The Midwest is usually associated with uncomplicated kindness—nice, polite people who like college football, a cold beer, and (recent events in Minnesota notwithstanding) treating their neighbors with dignity and respect. But as an oft repeated phrase on Steven Conrad’s new HBO show warns, there’s more to Midwesterners than meets the eye.
“No one’s normal,” says Conrad, Zooming in from California. “It just looks that way from across the street.”
In the HBO limited series DTF St. Louis, Conrad explores the darkness just beyond a Midwestern city’s white picket fences. The seven-episode dark comedy stars Emmy favorites Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Linda Cardellini as three middle-aged St. Louis residents grappling with ennui, loneliness, and hidden desires, becoming enmeshed in a love triangle that leaves one of them dead.
As a writer, Conrad—who sold his first screenplay at the age of 19—has always been interested in messiness. “[There’s] a set of themes I’ve liked since I was a young person learning how to write: You watch somebody you like make a mistake, and you watch them try to make up for it,” he says. “You cheer for them to be able to do that. But like most of the consequential mistakes in our life, there really is no complete way to make it all better again.”
Harbour in DTF St. Louis.
Tina Rowden/HBO
Conrad doubles down on that central theme in DTF St. Louis, creating a series that explores how our mistakes—and desires—only compound with age. “The older I got, it occurred to me that we keep making them. There are plenty of middle-aged mistakes,” he says.
Bateman—also an executive producer on the series—was the perfect vessel to convey these ideas. He stars in the show as Clark Forrest, a hot weatherman and a micro-celebrity in the greater St. Louis area. While reporting on a storm, he’s paired with a good-hearted yet simple ASL interpreter named Floyd, played by Harbour. An unlikely friendship between the two blossoms, leading Clark to meet Floyd’s wife, Cardellini’s Carol—a previously single mother struggling to support a troubled tweenage-year-old son and an under-employed husband. The also-married Clark introduces Floyd to a new app called DTF St. Louis, made for singles and swingers looking to spice up their marriages. After a few fateful swipes, everyone’s lives begin to change.
“We show some billboards for DTF St. Louis, and their log line is, ‘All of the excitement, none of the consequences,’” Conrad tells me. “A smart person would know that that’s impossible.”
Jen (Christina Applegate) and Judy (Linda Cardellini) travel to Mexico after Jen is diagnosed with terminal cancer. When Jen wakes up to find a goodbye note from Judy, she walks out onto the beach and notices that their sailboat is gone.
“I left things ambiguous in certain respects on purpose,” Feldman explained to Deadline. “You’ve spent a lot of time with these characters. I feel like our audience almost has their own relationship with Jen and Judy, and I wanted them to be able to interpret for themselves what they felt like was the end. I didn’t feel that I needed to hit you over the head with it or have any sort of formal ceremony to mark a closure.”
She continued: “I wanted it to feel like grief itself feels, which is that you love someone, you have these beautiful relationships, and then one day they’re gone, and you’re left to put the pieces together yourself.”
In the final moments of the show, Jen admits that she has something she needs to tell Ben (James Marsden), however, viewers don’t find out exactly what that is.
Many fans have assumed that she was going to tell him the truth about killing Steve.
“I just wanted it to be satisfying. I wanted it to be cathartic,” Feldman added, “I wanted it to feel like an emotional experience that we were all going through together as an audience. It’s a lot of pressure to end a series, so I went with the feelings that I was hoping to produce in the audience and worked backward from there.”
Christina Applegate made her first public appearance since announcing that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in August of 2021.
On Monday, the “Dead To Me” actress was honoured with the unveiling of her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame “for her strength and versatility in theatre, film and television,” in which she has “proven herself to be one of Hollywood’s most influential leading ladies,” as the Walk of Fame Producer, Ana Martinez, stated ahead of the event.
Prior to the celebration, Applegate, 50, also told The New York Timesthat it would be the “first time anyone’s going to see me the way I am,” while opening up about how life has changed since her diagnosis.
“I put on 40 pounds; I can’t walk without a cane,” she continued. “I want people to know that I am very aware of all of that.”
During the special ceremony, Applegate was joined by Katey Sagal, who played her mother in the beloved sitcom “Married… with Children”, and David Faustino, who portrayed her brother in the popular series which ran from 1987 to 1997. Also in attendance was Applegate’s “Dead To Me” co-star, Linda Cardellini, and creator, Liz Feldman.
Christina Applegate thanks her daughter for her support as she receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: “Thank you for standing beside me for all of this. Oh, by the way, I have a disease. Did you not notice? I’m not even wearing shoes!” https://t.co/YpWGxW0eDupic.twitter.com/EZSJBGeMHm
“I just want to say I’m truly honoured to be a part of history in the making today,” said Faustino, who recalled the first time he met Applegate during auditions for the show. “The following 10 years were quite a wild ride. Christina and I are truly like brother and sister, even to this day.”
