countless horrible things have happened to her, how can she be expected to accept that she deserved better than she has ever gotten? how can she be expected to allow herself all these feelings and fears she has been pushing down her entire life?

admitting/realising that she doesnt know what to do, that she isnt safe and cant control the situation by herself, means admitting far too much: it means admitting that she was never meant to be capable of coping by herself, that she actually couldnt cope with literally everything life threw her way no matter what - shes not okay, she didnt have some supernatural ability to somehow deal with everything, and she wasnt supposed to. that her mother knowingly put her in an unsafe situation, and she was not meant to just learn how to cope.

i dont think jen does or really truly can currently realise that, but i hope she starts to see that if she learns more about judy’s mom and all... she definitely didnt get that judy was stressed and actually doing what she thought was great, and also that what she has been doing isnt out of naivety or something, but kind of the opposite - more like she knows too much, has been too exposed, and now shes just applying those things here but it doesnt work here.

#dead to me #dead to me meta #idk what im talking about #sorry if this is incoherent #or repetitive #i sort of went away and came back a bit #maybe it doesnt make sense or sounds wrong but i promise i had an idea lol #maybe ill summarise later #judy hale #jen harding #dtm #dtm s2 spoilers #dtm s2 #dead to me season 2 #steve wood #i hate steveeee #i might be projecting #buuuuuut #emotional abuse #neglect

[aardvaark]

watching the scene where judy is telling jen she tried to kill herself and then later in the same scene we see her self harming behaviours manifest once again as shes hitting herself. and. jfc. the pain is real. jen seeing her best friend having a breakdown (which shes never been aware of before, the self harming behaviours and didnt know about the suicide attempt) and you can see the shock and absolute horror on her face and how she immediately comforts judy in the car. 

ive been on both ends of this situation to a degree - my best friend attempted suicide multiple times when we were younger, and i have struggled with mental health for a large portion of my life (including self harm and suicide attempt). i believe i said this earlier, but until Dead To Me, I had never seen self harm portrayed in the media, and in my opinion at least, this show did a fair job with it. i initially feared how jen would react if she ever found out about the suicide attempt in particular, and also that the show would sideline the self harm behaviours seen in judy. but to my (pleasant) surprise, jen comforted her friend as her very first instinct, never uttered a word about “crazy,” “selfish,” or “stupid” - which sadly i have seen in multiple shows that vaguely deal with suicide - and showed only genuine concern. i can certainly say i haven’t seen it portrayed better and i hope the show will continue exploring mental health issues.

#dead to me #dead to me season 2 #judy hale #jen harding #linda cardellini #christina applegate #dtm s2 #dead to me s2 #dtm spoilers #dtm #dtm meta

[aardvaark]

dead to me s2 spoilers possibly ahead —

i love the character development in this show, it’s seriously amazing, but omg stop making poor judy suffer!! my god. like yes she did commit manslaughter and she’s practically a compulsive liar (especially in s1 it’s like one after another) and she helped clean up a murder but she’s somehow still such a purely nice, sweet person. which like, once again, wow the characterisation is awesome bc somehow she’s done all that and i still just want to protect her.

and on that note, steve is just... jesus. such a little shit. emotionally abusive and extremely manipulative - i mean we already know he’s the one who made her keep driving after the hit and run - and it’s horrible! he was cheating on her and he called her nuts, crazy, stupid, etc. threatened to kill her. and was controlling and taking her money. like jfc his abusive behaviour was quite extensive. and then abandons her after her miscarriages and of course the hit and run. as soon as he wants her back in s1 he’s suddenly nice again, then there’s quite a dramatic turn in his behaviour when he doesn’t, again.

her mother (s2) is also using her and manipulated her and neglected her as a kid. which really sort of shows she learnt early on that everyone was going to treat her like shit, and the way she coped was to basically forgive anything so that she still got whatever small amount of love that was possibly available. it’s also clear that’s occurring with steve in s1 when he says something shitty and she says “don’t” and he makes a small apology and she just says “it’s okay”. love hasn’t been available to her very often in her life and so she allows people to walk all over her because basically her mother taught her that was what she SHOULD do. i even sometimes get a little pissed at jen for being very short with her or treating her like a child but in a very negative way.

but just the construction of just hale? damn. you can see how she’s developed her nature from her childhood and how that’s been enforced by an abusive relationship even after childhood. and when she says that thing about how she thinks maybe she deserves the treatment she got... that just broke my heart. into a million pieces. cause no, no one ever deserves literally emotional ABUSE, and violent threats, and you can see how that thought path stems from the lack of affection and care she received as a child, as if that’s her fault. it’s just extremely upsetting and also relatable how she feels a lack of love and abusive, toxic relationships were her fault.

it’s hard to stick up for yourself, or get out of toxic relationships, especially when that began as a kid and you’ve never known any different. she’s never known that she could be appreciated and that she deserves to be loved without all these conditions... loved properly.

