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SIX FEET UNDER
SEASON ONE: PILOT EPISODE/SIX FEET UNDER
This is my review for the pilot episode of SIX FEET UNDER, the dark natured comedy-drama series created by Alan Ball, the genius who penned the Academy Award winning script for AMERICAN BEAUTY. SIX FEET UNDER has been hailed by both fans and critics as the best show to grace the small screen in perhaps decades.
6FU is the complex story of one Los Angeles family who own a small, struggling funeral home, and of their friends, foes and even their lovers. In the center of it all is Nate (beautifully portrayed by Peter Krause), the thirty-five year old eldest child of Nathaniel Fisher; a prodigal who wanted nothing to do with the business of death and ran away to Seattle. But when the elder Nathaniel (Richard Jenkins) is suddenly killed in a car accident, Nate unexpectedly feels the homing instinct and returns to Los Angeles to assist brother David (Michael C. Hall)and their mother Ruth (Frances Conroy) in running the family business.
En route to home, Nate meets Brenda Chenowith (Rachel Griffiths), an impulsive, sexy woman and they have a fling in the airport closet that (in the course of Season One) will unexpectedly evolve into a long term relationship, complicated by Brenda's scheming manipulative parents and downright endangered by her clinging, mentally unstable younger brother Billy (Jeremy Sisto).
As the Fishers struggle to deal with the loss of Nathaniel Sr., Ruth is overcome by the guilt of having had an extramarital affair; her 17 year old daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose)is experimenting with drugs and sex; David, the younger son, is thirty-one, and has recently called of an engagement with a lovely woman because he has recently come to the realization that he is gay and is carrying on a secret love affair with a gorgeous policeman named Keith (Mathew St. Patrick). David's secret is eating him alive and he is torn between staying in the closet and maintaining his conservative family's harmony and spilling his secret so that he can exist in freedom and happiness.
When Ruth tearfully confesses that SHE has been having an affair behind the late Nathaniel's back, her three offspring react differently. But her guilt isn't abated even by Nate's support and comfort. With Nathaniel Sr. in the ground, the Fisher family begins the difficult process of marching on without him, and along the way, many changes, both wonderful and tragic, will take place, over the next few years...
To this day, I love to pretend I never met the Fishers, The Chenowiths, Keith or Rico. I like to pretend I'm walking into the funeral home for the very first time, and freshly meet this lovable bunch of messy people. The pilot is a beautiful start to the series, which I will award the letter grade of A+.
LINKS
NTV Russian TV site
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