The rest is eerily familiar to those of us who've lived through a similar phone call. First, there's the disbelief: "No! Stop lying, Dad!" Then there's the abject horror and the non-stop tears and the awkward attempts to comfort the bereaved. For a little comic relief, we get the roommates standing around saying really insightful stuff like "When one of your parents die, that's, like, totally different from when your grandparents die." Too true! What we'd really love to see, though, is all the roommates hiding in their rooms (like you know they did) so they don't have to talk to Danny, since his grief makes them uncomfortable and they "don't know what to say." (News flash: "That really, really, really sucks" will always suffice.)

But Danny's roller-coaster ride isn't over! Next, we see the guilt. (Zoom in! Cue sad music!) Just in case you're not sure why Danny's feeling guilty, we flash back to Danny's last conversation with his mom over the phone, just a few days earlier, during which she tells him she's sooo glad he called and that she loves him sooo much, and he grunts incoherently in response, then gets off the phone quickly. "Wow! He really should feel guilty!" the preteens at home agree, not remembering that Danny's estranged mom, who struggled with alcohol, quite possibly let him down countless times until he felt nothing but anger toward her. Let's not explain any of that now, though; let's maximize the drama by cutting back to Danny, who's saying he'll never forgive himself.

Next week's preview shows Danny's girlfriend, crying. He's really sad and he might not come back to live in Austin at all! Is he kidding? What is wrong with that kid?

So, has the world's most popular traumedy, "The Real World," gone too far, once and for all, or is anything that's fascinating to watch totally OK to broadcast? Obviously it's a tough call, since they have all this footage of the kid falling apart, exactly the kind of scenario they're trained to hunger for. But to me, the flashback was what sent this episode over the edge. Bad enough that Danny has to suffer such a major loss while the cameras roll, bad enough that he feels terrible for having nothing but unkind words for his mom on the show thus far, but then they go out of their way to remind everyone what a jerk he was in that final phone call, without making the slightest effort to protect him? If this were a true documentary, they could argue that raw footage was what the show was all about. But anybody who believes that "The Real World" sets out to capture reality -- instead of choreographing cheesy soft-core action -- is too busy practicing the moves on "SYTYCD" to care about Danny, anyway.

If the producers want to traffic in such heartless fare, they should really consider "The Real World: Rikers Island," so we can watch pretty teenagers get knifed in the gut, right before our eyes.

No narm done
Personally, I prefer my televised tragedies to be fictional. What I love the most about "Six Feet Under" (Spoilers ahead! Skip this if you haven't seen last week's episode. The episode that airs Sunday Aug. 7 won't be discussed here) is that it's the only show I can think of that makes tragedy positively delicious and delectable.

The demise of Nate feels cathartic, not only because his behavior ranges from needlessly self-sacrificing to recklessly selfish and because he's been unyieldingly lost for so many seasons now, but also because he affords us the chance to see big reactions by his family members, characters whose behavior has always been the perfect balance of organic yet impossible to predict.

And having Nate appear to recover from his "Narm!" episode and then die unexpectedly was brilliant. We got to see the family get scared, then assume that everything would be OK like it always is, only to have the rug pulled out from under them. Not only was this dramatically useful, but it's often exactly what a big health crisis looks like -- just when you think the person's going to cheat death, they're gone. As the kids on "The Real World" might say, it really, really sucks.

But at the same time, it's beautiful. After someone dies, you become aware of exactly how much you cared about them, a process that's at once unbearable and oddly exhilarating. And in the face of mind-bending grief, lots of friends disappoint you, but others show their true colors as loyal, dependable, generous people. This is what I love about Claire's lawyer boyfriend -- he comes through under pressure and exemplifies the kind of person she's never had by her side, but so desperately needs.

More than anything, the little mundane details of death and grief and funerals are at once horrible and sad and hilarious and breathtaking. TV shows so often stick with the tragic and forsake all of the other emotions that death brings with it. "Six Feet Under" can be counted on not only not to pull any punches, but to paint all of the subtle shades of emotion that go along with death. Watching these last episodes of the show sometimes feels like confronting the inevitability of death itself. It's frightening and horrible, but it also makes you aware of where you are, how you feel, and what you have right here and now.

Of course we'll miss Nate. It's impossible to feel so much resentment for someone whom you don't relate to or care about. For all of his bad decisions, he was always so naive and innocent, because he never knew exactly what he was doing. Even when he breaks up with his pregnant wife, a pretty atrocious move no matter how you slice it, he has this blank, blameless look on his face like he has no notion of what a huge injury he's inflicting. He just doesn't want to fight anymore! It's that simple to him. He doesn't see that he can't take the emotional risk of having a sick child or being committed to his true match, Brenda, so he chooses a woman, Maggie, who seems lovable because she has a tragic past and her complexities and needs aren't as obvious as Brenda's. In blowing off Brenda, Nate is demonstrating that he doesn't want life's unexpected twists and turns and complications, he wants peace and quiet. In that light, Nate definitely gets exactly what he wants.

Next week: Will "Kill Reality" succeed at killing reality? If not, "The Battle of the Network Reality Stars" will pick up where Jonny Fairplay left off. Plus: "Greg the Bunny" is back!

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