Dead to Me suggests that if parents don’t model good anger-management skills, then their kids won’t know how to deal with it either. Later in the episode, Henry lashes out during a choir performance. Of course, Jen knows before she checks her medicine cabinet and finds empty pill bottles: He got them from home Charlie’s been selling his dead dad’s drugs. Where did Charlie get the pills? He refuses to give up his source. (Really?) Instead he’ll be suspended for two weeks she suggests he talk to Pastor Wayne. Charlie’s principal is taking pity on him because of Ted’s death and not reporting him to law enforcement. She’s confronted by the fact of Charlie’s drug-dealing at school, and later by Henry’s hair-trigger anger. The bulk of “Oh My God” centers on Jen’s failures as a mother since Ted’s passing (and kind of before too). Jen says they are surprisingly good and resilient. Nick is going to go talk to Laguna PD on Jen’s behalf, and because he seems like a genuinely nice guy, he asks about the kids. If nothing else, his telling Jen that any evidence is likely “long gone” serves to remind Judy - and us - that there is one big, dented-car-shaped bit of evidence out there, so this case may not be as cold as it looks. Is she hoping that he will confirm to Jen that the case can’t be solved? Perhaps he can offer closure by declaring that the killer can’t be found. It’s a darkly comedic moment that serves as a prelude to something bigger, when, post-title card, Nick arrives at the shrine and the case gets pushed forward a bit with the revelation that a 9-year-old named Shandy Adams is the one who found Ted’s body on her way to school.Īt this point we have to pause and ask what Judy is up to by bringing Nick to the crime scene. (Ted wasn’t religious.) The “to-may-to, to-mah-to” of these two is clear when Judy points out that it was the last place Ted got to be alive, but Jen counters with the truth that it’s also the first place he got to be dead. Jen hates the entire roadside scene, especially the Cross. Of the many complicated relationship dynamics in Dead to Me, the most compelling remains this friendship between two people who see the world in fundamentally different ways. Admittedly, some of the beats feel forced, but the strong cast and clever writing bring it together, and it’s nice to get a glimpse of how grief is impacting people other than Jen and Judy.Īn opening scene set at a roadside shrine further clarifies the differences between Judy and Jen. Always the more distant of Charlie and Henry’s parents, Jen has been struggling to fill a role that seems like it came more naturally to her spouse. The start of the second half of the first season of Dead to Me opens with a solid episode that reveals how poorly Jen has been faring as a mother since her husband passed away … and takes a few digs at how she mothered when Ted was alive, too.
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