We all know the story of a widow trying to regain her happiness after her husband passes away, but Dead to Me took a cliche plot and created something I never expected.

At first, the Netflix original show seemed to be a bit boring, but I found myself becoming more and more engaged as I got into the series and once the plot really picked up. The main character Jen (Christina Applegate) meets Judy (Linda Cardellini) at a grief support group.

Although Jen is quite stand-offish at first, Judy gently pries her open. A friendship that once only consisted of phone calls soon flourishes into the two girls living together: they are constantly helping each other cope with the companion of grief. The two middle-aged women seem to be the best of friends, but as the story unfolds, it is evident that the two know absolutely nothing about each other beneath the surface.

After the first episode, everything I thought I knew turned out to be a lie; I was completely dumbfounded. I couldn’t help but continue to binge the rest of the ten episodes within a few short days. The series was one of the best I had watched in a while, and it kept getting better as each episode went on. Not only was each episode compacted with various plot-twists, but the show was not as sad as the first episode foreshadowed.

The show had just the right amount of sadness, comedy, and a whole lot of mystery. Dead to Me had so much situational irony I found myself watching the show like it was a baby taking its first step. I kept waiting to see if the cast would finally figure out what I had already been told from the very first episode.

Dead to Me also did a great job keeping the future completely unknown to me, along with staying away from cliche movie scenes. Many times I would assume that certain events would happen, and I would turn out to be completely wrong.

Not only were the actors well cast, but the acting was a relief from all the awkward and uncomfortable acting I have recently been seeing throughout films. There was a unique diversification of actors’ and actresses’ ages as well. There were characters from the age of around 10 all the way to about 80 years old. This allowed the series to reach a broad spectrum of ages. Although the language was quite heavy and there were a few sexual scenes and references, the film could be watched by both high school students and adults.

Overall the film was exceptionally well created. I texted almost all of my friends and family members raving about Dead to Me after I finished watching it.

I can confidently say that Netflix has truly outdone itself with this entertaining, sad, funny, and mysterious original series.