Six with a capital F

Six Feet Under goes down tonight. Bummer.

Seldom has a show evoked such an emotional reaction out of me. The only thing on network TV that could do it is The Simpsons, which could make me laugh out loud over and over and over. The Sopranos could always elicit a smug chuckle about the hopeless, low-life characters on the show and just how funny they could be while thinking they were just.

Damn that Alan Ball and company for creating something that has really become an escapist family for me, not altogether unlike The Room episodes on the series, where the family patriarch is discovered to have maintained a room away from his family where he could go do whatever he couldn't around them, like listen to his music, smoke, etc. No one else in my immediate family watches SFU, so it became a Sunday night respite that drew me in with intriguing characters and intelligent storylines.

I always appreciated the dark humor. My best friend drove a hearse in college, so perhaps there's some wistfulness there. Something I found most alluring, especially in the first few seasons, was how the opening death, which then usually became a centerpiece for the week's plot to emanate from, was always so random and varied. And yet they found ways to work it into the storylines and help explore different cultures, different ways of living, different ways of dying, and most importantly, different ways of grieving for all the world to see. (In later seasons, the opening deaths tended to start becoming less important, disappointing, but not entirely to the detriment of the show since we already had a great show developed.

Back to the grief - it's been central in my life for the past 10 years. My father died unexpectedly in 1996. That experience has affected me more than any other life event. I started to write that it changed me more, but in thinking about it, I really think more that it has maken me more resolute in who I was. But seldom did an episode go by that thoughts of my father weren't conjured by SFU. The most obvious mechanism for this was in the family's late father occasionally appearing in the afterlife to talk to his children or wife as if he was there in person. He always had an omniscient, calm tone that really underscored the idea that these people were talking to someone who was dead. It was my favorite part of the show because more than anything, I'd want a similar chance with my own dad (realizing those exchanges really only go on in one's head).

So the pre-press on tonight's episode keep saying there will be no spin-offs, follow-ups, etc. So in typical Six Feet Under, nothing's sacred style, they'll all blow up, get murdered or otherwise meet their fate. The only real question now will be how: all together or one at a time, and what kind of philosophizing about death will we get in the process?

I dunno, but I sure as hell can't wait. And then on the other hand, I don't want it to end. Damn you, Alan Ball.