Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I don’t think I’ve ever done this before... written a review of an entire season of a show at the end of it. Then again, I’ve never been moved to write one before, but having just seen the conclusion of the first 13 episodes of Alan Ball’s SIX FEET UNDER, I find myself eager to share some thoughts and impressions, and what began as a simple Talk Back has grown to fit the size of my esteem for what all involved have accomplished here.
This wasn’t a show I was hyped for. It wasn’t a show I went nuts for after one episode. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I thought of the show until the very end of tonight’s episode. Finally, the entire focus of the first season revealed, I fell in love with what was accomplished, and I have to commend Chris Albrecht for having the good sense to already greenlight the second season of episodes. He was able to sit down and see every one of these, in order, before making that call, and I totally understand why he gave Alan Ball and his collaborators the go-ahead. This wasn’t a show I expected, and that’s part of why I think it’s so amazing now, on this side of things.
When you’re writing a family show for television... and by that, I don’t mean a show for families to watch together, but rather a show about a family... it’s very tricky to predict what’s going to happen with the viewers and the family you’re portraying. Viewer sympathy is a fickle thing, and picking the breakout storylines, the ones that are going to keep viewers tuning back in, can be a tricky thing. THE SOPRANOS has been orchestrated so far with a keen intelligence, and I think the show’s held on strong creatively from season to season. Each year so far, David Chase has pushed his characters to unexpected places, and he’s kept us interested in Tony Soprano, an unlikely central figure for a series if I’ve ever seen one. THE SOPRANOS seems to have been a real turning point in the history of dramatic series for HBO. Before this, they’ve had great comedies. Hell, I’d put THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW up there as one of the five best sitcoms ever produced. But the dramas have only recently hit their stride. OZ is another strong example of what happens when a creator and primary writer is allowed to run a show with real creative freedom. Tom Fontana has taken us to some memorable corners of Hell on that show, and he never seems to blink, no matter how horrific the view.
It made sense to offer Alan Ball a series of his own. After all, AMERICAN BEAUTY was a sensation, a surprise box-office hit that also spun some serious Oscar gold. Ball himself went home with one of the statues, a real triumph for a guy who had been primarily known for his work on CYBILL previously. I maintain that AMERICAN BEAUTY is a remarkably made film, even if the script’s flaws have become evident with time and distance. Some of the cheapest moves in the film betray Ball’s sitcom background, like that ludicrous THREE’S COMPANY moment where Mr. Roper sees Wes Bentley giving Kevin Spacey a blowjob. I mean, Chris Cooper sees them. Oh, you know what I mean. That film is remarkable because Sam Mendes and Conrad Hall and that cast all came in and blew doors. Alan Ball caught that one perfect wave and rode it all the way in to shore.
I know there’s been a serious backlash against BEAUTY, and there are people that openly bash the film now. For that reason, I think some people dismissed SIX FEET UNDER quickly, calling it more of the same. Once again, Ball was looking at a repressed family, peeling back their secrets, and using homosexuality, sex, drugs, death, and other difficult topics to get laughs as well as tears. Seemed like he was going to do a weekly version of BEAUTY.
Here comes the heresy: I think SIX FEET UNDER is a much more accomplished piece of work than AMERICAN BEAUTY, all things considered. I think this is a lasting piece of work with something honest to say, something difficult, and I am both moved and impressed by what they’ve done.
“Six Feet Under”
written and directed by Alan Ball
I’ll admit, things got off to a rocky start. Set-ups are hard. This is where you have to lay out all these relationships, try and etch in just enough to get us hooked, and spin the beginnings of the story threads that are going to play out over the course of the entire season, or series, for that matter. First episodes are all about tone... character... why we should care and come back. As first episodes go, “Six Feet Under” was solid, if not spectacular.
Right away, my favorite convention of the show was established. Each week begins with the death of a character whose funeral is handled by Fisher & Sons, the funeral home that is the center of the show. Sounds ghoulish, and there were indeed a few jokes along the way, but death is not a glib thing on this show, and there were some sucker punches built in along the way as well. Right away, we’re introduced to Nathaniel Fisher, patriarch of the whole extended family, played by the great Richard Jenkins. He’s one of those character actors you’ve seen a grazillion times by now, but probably don’t know by name. He’s always good in anything he does, and he’s covered all the bases... comedy, drama, smart stuff, dumb fluff, mainstream and indie. The first time I totally flipped for him was in FLIRTING WITH DISASTER, David O. Russell’s inspired comedy from ’96. Almost a decade earlier, he had one of the best moments in George Miller’s muddled WITCHES OF EASTWICK adaptation, an image that’s stuck with me since. I like Jenkins, plain and simple, and my first reaction seeing him as Nathaniel was “Great! A show built around Jenkins! Finally! He’ll get his due like Gandolfini. I hope he gets really fam...” and that’s all I had time to think before Nathaniel and his brand new hearse get blindsided, killing him instantly.
