Not Dead yet (Season 1), Episodes 1 & 2: Life post-breakup can be confusing and demotivating. It is a time when nothing makes sense. ABC’s new show, Not Dead Yet, starring Gina Rodriguez, is about Nell Stevens, who leads a life full of mess. The series takes a comedic approach to show us Nell’s journey to self-healing and discovery. As an obituary writer, she sees ghosts, and each one has some wisdom to share that makes her life make more sense.
The show is created by David Windsor and Casey Johnson and is based on a book named Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up by Alexandra Potter. For those looking for light-hearted comedic relief, this 5 episode log show (with episodes airing weekly) is perfect for you. It has its heart in the right place, showing how living with the human condition is a burden of its own.
In the following article, I have detailed everything significant that happens in the show with an added dive into the explanation of how it ends. Spoiler Alert, please read at your discretion.
Not Dead Yet (Season 1), Episodes 1 & 2 Recap:
Episode 1
In episode 1 of Not Dead Yet, Nell Stevens (played by Gina Rodriguez) is broke and recently single, leaving her life on the edge. She is tardy and has a sluggish approach to handling crucial things in her life that, includes finding her life’s purpose.
She is in her late 30s and in the middle of a mess, but she is desperately trying to pick herself up. Before getting her heart broken into thousands of pieces, Nell’s life was sorted. She was a successful journalist doing just the right thing in her life. Her future looked bright and shiny until she followed the man of her dreams, Phillip, to London.
Eventually, the relationship turns sour, and Nell looks for a reason to cuss at her ongoing situation. The wedding that was supposed to happen never did, and Nell moved back to America.
Her life has just gone by her in the last ten years. In the present – after her return to the US, she is starting her career from scratch. Nell lands a job in the old office as an obituaries writer at a news publication where Sam and Dennis, who were once her coworkers and best friends, are now technically her boss from a different department.
Lexi, who Nell always disliked, is now her immediate boss.
Life has taken a drastic change all of a sudden in the town for Nell, and she cannot take it well. She also lives with a roommate whose way of living bothers her more than anything else.
Dennis assigns her first task of writing an obituary about a dead man, Monty Waxberg – a jingle maker who wrote a song that made Nell hate bubblegum. Nell can see Monty when nobody else can. It confuses her how but slowly, she gets comfortable with his presence.
While working on his obituary, she realizes that Monty makes her responsible for owning her life and taking complete control. He helps her understand that running away from her life’s problems will only frustrate her and lead her nowhere. Although Nell thinks seeing a dead man’s ghost is foolish, she also realizes it is essential to let go of her inhibitions and confidently own her shortcoming.
While things happen fast in Nell’s life, it also changes her perspective from being a rude and brutal personality to a little responsible. For instance, she sends an apology flower accepting her mistake of being mean and rude to Lexi, especially when she doesn’t know what she must be going through. She also tries to be more welcoming towards her roommate by accommodating towards a person who suffers from anxiety spectrum disorder.
After drafting her first writeup for Monty Waxberg, she shares the obituary with Denis, who is happy to run it through the publication. And as soon as she gets the next assignment, Monty’s ghost disappears, and a new spirit shows up, making Nell’s life strangely interesting.
Episode 2
Nell starts scripting out obituaries in quick succession as one ghost after another keeps showing up, giving life advice or telling her how she should live her life to the fullest. It turns out that Nells has accepted her fate of meeting dead people and writing about them.
While she gets irritated with some personalities who can be a little overwhelming, she also finds comfort from them as they share beautiful things about life that she has been ignoring all this time.
After returning to her old life back in America, she realizes that her friends have moved on and have become more patient and responsible. She decides that she wants to see herself achieve that sense of being as well. However, instead of moving one day at a time, she wants to skip all the steps and directly land herself at the perfect moment.
In the meantime, while Nell is missing out on being friends with Sam and Dennis, she fast becomes friends with dead Monty’s (from episode 1) wife, Cricket, who owns a beautiful restaurant and bar. Now and then, the two women would hang out together and talk about life in general, comforting each other and forgetting their lonely life.
It is when she meets another dead person – Jane Marvell, a life coach and motivational speaker. Jane’s entry is perfect timing in Nell’s life right now as she is at a hurdle where she wants to do things but is refraining from doing so because she doesn’t know how.
Jane helps her understand that Nell should not let others control her by any means. Using her life coach CDs, she teaches Nell some vital life lessons that make her stand up for herself—for instance, allowing herself to express her opinions at work despite getting dismissed. Or telling her roommate that she has equal rights to do things in the flat as much as he does, irrespective of what he is going through.
Nell learns from Jane that setting boundaries is as important as telling people what you think about things around you.
Not Dead Yet (Season 1), Episode 2 Ending, Explained:
When Nell realizes that the intern at her office is getting more importance than her, she gets determined to give her best shot and find a subject to write about. She wishes to get her old position back, so she uses her roommate Edward’s case study about endangered species.
She writes an article around it, thinking Lexi would get impressed and give her a better position than writing an obituary. However, Lexi gets furious as Nell when she gets the article uploaded to the publication without her permission, getting her name canceled from Lexi’s “book of giving second chances.”
But Sam comes to Nell’s rescue, speaks to Lexi in her language, and tells her what a brilliant writer Nell really is. Lexi agrees as she has been getting a lot of appreciation emails from friends and family of the dead people that Nell has been writing about.
Later, Sam explains to Nell to hold onto her job as an obituary writer and be patient, as good work and determination always pay off. She tells her that jumping from steps 1 to 20 is not right, and she must go through all the steps to find herself at a place she envisions one day. Nell agrees as she has been missing out on good things because she has been rushing to succeed at any close.
We also see Edward and Nell work on their communication as both try to be more honest about sharing the apartment. In the end, Nell takes Edward to meet Cricket at her restaurant, and they all share a drink having a hearty laugh over silly things in life.
Is meeting these ghosts really helping Nell become a better person in life? Or is she just doing things to get over her job as an obituary writer? Find out next in Episode 3 of Not Dead Yet on 16th February 2023.
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Not Dead Yet (2023- ) Links – IMDb
Not Dead Yet (2023- ) Cast -Gina Rodriguez, Hannah Simone, Rick Glassman, Josh Banday
Where to watch Not Dead Yet
