WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of Dead to Me, now available on Netflix.
Netflix's Dead to Me picks up with Judy (Linda Cardellini) and Jen (Christina Applegate) trying to get rid of the body of Judy's ex, Steve (James Marsden), which is lying in Jen's pool. After a whirlwind first season, Jen snapped and killed Steve at her home after he belittled her and threatened Judy for souring a deal with the Greek mafia in Los Angeles.
Season 2 finds the ladies burying his body in the forest while trying to cover their tracks as the cops search for Steve. It gets complicated when Jen falls for Steve's twin, Ben, and Judy starts dating the ex of Detective Perez (Diana-Maria Riva), the lead on the case. It comes to a head in the finale when Jen decides to confess to try to save her friend and two sons from the trouble she's caused.
The Confession
During the Dead to Me Season 2 finale, Jen meets Perez at home and they head to the woods. However, they can't find the body, as the women buried it at night. Jen doesn't know Judy carved a heart into a tree to mark the spot, so Perez decides to take her back to the station. However, Perez feels sorry for Jen after hearing her story about Steve invading her home and being abusive, as well as Jen's past in general.
Perez feels sympathetic as she still lives with her ex and Judy's girl, Michelle (Natalie Morales), whose mom was recently in the hospital. Perez is very emotional, as the woman's like a mother to her, too. Since they didn't make a report and the detective knows Steve has ties to the mafia, she lets Jen go as she prefers to be human in this instance.
The Paintings & The Buyout
Perez later drops off paintings for Judy, which the cops had previously seized from Steve's art gallery; he used it as a front for money laundering. It's Perez's way of saying she thinks Judy and Michelle can be together after she poisoned the relationship to keep them apart. Judy starts smashing the paintings when Perez leaves, though, but it's not another meltdown; Steve hid a lot of cash in the paintings and she's collecting.
Jen shows Judy the loot and she then pays off the rest of Judy's mortgage to show her gratitude for taking her in. Jen's forgiven Judy for running over her husband in Season 1 and Judy's gotten over Jen killing Steve. Interestingly, Judy also buys Jen's son, Charlie (Sam McCarthy), a van. She's like an aunt to him and she wants to make up for him driving Steve's car this season after finding it hidden in his mom's storage, not realizing it belonged to a dead man.
Those Damned Letters
However, before Charlie can get the car, he sneaks into Judy's room to steal her stash of weed. Unfortunately, he finds letters Jen wrote before she left to confess. It airs all their dirty secrets about killing each other's significant others and Jen's request of Judy to take care of the family while she takes the rap. Jen's driven by guilt as she's falling hard for Ben and also, Steve's mom thinks she's a good catch.
Earlier in Dead to Me Season 2, Charlie found the gasoline Jen used to burn the vehicle and a lot more incriminating material. The ladies kept lying to him but this confirms his suspicions -- and it's clear he feels betrayed. He told his mom even though he was young, he'd have her back because that's what families do, so this is a heartbreaking moment where all's revealed.
The Big Hit
The final sequence of the season, however, shakes all these relationships up when Jen and Judy are at the stop sign outside her home. This is the junction where Judy and Steve sped in Season 1 and hit Jen's husband, killing him, as well as where Jen subsequently spent a lot of time petitioning for the sign. As they celebrate the sign being put up and talk about a family vacation to Europe, when they legally pull out at the intersection, another speeding van smacks into them.
The ladies are rocked and for a second it seems like they're dead. However, they're just badly damaged. The driver reverses and speeds off and the camera reveals it's actually Ben. He has a bottle of whiskey with him and he's drunk as hell. He doesn't recognize the women in the new van. He was emotionally distraught, as the cops informed him at the start of the Dead to Me Season 2 finale that they found Steve's body thanks to a jogger and her nosy dog.
The ladies don't see Ben fleeing the scene. When Judy asks Jen (who got the bulk of the hit) if she's okay, Jen doesn't know what happened, which hints at amnesia. It could also be temporary shock, but she's really out of it and Judy's quite frantic. It would fit the dark tone of the series if she does suffer from memory loss.
Dead to Me stars Christina Applegate, Linda Cardellini, James Marsden, Sam McCarthy and Luke Roessler. Season 2 is now available on Netflix.