Larry Watson/HBO
There’s a secret to watching Six Feet Under: You don’t know it when you start, but you’re watching this entire series so that the epic finale hits you right in the gut.
Six Feet Under is a fantastic character drama about a family in Los Angeles running a funeral home. But more than anything it’s known for having one of the best endings of any show ever. Nothing was left unresolved and no emotional bell was left un-rung. (It also introduced the TV-watching public to Sia, who is now a pop-music-writing master.)
But before that epic ending there were five seasons of riveting television that dug deep into the lives of the oft-dysfunctional Fishers and their family funeral home: slightly neurotic and uncannily sexy matriarch Ruth (Frances Conroy before American Horror Story!), uptight, initially-closeted David (Michael C. Hall before Dexter!), David’s more laid-back brother Nate (Peter Krause before Parenthood!), and their perpetually-working-on-it sister Claire (Lauren Ambrose before Torchwood!). Also, there’s Rachel Griffiths (before Brothers & Sisters!) as Nate’s constantly psychoanalyzing girlfriend Brenda and Jeremy Sisto (after Clueless but before Suburgatory!) as her bi-polar brother, Billy. With all these characters—and ideas from showrunner Alan Ball (before True Blood!)—it’s impossible not to enjoy all the melodrama. Dig in.
Six Feet Under
Number of Seasons: 5 (63 episodes)
Time Requirements: Six weeks should do it if you watch an episode each weeknight and a few on weekends. That said, pace yourself on this one. Even though its premise allows it to provide some levity to our own mortality, it’s still a very heavy show. Every episode begins with and revolves around death. (Game of Thrones has nothing on this show.) Consuming it in mass quantities can be hard on the psyche.
Where to Get Your Fix: Amazon Prime, HBO Go
Best Character to Follow: They’re all fantastic, but the one that stands out is David. These days most people know Hall as serial killer Dexter Morgan, but David was the first character he really sank his teeth into—and he sank them deep. He not only played the Good Son who stayed in LA and ran the family business while Nate went off to Seattle to work at an organic food co-op, he also played a (in the first season) closeted gay man trying to balance his love of guys (and occasionally rough trade) with his love of God and his family, who turned out to totally be fine with his sexuality. His struggle with self-loathing and internalized homophobia is fascinating, particularly in how it plays into his on-again-off-again relationship with Keith (Mathew St. Patrick). Everyone on Six Feet has a journey, but David’s is the most emotional—and fun—to watch.
Seasons/Episodes You Can Skip:
Because each episode is both an examination of the impact of one (or more) funerals on the family at Fisher & Sons Funeral Home and a chapter in the Fishers’ personal lives, we wouldn’t advise skipping much. (You’re working up to that big finish, remember.) However, that doesn’t mean the show doesn’t lag in spots. Season 2, for example, took a while to live up to the promise of Season 1. (Brenda’s sex addiction was a nice twist, though.) Here’s a tip: If you’re 15 to 20 minutes into an episode and its themes or central characters aren’t doing it for you, jump to the next one. You might miss a couple of interesting details, but as long as it’s not a season opener or finale, there’s probably not that you can’t piece together from future episodes.
Seasons/Episodes You Can’t Skip:
Season 1: Episode 1, “Pilot” It’s Christmas Eve and the patriarch of the family, Nathaniel Fisher (the always-awesome Richard Jenkins, who luckily shows up as an apparition quite often), dies, ironically, while driving a hearse. Nate, who was just coming back from Seattle for the holidays, ends up coming back for the funeral. That funeral gets a surprise guest in Keith, who is David’s secret boyfriend. Also, Claire does meth.
Season 1: Episode 3, “The Foot” People still occasionally reference this episode simply because Claire, who gets called “foot slut” by her high school classmates after sucking a guy’s toes, gets revenge by putting a dead man’s foot in the locker of said guy. Also, the family deals with whether or not to sell the business to a larger funeral home chain. Also, this musical number happens.
Season 1: Episode 6, “The Room” Arguably the episode where this show hit its stride, Nate discovers that his father had traded funerals for other things (weed, oil changes, etc.) while he was alive. He also, Nate learns, kept a room where he did … stuff? Nate imagines he does everything from smoke weed with bikers to take sniper-style rifle shots from the window of that room, but we’ll never really know what it was for. Like much of Six Feet Under, it’s a look at the unanswered questions that surround every death.