Great move. Seriously. You’ve got a setting for this show that is already overripe with symbolism and dramatic opportunity, and the first thing Ball does is drop the one bomb on them that they might never recover from: a loss of one of their own. That’s how fucking high the stakes are going to get, he says, and I make you no promises. You like someone? Well, they just might die, so get used to it. He shatters this family, already so brittle and tense that they are barely able to function, and leaves the series to pick up the pieces.
One convention I’m glad they cut after that first episode was the wacky commercials for death related products. It made this feel like DREAM ON, another unfortunate nod back to Ball’s sitcom roots. There were a number of them in the pilot, and they just got in the way of us meeting the various Fishers as they all come together for Christmas Eve and to learn about Nathaniel’s death. There’s Nate, the prodigal son played by Peter Krause. There’s David, the heir apparent to the family business, also a closeted gay man still living with his parents, played by Michael C. Hall. There’s baby sister Claire, a sullen teen at the end of high school staring with doe eyes into the headlights of an oncoming future she isn’t ready for, played by Lauren Ambrose. Finally, there’s Ruth, the matriarch of the Fishers, cold and controlling on the outside but holding in a few secrets of her own, played by Frances Conroy. Unlike Herc, I have equal love for each of these freaks. I already liked Peter Krause from SPORTS NIGHT, and the rest of the cast struck me as perfectly chosen for their roles as the pilot played out. I especially liked Conroy right off the bat.
We also meet the people peripheral to their lives, all of whom become important later. There’s Keith (Matthew St. Patrick), the black policeman David is secretly dating. There’s Brenda (Rachel Griffiths), the stranger that Nate fucks in a broom closet after walking off a long flight. There’s Gabe (Eric Balfour), Claire’s date who has just gotten her to sample crystal meth for the first time when she gets the call about her father. There’s Hiram (Ed Begley, Jr.), the hairdresser that Ruth has secretly been sleeping with. And there’s Federico Diaz (Freddy Rodriguez), the gifted mortician who works for the family, doing reconstructive work on the “clients” who come in. Ball doesn’t overexplain any of these people to us in their first few appearances. They are a supporting cast, and they’re used that way to great effect, supporting the Fishers as we get to know them. The pilot also sets up Garrison Hershberger as Matthew Gilardi of the Kroehner Corporation, a conglomerate that approaches David about buying out Fisher & Sons before they even have a chance to bury Nathaniel.
I love the way Krause and Hall work together in this first episode, in particular. They way they each view the burial process, the way they each get something totally different from it, and they way they clash so convincingly without pushing things over the top... if anything got me to come back for episode two, it’s this stuff. These guys seemed to be worth another look.
“The Will”
written by Christain Williams
directed by Manuel Ortega
If the first episode was rocky, the second one was worse. I didn’t like much about this outing except the very ending, in which Brenda pulls a horribly cruel trick on David and Nate that ends up being cathartic for them. She takes them onto a city bus, not telling them until they’re already riding that it’s the same bus line that blindsided their father. They have to deal with the sudden flood of emotion, and they have to depend on each other to make it through the moment. The majority of the episode deals with the reading of Nathaniel’s will and how he leaves half of the business to each of the guys, making them partners. It’s all plot mechanics stuff, and there’s a heavy hand to the way some of it is laid out. Same with Claire and Gabe. He talks her into sucking his toes, an odd moment that exists only to set up a plot explosion in the next episode. It doesn’t feel right when it happens, doesn’t feel natural. It leads directly into my least favorite episode, number three, which almost convinced me to stop watching the show.
“The Foot”
written by Bruce Eric Kaplan
directed by John Patterson
Not a fan. Too wacky. Gilardi pressures the brothers to sell, then decides to open a funeral home across the street from them instead to drive them out of business. Gabe tells everyone about Claire sucking his toes, and she decides to get back at him by stealing a foot from the funeral home. This “stealing a foot” shtick was mentioned in a few episodes after this, and Lauren Ambrose always looked embarrassed to be mentioning it. It is the most out-of-character moment in the entire series, as bad a choice as the way Allison Janney’s character is played in AMERICAN BEAUTY, just wrong from the start.
