by turns

Six Feet Under Six Feet Under

I just watched the very last, ultimate episode of Six Feet Under,...and...yeah...I can't talk about it right now. Except to say it was the perfect ending. Right down to the Prius.

Answer Me This

What kind of just, loving God would create a station like HBO, guide talented writers and actors to it in a divine congregation, and churn out new seasons of The Sopranos, Deadwood, and the new show Big Love, and then leave me out of the picture? Are those the actions of a kind God?

I think I've been forsook.

Desperate House...Husband?

I am really into Desperate Housewives. I think it's even in my Top 10 so far!

It feels funny to say that for some reason. Like I'm confessing that I still listen to and enjoy Andrew Dice Clay. I think it's because so many judgements are made about it, whether or not the show has actually been seen. But here's why I like it.

It's really well written, which I was really surprised by. The characters have all these interesting conflicts, ranging from the mundane to the dramatic. It has elements of American Beauty, where it takes place in this idyllic suburban heaven and people go to great lengths to keep up appearances, from physical (both personal and landscaping) to emotional. But scratch the surface and it has all these tensions boiling under the surface, and people are emotionally hamstrung because they don't talk with each other about it until there's a crisis.

And I also have to give it mad props for being the first TV show I've ever seen to portray so realistically what it's like to be new parents. From the couple being frustrated about never being able to spend time together, to the mother feeling like a failure because it's such an overwhelming service to perform, to how parenthood is gendered, both naturally and culturally. Six Feet Under, especially in Season 3, was the first one to approach it and really deal with those issues. But this has a whole different spin and explores it more from the mother's side (Six Feet more from the father's).

And it's also one of the only shows I watch where I actually like the characters, where I could see myself spending time with them. Soprano's? Deadwood? Even Lost? Brilliant shows. But I don't think I'd wanna spend too much time with the characters. But Housewives has all these different characters, the main ones being good people, trying their best.

Good stuff.

Six Feet Under Kicks My Butt

Six Feet Under just kicked my ass (sorry for all the poop type talk lately--I'm starting to feel like dooce;). That's the only way I can think to say it. That's actually how I did say it when I called Suzanne and some friends. I'd just finished the third season (the last and final season just ended last week, sadly), and the season finale brought together two things I've been thinking about for years now.
In that episode Claire goes to find her father's grave. When she arrives there's like a carnival going on in the cemetary. "What's going on here?", Claire says. Her father replies, "It's always like this". They talk a little, then she sees someone that disappeared in the first season. He talks about how life on earth wasn't a good environment, but now that he's dead he feels like he has a purpose. And he's doing service, making up for what he didn't, couldn't, do in this world. THEN, Claire talks about how being with her baby niece she gets to experience the "eternal youngness" of things all over again.
THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT! How this world isn't everything, how we can develop in the next world and do service (that's how I understand it now), even why people die. They've done all they can in this world. It's as simple as that. I used to get so bogged down in thinking this life was IT, that's all. I lost a lot of my anxiety once I started to see life as this eternal continuum. And then, with Amia here, there's this crazy interplay of life and death, birth and renewal.
It was so neat to see these ideas in conjunction with each other, and on the little screen to boot. It felt so...validating. To know that there's people out there, that I don't even know, that are approaching life in similar ways.
Does anyone know why you can't just get HBO without getting every other channel in existence?