slop101

I loved this episode and the whole season.

My only little gripe would be that I thought that Ruth's sister and the Kathy Bates character should have been at her wedding.

Daytripper

Well said Marty!

I'm so depressed that I have to wait an entire year to see these characters again. New episodes that is. I'm sorry, but I couldn't have asked for a better season finale. Sure, the show was almost an hour long (yay!!!), but didn't it feel longer? I would NOT look at the clock. I didn't want to know I only had X minutes left. But it was very very satisfying. A few more comments. Sure, Lisa got on my nerves too. But I was sad to learn that she was dead. Now we have to wait twelve months to find out how she died. Also, Brenda finally seems to back on track again, meeting a cool guy, and Nate shows up. Had he ever been there before? How did he know where she lived!? Everytime someone yelled in front of that baby, I kept expecting it to start crying. I mean, those were some intense scenes. What a cute baby too btw. Too bad the kids that are brought to movie theatre by their a-hole parents aren't that well behaved. Last, although I think Claire shined the most in the episode, her crying at the wedding was a l-i-t-t-l-e over the top. I didn't know whether to laugh. Or cringe. I don't think it was meant to be serious. Do you? That scene felt like something out of a David Lynch movie.

JaxComet

From the phone call it seemed to indicate that she was murdered. I'm just glad they wrote her out.....

Numanoid

I wondered this too. I remember that Claire was there, but don't remember Nate going over. Still, it wouldn't be much of a leap to imagine that either Brenda or Claire told him where it was at some point.

I agree. Claire's sobbing was very hokey and we were laughing at it. I'm not really sure if that was intentional or not. Now that you mention it, that scene did seem like a Lynch movie. If only Nate Sr. had been dancing in the corner, it would have been complete.

I disagree. I think it's pretty clear from the clues, particularly the bits Nate was recalling, that Lisa committed suicide.

Jadzia

I figured Claire was crying because she realized how like she mother she really is-- just wanting someone to love and love her back-- and she was crying because her mother got what she realizes she wants so desperately.

They were happy tears and sad tears all at once.



My Tivo cut off at the screen announcing Lisa's death-- was there anything more after that?


Funniest line:
"**** you, car. Now you are locked."

Numanoid

If you mean the "Lisa Whatever Fisher 1967-2003" screen, then no, just the credits.

Frank TJ Mackey

**** fantastic finale

When I saw that baby I nearly broke down.

There better be some award winners here.

I bet Ruth's new husband is gonna try to get his hands
on the funeral home and her money.

It sucks royally that we wait until June 2004.

Switch over to OUT OF ORDER on Showtime Mondays at 10 eastern if you want some more weird but great show.

hgar78

i think i teared up twice myself!

i was thinking this too but he'd have a hard time considering there are 3 other partners wouldn't he?

maiana

Yeah, my boyfriend thought they would were going to do that. That would have sucked!

jpcamb

Sliughtly off topic:
HBO is doing a survey. Its a good chance to offer feedback on the show. Here is the text from an email i recieved from them:
Dear HBO Subscriber,

As a valued HBO subscriber, we are interested in your opinions regarding one of our original series. Therefore, we would like you to answer a brief online survey, which will only take about five minutes to complete.
To begin the survey, just click on the link below. If the link is not highlighted, simply copy and paste it into your browser.

http://www.hbo.com/camp/200306ER/103656/

We pride ourselves on the quality of our original programming and your input will help us maintain those high standards. We look forward to your participation!

Sincerely,

HBO Surveys

+++++++++++++++++++++

It took under 5 minutes to complete...

rfduncan

Um - at the end of the survey it says:
So if you're not a subscriber who got a survey invite, they probably won't count it.

Jadzia

I can just see HBO saying to Alan Ball-- "We need you to make the show a little more action-oriented. We did this survey..."

jpcamb

Interesting article from someone that wrote another atricle praising the show last Friday. I have to say I disagree with some of his points but thought others might like to see a critical assesment of the show from a critic. (I don't know how much press this show gets elsewhere.)

Previous article in the boston globe psted in this thread (the link seems to be broken dead to the original article.... )

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=295674


'Six Feet Under' finale goes off the deep end


By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff, 6/3/2003

efore Sunday's ''Six Feet Under'' finale, Peter Krause's Nate had certainly been letting his Mr. Hyde side erupt. Guilt-ridden during the weeks since his wife's disappearance, he was painfully - and believably - unraveling.



But by Sunday night, the oldest Fisher sibling was behaving like a raving ''Exorcist'' demon, berating innocent mourners, tanking tequila, and abandoning his infant daughter for another sordid one-night stand. It was too much. When he drunkenly drove into the hills looking like a B-grade horror villain, ranting about suicide with streaming blood marbling his crazed face, he finally took the show too far over the top.

Nate's overbaked break - trolling for an Emmy? - was only one of the disappointments of the finale, the end of an otherwise sure-handed season of one of TV's most impressive shows. Directed by series creator Alan Ball, the misguided hour also relied too heavily on a tedious set of visitations by the ghost of Nathaniel Fisher (Richard Jenkins), the dead father from whom Claire Fisher (Lauren Ambrose) clearly inherited her droll irony. His presence inspired each Fisher to reflect on his or her choices, choices that viewers were already acutely aware of after the dramatic events of recent episodes. It was redundant writing, as the Fishers restated their issues to their father before finding some kind of pedestrian self-healing - Claire embracing her mother, David Fisher (Michael C. Hall) embracing Keith (Mathew St. Patrick), and Nate embracing Brenda (Rachel Griffiths).

