Linda Cardellini rare representation of Judy Hale provides an inexhaustible source of humor and intrigue in Dead to Me. On the one hand, Judy lights up the show with his carefree and smiling with the face of a presence. On the other hand, it is also often overwrought with guilt every time she hurt or disappoint anyone in the slightest. Accidentally the killing of Ted definitely was not on his list of things to do, but it opened the way for a fascinating character arc.
That said, season two will not rely solely on Judy quirks to keep the show going. The writers give Judy a real possibility in the healing through deeply layered emotional development. While she is still your hug-auto position, Judy is growing significantly. Your people pleasing tendencies no longer hold captive. She has emotional limits now, as well as a new ability to say no.
“When we meet her, She comes off as the blunt-hit human embodiment of a rainbow.”
When we meet her, She comes off as the blunt-hit human embodiment of a rainbow. She has a style as well as the heart, spending her days as an arts and crafts teacher in a nursing home. His loyalty even results in Jen’s appointment of her children’s caregiver when Jen plans of confessing to Steve’s murder. There is a dark side to this, however. In addition to irking the cynicism of the people around her, Judy has an arsenal of trust and empathy for people who do not deserve his goodness. It is heartbreaking to see your soft Steve’s abusive behavior and allow Jen to guilt-trip her. She compulsively overcorrects for your mistakes, even standing in traffic when Jen tells him that she can die to compensate for Ted’s death.
Dead to Me puts Judy through the wringer in season two, and from it emerges a hard person. Her ex-boyfriend dies by the hands of his new best friend, and she soon heartbreakingly learns that his girlfriend is pregnant. When the opening to love once more, she loses that love quickly. The relationship was never going to work out his girlfriend who lives in the former is no other than Detective Perez, police officer in the case of Ted. On top of it all, She also visits her incarcerated mother for the first time in 15 years.
Judy development really begins when the child plays his last voice of Steve Detective Perez in episode six. Between the moments of affection, Steve threatens her and calls her nasty insults. Her feelings for him have always been confusing, vaguely framed by the love and willingness to overlook its flaws. Sit down with an objective outsider allows Judy to the process of your relationship with Steve as he really was, not as she felt it was. And so, begins the processing of their trauma.
Police station if the meeting starts its development, its emotional eruption with Jen in episode nine crystallizes it. After a tremendous accumulation of guilt, Jen confesses to the death of Steve. Deliberately. Judy explains that Steve was probably trying to hurt Jen by saying that Ted jumped in the front of the car. Again, she does her best to look at the situation objectively. But Jen explodes, telling Judy that she leaves in the abuse. In this moment of confrontation, Judy set your emotional boundaries. She immediately comes out and gets in his car. Jen’s tearful insistence that Judy hit her, Judy lets a primal scream to the Meryl Streep in Big Little Lies, telling him to stop. Inevitably, they are reconciled. Even so, Judy is a modification of the woman, no longer as a hostage to his compulsion to fix things.
By the end of the season, it is clear that Judy has become less susceptible to people taking advantage of their kindness. In episodes nine and ten, she visits her mother Eleanor (Katey Sagal) in the prison. Their conversation starts on a cordial note, but it is clear that Eleanor is the manipulation of Judy to get a lawyer and the letter of probation. Eleanor even suggests that she began using drugs and landed in jail because of Judy. Judy sees right through this. She firmly tells her mother that she did not write the letter because Eleanor has not changed.
So, what’s next for Judy? Even in a new level of self-consciousness, she does not give up though and decides to forgive Jen. Happiness is on the horizon for our sunny heroine, but she is not there yet. Yes, she has a new family with Jen, and yes, their boxes are full of cash. Not only are the small matters of the dogwalker to find Steve’s body, Charlie discover Jen’s letter, and of course, Ben crashing into Charlie’s gift of the car. Here’s hoping Judy is still standing his ground while facing the challenges ahead.