also, when judy got distressed enough to need to physically take her anger out on something, and jen assumes - even asks - that she will get violent with jen. but instead, judy starts punching herself. we already saw this behaviour in s1 when she slapped her face multiple times in the bathroom in the episode with teds birthday (may have been multiple examples elsewhere, that’s the only one i remember). it’s not necessarily what you think of with self harm, cause no, it’s not cutting, but it’s definitely hurting herself intentionally and at least borderline self harm, or a form of it. we can see that jen is quite horrified seeing judy start to hurt herself like that, it wasn’t her intention and she’s extremely concerned.

i did like how that was shown, that she’s - sadly - learnt she’s always to blame or that there’s something wrong enough with her that she must deserve abuse and neglect and now she must deserve pain in this form too. i’ve never seen self harming behaviours in any form, in any show. ever. and honestly, it’s kind of an important thing to show in relation to mental health and the way some people process intense emotions, but a clearly very, very unhealthy coping mechanism. she doesn’t get angry easily, but when she does, she still would never intentionally hurt anyone else.

also, we saw her almost try to kill herself towards the end of s1, so we got that other insight into some obvious mental health struggles. when jen finds out about that, she’s also very worried and upset by it. it was kind of painful to see her react to judy’s admission and then again to seeing judy hit herself, which i had forgotten that she had never seen before (i’m pretty sure). you can see how guilty she is feeling about it, how concerned she is about her best friend, how shocked she is and how she really doesn’t even know what to say but of course still comforts her as much as she can.

considering it still somehow is centrally a comedy, yet the dark themes extend from crime to trauma to grief to abuse to depression to self harm and suicide... that’s just exactly why this is such an incredible show. heart wrenching yet at so many points it makes me laugh sooo hard. plus, lgbt rep and well developed, strong female leads. and every part of the plot is intricately developed.

anyway, in summary, i’m just really liking how much the psychological aspects of judy have been consistently developed, especially in the most recent season.

#dead to me #dead to me season 2 #dtm s2 #dead to me s2 #dtm #dtm2 #dtm spoilers #dead to me spoilers #judy hale #strong female protagonist #strong female characters #recommended #netflix #netflix aus #dark comedy #jen harding #mental health #mental health in media

[aardvaark]

honestly when i started watching dead to me in 2019, after an episode or two, i assumed it would be another show with a really tight female friendship that the lgbtq audience would kinda ship but know that there was never gonna be any more true lgbtq rep than one minor side character who didn’t get a love interest (christopher). i have to say im like, really pleasantly surprised that we got so much more lgbt rep: in judy, in michelle, in ana perez!! i genuinely didnt expect that. i also do love that the wlw/mlm relationships are portrayed just as normal, jen has no “reaction” really to judy dating a woman, she simply talks about it like she would about judy dating a man.

(plus, christopher was mentioned to have a bf and im kinda hoping we see him later. looking at you, writers.)

#dead to me #dtm #judy hale #michelle gutierrez #and lets be real christopher is also a while cis male #still lgbt rep #but not majorly significant as hes not a MAIN character #ana perez #detective perez #det. perez #dtm s2 #dead to me s2 spoilers #lgbtq #also be proud of me i am actually posting content !!

[aardvaark]

but who cares bc judy deserves the world and jen needs her best friend. 

some jen content ^

#dead to me #dead to me meme #dtm meme #dead to me s2 #dead to me season 2 #dead to me season 1 #dead to me spoilers #dead to me s1 #dtm #dtm netflix #jen harding

[aardvaark]

re: steve from dead to me. i’m honestly so glad to see an abusive character portrayed as actually just plain abusive. he doesn’t get some redemption arc after being a shitty partner and human being and particularly emotionally abusive to judy. he is seen saying “nice” things occasionally so i was glad that this was basically analysed by jen when she said about him being the worst kind of dick because he was like a secret dick (im paraphrasing but im pretty sure it was something close to that). 

and its true, abusers often aren’t very clearly abusive. if they were, people would probably always stay away, but because he is charming and polite and seems to apologise every so often, judy excuses even the worst behaviour, because he can’t be a bad person, he’s nice sometimes, he apologises sometimes, he cares sometimes. but that’s the whole thing - sometimes isn’t good enough. he takes away that love/affection as a punishment, when it suits him, when he wants something, and that’s not okay.

plus, emotional abuse can be harder to detect. and for judy, who’s mother is quite manipulative and even neglectful herself, she’s never really learnt what a healthy relationship is meant to be. its practically impossible for her to realise just how bad it is on her own. that toxic dynamic is so well explored, which is saying something considering he’s dead for half the show. it was refreshing and important.

#dead to me #dead to me season 2 #dead to me s2 #dtm spoilers #dead to me spoilers #dtm s2 #steve #im saying this as someone who has experienced emotional abuse so maybe im just projecting onto judy #but oh well #i love her #linda cardellini