I Served Serial Joe a Slushie

Six Feet Under

While walking around a mall last week, I heard a song I couldn't immediately recognize until M identified it - the song from the end of the last episode of Six Feet Under. I don't think I've really thought about the series enough since we finished watching it, but it's certainly been kicking around in my head for a while. Beware: spoilers below! Don't read if you haven't seen the series in its entirety and want to.












First, the ending. I didn't like it as I watched it. I especially didn't like the fact that Clare magically ended up back together with her boyfriend from the final season. But when I think back on the series, the way it ended - showing how they all die - was the perfect way to end things. Of course - what else could they do in a show designed to make you aware of your own mortality? One's final memory, and what one takes away from it, is that you, like the characters in the show, will die.

It's a fact that we cannot contemplate, or if we try to, it's extremely difficult. (The Damien Hirst piece has the perfect title for this). And the central heart of the show is to try the futile task of making us aware of this. Every show begins with someone dying, and they live in a funeral home - yet the characters continually avoid the thought of death themselves. Each tries to hide and lashes out at others when the thought comes up. It's brilliantly done.

The central, tragic character at the centre of it all is Nate. It was almost entirely inevitable that he would die before the series ended - I actually expected they might not kill him off, just as a surprise. But he had to die, and perhaps especially because he was the one that avoided his own death the most. Which is of course ironic, as he is the one most affected by death. The death of his father affects him I think more than other characters in the show because he estranged himself from his father - when he finds out more about his father after his death, it is incredibly upsetting. His wife dies, and later he sees his brother-in-law kill himself. He runs the funeral home, but not (like David) because he particularly enjoys helping, but because he feels he has to. Yet through all this, he rejects thinking about his own death, and deliberately flaunts his medical condition and doctor's warnings.

This is to say nothing of his romances, which are so sad to watch. He keeps on repeating the same mistakes, over and over again, and most especially just before he dies. This is another aspect of the series - few of the characters really improve their lot in life. The best they manage to do is make small compromises to be slightly happier. A good example of this is David and Keith's relationship (by the way, the only plausible gay relationship I've ever seen on television). They work and work and work at their relationship, and in the end, they are slightly happier - but they still fight, and David is still afraid of his homosexuality, and Keith still has anger problems. But they are slightly happier by working at it.

I guess that's the message of the series - you have to face the way you are and live your life. If you don't, you'll end up miserable, and if you do, you'll end up slightly happier. Is that comforting or depressing? I'm not sure.

One thing I'm still not sure of in the series is the nature of when the characters have conversations with other dead characters. It is a constant device, and it leaves me uneasy. At first, I thought, it was obvious - the characters were simply expressing their own thoughts through their dead friends, colleagues, or family. But again and again, this was proven wrong - the dead characters would say and speak things of which the living ones would have no knowledge of, or more importantly, would never say themselves.

So how to view this device? I'm still not sure. Perhaps it simply adds a richness to the character's discussions with themselves by introducing a geniunely different voice to the conversation. It allows us to get inside the character's thoughts without it feeling repetitive. But again, this too feels unsatisfactory.

How good is the seris? As I watched it, I wasn't so sure. I mean, I enjoyed it and greatly looked forward to further episodes, but I kept on thinking, "this is the way television should be, but it isn't the great show of all time or any of that nonsense". My thought was that it was adequately great, but not a classic. But after thinking about more, I'm not so sure - it may actually be a true classic. Very few works of art really, actually, approach death; this show does, and that may be the thing which lifts it to being truly great.