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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Six Feet Under: Season Five (US Spoilers)

14:12 / 05.06.05

Compared to The Sopranos, the wait for new Six Feet Under seasons feels like nothing. Anyway, we're at the final season, and I'm quite excited. Unlike most reviewers, I loved the past two seasons, particularly three, if only for the amazing season premiere and the extraordinarily intense three episode arc at the end. And according to the synopsis, Claire and Billy are going to be moving on in together, and more Billy can only be a good thing.

21:00 / 08.08.05

SPOILERS THROUGH ECOTONE DO NOT LOOK

Anyone been watching the season? I was totally overwhelmed by the events of last week's episode. I'm not saying it's the best episode of the series, but I was absolutely furious when Nate was dying, and the fact that the show got me so worked up means it's doing something right. He was a flawed guy, but I think Nate got a raw deal.

Tryphena Absent

21:07 / 08.08.05

Someone put a bloody US warning on this thread NOW. I've just seen a spoiler.

Keith, like a scientist

21:16 / 08.08.05

I've been watching, Patrick-what-happened-to-Frost. I agree with you.

Can't put a spoiler warning on this. Have to ask someone else.

Then we can talk.

22:34 / 08.08.05

I put a spoiler warning on my previous post. Sorry about that, I wasn't thinking there. Once the spoiler warnings are out of the way, there's definitely a lot to talk about with what happened.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

15:56 / 09.08.05

Uh, YEAH.

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I've watched the last two episodes twice because, well, it's warranted.

The Nate/David dream was quite the highlight, as that bleached out fade is exactly my worst nightmare of death, all the color and beauty bleeding out of the world, losing focus, and then nothing.

"All Alone" had two scenes completely central to the entire series. Ruth helping clean Nate's body and her reassurance of David ("Then we'll wait until you can.") were the sum total reasons for this show's existence from Day 1. That, along with Claire's flashback (I SO did that!) were the two most levelling sequences for me, emotion-wise. But aren't the lyrics to All Apologies "All in all is all we are"? Most SFU pundits are claiming it's "All alone is all we are," hence the title. Quel mystere.

Also not to be lost in the shuffle, Rico and Vanessa's reconciliation scene from "Ecotone" was a high watermark for the series.

And Ted rules, making it that much harder for America's Blue States.

Really, the acting all around this season has been outrageous, just unstoppably humane, with everything really hitting undreamt of heights (at least in shows taking place in the 21st Century, HI DEADWOOD!) in the last two episodes. We all expect it from Ruth and Davey, but everyone, EVERYONE, was in top form.

And who doesn't love the newly minted Fisher-Charles family? "I put some smooth jazz on my iPod for you." YES.

Anyway, this season is turning out so fabulously, it's almost convinced me to chip away cash here and there to pick up all the box sets I'm missing (read: 2 thru 4). I even want to watch Season 4, yes. I know.

The next (LAST!) two episodes are going to be ROUGH.

Keith, like a scientist

16:14 / 09.08.05

just a quick note (can't respond in full at the moment) to say that i read an interesting news item the other day. Alan Ball is writing and directing the final episode, part of which is said to take place "in the future," whatever that means.

Nate's death...was very shocking and hard for me. I've always liked him. I've long pointed to him as my favorite character in television...someone so real and human... I think George's speech about Nate was the best description of him that there has been.

It's a curious thing to have two more episodes to go...

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

16:32 / 09.08.05

Yeah, I've heard that rumor about the finale as well, sort of a look at every character's final moments.

We shall see.

And I'm with you on Nate, brah. And it's all Pete K's fault. He's just too fucking good.

Keith, like a scientist

16:47 / 09.08.05

i'm not sure i want to see the other people's final moments...it seems to lessen the import of Nate's death in my mind. but i know next to nothing about the final episode and hope i don't learn anything more...

is now the time to start talking about our favorite moments of SFU?

I'll start. I've always loved the scene where Nate breaks off the first engagement with Brenda. He is so betrayed and pissed. He raises his ring hand to remove the ring, and she says "Don't you dare throw that ring at me...that's such a cliche!" and he has this look in his eye that's like "Shut up you goddamn liar, I don't care what you think" and flips the ring at her ANYWAY. It's just a deserving insult to her at that point.

It doesn't make Nate a better person or anything, but it points to his "whatever the fuck" attitude that I so love in his characterization.

