Advertisement

Six Feet Under' eases the thought of death

Chris Azzopardi

"Six Feet Under"
9 p.m. Oct. 2
Bravo

My papa passed away when I was 14.
As I knelt beside the hospital bed – his lifeless body tangled in tubes – my tears found their way from the corners of my eyes to the tiled floor. I was saying goodbye.
It seemed like a scene from a movie. It was a scene from a movie. At least that's what I hoped. How could I be losing someone who, just weeks before, shared a box of Cheerios with me?
I can't say how I would've reacted if I'd already watched HBO's "Six Feet Under," a gritty look at death and its emotional aftermath. After all, I was nearly 10 years younger and wouldn't have appreciated a fictional family that would come to, in some ways, resemble my own.
Some people called "Six Feet Under" morbid. The premise – a family of undertakers in California – would easily lend itself to that assumption. But the Alan Ball-created show is every bit about life as it is about death.
The Fishers parallel with many American families. Ruth, the mother, is a control freak. Her only daughter Claire smokes crack. One of her sons, David, is an uptight homosexual and Nate is the carefree oversexed eldest. But they all share one common bond. Each of them is dealing with the death of Nathanial, a father and a husband.
When the show debuted in 2001 it raised the bar for television. It explored a universal, yet complicated and repressed, topic: We will all die. Furthermore, "Six Feet Under" showed the grim reality with complex characters. Ones that fear, regret, laugh, cry, let go and hold on. Through trippy dream sequences and ghost appearances, Ball explored the question: Once we've lost someone physically, are they gone forever? Not according to "Six Feet Under."
There's a thin veil between life and death that lifts to open the doors between the two worlds. And death doesn't mean the end. In fact, it's a beginning. There's a journey far more metaphysical we take that Ball vividly paints – a celebration that doesn't end when we breathe our last breath.
I'm not as scared to die as I was 10 years ago. Wherever I go, whether it be Ball's creation of the circus afterlife or a game of strip poker, I'll still be very much alive.
"Why do people have to die?" asks a character as she plans her mother's burial.
"To make life important," Nate tells her.
Thanks, papa.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement