Doux Top Twenty! Number 10: Six Feet Under

Six Feet Under is number 10 in our Doux Top Twenty hitting shows.

(I borrowed some of this text from a piece I wrote awhile back, because it says what I want to say.)

I didn't discover Six Feet Under (2001-2005) until it was nearly over, and wrote retro reviews after the fact. Although when I was watching it for the first time, I knew immediately I'd have to review it, so I took notes about my reactions to every episode.

Five (And More) Ubiquitous Dead TV Characters*

*As in those characters who died either before or at the very beginning of a series, but continued to be a major presence throughout its run.

Five Shows that Were a Bear to Review

It's safe to say that I've written a whole lot of reviews. Thousands, even, and that's just Supernatural... no, I'm kidding, but it really does number in the thousands.

Firefly and Six Feet Under

And the winners are...

Yes, I know I didn't even mention it in my reader survey, but I finally got around to watching Firefly and Nathan Fillion just won me over. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Firefly also has the advantage of being an easy commitment review-wise because it was over way too soon.

Six Feet Under

Season 1 | Season 2 |
Season 3 | Season 4 |
Season 5 |
Related Links | Cast |

Six Feet Under (2001-2005) is a provocative drama about a family that runs a funeral home. It's funny, sexy, tragic and deep, and I don't think there's ever been a series quite like it. The writing and production values were top of line, and the cast, led by Peter Krause and Michael C. Hall, was just outstanding. If you've never seen it, I urge you to give it a try.

Just so you know: it ran on HBO and is seriously R-rated for sexual situations as well as dead stuff.

Season One

1.1 Pilot
1.2 The Will
1.3 The Foot
1.4 Familia
1.5 An Open Book
1.6 The Room
1.7 Brotherhood
1.8 Crossroads
1.9 Life's Too Short
1.10 The New Person
1.11 The Trip
1.12 A Private Life
1.13 Knock, Knock

Season Two

2.1 In the Game
2.2 Out, Out Brief Candle
2.3 The Plan
2.4 Driving Mr. Mossback
2.5 The Invisible Woman
2.6 In Place of Anger
2.7 Back to the Garden
2.8 It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
2.9 Someone Else's Eyes
2.10 The Secret
2.11 The Liar and the Whore
2.12 I'll Take You
2.13 The Last Time

Season Three

3.1 Perfect Circles
3.2 You Never Know
3.3 The Eye Inside
3.4 Nobody Sleeps
3.5 The Trap
3.6 Making Love Work
3.7 Timing & Space
3.8 Tears, Bones and Desire
3.9 The Opening
3.10 Everyone Leaves
3.11 Death Works Overtime
3.12 Twilight
3.13 I'm Sorry, I'm Lost

Season Four

4.1 Falling into Place
4.2 In Case of Rapture
4.3 Parallel Play
4.4 Can I Come Up Now?
4.5 That's My Dog
4.6 Terror Starts at Home
4.7 The Dare
4.8 Coming and Going
4.9 Grinding the Corn
4.10 The Black Forest
4.11 Bomb Shelter
4.12 Untitled

Season Five

5.1 A Coat of White Primer
5.2 Dancing for Me
5.3 Hold My Hand
5.4 Time Flies
5.5 Eat a Peach
5.6 The Rainbow of Her Reasons
5.7 The Silence
5.8 Singing for Our Lives
5.9 Ecotone
5.10 All Alone
5.11 Static
5.12 Everyone's Waiting

Related Links

Doux Top Twenty! Number 10: Six Feet Under
Five Shows that Were a Bear to Review by Billie Doux
True Blood (also created by Alan Ball)
Dexter (also starring Michael C. Hall)

Cast

Peter Krause (Nate Fisher)
Michael C. Hall (David Fisher)
Frances Conroy (Ruth Fisher)
Lauren Ambrose (Claire Fisher)
Freddy Rodríguez (Federico 'Rico' Diaz)
Mathew St. Patrick (Keith Charles)
Rachel Griffiths (Brenda Chenowith)
Justina Machado (Vanessa Diaz)
Jeremy Sisto (Billy Chenowith)
James Cromwell (George Sibley)
Brenna Tosh/Bronwyn Tosh (Maya Fisher)

Six Feet Under: Everyone's Waiting

Nate: "You can't take a picture of this. It's already gone."

When this episode began with a birth, I thought, oh no, Brenda's baby is going to die. And then when Willa lived, I thought that this would be the only episode with no death. But no. That would have been wrong for this series. Instead, everyone died.

Six Feet Under: Static

David: "I feel like my face is coming off. I keep trying to hold it on, but I can't."

Shit happens when someone very close to you dies. People are terrific. People are awful. People avoid you because they don't know what to say to you. Depression settles in, and you feel like the world is coming to an end. Things go wrong.

Six Feet Under: All Alone

Nate: "There is no death. Wasn't it a relief when you realized that?"

It was fitting that the strangest, most moving, most unconventional funeral of the series was Nate's. Especially the burial, which was actually something like Lisa's. The family lowered Nate into the ground and shoveled the dirt themselves, a contrast to the pilot episode and the dirt shakers. The last shot of the funeral was dirt falling on us. We are Nate.

Six Feet Under: Ecotone

Nate: "You're making love with somebody and your head explodes. That's a good sign."

Six Feet Under: Singing for Our Lives

Nate: "I just know that when I die, please wrap me in a shroud and plant me next to a beautiful tree so that nobody could build a mini-mall there."

Well, Nate did say he longed for peace.

Six Feet Under: The Silence

George: "Do you want to talk about your feelings?"
Ruth: "Strangely enough, I don't think I have any."

Pretty clear theme with this one: doing things out of obligation, not because you want to do them. And trying to find a way to listen to the truth inside oneself.

Six Feet Under: The Rainbow of Her Reasons

Nate: "My first love just died."
Billy: "Seriously?"

And now Nate's first love just fell off a cliff. Could we get some more foreshadowing, maybe? Geez Louise.

Six Feet Under: Eat a Peach

Brenda: "I grew up with parents who had no boundaries. You grew up with parents that had nothing but boundaries. Do you really think that was so much better?"

Lots of parenting issues. Lots of issues with emotional baggage, too. And for some reason, really weird meals. Like the Opening Death. The adoption picnic. Margaret ambushing Claire. George, with an extreme lack of tact, asking Nate if he had had closure with Lisa's murder.

Six Feet Under: Time Flies

George: "No, omen. It's pronounced 'omen'."

Nate actually killed the bluebird of happiness. I love this show.

Six Feet Under: Hold My Hand

Ruth: "He did not intend to finance you while you play house with a crazy person!"
Claire: "Look who's talking!"

Lots about mental illness. Brenda's patients. George and Billy as patients.

Six Feet Under: Dancing for Me

David: "He was run over?"
Nate: "Yeah, he ran over himself."
David: "How do you do that?"
Nate: "I have no idea."

Ruth sabotaged her chances of being happy with George with her anger over old issues. David sabotaged Keith's baby plans because he wanted to adopt, instead. Billy sabotaged himself by not accepting what being unmedicated does to him. Nate's old friend Tom wanted his youth back and translated that longing into an inappropriate yen for underage girls.

Six Feet Under: A Coat of White Primer

Brenda: "You're just bitter because you had to get pregnant to get Nate to marry you."
Lisa: "I'm bitter? Who's drunk and yelling at a dead woman?"

This one began with a wedding and ended with a wedding. Both Nate's. Both essentially tragic, too. The title was about whitewashing over your problems instead of fixing them. Symbolically, the "coat of white primer" was Brenda's wedding dress, covering the death going on inside of her.

Six Feet Under: Untitled

Brenda: "It doesn't do us any good to live in this constant state of panic."

I totally did not see the thing with Hoyt coming. It was outright shocking. It also made everything fall into place, since we never really knew what happened to Lisa. He killed her, didn't he? He must have; at one point, he said that he couldn't let Lisa tell Barb. It probably would have been more denouement-like if he'd actually confessed before putting the gun in his mouth. But like Hoyt's death, life is messy and things aren't always resolved to our satisfaction.

Six Feet Under: Bomb Shelter

Nate: "I mean, who the hell am I? Job?"

This was a disturbing circle-cannot-hold sort of episode. As soon as one humongous problem was resolved, another one took its place. Crazed legal insanity was a theme, too.

Six Feet Under: The Black Forest

Ruth: "We're supposed to stay together because you don't want to move your rocks?"

Finally, the ashes were out of the bag. So to speak. Will Nate be arrested for body-snatching? Will they have to dig up Lisa?