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

Dead to Me season 3, episode 9 recap: We’re Almost Out of Time

The penultimate episode of Dead to Me season 3 begins with Jen and Judy both going to an important meeting. Jen visits Glenn at his motel. She tells him that she was having an affair with Steve and that she’s pregnant with his baby, hoping that if they do find her DNA on Steve’s body, they’ll think that’s why.

Meanwhile, Judy returns to the oncology center for her follow-up. It’s bad news. She’s terminal and tells Jen as much. But Jen isn’t ready to give up. She continues trying to get Judy into a clinical trial. Ben calls her while he’s in jail to tell her he loves her and Jen loves him too, but their time runs out before she can tell him.

Once Judy knows that she’s dying and only has a limited time remaining, she starts getting her affairs in order. That starts with meeting up with her mom, Eleanor Hale (Katey Sagal) at the halfway house where she’s been staying since she got out of prison. Judy uses the Sonoma excuse to tell her mom where she’s going and gives her a bunch of money from Steve’s painting before saying goodbye.

But Eleanor isn’t so easily fooled and she shows up at Jen’s house. Eleanor thinks Judy is just pulling some elaborate ruse on Jen so Jen finally blurts out that Judy has cancer. Not knowing where Judy is, Jen calls her phone and hears it ringing upstairs. She follows the sound and finds that Judy has painted a gorgeous mural of cranes on the wall.

It doesn’t take long for Jen to realize what Judy has done. She’s gone to the police station to confess to Steve’s murder. Jen shows up and convinces Nick to give her a few minutes with her. Jen has gotten her into the clinical trial thanks to one of the women at Henry’s church who happens to be a former OB-GYN with connections to the people running the trial.

But Judy doesn’t want to do a clinical trial. If she’s going to die, she wants to do it on her terms and spend her limited remaining time with the people she loves and ensure they will be taken care of when she’s gone, hence the confession.

After talking to Judy, Jen begs Nick to let her take Judy home so she can go to a clinical trial for a few weeks. He can even put a house arrest ankle bracelet on her to keep tabs on where she is. He agrees and Jen takes her home to give Eleanor a real goodbye.

Nick tells Perez what he did, admitting that he couldn’t let Judy die in prison. Given what Perez has been doing for Jen, she’s obviously understanding of his choice. Plus, they get interrupted by a phone call. Agent Glenn Moranis is dead.

The episode ends with a shot of Judy’s mom driving and we see she has Judy’s house arrest bracelet on her ankle. It looks like her parting gift to her daughter is setting her free and letting Judy and Jen finally take their vacation to Mexico. We also see Perez putting a bottle of lighter fluid and a lighter next to Steve’s file after taking it from Glenn’s motel room. It seems like she’s going to get rid of that file and close the case once and for all.