“Familia”
written by Lawrence Andries
directed by Lisa Cholodenko
I’m a great admirer of HIGH ART, the feature film Cholodenko made, and she won me back over to the show with her moving, powerful episode of the show. A Mexican kid is killed at the beginning in a random bit of territorial violence, and his family and the gang he belonged to wrestle for control of just how he will be remembered. This was one of the first times the show made full use of Freddy Rodriguez, whose Federico is a strong character, not someone I’ve met in a dozen other shows. He serves as a go-between for the Fisher Brothers and the family and the gang. The way this episode builds to the funeral itself, and the gestures made during that funeral are all very affecting, and I didn’t mind the sort of hyperactive plot mechanics that kept intruding. There was great work in the episode, the promise of greatness lurking underneath, and I was finally hooked.
“An Open Book”
written by Alan Ball
directed by Kathy Bates
The series finally got underway with this episode, I felt, with the introduction of the rest of our principal cast and settings. David is nominated to become a deacon at the church he attends with his mother, and it’s important to him, even if Keith can’t understand it. By now, the struggle in David’s character was becoming a bit of a broken record (“Should I come out or shouldn’t I?”) and the introduction of church as a major part of his life surprised me. You can deal with sex in American entertainment, but you really can’t deal with religion. That’s where people get pissy.
We also get a chance to meet the rest of Brenda’s family finally, and it makes the Fishers look normal and ideal by comparison. Robert Foxworth and Joanna Cassidy show up as Bernard and Margaret Chenowith, and Jeremy Sisto shows up as Brenda’s brother Billy. Sisto deserves special attention for his performance in the series thus far. I remember seeing GRAND CANYON and thinking of him as a kid in his role as Kevin Kline’s son. Here, he seems thirty years older, totally worn out as a lifelong sufferer of bipolar disorder. It’s great work, as good as what Stanley Tucci did in MURDER ONE the first season. From the start, he knows what he’s doing, and he lays the groundwork well for later moments.
“The Room”
written by Christian Taylor
directed by Rodrigo Garcia
Nate learns that his father didn’t always accept money from clients. He begins to track down several special accounts to see what his father took instead, and his efforts eventually lead him to a rented room in a house somewhere, a private place no one knew about. In trying to imagine what might have happened there, in trying to piece things together from the evidence at hand, Nate realizes he may not have known anything about his father. Richard Jenkins is a blast in this one, and the various possibilities of what might have happened in that room are all realized beautifully by him. Krause does a good job with dawning horror here, too, as it hits him in waves: he knew nothing. Not a single thing.
This was the beginning also of the subplot Hercules The Strong labeled as “science-fiction,” the dual suitors of Ruth Fisher. She was already involved with Hiram (Begley Jr.) before Nathaniel’s death. Now she’s also being pursused by Nikolai (Ed O’Ross), one of the flower vendors for the home, a hulking Russian guy who flirts like a bear about to maul someone. I buy this storyline because, quite honestly, neither of these actors is Brad Pitt or even Robert Redford (Before... after! Before... after! Stay out of the sun, kids!). Hell, O’Ross reminds of Ben Grimm after he became The Thing. They are both drawn to Ruth’s few truly unguarded moments. She is a controlling character, but she’s not evil. She just doesn’t know any other way to be, and as her emotions find themselves unleashed, allowed to be expressed for the first time in however long, it’s not like something she just turns on and off. She has to remember how to be this better person, this open-minded woman she’s abandoned. I think Conroy just got better and better as the show went on and as they gave her more to do.
“Brotherhood”
written by Christian Williams
directed by Jim McBride
Here’s a guy I really thought was going to have a big feature career. I remember liking the hell out of THE BIG EASY and GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, and I also remember that neither one was exactly a breakout hit. McBride had a great way with actors, though, and he managed to deliver one of the better episodes of the series. I liked the main storyline about a victim of Gulf War syndrome and his dying wish and the effects it has on his brother, who butts heads with the Fisher Brothers over how to handle things. Krause does some spectacular work in this one, both in the main storyline and in how his relationship with Brenda is progressing thanks to the involvement of Billy. David becomes more involved with the church. Nothing of any import happens to Claire. It’s not a major piece of the puzzle, but it’s strong writing and strong performing, and that’s what kept me tuning in.
