RIP, Six Feet Under (in the UK)

Perhaps the content of my dream (see below) came from watching the last episode of Six Feet Under. I know it was shown months ago in the US (I even knew how it ended) but we’re always a bit behind.

I thought the last scenes, where the deaths of the main characters were shown, was touching. HWMBO, on the other hand, thought they were silly. This is the difference between Western and Chinese culture, I guess.

I think that one aspect of the show that is very important is the commonplace way in which it dealt with death as a part of life. Death was the Fishers’ life. And, for several seasons, it was part of ours too. Death is sanitised these days. Years ago, when people were waked in their front parlours, you couldn’t escape it. When Grandpa died, they put him in a suit, in his coffin, with a block of ice beneath, and had visitors come to the house to pay their respects. Today you go to a funeral home, where everything is taken care of, no ice is necessary, and you don’t have to go upstairs and sleep with Grandpa dead in the front room (unless you own the funeral home, that is!) Death is often messy, horrible, and terrifying, but it’s the last chapter of life and is one that we’ll all have to read, sooner or later. As I get older this is often brought home to me forcefully because of the deterioration (slow but steady) in my own health.

I’m sad that it’s over–I wanted to watch the kids grow up a bit more; am curious as to how Keith and David dealt with one of their sons’ homosexuality (note that in the scene at the end where Claire was getting married the son on the left was holding hands with his Asian boyfriend).

I guess it’s better to leave ’em smiling through their tears rather than keep a show going until the bitter end. That’s especially true about a show that was all about endings.

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