Season 1: Episode 7, “Brotherhood” Normally this episode, which deals with a the death of a veteran with Gulf War Syndrome, wouldn’t be a huge standout. But it’s a reminder that Six Feet Under began airing in June 2001—mere months before Sept. 11—and went on in the years that followed to be an exemplar of post-9/11 TV.
Season 1: Episode 11, “The Trip” Claire tries to help Gabe (aka “foot guy”), who has attempted suicide after his little brother accidentally killed himself with their mother’s gun. Nate, David, and Brenda go to Las Vegas for a funeral director’s meeting. David gets busted by the cops with a male prostitute, the latest in a series of risky things he’s done since having a falling-out with Keith.
Season 1: Episode 13, “Knock, Knock” The priest at the church where David is a deacon gets reprimanded for officiating a lesbian wedding, forcing David to come out to some of his fellow parishioners (and give a pretty good ad hoc sermon). Nate and Brenda fight about their future, then get into a car accident—a deus ex machina that makes them really think about their relationship. It also causes a brain scan that reveals Nate has a condition that could maybe kill him at any time. Season finales, everyone!
Season 2: Episode 9, “Someone Else’s Eyes” Nate and Brenda plan their wedding, but unbeknownst to Nate, Brenda is still sleeping with other guys—including some random author she humps in a bookstore bathroom. David and Keith are back together, but Keith is dealing with his sister’s drug addiction. Nate confronts Claire about her dating Brenda’s brother Billy. Nate also finds out he got a former flame (Lili Taylor) pregnant. Whoops! Things don’t look good for Nate and Brenda…
Season 2: Episode 13, “The Last Time” Kroehner, the funeral home chain that has been trying to take over the Fishers’ business sends an inspector, who finds a bad drainage system. The funeral home’s restorative artist Federico Diaz (Freddy Rodriguez) offers to help pay for the repairs in order to be a 25 percent partner in the business. Nate needs brain surgery, causing everyone to freak out a bit—especially Nate, who visits Brenda post-break-up, and David, who has fight-sex with Keith over feelings and stuff. (Claire just smokes weed before bailing on her high school graduation to go to the hospital for Nate’s surgery.)
Season 3: Episode 2, “You Never Know” The cold-open deaths on this one are particularly brutal—a shooter opens fire in a telemarketing office—but the other issues aren’t any more upbeat. Nate and his pregnant ex-gf/now-wife Lisa (yep, they got married post-life-altering surgery) are struggling to get along, and David and Keith aren’t doing much better (Keith calls his man “a hopeless, passive-aggressive guilt sponge”). But there is a bit of darkly comic joy: Ruth dealing with her sister Sarah (the incomparable Patricia Clarkson) going through Vicodin withdrawal with help from Bettina (the equally awesome Kathy Bates). We know, that doesn’t sound funny—but it’s got some solid LOLs.
Season 3: Episodes 11, 12, 13, “Death Works Overtime,” “Twilight,” and “I’m Sorry, I’m Lost” Nate’s wife Lisa goes missing. David worries that he and Keith are “just not meant to be together.” Brenda, Billy, and their mother have an oddly funny fight about where to throw their dad’s ashes. Billy also tells his sister, “I’m in love with you.” (Again, Game of Thrones has nothing on this show.) Ruth meets a nice man named George (James Cromwell). Claire’s boyfriend has sex with a man, so she breaks up with him—then finds out she’s pregnant. Lisa—it turns out—is dead, because Six Feet Under. (Fun fact: Series guest star Kathy Bates directed “Twilight,” her fifth such credit on the show.)
Season 4: Episode 5, “That’s My Dog” Straight up—this one won’t be easy to watch. David picks up a young man whose car has broken down and, in the course of trying to help the young man out, gets robbed and abducted. Then the young man forces David to smoke crack, shoves a gun in his mouth, and douses him in gasoline before finally letting him go. It’s tough to take, but it’s also one of the show’s most discussed episodes, so it can’t be missed. (It’s also one of Hall’s best moments in a series full of great ones.)
Season 4: Episode 8, “Coming and Going” David’s still dealing with his abduction and with Keith being away (he’s been doing security for a pop star named Celeste). And Rico’s wife is dealing with his mistress. See below. Claire realizes she just may not be into girls—particularly Edie (Mena Suvari).
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