“Crossroads”
written by Lawrence Andries
directed by Allen Coulter
For an episode called “Crossroads,” almost nothing happens in this one. It’s literally a midpoint episode, one where groundwork is laid for what happens in the last run of episodes. This part of a season is almost as difficult to pull off with grace as the start of a season.
“Life’s Too Short”
written by Christian Williams
directed by Jeremy Podeswa
It seems that the best episodes in the series were directed by talented indie directors brought in to lend their touch to one particular episode. Poeswa made a very nice film that almost no one saw called THE FIVE SENSES, and his episode of the show was particularly rough, emotionally raw. Gabe, a character who went missing after the start of the season and the awful “The Foot” episode, shows back up when his kid brother shoots and kills himself. Gabe turns to the Fishers as his mother (Wendy Schaal) falls apart. This finally sets things in motion for Claire to have something to do for the rest of the season, and both Balfour and Ambrose are good. They’re given some awkward material at times, but they manage to find something true in it and in the way they behave with each other.
David’s self-hate also really begins a downward spiral in this episode, and I’ve heard criticism from some gay friends about how Ball handles this material. David daydreams. He has fantasies that are given vivid, even musical expression on the show. One friend called the show “an abomination,” but I can’t agree. Ball has said that he didn’t come out until very late in life, and his experience as a closeted adult might be very different from that of my openly-gay friends. David does some wildly unsafe things over the span of the first season, but he also shows remorse. He is not sure why he does the things he does. He doesn’t want to be even more unhappy with his life and his choices than he already is. His sexuality makes him miserable, but the rest of his life doesn’t make him any happier. I think Michael C. Hall did a credible, interesting job of making David real over the course of what we’ve seen so far, and he’s made him recognizable to anyone, understanable and sympathetic even when he’s wrong.
“The New Person”
written by Bruce Eric Kaplan
directed by Kathy Bates
I’m torn on my opinion of Illeana Douglas and her work here. On the one hand, I love Douglas; always have. She’s an original, and I always respond to her onscreen. On the other hand, her character mainly exists to replace Rico, who leaves the Fishers to work for Kroehner, who is still trying to put them out of business, and to make one crucial mistake that gives Ruth a piece of information that sets off a whole chain of events. It’s like she’s built just to be able to make that moment happen. Still... it’s a nice performance, and she pulls off the moment when she outs David by accident to Ruth, who had no idea.
Sisto’s work begins to get really good here, as Billy’s photo exhibition opens and Nate feels threatened by something that Brenda sees as totally harmless. That difference in perception becomes key to how episodes 12 and 13 play out, and it’s subtle work, showing a more nimble hand at hiding exposition as the series really picks up speed.
“The Trip”
written by Rick Cleveland
directed by Michael Engler
A trip to Las Vegas brings several emotional arcs to a head: Nate and Brenda realize that Billy may be more than just a frustration, but might in fact be an actual menace. David is arrested having sex with a boy-whore in a parking garage just hours after having a real breakthrough in his handling of the Kroehner situation. While the brothers are at the Funeral Directors Convention, Ruth has a breakthrough of her own in a floral arrangements class. It’s my favorite work from Conroy in the whole first batch of episodes, especially the moment where she does her first successful arrangement. In that particular moment, Conroy projects such youthful joy that it’s easy to picture who Ruth must have been when she got married, when she was just starting out. It’s literally revelatory work.
Claire and Gabe also seem to reach some deeper level of understanding in the wake of his attempted suicide by OD. Ambrose seems like an emotional veal in her work here, like she was raised in a box, completely cut off from emotion, just now making her first awkward attempts to reach out to someone, not sure how to do it or what she’s going to get in return. She makes this stuff work somehow.
And Freddy Rodriguez gets his best material of the series here as well as Rico returns to work for Fisher & Sons just in time to have to prepare a six week old baby who died of SIDS. As he does so, he basically counts down the hours till the impending birth of his own son, and he finds himself devastated by the tiny corpse he works on. The entire storyline having to deal with the infant’s death is exceptionally well-handled, and the end of this episode really hit me hard. It was a perfect set-up for the final two episodes, shown back to back on the final night.
