Dead to Me season 3 recap guide: All 10 episodes explained

Dead to Me season 3 has finally arrived, and it’s time to see how the story ends! We’ve followed the friendship of Judy Hale and Jen Harding throughout many tumultuous ups and downs across three seasons, and now the end is here.

MAJOR spoilers ahead for Dead to Me season 3

The third season picks up in the shocking aftermath of the second season finale, where Jen and Judy got into a car accident caused by Ben who went and got very drunk after learning Steve had died. When season 3 picks up, Jen is being wheeled to the hospital while Ben has little memory of what occurred the night before.

Below we’ve recapped and explained all ten episodes of the final season.

Dead to Me season 3, episode 1 recap: We’ve Been Here Before

Dead to Me season 3 begins with Jen (Christina Applegate) and Judy (Linda Cardellini) basking in the sunlight on a blissful beach day. Of course, it doesn’t take long to realize that the entire scene is a dream sequence. In reality, Jen is in the hospital with a neck brace in the aftermath of the car crash. Judy got off relatively scot-free in comparison, although thankfully Jen’s injuries aren’t serious.

As luck would have it, all of this plays out on Charlie’s (Sam McCarthy) birthday. Recall that Jen and Judy got in a car accident because they were driving the car home to give to Charlie as a gift.

While Jen and Judy are at the hospital, Charlie reads through the letter Jen left him in the event she went to prison. He’s interrupted by Ben (James Marsden) who shows up looking like a bloody wreck after the car accident. Ben still doesn’t know who he hit, his memory is fuzzy from the booze, and neither Jen nor Judy knows that it was Ben in the other car.

Charlie drives a drunken Ben to the hospital to get checked out. In the car, Ben tells the teen that the last thing he remembers is finding out Steve died and the cops found his body, thus triggering his drunken spiral. Charlie promises Ben he won’t tell anyone about this incident. At this point, Charlie doesn’t know the full story, only that Ben was drinking and driving after learning Steve died, not that he got into a hit-and-run.

Back at the hospital, Jen is frustrated that the doctors won’t give her pain meds. She and Judy swap hospital horror stories about their moms. When Judy was a kid, her mom would take her to the hospital and make her fake seizures so she could steal drugs for her. Jen’s memories are equally cheery. She spent a lot of time in the hospital with her mother when she was sick with breast cancer.

Before the doctor will let Jen or Judy leave, he strongly recommends they get a CT scan to ensure they don’t have anything more serious happening internally.

We pivot to the woods where Steve Woods’ body was found and catch up with Detective Nick Prager (Brandon Scott) and Detective Ana Perez (Diana-Maria Riva). Now that Perez knows the truth about Steve, she does her best to redirect Nick’s line of inquiry as they investigate the spot where his body was found.

Perez mentions the Greeks to try and steer the investigation toward them. Complicating matters is the fact Judy, in typical Judy fashion, carved a heart into the tree near Steve’s grave. That’s not exactly something the Greek mafia is known for doing.

Jen and Judy get their CT scans. Judy steals some drugs for Jen in the process and then runs right into Ben. When she tells him what they’re there for, Ben suddenly remembers hitting Jen and Judy. He’s horrified to know that Jen is hurt because of him. As for why he’s there, Ben plays it off like he just had a bad fall so Judy doesn’t learn the truth.

After Jen’s CT scan, the doctor comes to give her the results. They’ve found a few suspicious masses on the scan and she needs to follow up with an oncologist. Given Jen’s family history of breast cancer, she’s understandably devastated. But there’s a twist. Jen was sitting in Judy’s bed because she spilled water on hers. The test results aren’t Jen’s, they’re Judy’s, and now Jen has the difficult task of telling Judy the news herself. Jen is actually fine apart from a few bruised ribs.

When Judy returns to the room, Jen neglects to tell her what she just heard, but I can’t imagine her keeping that a secret for long.