Six Feet Under: More Final Thoughts

If you haven't seen these yet, the HBO site has obituaries for all the characters who died in the last episode, and that's basically all the characters, so it's definitely worth checking out. They basically tell us what we can figure out from the future sequences, but there are some interesting bits, like the last name of Brenda's new husband, Nathanson. She just can't get away from the name.

One really great sequence I forgot to mention was the "I Just Want to Celebrate" sequence, with Nate singing against a white background. It recalled the ads for funeral products from back in the pilot and gave a really nice jumpstart to the end of the episode. That was the first part of the finale that really had me excited.

The other thing I realized was how important it was for Nate to die before the finale. In this last episode, we see a new family being born out of what was left of the Fisher and Cheniworth families, both in turmoil since the death of their patriarchs. In the end, the families are brought together, and as we see at Willa's first birthday party, they become a functioning unit.

Thing is, Nate was never one for family life. He ran from home as soon as he could, and always resented being pulled back in to the funeral business, forced to abandon the life he had built for himself in Seattle. Over the first two seasons, Nate entertains the idea of marriage and kids, of finally growing up. However, he always has Brenda's problems as a crutch, it's not his fault that they're not functional, it's hers.

Then, in year three he finally is in a family, married to Lisa. He has a daughter he loves and everything seems to be going well, but he can't help but think of other ways that things could have went, perhaps because of the visions he has in 'Perfect Circles,' the life with Lisa is one of many he could have had, but is it the best? He becomes increasingly discontent with his life during that season, and always uses Brenda as the excuse, he married Lisa out of necessity, but he really loved Brenda, and she becomes this figure of the exciting life he could have had, instead of the dulling existence he has. So, Nate distances himself from the family unit, not unlike his own father had.

At the end of the third season, Nate gets exactly what he'd wished for, Lisa vanishing, but guilt torments him through the fourth season, and it takes that long for him to recommit. When he goes to Brenda at the end of the fourth season, it would seem that Nate can now have the life he wanted, and a family with the person he really loved all along.

However, what the fifth season shows us is that Nate isn't someone who's willing to sacrifice, he always has to do what's in the best interest of himself, and he gets bored very easily. Now that he has Brenda, there's no one else he can use as a fantasy figure, a what if, but then Maggie comes along, and in her he sees everything that Brenda isn't, much like Brenda was everything that Lisa wasn't. Nate once again abandons his family for another woman, and with this we can see that Nate just isn't someone cut out for family life. Claire is willing to give up her trip to New York to care for her mother, David chooses his responsibility to his family over the money selling the funeral home would provide, but in the end, Nate isn't prepared to sacrifice anything, and he sleeps with Maggie, justifying it to himself by saying that things between him and Brenda would never work.

And that's true, but what it really comes down to is that Nate is too selfish to ever have a successful lasting relationship. He's more about himself than others, and that's why the family can only re-form after his death. From the way Ruth talks about Nathaniel, there are clear parallels, both of them retreat from family responsibility to do their own thing. And now that they're both gone, there's the chance to form a successful family, and that seems to be what happens, to the point that when David dies, the family is at a picnic playing touch football.

I don't mean to be harsh on Nate. He's just not built for the life he tried to fit himself into. When he was in Seattle, living on his own, he was probably very happy, he's the kind of person who needs to be able to do what he wants to do. And with a family, that's just not possible. I guess Nate's tragedy is that he thought he could change and fit himself into this role, even though it became apparent at the end that he could not.

So, it's a tragic arc for Nate, but the ending shows why the dark times with Lisa were necessary, contrary to what a lot of reviewers will tell you. I think the third season was the best, but I do have an odd attachment to seeing characters suffer, and Nate certainly suffered. Still, he was my favorite character on the show, I think his problems were the most compelling, and even with his flaws, he was the most charismatic character in the series.

And once Nate's out of the way, the characters are able to put aside their differences and form a family unit. Ruth and Brenda finally reconcile, David faces his demons and Claire finds purpose, and at the end the Fisher family is reformed and stronger than what it had been before.

Six Feet Under: 'Everyone's Waiting'

After five seasons, the show is over, and it went out with the best sequence in the entire series. The episode as a whole was solid, but not up to the series' best, however the final five minutes was completely astounding, going far beyond anything the series has done in the past.