He thanked his former co-star for “inspiring me to be fearless” and shared that he’s “so proud” of Applegate’s “body of work” while praising her “powerhouse” performance in “Dead to Me”.
During Sagal’s turn to speak, she celebrated her former on-screen daughter for being “so effing famous” and praised Applegate’s “humility, humour, grace, fortitude [and] bravery.” She also told the actress that she’s been “high on my list of life’s teachers since you were 16.”
“You know sweetheart, some of us come into this life requiring broad shoulders because what’s coming at us needs support to bear it. Broad enough to hold what shows up,” she said. “I’ve seen you, the high highs of love and enormous success coupled with extreme challenges, but you came in with those shoulders and you bear the weight and you bend and you don’t break.”
Sagal went on to express how she loves that, to this day, Applegate still calls her “mommy.”
“I love you so much, my sweetheart, you’re not alone, we love you,” she concluded.
(L-R) David Faustino, Christina Applegate, Katey Sagal, and Amanda Bearse attend the Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony honouring Christina Applegate at Hollywood Walk Of Fame on November 14, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
— Photo: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
When Feldman took the mic, she called Applegate “a lioness” on set and “den mother to all,” explaining that she always looked out for her fellow castmates.
As for Cardellini, she got emotional while stepping up to the podium, sharing that one of the reasons she signed on to the dark comedy was because she knew Applegate was attached.
“She is one of the greats,” Cardellini said, before sharing that she’s made a “friend for life” in the actress who “has an incredible ability to make you feel at home” and “treats everyone with respect.”
(L-R) Liz Feldman, Christina Applegate, and Linda Cardellini pose with Christina Applegate’s star during her Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony at Hollywood Walk Of Fame on November 14, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
— Photo: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
Eventually Applegate made her way up to the podium with the support of her cane and Sagal, who helped hold her up.
“It’s so Katey to steal the thunder and be behind me,” Applegate joked before beginning her speech.
“I can’t stand for too long, so I’m going to thank the people that I really need to thank. First of all, for my family who has spoken here today, you are my everything. I love that I started with you two and I ended with you two,” she said of her coworkers and co-stars who spoke before her. “You are my people, you are my loves.”
Christina Applegate and Katey Sagal speak onstage during the Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony honouring Christina Applegate at Hollywood Walk Of Fame on November 14, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
— Photo: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
The “Friends” star then thanked her agent, along with the rest of her team, before getting emotional as she turned to her family.
“Lastly, the most important person in this world is my daughter. You are so much more, you are so much more than even you know,” she said, while turning towards her 11-year-old daughter, Sadie. “I am blessed every day that I get to wake up and take you to you school. You are my everything. Thank you for standing beside me through all of this — oh, by the way, I have a disease, did you not notice? I’m not even wearing shoes. You’re supposed to laugh at that!”
Additionally, in the audience were Applegate’s mother, Nancy Priddy, her husband, Martyn LeNoble, whom she shares Sadie with, fellow “Married… with Children” actress, Amanda Bearse and her “The Sweetest Thing” co-star Selma Blair, who also has MS.
(L-R) Sadie Grace LeNoble, Martyn LeNoble, Christina Applegate, guest, and Nancy Priddy pose with Christina Applegate’s star during the Hollywood Walk of Fame Ceremony at Hollywood Walk Of Fame on November 14, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
— Photo: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
Applegate’s star, located at 7007 Hollywood Boulevard, is adjacent to the stars of Sagal and Ed O’Neill, who played her father on “Married… With Children”. The ceremony for the “Going the Distance” actress comes just three days before the third and final season of “Dead To Me” premieres on Netflix.
For more on Applegate’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star, check out the live-streamed video of the ceremony in the video below.
Christina Applegate is opening up about her struggle filming “Dead to Me” with multiple sclerosis.
The actress was diagnosed in 2021 with the disease which affects the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves, sometimes affecting coordination and mobility and causing fatigue.
While the Netflix show’s production was put on pause for a while during the pandemic, there was also concern whether Applegate would be able to return for the final season.
“I had an obligation to Liz and to Linda [Cardellini], to our story. The powers that be were like, ‘Let’s just stop. We don’t need to finish it. Let’s put a few episodes together,’” she recalled in an interview to the New York Times. “I said, ‘No. We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it on my terms.’”
Applegate is learning to manage her new illness, which left her struggling to walk or stand at times, but she wished she had realized something was wrong earlier.
“There was the sense of, ‘Well, let’s get her some medicine so she can get better. And there is no better,” she said.
“Dead to Me” comes to a close with the final season, but the difficult experience filming has left her with little desire to watch it.
“If people hate it, if people love it, if all they can concentrate on is, ‘Ooh, look at the cripple,’ that’s not up to me,” said Applegate. “I’m sure that people are going to be, like, ‘I can’t get past it.’ Fine, don’t get past it, then. But hopefully people can get past it and just enjoy the ride and say goodbye to these two girls.”
Her performance in the show has led to two Emmy nominations for the actress and a close friendship with her co-star Cardellini.
