Minority Report
Death Becomes Them
In a year defined by vapid, escapist "reality" shows and other slick, cynical excursions into formula-driven TV, "Six Feet Under" has distinguished itself by being both very good and very original.
Each show begins with death. A pyramid-schemer smashes his head at the bottom of a pool; a gangster gets capped for using the wrong payphone; a porno star is unwittingly electrocuted by her pussy (cat). These abrupt finishes help establish the arbitrary nature of death, and the universality of a fate we're all destined to share. From this point, our focus turns from the dead to the living, as the deceased's journey from earth to sub-earth becomes the backdrop for much deliciously dysfunctional comedy.
The show's primary location is the Fisher and Sons funeral home, now controlled by the family's third generation: sons Nate (Peter Krause) and David (Michael C. Hall) inherited the business from father Nathaniel (Richard Jenkins), who died on Christmas Eve. As might be expected, the brothers are different: Nate is outgoing, laid-back, hyper-erotic, whereas David is restrained, uptight and still coming to terms with his homosexuality. David has learned the business at his father's hand since childhood, whereas Nate bolted early for some idyllic Seattle splendor--which leads to early tension when father bequeaths the business in equal proportion, and neither son can decide who's supposed to be getting punished by that arrangement. The kick, of course, is that being forced to live and work together presents opportunities for bonding previously unavailable.
The show has five primary characters whose concerns connect, in eerily seamless fashion, in the scripts written by Oscar-winner Alan Ball ("American Beauty"). The family matriarch (Frances Conroy) is a moving picture of life after death: her near-obsessive household ministrations are laced with moments of "weird" behavior that hint at the psychic turmoil lurking beneath. But "psychic turmoil" is a phrase easily applicable to any of these characters. Take daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose), who is almost necessarily sardonic, all the time. She always leaves the room when she becomes the subject, which suggests some discomfort with her basic reality--although discomfort in funeral homes is probably normal--however much she obscures her pain with sarcasm. (Watching her try to seduce a hispanic gangster at his boy's service is like having straight-pins pressed into your trapezius muscles.)
Rachel Griffiths (who better have an Emmy by this time next year) plays Nate's girlfriend Brenda, a one-night-stand that is quickly evolving into the country's most interesting on-screen couple. (Other than Steve Austin and Vince McMahon, that is!) She's "scarily brilliant," sez her beau, with an IQ of 186 and lines to match. This show thrives on its dialogue. Ball balances so many disparate elements at once that one wonders how he keeps up with himself. Maybe it's reefer, if the steady, nonchalant consumption of pot is any indication.
Wisdom wafts through the episodes like exhalation in fluorescent light. David converses with the dead as he embalms them, and Nate talks with the father he never got to know; these transmissions from the other side (which are never explained away as merely hallucinatory or dreamlike, leaving open the door to genuine supernaturality) help the brothers make sense of their own problems and gets them over as empathetic, not desensitized. Their one employee is "reconstruction artist" Federico (Freddy Rodriguez), whose pride in his work seems weird at first, given its morbid nature, but often validates itself through restoring dignity to those who've expired in particularly gruesome fashion. David's boyfriend--an LAPD beat cop--bucks traditional notions of gayness in modern America; affixing a supposed weakness to such an overtly powerful figure helps underscore how superficial our delusions of "great perception" really are. And Brenda's bon mots, emanating as they do from a woman born to dual-psychiatrist parents, always seems to fit.
In the end, "Six Feet Under" has much less to do with death than with life, with the need to find happiness now, because each day that passes without a firm devotion to yourself and your needs is a day you'll wish you had--if you even have time to wish at all--when the End comes.
Shelton Hull (aka Archibald Bobo) has been writing professionally since 1995. He also does the column "Money Jungle" for FolioWeekly (Jacksonville). His work has appeared in places like Section 8 Magazine, Movement, CounterPunch, Lew Rockwell.com and the Florida Times-Union. He was a 2002 Fellow at the Academy of Alternative Journalism, AAN/Northwestern University. He works for himself.
