I said goodbye to an old friend for three hours and fifteen minutes last night.
When "Six Feet Under" came on the air five years ago I fully identifed with Nate's passion, idealism and perpetual confusion. Somewhere along the way I became Ruth.
No, I'll never go to "Six Feet Under" conventions or debate why David's attacker wore a red-hooded sweatshirt on discussion boards. Over the years I've discussed the show with only a handful of people.
It was much more than a "writers'" show. The visual was so carefully considered and the acting at times sublime.
I missed the first five episodes this year in my transitional , cableless state, only to discover a treasure trove waiting with HBO-on-Demand at the new apartment. I don't think I'll have any further demands of HBO now that it's over, but it was wonderful to ration out those five segments as gifts to myself.
(Spoiler alert - if you haven't seen the finale and still plan to watch stop here).
Alan Ball explained in the pre-show that some cultures spend their lives preparing for death, while Americans seem easily shocked with the possibility. In "Six Feet Under" death was any combination of comic, tragic, or absurd, but it was ever-present.
Ball literally drove home the point at the end of the show as Claire drove off to the East Coast and saw the ending for every major character in a vignette of how they would eventually die and the series standard placard showing the date. No Baywatch reunion possible here.
It was the first neat and tidy package in a series of jagged, sometimes repulsive, realities and the same lack of resolution that comes with real life.
Not everyone gets to live happily ever after, but at least on "Six Feet Under" they got to die that way.



Copyright 2005 Judi Griggs