‘Dead to Me’ Isn’t a True Story, but Judy Hale Is Based on a Real Person
The Netflix series Dead to Me isn’t a true story, but Linda Cardellini’s character Judy Hale is based on someone creator Liz Feldman once knew. Learn more about the woman that inspired the Dead to Me character and how her story aligns with Judy’s season 3 storyline.
Judy Hale’s stage 4 cancer diagnosis in ‘Dead to Me’ Season 3
After Jen’s (Christina Applegate) misdiagnosis, Judy learns she’s the one with cervical cancer. To avoid burdening Jen with her problems, Judy seeks guidance from a doctor in secret. But the doctor advises Judy against undergoing chemotherapy alone.
When she tells Jen about her plan to seek treatment, Jen is ready and willing to help. Having seen her mother go through the same experience, Jen knows all of the tips and tricks, from what snacks and activities to bring to a cold cap that should help prevent hair loss.
However, in the end, Judy’s diagnosis becomes terminal. Instead of forcing her into a clinical trial, Jen agrees to spend time with Judy in Mexico. One morning, Jen wakes to find the bed empty and a note from Judy. Judy took the rowboat out to sea, but she’s nowhere to be found.
Liz Feldman’s ‘dear friend’ inspired Judy in ‘Dead to Me’
As the Dead to Me creator explained to Vulture, the character Judy is based on “a dear friend” who died when she was 38 years old. “She had a pain in her body that she wasn’t paying attention to, or that maybe she was paying attention to but not necessarily following through about,” Feldman said.
Like Judy, this woman was “ethereal, beautiful, magnanimous, [and] angelic.” Feldman says she was the kind of person who would “stop and help an old lady across the street, almost against the old lady’s will.”
Feldman elaborated: “She was just one of those people who, though she was not here for nearly long enough, just left this indelible mark. It was almost subliminal in my work of writing the show that I carried her with me. And then when I thought about how to really properly end it, she came up for me.”
Judy’s death explained by Liz Feldman
Because Judy is based on someone from Feldman’s life, she relied on her personal experience to write the ending of Dead to Me. “I wanted to give you a reflection of what it feels like to go through the loss of someone, where it feels like they just took off,” Feldman explained. “You’ve just been hanging out with them and they got in their car and they left, or they walked into the other room, or perhaps they jumped on a boat and floated away.”
Dead to Me doesn’t give fans closure by showing Judy’s body or a funeral. Instead, she’s memorialized in the car as Jen drives back from Mexico. Feldman took the subtle route intentionally.
“… I didn’t need it to be stark,” she said of Judy’s death. “I didn’t think we needed this black-and-white, hit-you-over-the-head ending that brought you in a very confrontational way to your relationship with death; I really wanted it to be a softer landing.”
Watch all three seasons of Dead to Me on Netflix.