But back to the beginning. The first forty minutes or so of the show actually didn't feel that finale-like, the plots moved along, the characters had problems and life seemed fairly normal. I guess the most notable thing was seeing all three of the surviving Fishers at a crossroads. Ruth was completely alone for the first time in forty years, David was thrown out of his house and Claire had to decide if going to New York was the right thing to do.

It was interesting to see Ruth breaking down because she'd spent the whole series putting on this false mask of control and here we finally see her lose it and admit that she is unhappy, notably in the phone call to George where she could even muster the effort to sincerely lie and say she's fine.

My favorite scene in the early going was Claire taking pictures of Ted. It was really sweet and made the character even more likable. The crucial moment here was when he tells Claire that being hip is an adolescent concern, so he's glad to be beyond it. Claire, and a number of other characters on the show, most notably Brenda, were always so concerned with not being cliched to the point that they rejected sincerity, and here Ted basically punctures that, allowing Claire to be emotionally open with her mother and her whole family at the end.

The other really great bit was seeing the Cheniworths together as a family. This episode's main theme seemed to be about the rebuilding of family, a counterpoint to the shattering of the Fisher family back in the first episode. So, we get to see Brenda's family rebuilt, and for the first time, she actually seems happy to be with them.

So, then there's the question of rebuilding the Fisher family. As the episode progressed, it seemed that David would sell the home, the family's base. There is a certain justice in this, but I like the way things played out better, and the dinner scene where the new incarnation of the Fisher family is assembled was one of the highlights of the episode. The warmth and love in that scene was such a contrast to almost all the dinner scenes in the past, where drug induced awkwardness was the norm. Even though it was a bit sappy, I did really enjoy the toast to Nate.

Up until the point where Claire leaves, I was liking the episode but was a bit underwhelmed. After the incredible intensity of the last few weeks, this episode felt like a bit of a letdown, as plots were resolved and the conflict disappeared. It felt like a fairly conventional series finale, one character leaves and this provides a chance to say goodbye to all the characters, with the obvious implication that we are saying goodbye along with Claire.

However, once she starts driving away, the episode ascended and presented us with one of the greatest sequences ever shown on television. There's a ton to talk about, and I guess I'll start with the aesthetics. I really like the odd way everything was filmed, the all white interiors and oddly tinted exterior shots. Some of the aging makeup wasn't exactly convincing, but I'll forgive that. But most of all I loved the way it was integrated with Claire driving along. The song, also used in the season five trailer, is great and perfectly fit with what was going on here. I liked the way the future scenes were presented exclusively as visual moments, with no attempt to explain exactly what's going on.

After all the problems they've been through over the course of the series, it seems like most of the characters get a pretty happy ending. Ruth and George are apparently together until her death and judging from his reaction to her passing, they have deep feelings for each other.

David and Keith's story was one of the best flash forwards. Their wedding scene was very cool looking, with the two white tuxes. Keith's death was the most shocking, but at the same time, we get to know that he sets up his own successful business. One of the things that confused me was why it seemed like one of their children grew up to look exactly like Keith. In David's death scene, I figured it was David hallucinating that Keith was there, but there was another scene where that didn't seem to be the casae. I guess that's something that we'll never know.

Brenda seems to marry someone else, though what happens in her long term future is unclear. Maya and Willa don't appear after the wedding scene, and her husband only appears that once. Though I guess it's fitting that in the end it's just her and Billy. It seems that despite her temporary happiness, Brenda really is destined to be with Billy, and it's the bond between the two of them that outlasts everything else she has. I would have liked to see how Billy died, but I guess he didn't qualify for a death scene.

The best part of this flash forward was knowing that after all her problems Claire finally did find happiness. Even though he stands for a lot of things I don't like, I couldn't help but like Ted more and more with each passing episode, and I'm really happy that in the end he and Claire end up together. In the previous seasons, Claire had always taken on men who were needy and unstable, like Gabe and Russell, so it's fitting that in the end she gets to be the needy and unstable one because there's someone to support her. The good thing that this episode did was make getting together with Ted compatible with being an artist and being herself.

