Dead to Me season 1 episode 9 recap: I Have To Be Honest

Dead to Me is reaching a boiling point in this episode. Everything is laid out on the table between Jen and Judy as both women make huge confessions.

The penultimate episode of season one of Dead to Me opens by flipping between Jen and Judy. Jen is taking a dance class (and enjoying it—Christina Applegate showing off part of the reason she was nominated for a Tony Award in 2005), while Judy is sullenly drinking and painting.

This quickly moves on to Nick in the art gallery where the employee (who’s new) tells him that Judy’s paintings can sell for upwards of $20,000, and some have already sold. Apparently, humble Judy, who lives in her friend’s guest house, is famous and rich. Nick is obviously skeptical.

He asks the employee about the Mustang, but she’s not sure, so she gets the owner—Steve.

Nick immediately knows that this is Judy’s Steve, but Steve has no idea who Nick is and lies saying he doesn’t know who the Mustang belonged to. He speculates it was one of the artists. As Nick leaves, he causally gives Steve a business card, revealing he’s a detective who is clearly interested in Steve’s car. Steve’s face immediately looks worried.

Back at Jen’s house, Judy is still a wreck, destroyed by the thought that she’ll never be able to have the family she’s always dreamed of. Jen comforts her by saying she’s a part of their family.

They don’t get to talk much before Charlie comes in demanding a new laptop. He and Jen argue, because, after Christopher stopped working with her, money has been very tight for Jen.

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Charlie is mad because Jen seems to be putting Judy’s needs before his, so Jen snaps and tells him he can get a job if he wants a new laptop. Then he crosses a line, saying he’d rather be hit by a car.

Jen, in desperate need of some steady work, goes to Lorna to ask for a job working for her real estate company. She begs Lorna to give her a job for the sake of the kids. That’s when Lorna again brings up the fact that Ted called her the night he died, but she was asleep and didn’t answer. She blames herself for not being able to prevent his death.

(For the first time, we’re given a flashback to Jen the night of Ted’s death. It’s brief, but it shows Jen yelling, in tears as the front door slams.)

Meanwhile, Steve barges into the nursing home to talk to Judy. He’s panicking because Nick is asking questions about the Mustang. Judy doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal until Steve points out that Nick asked if she, in particular, owned the car.

Judy tries to say she’ll fix it, but Steve berates her, saying she doesn’t know how to work people. He doesn’t get a chance to yell at her more because Jen calls him and he leaves.

He meets up with Jen who sells him a beautiful new house. A house that he’s dropping over $8 mil in cash for. It’s partially because he knows that Jen needs the commission, but also because he likes showing off. Jen is a bit surprised that he could just drop that kind of money so easily.

Elsewhere, Nick has figured out everything, but Detective Perez won’t listen to him and dismisses everything he says because he had to take a psychiatric leave from work after his partner died.

Later, Judy visits Detective Perez and confesses that Steve has been using TKG Arts to launder money and evade paying taxes. Detective Perez, of course, doesn’t believe her, so Judy shows her the storage unit that has cases and cases full of paper evidence. (Honestly, the fact that Perez hasn’t figured out that Nick was right by now is embarrassing.)

Jen, meanwhile, has bought Charlie a new laptop. Unfortunately, when she gets home, she finds Lorna waiting for her.

Charlie has decided to move out and live with Lorna. His reasoning is Jen’s behavior the night Ted died (a flashback shows her yelling after Ted, saying she never wants to see him again). Nothing Jen says can change his mind. Charlie leaves, devastating his mother.

When Judy gets back to the house, she finds Jen sitting alone by the pool.

Jen confesses to Judy that she and Ted argued the night he died. After Jen had a mastectomy, Ted wouldn’t even touch her and made her feel disgusting. It bred resentment and resulted in a big fight. The last thing Jen did before Ted walked out the door was punch him in the face.

In reality, Ted wasn’t on a run. The only reason he was outside was because he wanted to get away from Jen. Jen, through tears, blames herself for his death.

Judy, finally unable to watch her friend beat herself up, admits that she was the one who hit Ted that night. Judy admits to (almost) everything: taking a bend in the road too fast, not being able to go back and thinking, wishing that she could somehow make it up to Jen. She begs for Jen’s forgiveness, but Jen, simply, says that Judy can die.

Judy leaves and moves back to the nursing home only to be met with more bad news: Abe, the one person there she was close to, had died and she didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.

This episode of Dead to Me ends with Jen getting the gun out of Ted’s safe (which she claimed she didn’t have the combination for) and Detective Perez finally realizing that Nick was right when she finds oil on the ground of the storage unit.

Will Jen actually be able to kill Judy or has their friendship gone too far? Let us know your thoughts on Dead to Me in the comments!