Six Feet Under finale

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Oh. My. God. I cried buckets. It was such an unusual ending, but so classy and so fitting with the whole theme of the series. But damn, it's wrenching to have the fact that "everyone dies" hit you over the head like that.

Who else saw it?

[amykhar]

I haven't yet. I tivo'd it for later.

[brian_igo]

Very nice but it left a little bit of a bad taste.

How did Keith end up working as a security guard? Did he and David split up? Did the family business fail?

Billy literally talking Brenda to death was cute, but the rest of the "endings" were a little lame, given how the show has made a habit of clever and honest depictions of death. No one was on a respirator or obviously in the last stages of a disease like cancer, no one died in their late 40's or 50's, and no one died in a fall, car wreck, or - given the mental history of this bunch - by their own hand. While it was nice to know that these characters had earned years of apparent peace and happiness, it all had the feel of the ending of Titanic - as if Nate's final appearances told everyone they would die years from now in a warm bed surrounded by people they loved.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

AMY DON'T READ UNTIL YOU'VE WATCHED WHAT YOU TIVOED







Could it be Keith enjoyed working? Or the business didn't do well enough to support a family of four?

I didn't have your take on it at all. They didn't exactly have five minutes to spend on each person's death scenario to create any head-lopped-off-in-an-elevator deaths. Just because they showed Frederico having a stroke on a cruise didn't mean he died that second, for example, and may have ended up on tubes and respirator and the like; if they'd showed him in a bed with tubes, I'd have wondered how he got there, so I liked seeing the stroke instead. Brenda looked to be suffering pretty badly with Parkinson's. Claire looked to be dying alone, with a nurse instead of surrounded by family. But also, the dates of death were in the 2020's to 2040's, and we can certainly hope modern medicine improved in the 35 intervening years. And the family certainly had more tragic deaths than anyone I know, so what's wrong with letting them have a few "normal" ones for a change?

[theworm[$]]

DON'T READ THIS TILL YOU SEE THE ENDING:









I loved it, and while my Honey is cynical here, he loved it too (he posted in the middle of the night when he should have been sleeping).

I liked that they ended up somewhat "normal" and a real family. I loved the way they showed everyone's death - not a nice little Walton Mountain ending, but a peaceful closure. I liked seeing that after all the angst this family had, they all seemed to find their "place".
I was scared about how they would do the finale - didn't want a lot of lose ends, and they really gave closure.
Ruth died surrounded by family, but she did seem to be on tubes and stuff. Keith was a guard - I didn't think he would actually work in the funeral home. Claire lived to be 102. I love that Brenda and Billy were together in the end.

I liked the way that David fought off his demons.
I liked seeing Ruth blossom and seeing the resolution between Ruth and Claire.
I liked seeing Brenda as a human being - and her mother as a horrible misery.

I thought it was great, but I"ll really miss the show.

[amykhar]

I finally got to watch it this morning. The ending made me tear up and I don't care if the deaths were trite or peaceful. They moved me.

[theworm[$]]

Last night Brian thought it was done quite well. After he over-analyzed it, I guess he found some criticism. I thought it was GREAT!

[brian_igo]

I don't think I'm being cynical, and the ending was better than just about anything else I've seen on TV in a long time. But after the emotion of the moment passed, I remembered a story Alan Ball told about the creation of the show. An exec at HBO came to him with the idea of a family drama set around a funeral home business. He liked the idea and put together a character sketch and a few sample scenes. He was really pleased with what he had, but the woman from HBO came back and said, "Could you make them more fucked up?"

Ball has said that was when he first had an idea of the freedom he had with these characters and storylines, and I think exploring that freedom what made the show so damned good. I thought the devise of looking decades ahead while Claire's car time lapsed through the desert was clever. I liked that a lot. But I think Ball pulled his punches a little in what he did with the characters.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Or it could show that, given all they've gone through and the fact that humans have the capacity to learn, they lived the rest of their lives in ways that improved their chances of a "good death." Appreciating life instead of committing suicide, dying in a hospice situation (which is what Ruth's death looked like) instead of connected to tubes, etc. I think it showed some realistic optimism.

[amykhar]

I noticed something Brian may not have noticed when I watched the ending again last night. Brian complained about Keith being a security guard. Did you note the name of the security company that was written on the armored car?

Amy

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

I missed that! Was it Keith's business?

[amykhar]

Yep. It was Charles Security, and his name was Keith Charles

[brian_igo]

Ah! I noticed that but it didn't click. I was too distracted by the First Bank of India sign on the building in the background.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

HBO posted the characters' obituaries on their site

[brian_igo]

Very cool! Dig back and they have obits for everyone who died on the show going back to season one.