I guess that Claire and Ted don't meet up until her mother's funeral in 2025, so we can infer that in the interim Claire lives the independent lifestyle that her mother never got to have. Ruth clearly sees Claire as a chance to make up for her mistakes, and it seems that Claire has achieved the dream of independence and love that eluded Ruth.

The final future vision, of Claire's death, was sublime, seeing the photos on the wall, the face sculptures from year four, the photo of Ted from this episode, it was a really powerful moment, and to see Claire dying intercut with the beginning of a new phase of her life worked really well.

The final move up to the clouds reminded me of another one of my favorite series finales, Cowboy Bebop's 'The Real Folk Blues: Part II.' In looking at past series finales, I'd divide them into three catergories. There's those that leave you wanting more in a way that's unsatisfying. I would put Buffy's there because I just needed some more time with the characters to see where they were going. The plot was resolved, but the character issues were not.

There's those that leave you wanting more, but in a good way. This would include Angel and Twin Peaks, shows that end on what seem like cliffhangers, but in fact serve as great final statements.

Then there's the elusive catergory of those where you're completely satisfied and don't want any more, but not because the show has run too long, because all the issues have been resolved and the story has been told. The Office and Cowboy Bebop were the only shows I'd place in this catergory, but I think I'd add Six Feet Under. The present portion of the episode left everything tied up nicely, but it was missing something.

However, with the jump into the future, I got the literally final moments with the characters that I needed. I think this device was phenomenal and the perfect way to in five minutes show everything we need to know about what happens after the show ends. It's a really bold device and I consider it a complete success. It gives each character their turn in the spotlight and we can infer what we need to know about the background characters as well.

Is there anything I'd like to have seen that didn't occur? I'd like to know more about where Maggie ended up. Why was she at the doctor's office? I was thinking maybe she was pregnant with Nate's child, but it would be a bit ridiculous to have Nate just churning out kids from beyond the grave. Was it a psychiatrist, to talk about her problems, or I think her job was selling medical supplies, so that could be it. We can infer that Rico is a success from the fact that he's taking a cruise as he dies, but I'd have like to have seen some of his family life running the home and also more of Vanessa in the role of funeral director. Also, more of what happened to Billy. But, on the whole, these issues are not that important, it's up to the viewer to come up with a story that will connect the dots.

That's really what the whole future story is, a guideline that the viewer can use to see where things end for the characters and give us a frame in which we can build the rest of their lives after the show. I love the device and I'm extremely happy that Alan Ball did this. It's so good that I wish every series would end this way, I know I'd have loved to see something like this at the end of Buffy or Angel. Or even not this specific device, just a really bold stylistic departure that conveys the essence of the series and takes full advantage of what we already know about the characters. I've always contended that the episodic TV series is the best vehicle for really avant garde stuff because you have a huge base of knowledge to work off of. So, you can do an episode like Buffy's 'Restless, the Twin Peaks finale or the opening twenty of minutes of 'Perfect Circles' and it works because we know the world and the characters, so we can accept the abstract purely visual storytelling. And the longer the show's on, the more craziness we can take. This future scene takes full advantage of the fact that we know the characters to in five minutes show us the rest of their lives, it's something that could only be achieved after so thoroughly building a universe over the course of five seasons.

So, at the end I have to say I'd consider the show a total success and its final moments the high point of the series. The thing that made the show more than just a soap was the undercurrent of metaphysics, the gravity that death gave to the events on the series, and never was this better used than here at the end.

I went into the episode thinking that I'd absolutely dread the final fade to white, and it turns out there wasn't one. But, even if there had been, I got everything I needed, I feel completely satisfied by what happened and am content to let go of the show. Those final five minutes were basically the viewing for Six Feet Under, giving us the opportunity to say goodbye before the show was lowered into the ground. And with this blog, I throw some dirt on the casket and stand back as it is lowered into the ground beneath a grave that reads:

Six Feet Under
2001-2005
'Beloved Show'

And with that cheesiness, so concludes the thirteen blogs about the show that I did over the course of the season. I'd never written about every individual episode of a series before, but there was enough in each for a lot of words on every episode, and that's the sign of a good show.

