Six Feet Under: Season 1-5 (Alan Ball, 2001-2005) IMDB Link“I know that if you think life's a vending machine where you put in virtue and take out happiness than you're going to be disappointed.”I wonder if it is okay if I call “Six Feet Under” a very good soap opera. I know the latter has negative connotations attached to it, but “Six Feet Under” does have many of the features of a soap opera show. It is about a bunch of people (a family, like most soap operas), it deals with life, death, and love, and plot lines include characters dying, characters getting married, and characters getting pregnant.
But maybe I should just call it “dark drama”, since that sounds much cooler than “very good soap opera”.
Whatever, let’s just move on the show. Nathaniel Fisher runs a funeral house with his son, David. Nathaniel passes away in the first episode and the rest of the family try to deal with it, deal with the business, and deal with life in general. The aforementioned David is played by Dexter Morgan in a non-psycho role. David’s brother Nate has been away from the family and due to the funeral, he gets pulled back into the family and the business. Other family members are Ruth, the mother, and Claire, the teenage daughter.
I’m not going to use the term “dysfunctional family”, which American media loves to throw on almost every family in almost every show or movie. Almost every family has their issues, and one of the most repeated phrases is “My family is crazy!”. Everyone somehow thinks that there is something particularly special about their family. Claiming one has a crazy family is like claiming your baby is cute. Everyone says that.
But shows like “Six Feet Under” work because we find certain things in their family lives that viewers can identify with. The Fisher family is not a dysfunctional family, they are a family.
The show has its ups and downs, but the final ten minutes of the finale is probably the best final ten minutes of any show ever made.
“Nathaniel Fisher: You hang on to your pain like it means something, like it's worth something. Well let me tell you, it's not worth shit. Let it go. Infinite possibilities and all he can do is whine.
David Fisher: Well, what am I supposed to do?
Nathaniel Fisher: What do you think? You can do anything, you lucky bastard, you're alive. What's a little pain compared to that?
David Fisher: It can't be so simple.
Nathaniel Fisher: What if it is?”4/5
