Six Feet Under: Complete Series (RPKG/DVD)
.com
----
Six Feet Under: The Complete First Season-The Fishers are your
typical dysfunctional family. Ruth (Frances Conroy) is the stern
matriarch who has trouble expressing emotion and snaps at the
slightest problem. Daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose) is an
underachiever who cultivates a moody, mysterious loner image in
high school (she's indulging in illegal substances too). Brother
David (Michael C. Hall) works in the family business, and is
uptight beyond belief (he's indulging in a secret sexual
relationship too). Elder brother Nate (Peter Krause) is the black
sheep, who, eschewing responsibility, fled to Seattle but got
lured back. And Dad (Richard Jenkins) watches it all bemusedly.
Did we mention Dad's dead? Oh, and that the Fisher family
business is a funeral home? It might sound off-putting, but
coming from the mind of Alan Ball, the man who strip-mined
suburban life to find the mordant wit underneath in American
Beauty, Six Feet Under is a trenchant, stylish spin on standard
family dysfunction.
This HBO series initially aspired to fits of Twin Peaks-like
whimsy, with each episode starting with a death more outlandish
than the previous, but soon settled into a comfortable groove
that harkened back to the most familiar of TV family dramas (in
fact, it's almost a mirror image of '70s drama Family, down to
the three sibling archetypes). Of course, its HBO roots allowed
it ample leeway with sex, drug usage, profanity, and violence.
While the writing strove to be a little too clever, the overall
look and tone of the show remained solid and sometimes profound
(sometimes absurd too, but usually with good reason). Krause and
Hall, as initially warring brothers who come to a wary
understanding, are solid anchors, but it's the women in the cast
who do the most phenomenal work. Conroy infuses her almost
stereotypical mom with an obstinate but ultimately accepting
heart, and Ambrose's Claire is by far the show's most appealing
character. And stealing scenes left and right is Rachel
Griffith's Brenda, a mystery woman with an outlandish backstory
who meets Nate on a plane, has sex with him at the airport, and
infiltrates his life. Like Brenda herself, Six Feet Under is
fascinating--and highly addictive. --Mark Englehart
Six Feet Under: The Complete Second Season-In some ways, HBO's
Six Feet Under plays kid brother to stellar BMOC The Sopranos:
it's spunkier, less refined, chancier, and a bit of a punk.
Nevertheless, the show set in the Southern California mortuary
Fisher and Sons deserves its place in the pantheon of great
television series. The initial season was a showcase for the most
original characters, including tight-lipped brother David
(Michael C. Hall) coming out of the closet, emotionally trippy
mom Ruth (Frances Conroy), and the most complex girlfriend on the
face of the planet, Brenda (Rachel Griffiths). Slowly, the major
force in season 2 is the unassuming lead, Peter Krause. Part of
the long line of good-looking actors who never get respect
because they make it look too easy, Krause (Sports Night) finds
the perfect blend of optimism with a wonderful, bittersweet
anguish as Nate, the prodigal son.
The initial season's happy ending is forgotten as relationships
change, the business is still under fire from the evil
conglomerate Kroehner, and a lively dream sequence is just around
the corner. As with the premier season, creator Alan Ball lets
many others direct and write the show, but his stamp is all over
it. The eccentricities of the characters are shaped, and not
always suddenly. Take daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose), who sheds
her bad boyfriend only to find more complex relationships on her
road to discovering her own groove. One person in the mix is
Ruth's beatnik sister (Patricia Clarkson, in an Emmy-winning
role), a joyous embodiment of thriving--if aging--counter
culture. Another new character is Nate's old girlfriend, the
granola-loving Lisa (Lili Taylor). With Brenda heading down
another destructive course, Nate is at more than one crossroads
by season's end. For fans who groove with the wild, serio-comedic
world of the Fishers (and let's face it, many didn't), the second
season goes down like a fine meal of fusion cuisine. The show
shares an unfortunate family trait with its HBO big brother:
although both were lavished with multiple Emmy nominations the
first two seasons, both took home only token awards. But then
there's always next year. --Doug Thomas
Six Feet Under: The Complete Third Season-No other show captures
the ebb and flow of day-to-day human relationships like Six Feet
Under, which chronicles the dysfunctional lives of the Fisher
family, who run a funeral home in Los Angeles. Though the overt
theme of the series is mortality--every episode opens with the
death of someone whose body will end up on the Fishers' slab--but
the third season, even moreso than the first two, explores the
intertwining struggles for connection and for personal freedom.
The season starts slowly but compellingly, laying out the changes
in the Fishers' lives. Nate (Peter Krause, We Don't Live Here
Anymore) has married and has a baby. David (Michael C. Hall) is
settling into tense domesticity with his angry boyfriend. Claire
(Lauren Ambrose) has launched into art school. Ruth (Frances
Conroy), their mother, is reaching out for companionship from an
emotionally stilted young intern, and Brenda (Rachel Griffiths,
Hilary and Jackie), Nate's ex-fiancee, has apparently vanished
from their lives. But as storylines unfold across the 13
episodes, the emotional heft of the season comes from the
expanded roles of the family's s. Federico (Freddy
Rodriguez), who has leveraged his way into a partnership with the
Fisher brothers, finds himself fighting to be treated as an equal
at work and struggling with his wife's depression at home. Trying
to sort out their relationship, David and Keith (Mathew St.
Patrick) negotiate everything from therapy to threesomes.