Running a Film Series

This summer, Jordan and I ran a film series at the local library. We used the projector from LMC-TV, and back at the beginning of the summer chose eight films to show people. I was expecting to get a twenty or thirty year old demographic, and chose the films accordingly. Also, one of the points of the thing was that there was a discussion afterwards, so we chose films that would be conducive to discussion.

Once the screenings started it became apparent that we were not getting the younger demographic. At the vast majority of screenings, we had people who were basically fifty and up. And in a lot of cases, the films we had programmed were not in line with their tastes.

The screening that went the worst was when we showed Safe, the 1995 Todd Haynes film. This was a film I loved, and hadn't heard about until this year, so I figured it was the perfect film to show and get more exposure for. However, the film is apparently glacially paced. It's not fast, but I didn't really notice any dragging, however at this screening, we had four old people in attendance and apparently they felt watching the film was not a good use of the time they had left on this Earth and an hour and a half into the film, one of them said "I can't take it anymore" and walked out. So, this was a low point.

However, the next week we were screening Oldboy. I was anticipating a lot of awkwardness, but this one went really well. We actually got a younger audience for this film, about ten people, and it hit the audience exactly as intended, getting a huge gasp at the revelatory moment at the end of the film, as well as a lot of "Augh"s during the nastier moments.

At Waking Life we got an older audience who were bored by the film, so we stopped it halfway through. They claimed it was too 'college' and left then. But, we did have an interesting discussion, so it was a success on the whole.

Then we screened Fallen Angels, the Wong Kar-Wai film. We had a big audience for this and the movie went over pretty well. People might not have loved it, but there were no walkouts and we had a solid discussion afterwards.'

The last film we were set to show was Irreversible. At the beginning of doing this, I was thinking that we could challenge the audience, show them this really challenging film and push the boundaries of the way people think.

I'd always wondered why TV networks didn't show more challenging program, and why movie studios pushed to make movies more likable. Now I can understand that mentality. Doing these screenings I saw slow paced arty movies fail to connect with an audience, who always seemed bored and on the edge of leaving. As time went on, I was wishing we had shorter films that would go over better with the crowd. I moved away from more challening stuff, and rather than thinking about showing the best film, I wanted to show stuff that would appeal to the audience. It's so easy to say in theory you want to challenge the audience, but when you actually have to sit there with them, it's not so easy.

So, Jordan and I had basically decided we couldn't show Irreversible. It was too graphic and intense for people. But, we arrived there and three people said they were there to see it and wanted us to show it. Unfortunately we also had three old women who thought we were going to show American Beauty. So, we decided to go through with Irreversible, after warning them that it was incredibly intense and that they could feel free to walk out if they needed to. I was expecting the old women to go sometime between the start of the Rectum scene and the scene where Pierre bangs the man's head in with a fire extinguisher. However, they stuck around, and I figured the rape scene would end it for them, but they sat through that.

We reached the end of the film, throughout which there was such palpable awkwardness in the air I couldn't even really enjoy it. I was stunned that the old women had made it through the movie, but they had and the three people who had requested the film liked it. So, it was a success and I had achieved my original goal of challenging people's ideas of film.

We may not have gotten that many people, but at the end of most of the screenings I felt pretty good about how it went, and if we bring it back next year, I think we will program a little differently, some more accessible, quicker paced films that can still challenge the audience. I guess you do sometimes have to make concessions to how the audience feels and not just show what you like.

Tomorrow: Look for my reaction to the final episode of Six Feet Under!

TV Status Report

Six Feet Under comes to an end next week, by far the best show on TV right now, at least until The Sopranos comes back. So, with the end of Six Feet Under, there's only a few shows left that I'm still watching.

This fall, I'll be watching 24, Arrested Development, Gilmore Girls and probably Lost, though that show has been so poorly run, I very well might end up dropping it. 24 had its strongest season last year, the show constantly makes me say they can't top what they've done before, and then somehow they do. So, that's a must watch. Arrested Development is one of the funniest series ever, certainly the best American comedy since the glory days of Seinfeld, and I'm really psyched to see where they go with the new season.