20:20 / 09.08.05

That ring scene is probably my favorite in the series too. It's the fact that Brenda is more worried about not being cliched at this point than being emotionally real, so when Nate does throw the ring at her, it hurts even more.

My other favorite bit is the opening of 'Perfect Circles,' where Nate wanders through all the alternate realities, that's one of the scenes that makes the show so much more than just soap opera, like there's some huge purpose to everything that's going on.

Keith, like a scientist

20:36 / 09.08.05

your first paragraph was what i was trying to say about that scene, but couldn't pinpoint it. thanks!

wow, i forgot about the alternate reality stuff...I need to see that episode again.

Fritz K Driftwood

06:44 / 10.08.05

Several times during the episode two weeks ago (where Nate collapses at the end - "Singing for our lives"), I felt like the writers were hinting at Nate's impending doom. All of the talk by him about how he wanted to be buried and the peace he was feeling at the Quaker Meeting House.

Brenda has never been a favorite character of mine. Love the actress, think the character is believable, but never liked her much. Didn't want her and Nate to get back together, but I really felt bad for her at the funeral. I thought she would have at least told David about her encounter with Nate at the hospital.

I love how Claire has had to deal with the monotony and banality of office life this season after the excitement of art school. But I think that it is the deaths at the beginning of each episode that I will miss most. The one last season where the helium filled porn dolls got loose and that poor woman thought it was The Rapture...oh, my god! This season, the one where the guy is jogging thru Griffith Park and the mountain lion gets him (might have been "Singing for our lives"), classic!

I will really miss this show once it is over. Just watched the last episode of "Queer as Folk" (the US version), and SFU is just sooo much more interesting, better acted, better written. Can't really think of any other series that compares for me.

19:07 / 15.08.05

One left. I loved last night's episode, the dream sequence with Billy was a highlight, but really, everything was working. Reaching the end, you'd think that things would be a bit less intense, but it seems like there's no let down, and there's still a ton of things to work through in the next episode. I have a feeling it's going to be a great finale, Alan Ball usually delivers when he writes/directs, I'd love to see something like the dream sequence from Perfect Circles here.

Keith, like a scientist

01:57 / 22.08.05

wow.

that was quite satisfying. i teared up quite a bit in the ending sequences.

the thing that bothered me the most was the portrayal of Nate as such a fuck to Brenda about the baby in the first half of it. I didn't quite get that. because then he suddenly became nice and loving? i was a little confused with what they were trying to say about brenda there... that the Bad Nate was her feelings about him before she accepted her place with the Fisher Family?

i was dreading the "future" stuff when i heard about it, but was pleasantly surprised by how heartfelt it was. Keith and David's wedding was a particular tear-jerker for me, mostly seeing Brenda with both of her girls. David seeing Keith later on after his death just before David fell over was also a very beautiful moment.

rambling a bit...but i'm still processing it...

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

06:12 / 22.08.05

Yeah, Keith and David were the worst. Especially poor Keith. Right when I saw Charles Security, I knew he was Myrmidon food. Such a sad and awful way for an old man to die. You know it bugged me that Maya and Willa weren't there and now it's clear that I missed them.

As far as Nate goes, well, clearly that Alan had to cram it in, like his inexplicable Evil Grandmother subplot that wen't nowhere. I was half-expecting Ruth to get shot by Maya in the future, and we'd be able to read her lips:

"There can be only one."

Was I the only one who expected to see Ari Gold die in a convenience store hold up at the age of 73 at the end of Entourage?

I much prefered the previous two episodes to this one, but it was certainly not without its moments.

22:40 / 22.08.05

That evil grandmother thing had been around for a while, I wouldn't call it a plot, but it's crucial here because Ruth has used having to care for her grandmother as an excuse for why she's been unhappy for so many years, so at the end, she liberates Claire to go off and do her own thing, and not be stuck caring for an old woman. I think it works well.

And, I would agree the episode on a whole wasn't as powerful as any of the past three episodes, but that last five minutes was the best thing they ever did on the series. It's such a bold way to end things, but seems totally right, and left me with a really great feeling of closure. It was so good I almost want to see every TV series end that way now.

23:04 / 22.08.05

There's a moment after Keith dies where David is sitting next to a black man who's holding hands with an Asian, and on his other side is a small black child. Does this imply Darrell winds up in prison after fathering an illegitimate child while the other son is gay?

