Dead to Me: Season 1

Dead to Me is a leaden thing, neither comic fish nor dramatic fowl, soapy delight nor knife-edge thriller. Aside from the leads, who do as much as they can with very little and are dedicated in their efforts to do justice to the pain of bereavement, it has nothing to recommend it.

Across its ten half-hour episodes creator Liz Feldman connects one watchable moment on top of another, hanging everything together curiously, if not altogether successfully.

It turns out there’s a far more interesting portrayal of female friendship happening in the margins of all the carefully-plotted action.

I appreciate when a show like this is not closed off to the idea of genuine sentiment, when it understands that its flat joke about the darkness in all people isn’t really that funny or surprising anymore. Things actually mean things on Dead to Me, sensational and often convenient as the show’s schema might be.

Like many good dramas, everything is constructed around an initial act of deception; once you know about it, you’ll spend the rest of this easily addictive series fretting about when and how the truth will finally come out.

For the most part, “Dead To Me” allows the people who move through its story to excel at self-deception, a choice that’s more honest, more interesting, and very convenient for a series so devoted to twists and cliffhangers.

Sure, it's not the stuff of frozen zombies or universe-killing aliens, but the dark comedy's devastating twist nonetheless makes it a beautiful and harrowing experience, as does the rest of the impeccably acted and written series.