Then there's Gilmore Girls. I watched the first five seasons in the spring, and it's a smart, rather addictive show, probably the one I'm most looking forward to seeing new stuff from. Even though 24 is probably a 'better' show in terms of scope and content, Gilmore Girls has me hooked because I need to see what happens to the characters next. That's another show where the most recent season was the best one by far, so it's going to be interesting to see where it goes from here. I always like when shows mess with the status quo and that seems to be what they're doing.

March of next year will bring my most anticipated series, and that's The Sopranos, which finally returns with new episodes. It's been a long break since season five ended, yet another case where the most recent season was the best. The Sopranos gets so much hype, but it deserves it because it's the best made TV series ever. I prefer Buffy or Twin Peaks, but in terms of constructing a layered narrative that builds with each season, no show can top The Sopranos. In each episode of the last season, they did more than most shows can do in a season.

I think I'm different from a lot of TV viewers in that I tend to prefer the later seasons of a show to the early ones. If you look at reviews of the most recent season of Six Feet Under, it's almost a given that the show's first two seasons were the best, and that's the case with a lot of other shows, like Buffy or The Sopranos. In the case of all those series, I would consider the first season the weakest, and the best time of the series falls somewhere near the end.

I will admit that in the case of Six Feet Under, the plotting is definitely better at the beginning of the series. The revelation of Brenda's past, with the Charlotte Light and Dark book is phenomenal stuff, and would seem to be more interesting than the later years, when the plot is scaled back. However, if you go back and watch an episode from the first season, then watch a current episode, there's a huge difference and that's in the history, what the characters have been through. In the current season, each event has so much more impact because it ties in with what the characters have already been through, so, even if nothing's happening, we know so much about the characters that just having them interact is enough to create incredible tension.

Buffy season six is a great example of this. They scaled back the overall threat and let the character arcs play themselves out. It's my favorite season of the series, there's much higher emotional conflict than in the early years because we know so much about what everyone has already been through.

Basically what I'm saying is, in the later years, when you know the characters better, the show is inevitably more interesting, because every interaction has history behind it, and seeing characters you know go through stuff is more interesting than seeing new people go through stuff. The only time a show goes bad in the later years is if it ignores the character arcs, as Buffy season seven did, or more notably the abhorrent X-Files season 8 and 9.

So, I checked out the first episode of the new Showtime series Weeds, about a widowed mother who sells marijuana to support her children. It stars Mary Louise Parker, who's one of my favorite actresses. She was great on The West Wing, and was the highlight of the great miniseries Angels in America. So, I was expecting good things.

Unfortunately, the show just felt a bit too much like an ordinary sitcom. It's dressed up with attitude, and the characters all go a lot further than people on your average family sitcom would, but at its core, it's got the same beats. I guess I was expecting something a bit darker, more of a The Office style very dark comedy, and this just isn't that.

That said, I enjoyed the episode, Mary Louise Parker was great, and I certainly don't mind spending a half hour watching her, but the rest of the cast were overacting and didn't seem that real. I guess I'm so used to the Arrested Development/The Office documentary style comedy it's tough to adjust to this. But, I'll give it another couple of episodes, because the premise is great and has a lot of potential.

Six Feet Under: 'Static'

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Y: The Last Man

Over the past few weeks I've been reading the comic book series, Y: The Last Man. I just finished the fifth volume, and will have to wait a few months until the next trade comes out. The series has a great premise, a plague wipes out all the men on Earth except for one, our main character, Yorick Brown. So, he has to go around and figure out why he survived, and also try to get back to his girlfriend, Beth, who's over in Australia, and doesn't know he's alive.

First off, I really liked the book, it's been a while since I had a good longform comics series, and like Preacher, this book goes down smooth, and you don't want to stop reading it. I don't think it reaches the insane heights of Preacher, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable book that tells intelligent stories. I really do want to see where things are going.

So, the five volumes follow Yorick on his journey across the country to get to a lab in San Francisco, where Dr. Mann can test Yorick and see why he survived. They decide to go there at the end of book one and it takes until the end of volume five to actually make it there. This book definitely follows the new trend in comics of decompression, i.e. pacing the story slowly. Decompression came about as a reaction to older comics where there's nothing but plot, and no time to relax and get to know the characters.