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

23:27 / 22.08.05

Oh, no, not the legless Grandmother thing, but Ma Chenowith's inexplicable behavior in regards to Maya which took up a good two scenes that could've been devoted to, say, Rico breaking ground on The Diaz Funeral Emporium.

05:13 / 23.08.05

If you haven't seen these yet, check out the obituaries for all the characters posted on HBO's site. They do one for the character who dies in every episode, but there's really been no reason to care until now. Though it is interesting to see that the page for Perfect Circles states that Nate dies, and offers times for a viewing and funeral, which would imply that Nate crosses into an alternate reality during this episode, and the rest of the series plays out in said reality.

On the issue of David's children, one was definitely gay and was with the Asian man, but the other was sitting with a woman on the other side of the frame, and I think they were the ones who had the kids. Or perhaps he was in prison, who knows for sure?

One thing I'm wondering is if David's assailant from 'That's My Dog' was at their wedding. It wouldn't make much sense, but I could have sworn I saw him there. Anyone else see him?

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

05:50 / 23.08.05

That was probably exceutive producer Alan Poul, between Rico and Vanessa, who looks creepily exactly like him.

14:25 / 23.08.05

On the obituaries page, did anybody notice that Keith and David get a divorce? It reads:

"David leaves behind his partner Raoul Martinez, his beloved sons Durrell and Anthony Charles-Fisher..."

Very very sad. Of all the characters on that show, the ones I wanted to live happily ever after together was Keith and David. Oh well.

The last fifteen minutes of that show made me cry more than when I thought Shadow was dead in "Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey". Almost more tears than the colour portion of "Schindler's List".

Wow. Thanks, Alan Ball.

14:26 / 23.08.05

Whoops. Not a divorce. Keith dies.... My mistake.

Keith, like a scientist

02:15 / 24.08.05

i just watched this again, and i'm not ashamed to say it completely reduced me to tears. again. but even moreso on second viewing, for some reason.

that moment when ruth turns to see nate just as she dies...so beautiful.

i really admire that entire "future" sequence. it was handled so well. i loved every scene of it (maybe not Keith's death, but...).

22:58 / 05.09.05

How did this thread die so quickly? Maybe because anything we ever had to say about the characters' futures was shown to us.

Anyway, I sucked it up and bought the third and fourth season box sets and I'm currently halfway through the fourth, dreading the carjacking episode, which makes me feel sick to my stomach.

I really didn't like Claire's storylines for almost the entire show's life. She seemed to jump from one lover to another, and everytime, I felt like she wasn't growing as a character. It wasn't until she broke up with Billy when I saw something different. She seemed to rise above her own situation and see the foolishness of living with Billy. Her questions about her artistic abilities really seemed to resonate with me, and I was more intrigued than the forced, boring affair between her and Mena Suvari (did I mention it was boring?) And of course, I fucking love Ted. How charming was he? The point in which I really fell in love with Ted was when the characters go to Brenda's, and Ruth is reluctant to enter. Ted tells her that Maya would really appreciate seeing her grandmother, and my heart melted. Even though he listens to Top Forty, Christian music, he seemed like the healthiest choice for Claire. I'm glad they married. And in the final episode, that photo of him near the very end was gorgeous beyond belief. I wonder if Lauren Ambrose took it, or if they had a professional photographer do all of her stuff. I mean, for years, Ambrose played a photographer, I wonder if she developed an interest in it.

God I missed Nate though. I love Krause.

16:43 / 06.09.05

I was a huge fan of Ted also, I was really rooting for him and Claire and seeing that photo from the beginning of the episode turn up at the end was one of the high points of the finale.

However, I would have to disagree when you say that you didn't like most of Claire's stuff throughout the series. In the first two years, she doesn't get much to do, her whole storyline with Gary was basically her whining, but I think the art school stuff in years three and four is great, and I really liked her stuff with Russell in season three, and the whole friendship/jealousy dynamic in season four, as she became more successful. And season five brilliantly flips all that on its head, by having her leave this very insular world and have to take this mundane office job, where everything she's been believing in her whole life doesn't really apply.

03:37 / 07.09.05

That's probably why I liked the whole office storyline even more, because it was Claire's entire storyline flipped on its head. Otherwise, I find I'm just bored by Claire and her flings. I wanted more from her, and all I got was a very lousy storyline about Mena Suvari.