Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)
Johnny Depp's Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness (2024)

9/25/2019

Six Feet Under - season 5 (2005) - The groundbreaking drama ends perfectly



+ Best Title of the Year

+ Best American Title of the Year + Best Drama of the Year + Best Los Angeles Title of the Year + Best Returning TV-series of the Year


Claire Fisher's beautiful green hearse speeds towards the horizon on this great poster for the 5th season of Alan Ball's Six Feet Under


The world's arguably best TV-series at its time, - and perhaps one of the best of all time, - creator Alan Ball's (Virtuoso (2015, TV movie)) Six Feet Under ends dignified in its fifth season by not making it an easy passing for characters and audiences alike: Season 5 is as hard and depressing as any in the formidable funeral business family drama's run.

The following season recount contains SPOILERS:

Nate's (Peter Krause (Beastly (2011))) new wife Brenda (Rachel Griffiths (Muriel's Wedding (1994))) is dealing with her losing their coming child. His mother Ruth's (Frances Conroy (Stone (2010))) new husband George (James Cromwell (ER (2001, TV-series))) is in shock therapy to rid him of his delusions and depression. Meanwhile Ruth herself is attacked by depression; and when George is finally ready to leave the psychiatric hospital, neither Ruth nor his daughter Maggie are much interested in dealing with him, (or his surprise new wife.)
Nate's brother and business partner David (Michael C. Hall (The Trouble with Bliss (2011))) and his steady boyfriend Keith (Matthew St. Patrick (Alien Raiders (2008))) arrange a double adoption; and Brenda's troubled brother Billy (Jeremy Sisto (Don's Plum (2001))) attempts rape on Nate and David's young artist sister Claire (Lauren Ambrose (About Sunny (2011))). She later decides to start working in an office, doubts her own artistic side and finds a new boyfriend in her new environment. 
Ruth goes camping with the flirting Hiram; and Nate has sex with Maggie and passes out, especially unnerving since he has previously been operated for a brain tumor.
As David and Keith are kept busy trying to manage and parent their adopted two big boys, Nate wakes up after a new operation, determined on a new direction in his life that involves leaving Brenda, - just before he dies.
Grief following his surprising death overshadows everything, and he gets buried in nature. Brenda later gives birth to their first child. Claire rages out on drugs and goes through a serious accident as a result, and David, who is also coping with the aftereffects of a destructive kidnapping and violent attack recently, is nearly losing his mind.
Claire decides to move to New York without a safety net; David and Keith take over the funeral business and Fisher home, as Ruth moves in with her sister Sarah in Topanga Canyon.
The death-centered show ends with all the major characters dying; not suddenly but in each their time, (with wobbly aging makeup applied), naturally.

The ending of Six Feet Under must be the most cathartic period of television ever made. It will have any fan balling his or her eyes out.
The characters and relationships in the show are truly still as pathetic, crude, narcissistic and egotistical as the ones we are likely to encounter in real life, including ourselves. They are human, wonderful, and often do and say the wrong things. Six Feet Under is a formidable dramatic chronicle of life in the 2000s.

Best episodes:

5: Eat a Peach - Written by Rick Cleveland (Mad Men (2008, TV-series)), Tim Williams; directed by Daniel Minahan (Ray Donovan (2013, TV-series))
Developments for all characters; Claire tries to see herself in a new environment, a dull office.

9. Ecotone - Written by Nancy Oliver (Windfall (2006, TV-series)); directed by Minahan
David and Keith has their work cut out for them as sudden parents to two adopted boys, as Nate wakes up after surgery with new insight.

10. All Alone - Written by Kate Robin (The Affair (2014, TV-series)); directed by Adam Davidson (Bosch (2006-07))
Grief following Nate's death. Joanna Cassidy (The District (2001-02)) is outstanding as Brenda's mother. Music by The Dixie Chicks, Nirvana and Eric Clapton.

12. Everyone's Waiting - Written and directed by Ball
The intensely moving goodbye to the characters and show

Related posts:

Alan Ball2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Six Feet Under - season 4 (2004) - Transgressive bite and lots of drama characterize great S4
2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Six Feet Under - season 3 (2003) - The Fishers endure to meet a new profound loss in spectacular drama
American Beauty (1999) or, Escape by Death  






Watch a trailer for the season here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: None - TV-series
= Uncertain
[Six Feet Under - season 5 was originally broadcast from 6 June - 21 August at HBO and runs 12 x 55 minute episodes, totaling approximately 660 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles. The season averaged 2.5 mil. viewers in the US, more than a million down from the previous season; the show's lowest average rating. Besides the ratings the show has enjoyed a solid afterlife on home video and now streaming platforms, generating more - regrettably unpublicized - revenue. The season was nominated for 6 Primetime Emmys, winning one, and 4 Creative Emmys, winning one. The show sits at #89 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250 for TV, between Dark (2017-) and South Park (1997-). Ball returned with something different with Towelhead (2007), which he adapted, produced and directed. Krause returned in Civic Duty (2006); Hall in a video game, a short and a TV documentary before hitting theaters in Gamer (2009); Conroy in The Aviator (2004) and Broken Flowers (2005), and Ambrose in Diggers (2006). Six Feet Under - season 5 has the show's highest average rating; it is certified fresh at 97 % with an 8.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]


What do you think of Six Feet Under season 5?

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (16-24)
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