Ramblings of an Anonymous Coward

Six Feet Under, Season Three

thanks to comcast on-demand i have finally seen season three of hbo's series six feet under. in a nutshell, it has gone downhill since seasons one and two; however, there were still enough hooks to keep me watching for the time being as well as looking forward to watching season four.

potential spoilers ahead -- click at your own risk

the season started with this whole is nate dead thing which i found simply too goofy. where they trying to be tim leary-esque or something. if you can't tell, i didn't like it. maybe it appealed to someone... i dunno.

claire starts art school which for me is promising. her character always has this bit of a dark artist feel about her which is in stark contract to her looks. i suppose she is the proto-typical rebellious teen which leaves the writers plenty of room to develop her character which they do throughout the season. she goes from a jerk boyfriend to a confused but good deep inside fellow and as the season closes, she managed to get pregnant around the same time she broke up with her boyfriend. she then elected to have an abortion which i suspect will come back to haunt her -- there was some foreshadowing when her mother (ruth) told her about getting married and having children early.

speaking of ruth... for an older woman she sure does get around. ending last season she was with nickolai and this season she tried to hook up with a new character (internist, arthur) and finally ended up marrying (yes, marrying) a geologist named george sibly. it is his seventh marriage -- widowed twice. he is rather plain and i don't see his character doing anything more than being a calming influence to the rest of the cast. but ya never know.

a quick word about arthur martin -- the internist. now this is an amusing character. he is the stereo-typical nerd not only in looks but applifies that persona with his mannerisms. in many ways he was a good match for ruth and her quirks, but alas his unwillingness to carry on an immediate sexual relationship was clearly problem and she moved on quickly. i look forward to arthur being around longer. go nerds!

brenda and billy. well, they have gone from subtle to throwing it out there in the open. billy loves his sister brenda. romantically. go ahead... ewwwww, i'll wait. yup, he said it outright and that of course freaked her out (as it should) and will keep them apart for the time being.

lisa and nate. they married. not a good match and this plays out through the season. frankly i found lisa simply weird... the vegan chef turned full-time mom. never satisfied with what she has -- and that's ok, but her constant berating of nate for his efforts simply made me want to slap the shit out of that woman. since i don't hit woman and this is just a television program, i didn't do that. lisa is pronounced dead in the last episode which of course puts nate into a tail spin. they strung out her disappearance to death for several episodes giving viewers plenty of time to wonder what really happened.

nate and brenda. back together? well, it ended with that as a possibility; however, given that brenda got a new romantic interest in that same episode, i guess we'll just have to see where it goes. i thought those two made a pretty decent couple, but perhaps that is because i found brenda's character interesting in a number of ways -- fucked up one minute giving into thoughts and emotions, lucid the next. one of those too smart for their own good types which reminds me of the feynman quote:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. -- Richard Feynman

and a bright person is that much more able to fool themselves i think.

i'm not sure what i think about the whole federico and vanessa diaz thing. i'm sure some will say it is right on, others will say they went way overboard. one thing i would hope everyone could agree upon is her sister is a manipulative little bitch. she has her kind moments (in prior seasons), but she needs to stop trying to hand her baggage off to her sister. federico's willingness to do just about anything to pull vanessa out of her depression was tainted at the end when he found himself frustrated, drunk, and getting a blow-job from a stripper. this could prove to be a provacative storyline next season. on the funny side, he thought the woman was a prostitute and offered her money when she was ... ummmm, done. she made it clear she wasn't. he was embarrassed and he offered to take her where ever she needed to go and they left awkwardly. yup, i see this getting back to vanessa and causing frederico a lot of grief. maybe it's me, but i feel sorry for the guy -- he did a lot and fell prey to a lapse of judgement. had he not thought she was a hooker, i'd have called it more than a lapse. however, i expect when/if vanessa finds out her sister is going to twist her arm to make things even worse for rico. good luck dude, i think you'll need it.

keith and david. david and keith. now there is a relationship with ups and downs. no pun intended. the find themselves in therapy trying to work out their differences and seem to be making some progress. at the same time i personally felt that they were busy following a therapist's recipe rather than making the tools their own. i suppose that is realistic... we've all done that right?

anyway, after a paintball game where keith purposefully puts himself on the team against david the two end up hooking up with sarge for a threesome. as predicted to me, this caused the relationship to go downhill quickly, but at the end of the season they found some common ground and have begun making up again. i wonder if this is going to be a seasonal breakup and makeup cycle for them.

oliver, the art instructor was quite the character. over-played i think, but certainly spiced things up. brooding artist hates world and things all artists must hate the world too. claire's love interest in russell was snuffed out when oliver had his way with the confused and attention seeking student. i'm thinking russell will either worm his way back into the picture or is going to end up killing himself. he was a good match for claire so i'm thinking this rift will be temporary. but what do i know?

for me this season wrapped itself up in personal relationships and how people deal with them. what they expect from them. many episodes touched on things that made me feel awkward -- more awkward than i would prefer from my entertainment. but then again that could be me overthinking and reading more into situations than are there. whatever.

things i am hoping for next season:

• i'd like to see brenda's character develop more and with nate seems to be the most logical way to take it. but lets not have them get married in season four, ok?
• ideally i'd like to get some sort of explanation for lisa's death -- if for no other reason that to prove beyond reasonable doubt that she never went back to their house and saw nate and brenda kiss in a moment of weakness.
• i'm expected the vanessa/frederico relationship to have a few more ups and downs, so lets hope they are interesting.
• less of keith and david's relationship. that whole we can have gay guys kiss and have sex thing has gotten old. let's move on.
• arthur. will he try to get between ruth and george? maybe he'll just go out with a freaking bang?
• brenda's mother margaret reminds me of hillary clinton -- i think they can take her character into some interesting directions.
• hey, can we bring back that sexy rabbi? [ducking]

well, that was a whole lotta nothing. i've typed too much junk to just delete this post, so off we go. until season four....

Posted by ac at April 6, 2005 07:13 PM