Ruth and Bettina go on a hellish road trip to Mexico, which ends with Ruth witnessing a horse getting shot on the beach. A duo of comic book thieves break into the funeral home to steal a rare comic book from their friend. Beyond that however, “Grinding the Corn” is a pretty strange combination of weird ideas. “Grinding the Corn” allows George Sibley to become a more likable character for once, and sees Nate opening up to being in a meaningful relationship again. But in a show whose ethos has been strongly tied to how we can’t have the answers to everything, “Untitled” feels like Six Feet Under trying desperately to suggest the opposite. “Untitled” is saved by the highly realistic reaction to Rico and Vanessa’s dissolving marriage, and by a fantastic scene between David and Nathaniel. Sure, it’s effective in terms of shock value, but it also makes Nate’s childish worrying ultimately pay off, and resolves a mystery that doesn’t really need to be solved (all while giving us one of the most out-of-place scenes in the entire series). After an entire season of Nate grasping at straws over Lisa’s death, he finally gets some closure and answers, before watching Lisa’s brother-in-law kill himself. For this reason, it’s surprising that her message doesn’t come across in the episode’s format in fact, “Untitled” actually wraps up many of its storylines far too neatly, to the point where it feels disingenuous to the rest of the show.įrom the very beginning, when a man is cut in half by an elevator, “Untitled” feels too over-the-top (even for Six Feet Under). Even in “Untitled,” Claire presents her artwork without a name, so that people will be forced to just deal with it and accept it as is. Without further ado, here is my ranking of all 63 episodes of Six Feet Under, from worst (still pretty great) to best (possibly the greatest TV episode of all time).Įarly on in Six Feet Under the show presented the idea that things can’t always be wrapped up in a tidy bow. Simply put, Six Feet Under is may favorite TV show of all time and might be the best work of entertainment I’ve ever encountered. Every few years, I watch the entire series again and I always find something new to latch onto-a new character that I’ll sympathize with for the first time or a situation, or one that I see in a completely new light. I personally watched Six Feet Under for the first time as a teenager and these five seasons would ultimately help me hone my own ideas on love, death, marriage, war, life and a myriad of other topics. David, Claire, Nate, Ruth, Brenda, Keith and Frederico (and so many of their friends and clients) felt so, incredibly real, even when their situations were unbelievable at times. This series consistently succeeded in making its audience laugh and cry with ease, by giving us some of TV’s most multilayered characters. Six Feet Under helped usher in a new era of drama, one that continues today in shows like The Leftovers, Transparent and The Affair. Over five seasons, Six Feet Under created a compelling cast of characters, scripts that surprised and shocked with profundity and hilariousness and an overall overwhelming emotional experience. Premiering in 2001, a year that would, in many ways, be defined by tragedy, Six Feet Under was bleak, dark and often disturbing, rarely offering easy answers and constantly asking its audience to consider life’s most complex questions. Death is complicated.Two years after Alan Ball’s Academy Award win for writing American Beauty, and just after HBO premiered The Sopranos, the two forces joined together to release Six Feet Under, a phenomenal drama centered on the Fisher & Sons funeral home. And then here I am, feeling sad that this character I really liked is dead but also feeling anger toward him for leaving Brenda the way he did. She’s trying to figure out how to process these feelings of grief that are just as complicated as her relationship with Nate was. That’s what’s memorable about her character in this episode: She’s not just another TV wife crying over her dead husband’s grave. She lost her partner and she’s carrying his baby, and she’s mothering his daughter, and he didn’t even want to be with her at the end. People lose their partners on TV all the time, but what’s different about Brenda is that she didn’t just lose her partner. Maybe “tension” is an understatement, since Nate straight-up says he doesn’t want to be together anymore before his death, but either way, they’re not on good terms when he dies. Brenda is living my worst fear: Losing someone close to you at a moment of tension in the relationship.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |