Fisher Family Redux

Several months ago Jeff and I got into watching Six Feet Under on HBO. We enjoyed the quirky antics of the mortician family and their strange associates. We would actually make an effort on Wednesday nights to put Rachael to bed and watch this show. The majority of our usual television viewing is relegated to catching the headlines during that random 15 minutes before we go to bed.

We were thrilled to have a new mutual obsession, until we got the terrible news that our beloved melodrama was coming to an end in just six more episodes. We ended up riding out the rest of the series and watching the well-put-together finale, but there were so many unanswered questions. How did Brenda and Nate hook up? Why didn’t Ruth figure out that George was crazy before she married him? How did Nathaniel die?

We had to know the answers, so we put Netflix on the case. Each night in the mail for the next couple of months we would get two to three episodes of Six Feet Under. We watched as Nathaniel bit it in a car accident in the first episode launching his family into the conundrum of having to run the mortuary without him. We reveled in Claire’s annoying and bitchy angst, while watching David struggle with coming out of the closet (as if his gayness wasn’t blatantly obvious in the first place). We were particularly amused by Nate’s bed-hopping, and I was delighted when Lili Taylor signed on to play Nate’s first wife, Lisa, since I’m a huge fan of hers.

I’ve watched many a series over my young lifetime, but Six Feet Under is hands down one of the best I’ve seen. The Fishers appear to be a train wreck, but I never thought they were anymore fucked up than the average clan of kin; they just have a creepier family business. True, they weren’t as normal as Vanessa and Federico Diaz, but they were no where near as fucked up as the Chenowiths.

No matter how tired Jeff and I were, we’d come home and get a little bit closer to the embalming ensemble. We gained a newfound appreciation for our Judaism, because once a Jew dies, they are thrown in a pine box and sent into the ground as soon as possible. There’s no preservation, no colored chiffon padding in a casket, and most of the time, the only viewing that takes place comes from the bitchy, old yentas sitting in the back of the room talking about who had the nerve to dress like a whore at their uncle’s funeral.

We made our way through season after season, and finally ended with the last episode of season four. The final season is not out on DVD yet, but we have it on reserve. We plan to watch the whole thing, even the episodes we’ve already seen, partially to gain a new understanding and appreciation, but also because I miss the Fisher family.

It’s been at least a month since I’ve watched a Six Feet Under episode, and I can honestly say that I wish like hell the series was still going. I feel kind of like how you do when a family member gets divorced and it’s no longer appropriate to contact their former spouse, but you really liked them. You know if you make that phone call, your whole family will be pissed at you, but you really want to know how their life is going.

It’s not that my own life is so boring or that I don’t have fucked up family members of my own, believe me, my pot is boiling over with them; I just liked watching this good show. We pay quite a bit for satellite television and have a good deal of movie channels, but the majority of our television operations are limited to Noggin, Sprout, CNN and Comedy Central. This was one of the first adult, non-news, non-comedy shows that we both liked watching, which is a bit of a miracle considering that Jeff and I are as opposite as can be.

We enjoyed our stint as the Fishers’ armchair psychiatrists. We both yelled at David not to pick up the hitchhiker, wagged a finger at Nate for having sex with random women before he knew for sure that his wife was dead, and we both gagged a little every time Brenda and Billy got a little too close than a brother and sister should get.I’m sure, over time, I’ll find another series to get into, and if I’m lucky Jeff will actually be into it, too. Until then, I’ll check my mailbox with a hint of anticipation for the first disc marking the beginning of season five. I may know how everything ends, but getting there is where the real action is.