Netflix's "Dead to Me" Explores a Widow's Grief Through Comedy

“Dead to Me,” which debuted on Netflix this summer, stars Christina Applegate in a fascinating look at how grief molds and changes our lives.

“Dead to Me,” which debuted on Netflix this summer, stars Christina Applegate in a fascinating look at how grief molds and changes our lives. Applegate plays Jen, a fortysomething mom who has recently lost her husband to a hit-and-run accident. His tragic death has upended her life, and her grief is front and center in her personality.

The show is packed with diverse experiences with loss, and it asks us to challenge our assumptions about what grief really is and what experiences can prompt it.

Created by comedian Liz Feldman (“2 Broke Girls,” “One Big Happy”), “Dead to Me” is a half-hour comedy — or is it a dramedy? Feldman and its stars have come to call it a “traumedy” for how it finds moments of lightness amidst the traumas that have affected Jen’s lives and the lives around her.

That’s on display from the first moments of episode one, when a well-meaning neighbor brings Jen a casserole and says she “just can’t imagine what you’re going through.” Jen’s snarky response, delivered with a smile — “Well, it’s like if Jeff got hit by a car and died, suddenly and violently” — sets the tone for the show.

The show’s plot twists and turns in weird and shocking ways, and we won’t lay them all out here in order to avoid spoiling the show for new viewers. But it’s worth noting that “Dead to Me” becomes as much a soap opera as it is a traumedy, with secrets and lies piling up as the show’s ten episodes unfold. There’s plenty of drama to go hand in hand with the trauma (and comedy, of course).

Dead to Me” has some similarities to “Sorry for Your Loss,” which debuted last year on Facebook Watch and is in production for season two now. Both focus on younger widows whose grief is stalled in the “Anger” stage of the famed Five Stages of Grief. Both also feature a variety of people coming to terms with loss in diverse ways. And both widows are determined to figure out just how their husbands died.

Yet the two shows’ plot lines are nothing alike, making them complementary rather than redundant. It’s a good thing that there are two shows, out at the same time, focusing on the grief of young widows. There should be more, exploring other kinds of loss. Grief is a universal thing — we'll all experience it eventually, and more people around you are grie...

“Dead to Me” certainly won’t be for everyone. The soap opera style won’t appeal to some, and there’s strong language that others will prefer to avoid. But some people will love it – and it’s also helping open doors for other shows to offer honest portrayals of how real people grieve. Shows like “Dead to Me” offer representation for the ...