“A Private Life”
written by Kate Robin
directed by Rodrigo Garcia
“Knock, Knock”
written and directed by Alan Ball
These final two episodes really work as one piece. The first one opens with the most unsettling death of the entire series, a gaybashing that gets incredibly violent, leaving one young man’s skull crushed in. In dealing with this young man’s funeral arrangements and facial reconstruction, David finally finds himself wrestling with the very question of who he is and why he is and how he’s going to live. Michael C. Hall really shines in these final two episodes as he finally embraces his nature and reveals himself to his mother, his church, his community as a whole. There is a joy in his work here, tempered with very real fears, that makes you root for David. He isn’t perfect at the end of the second episode. He’s nowhere near perfect. But at least he’s finally able to put a name to himself, and he’s able to wear that name with something akin to pride instead of shame for the first time.
The triangle between Billy, Brenda, and Nate all comes to a head as well, and I cannot say enough good about all three of these performers. Rachel Griffiths has, in some ways, the most thankless role on the show. She’s asked to be moody, difficult, impossible to understand, yet we are obviously supposed to find something in her to explain Nate’s attraction to her. Griffiths is able to show us that side of Brenda, the funny, lusty, earthy woman who makes all that other behavior worth putting up with. Sisto finally tips over from threatening to dangerous, and he does so without falling back on any easy psycho tricks. The show employed a consultant specifically on the issue of bipolar behavior, and Sisto’s rants aren’t Hollywood hokum so much as they are a look at how strange a loved one’s face can be when a disease gets hold of them and they can’t help themselves. In the final moments between Sisto and Griffiths in a hospital, there is volumes of subtext that they both manage to convey with ease and grace.
And Krause... ah, Krause. This guy better be around for a hell of a long time, and he’d better start getting good film work soon. He’s got an emotional honesty on film that can’t be topped, he knows how to sell any comic line you give him, and he’s a great talk show guest, as anyone who saw him explain The Sordid Tale Of The Puppet Wagon on THE DAILY SHOW can attest. Krause is the one who tipped things over for me in these last two episodes. I believed everything he did, and I understood it, and I found myself completely invested in this guy. When he’s told that he may have a serious health issue and he can’t accept it, I found myself wishing it with the same fervor as him. No, don’t let it be true. You’ve got the wrong X-ray. It’s all a mistake. Nate’s fine, goddamn you. Nate’s fine. And as he moved through the rest of the episode, he nailed each beat. His proposal to Brenda, his quiet reconciliation with David... these are heartbreaking moments, and Nate can’t help but crack, that perfect calm of his finally giving away to almost unchecked emotion. As the episode ends and he stands watching his family celebrating the christening of Rico’s baby, it’s as if it wasn’t Nathaniel who died, but Nate, and this is Heaven, perfect if for just one moment.
And that’s when it hit me. That’s when I realized what this entire season has been about. Not death or dying or learning to live with death or how to handle loss or anything like that. No... this season has been about healing. It’s been about fumbling towards some sort of salvation in a world that seems to be filled with nothing but pain and danger and opportunities to be torn apart. Love heals. Family heals. Faith heals. I believe these things because I am living through them right now. I have fallen in love for the first time in as long as I can remember, and I spend part of each day terrified of that. There’s a part of me that was so broken, so hurt at one point, that I never thought I’d ever give myself up again. But we do. We have to. That healing is part of the process, part of life. And having the balls to say that and show that and believe that is an uncommon thing in the largely cynical world of pop entertainment. Ball dares to believe that things can get better for any of us. He dares to believe that sometimes it’s enough to say the right thing and be right in what you believe and that sometimes, good is enough. He dares to paint flawed people who aren’t easily fixed, who don’t solve all their problems in a single hour or even in thirteen of them. He has the faith in us to hold up a mirror to some of the worst angels of our nature, hoping that we will recognize the flaws as the things that make us human, seeing past them to the things that make us the same.
And over the course of this thirteen hour trip with these people, I find that I give a shit. I want Nate to live. I want David to find happiness. I want Rico and his wife to raise that baby right. I want Brenda to find peace in a life outside of Billy and those fucked-up parents of hers. I want Ruth to be with the right man, even if he’s no one she knows yet. I give a shit what happens, and that’s all I ask when I invest my time and my heart into a show or a film or a book. I just want to care about what it is I’m spending my time and my brain cells on. I want to know that someone else cared first. And I believe that Alan Ball cares very, very deeply for these people. Because of that, I have permission to care with equal abandon. I will be back next season, and I’m glad this show will, too.
"Moriarty" out.
