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Friday, Nov 27, 2009
The fourth season of "Six Feet Under" offers an exquisitely sad, gorgeous picture of the thrills and catastrophes of everyday life.
Jun 12, 2004 | Nate: You don't want to end up in a graveyard?
Lisa: The whole world's a graveyard.
Every human on this earth is living with a death sentence, and an awareness of this fact alone is enough to infuse even the simplest, most insignificant moments with weight and purpose. This weight, and not the rapid-fire wit of cops or the shock of a surprise witness in the courtroom, is what gives "Six Feet Under" its dramatic intensity. There are no FBI agents or politicians or teenagers who know God's home phone number to drag us, kicking and screaming, into familiar territory. Created by "American Beauty" screenwriter Alan Ball, the series (the fourth season premieres Sunday at 9 p.m.; HBO) centers on the little discoveries and disappointments and hopes and missteps that make up a life.
Or, as Nate Fisher would put it, "It's all so fucking impossible!" Given the tendency of most TV characters to grit their teeth or shed quiet, dignified tears over harsh realities, "Six Feet Under" has a gratifying inclination not to pull any punches. Unfortunately, this means that the first episode of the season is pretty somber, since we pick up where we left off last season, with Nate just having learned that his wife, Lisa, has been found dead. At first, it's easy to wonder why the show's writers didn't skip over the mourning process, which really belongs with last season's plot, and join the story with Nate back on his feet and ready to live again.
But then you're talking about an entirely different show. "Six Feet Under" has always focused on death as a starting point -- each episode of the show opens with another death, and, for the survivors, death marks a new beginning. The process of Nate's mourning fits in so beautifully with the show's premise that the writers couldn't possibly pass up this opportunity to explore such an intimate, unsettling journey with the show's lead character. Nate (Peter Krause) can try our patience, as well as his family's, with all of his howling at the moon ("When do I get to self-destruct?" Claire demands indignantly), but it makes sense that he's navigating such treacherous waters. Bless his broken heart, his role on the show is to be the guy whose sweater just keeps getting snagged on life, and instead of knitting himself a new one, he rips the whole thing to shreds and then lies in the pile of shredded yarn, weeping.
Luckily, David (Michael C. Hall) and Keith (Mathew St. Patrick) make up for it by providing a little more lightness than they did last season, with Keith taking a job as a bodyguard for celebrities that proves to be a little more challenging than he expected. "My job is to not put my hands on anybody," he murmurs huskily to David. "My job is to low-tone it and defuse the situation before it becomes a situation." True to his word, Keith has lost some of his fury, and he and David suddenly have an ability to step back from their squabbles and laugh at themselves.
