Dead to Me – Season 3 Episode 6 “We’re Gonna Beat This Thing” Recap & Review

We’re Gonna Beat This Thing

First things first, our female duo has to deal with that bathtub at the start of episode 6 of Dead to Me Season 3. Is it a metaphorical representation of their lies bursting out? They are not that well hidden either. Who knows what will happen then?

Jen asks the boys to help out with the house as her focus right now is getting Judy better. In her absence, they must step up to take responsibility. Henry hands over the paper cranes to Jen to assemble and she reluctantly puts them in her purse. It is Judy’s first day of chemotherapy and Jen drives her to the hospital. Their conversation oscillates quite smoothly between jokes about Jen’s mother’s head shape and Judy’s “spiritual treatment”, and the macabre reality of the challenge Judy faces.

That uphill battle against stage 4 cancer does not present enticing odds for success and the ladies know it. Nick brings his Eureka discovery to Perez and he has guessed everything right. In the plastic bag, he keeps in front of Perez, there are numerous unpainted wooden birds just like the one Ben showed him. Perez tries to play it down and says that she will be handing it over to Moranis. Jen and Judy sit together and the nurse, Francine, gets on with the work. When Jen mentions the paper cranes, Judy volunteers to help her out and one by one converts the pieces of paper into beautiful cranes.

Jen has flashbacks to the time she spent in the hospital with her mother when she sees a young girl with her mother. Judy’s condition is getting worse because of the chemo. She has a table full of medicines to sustain her through this. Charlie tries giving her emotional support and Judy feels loved in the presence of a family around her. A montage shows Jen & Judy doing the chemo and soldiering on. Perez has kept the evidence, as we suspected, as Nick wonders if it has solved the case or not.

It is one of Judy’s last days of chemo and Francine prepares to bid her goodbye. She also suggests that perhaps Judy is “chosen” for a different purpose than having kids and raising a family. An emotional Jen bursts out when she meets Perez and mentions the bird. The two women have a moment of bonding but Perez reminds Jen of the reality they must face in the future. The next day, Judy discovers that Francine has died out of the blue due to a heart attack. Jen also reveals what Perez said about the bird to her.

Judy has her own moment of losing it as she tries to make sense of everything that is happening. “What is even the point of all this?”, she screams as she cries out. Jen starts eating the mushrooms Kalina gave Judy for her spiritual treatment. And Judy joins in too. The two women have an episode of a drug high and do crazy things together. It definitely takes the pressure off. Jen suddenly has to be rushed to the hospital when she gets freaked out after seeing an image of her mother in the mirror.

This is in fact the second time it has happened this season, the first occasion being episode 1. Charlie drives her as he laughs seeing his mother completely out of her senses. Henry and Judy have a moment of bonding as Henry calls her his “Second mother”. She wishes for something as her high shows her the paper crane bird turning real and flying away. At the hospital, Jen discovers that she is pregnant. Nick spots Charlie driving the beaten-up car that day (when he was driving Ben) and concludes he is the one responsible for the hit-and-run.

The Episode Review

Jen and Judy have a double whammy! Cancer and pregnancy in the same season are emotionally too much for all of us. And what is even more exciting, story-wise, is the fact that the baby is Ben’s, whose uncle Jen bludgeoned to death in her own swimming pool.

To be fair he died because of drowning but still. The ironies in this season are just blowing up like anything. The pregnancy revelation came after one of the funniest sequences we have seen thus far – the mushroom high. The moment Judy mentioned the mushrooms in the car in episode 3, there was a possibility that something like this could happen. Kudos to Feldman and co for including this stressbuster amidst such an explosive episode.

A commonality in all the episode titles in this season is the presence of the word “we” and that showed in full flow in this episode. “We’re Gonna Beat This Thing” was the perfect balance of serious and comedy that most shows can only aspire to create. The best one of the lot so far.