Claire's journey to heaven with her father was particularly awkward. It offered a poignant moment, as she sees her troubled former boyfriend, Gabe, finally at peace, but it also raised a gnawing question. Claire encounters her baby in heaven, supposedly the child she gave up a few weeks back in an abortion-clinic sequence that had horrific cattle-call overtones. By presenting Claire's ''choice'' as a baby, was Ball trying to make a big statement about fetuses and the morality of abortion? Or was he showing Claire resolve her own guilt, as the ghost of Lisa agreed to care for the ghost of Claire's boy? It was a distracting issue.

The biggest problem with the finale, though, was that, ultimately, it failed to further the drama of ''Six Feet Under.'' The Fishers were back where they started, particularly as Nate found his way to Brenda's door and David and Keith reunited. What helps make ''The Sopranos'' a superior TV series is its willingness to kill off or remove a major character in order to keep the characters changing. But ''Six Feet Under'' is less willing to move forward, limiting itself to the situation-drama genre in which nobody grows as they keep making the same mistakes. (Lisa is officially dead, but Lili Taylor was not a regular cast member.) Why shouldn't David and Keith break up once and for all and put their empty relationship where it belongs - six feet under?

The episode airs again tonight at 11 and tomorrow at 9 p.m. on HBO.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at [email protected].

das Monkey

Thanks for the post, but I too don't agree with his points. The characters are showing significant growth. Just because Keith and David are still "together" doesn't mean for a second that the two of them haven't grown tremendously, both as individuals and as a couple. And how about Ruth ... look how much she's changed. Growth doesn't have to mean a drastic change. All of these characters are adults, and for the most part, they are who they are ... they can grow around certain traits and expand who they are, but some things will always be at the core of their personalities. We can all hope to grow, but some mistakes we'll continue to make over and over until our dying day. It's the nature of our humanity and one of the reasons Six Feet Under is such an incredible show. It's not afraid to focus on the truth about ourselves, even when it's not pretty.

So things didn't turn out all rosey for everyone; some characters fell into familiar patterns, some are starting down new paths, some are trying to move forward despite being haunted by their past, and it's all intertwined into the total package. These are fully realized 3-dimensional characters who are juggling multiple emotional struggles, and sometimes they don't always make the choices we'd want them to make. Welcome to life.

"Nobody grows" which show has he been watching?

das

rfduncan

LOL!

Buck Turgidson

HistoryProf

wow....i agree with every bit of that article....it's all exactly how I responded to the Finale.....especially the bit about the baby - that was just kind of jarring and wierd.

MrN

Yes, we would have liked to find out how she died, but this show is about how the various characters are affected by her going missing, not about the mystery of how she died.

I think the finale is appropriate to this season although I liked a couple of previous episodes more. They probably shouldn't have done so many long dream sequences, and yeah, we already know Claire may be feeling bad about the baby without having to be confronted.

So, a couple of redundancies but some resolutions. I hope Justin Theroux can stick around.

jpcamb

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by jpcamb
What helps make ''The Sopranos'' a superior TV series...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just to clarify any casual readers that was the review not me saying Sopranos is superior to SFU, I acutally feel quite the opisite although Soranos is probably my second favorite show.

Except for Tony, in 5 seasons of Sopranos we haven't seen any character develop half as much as any of the Fishers have developed in Three seasons....

joe liquor

Does anyone know what the pins on the map in the Fisher's office indicate? I've seen it in other episodes, but it seemed a bit more important in this one when David was talking to his dad.

Buck Turgidson

Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I realized after I posted it that it could be misconstrued. That was from the review itself, rather than your post. I only put the laughing smiley in there because I'm not too much of a Sopranos fan, and whatever occasional problems I have w/ SFU, it's a dramatically better show, on all counts.

das Monkey

I re-read that sentence a few times when the article was originally posted, and I can see how it could be read where the author's simply claiming that The Sopranos is a "superior TV series" in the global sense ... i.e. it's one of the best shows on television ... not a direct comparison to Six Feet Under.

Either way, they're both near the top of the list in my book; however, I too cannot deny the conclusion that Six Feet Under has surpassed even the standards set by The Sopranos.

das

Buck Turgidson

That's how I originally took it, also. I guess in the grand scheme of things, The Sopranos would qualify for that status, but I'm really not a fan of much of it past Gandolfini's work, and it's status as Best Show, Hands Down that a lot of people accord it has never washed, at least to me.

jpcamb

A safe guess would be where their clients have ummm lived. Each map point being a pick up point or some such thing. David is anal enough to care if one is moved from the wrong spot.

Could be used to focus advertising or something along those lines..... these types of things are more commonly associated with crime scenes but I can see David using it for tracking purposes....

Jadzia

I thought the pins were cemetaries or places where they pick up bodies (morgues, nursing homes, etc.)