Meanwhile Lisa (Lili Taylor, I Andy Warhol), Nate's unhappy
wife, increasingly becomes the center of the season as her
jealousy and need become unbearable. Though big events happen,
the most jolting drama on Six Feet Under comes from small
conflicts--miscommunications, crossed desires, habits that don't
mesh. The cast, writers, and directors can, with breathtaking
skill and subtlety, spin a brief conversation into a microcosm of
the character's lives. By this third season, the show has taken
on the richness and complexity of a great novel; it's an
impressive and deeply enjoyable achievement. --Bret Fetzer
Six Feet Under: The Complete Fourth Season-This penultimate
season of Six Feet Under continues further down the darkly
disturbing path so evident in the third season. To be sure, the
signature--and ultimately undefinable--blend of tragic mishap
with tripped-out comic eccentricity that has stamped the series
from its debut remains pervasive. It's the concentration of the
mix that has changed. Leavening moments seem less , much
as the bizarre death sequences that open each episode often turn
out to be rather contrived preludes to the ensuing thematic
obsessions. Which isn't to say season 4 lacks the delightfully
memorable quirkiness fans have grown to expect. Recurring
incidents of fecal revenge bring tensions to the surface between
Ruth (Frances Conroy) and her new husband George (James
Cromwell), in turn leading to young intern Arthur's resignation
(Rainn Wilson's spot-on characterization is so enjoyable that his
self-imposed exile from the Fisher nest early in the season is a
real loss). Ruth meanwhile hooks up again briefly with the
irrepressible Bettina (Kathy Bates) for an excursion south of the
border. But brooding glimpses into chaos beneath the surface
provide the emotional momentum of this season, right from the
opening scene, as Nate (Peter Krause) inevitably gravitates back
toward Brenda (Rachel Griffiths) in the aftermath of his wife's
death. As usual, writers and directors vary for each episode, but
the dark eccentricities of creator Alan Ball's original
characters have become more sharply focused and sustained. We
seem to spend even more time viewing the world through individual
points of view: Nate's roiling anger and grief or Claire's
(Lauren Ambrose) newfound sexual and artistic experimentation as
she learns about "grinding the corn" and attains respect as a
photographer. The toxicity of relationships continues to be a
preoccupation. We get the Ruth-George meltdown as well as the
painful unraveling of Rico's (Freddy Rodriguez) marriage to
Vanessa (Justina Machado). But the most harrowing episode follows
David (Michael C. Hall) through an increasingly perilous
carjacking. This nightmarish fugue, midway through, ripples out
into the rest of the season, posing another threat to his tenuous
relationship with Keith (Matthew St. Patrick). It sets a course
for further apocalyptic imagery of environmental collapse and
fallout shelters. There's little to gentle the downward slide and
exposure of vulnerability, save taking refuge in the quirkiness
that seems to be the Fishers' birthright. But that, as they say,
is to die for. --Thomas May
Six Feet Under: The Complete Fifth Season-So much anticipation
pools up around the concluding episode of this concluding season
that you might be tempted to head straight for said finale,
titled "Everyone's Waiting" (and it's so rich you'll find
yourself drawn to repeated viewings). But if you can avoid that
impulse, it's worth following the full build-up of one crisis
after another to get the real payoff. On an episode-by-episode
basis, Six Feet Under's fifth season has a decidedly uneven
quality, shifting in tone far more drastically, say, than the
intensely dark season 4. Character traits that have already been
developed at length begin to seem annoyingly repetitious--Nate's
(Peter Krause) self-centered frustration and furious lashings
out, Billy's (Jeremy Sisto) resurgent psychosis--like leitmotifs
run amuck. But this season also benefits from the knowledge we've
developed, over the years, of the Fisher family and their loved
ones, so that what they end up facing has a real emotional
wallop, sometimes jump-starting the drama just where it seems to
be in danger of churning itself into circles. It's hardly a
spoiler to mention that 6fu's final season, though bookended by
the promise of new beginnings (a wedding in episode 1 to a
departure for new prospects in the 12th episode), centers around
loss and a pivotal death. The scripts contain more than an
occasional sense of inconsequential filler, while some of the
recurring thematics seem forced (we see David continue to cope
with the s from his abduction in the previous episode via
over-obvious imagery of facing his "inner demons"). Other issues
receive especially compelling , above all Brenda's
(Rachel Griffiths) desire to have a child and David and Keith's
(Mathew St. Patrick) choice to adopt. But the real strength of
this season lies in several gripping performances. Ruth (Frances
Conroy) touches off a complex series of reactions, simultaneously
sympathetic and judgmental, transcending the tendency to appear
as a neurotic caricature. The super-talented Lauren Ambrose
brings off Claire's emerging self-awareness and maturity with
moving touches (she's also got some of the funniest moments as
she takes on a stint as a temp in scenes that call to mind the
hysterics of The Office). Griffiths' Brenda for her part
undergoes a parallel maturing process. And as George's daughter
Maggie, Tina Holmes adds a welcome tone of contrast.
6fu, of course, has always been about the paradoxes of finality.
But anyone who has developed an attachment to the show's unique
tone and creative sensibility will have a tough time saying
goodbye. Alan Ball outdoes himself with his script (and
direction) for the finale, "Everyone's Waiting," seeding it with
echoes from the pilot episode that will enchant aficionados. And
the famous fast-forward visions coursing through Claire's
imagination as she heads down the highway give the perfect seal
to this set of characters. Extras include especially inful
commentaries, including Ball on the finale, retrospectives, and a
mini-feature on 6fu's cultural impact. It's safe to say that the
show leaves some pretty unforgettable impressions in its wake.
--Thomas May