However, in reacting against this, a lot of creators have taken this to mean pacing stories so slowly that the book moves at a glacial pace. Warren Ellis was a big offender during the end of Transmetropolitan, when it took nearly twenty issues to tell a story that would have probably taken five issues at the beginning of the book.

The whole point of decompression is that it gives you a chance to spend time with the characters and get to know them, because they're not always dealing with plot. The problem with this book is that there's not much character development, so the plots just drag on and things move forward very slowly. Books 2-4 are basically a series of distractions on the way to San Francisco, where nothing really happens.

I suppose the point is to show us a bunch of people in this world, to give us an idea of what it's like. The problem is Vaughan gives us some isolated pieces of the world, but we have no feeling of what things are like on the whole. Especially as things move forward, we don't learn more about the world. Considering the premise of the book, it's absurd to spend all our time on this road story, and get no sense of what it's like for ordinary people in this world. There's so many issues and we never really get the sense of how things have changed, outside of what's necessary for the story.

For example, there are no men, so what are families like. Are women moving in with each other and forming sort of nonsexual couplings, how people feel about lesbianism now, are people realizing that lesbian couplings are the only option available, or are people still clinging to the hope that men will return? I'm not just saying this from the heterosexual male point of view, but it's absolutely ridiculous that this book hasn't dealt with lesbian sexuality in 31 issues. As a writer, the potential for drama there is huge, and I have no clue how Vaughan could not touch on the issue.

Vaughan has very different priorities in writing than most of the fiction I like. People like Joss Whedon or Alan Ball always have the plot come out of character problems, to the point that the show basically writes itself. Vaughan doesn't write particularly strong characters, so he's constantly imposing new random threats on the characters. In a long form series like this, I'd rather see a focus on character development and growth than just have them run into another bunch of crazy women. That's why it feels like the book isn't going anywhere, Yorick has this one desire to get to Beth, but nothing else, so it feels like most of the events that occur are pointless. The plots play out, but in most cases, they don't change the characters, and if the characters don't change, why am I reading the book?

The best storyline in the run of the book is 'Safeword' because it's about examining a character, rather than just having another arbitrary random encounter. In this story, Yorick encounters a dominatrix, who imprisons him and forces him to examine his attitudes toward sexuality, and find out why he's not taking advantage of his status as the last man on earth to have lots of sex. It explains one of the major character issues from earlier in the book and is also an interesting storyline in and of itself, however this storyline is the exception, and we get no similar insights into the lives of Dr. Mann and 355.

There's another major plothole in the book and that's the fact that there's no indication of what's going on with artificial insemination, and if that's worked to help give birth to any new men. It's been over two years of book time, so someone's definitely tried it. There's one pregnant woman who we hear gave birth to a son, and he's treated like mankind's last hope, but someone must have tried the sperm bank.

And if the sperm bank doesn't work, isn't it Yorick's obligation to impregnate as many women as he can? He's so concerned with being faithful to Beth, they don't seem to have considered what he'd need to do to continue the human race. There's some references to these issues early on, but this should really be the dramatic meat of the book. How would Yorick feel about having the entire next generation of humanity be his children? This is the stuff that great drama is made of, and Vaughan never even touches on it.

I guess my biggest problem with the book is that the premise offers so much drama, but Vaughan uses it merely as a gateway to a road trip story that only marginally takes advantage of the premise. So, it's one of those books where a lot of stuff seems to happen, but looking back, there's been a ton of stories that don't contribute anything to the characters or our knowledge of the world, so the stories are entertaining, but don't really go anywhere.

And, despite all these problems, I was still hooked on the book. It is entertaining moment to moment, but once you step back, it becomes apparent that it was thirty issues of going nowhere. Still, I probably will pick up the next collection.

Why are all the good concerts when I'm away?

Looking at the news from the music world, I'm increasingly annoyed because after a summer with basically no concerts I want to go to, it seems like in September and October, nearly every band I'd want to see live is playing in New York City, but I can't get there because I'm up at school.

These are just a few of the concerts I'd love to go to, but I have to miss.

Arcade Fire
David Bowie
Sigur Ros
Annie/Royksopp
The Polyphonic Spree
Belle and Sebastian
Oasis
Doves
U2

So, I've got to decide if it's worth coming back for some of these. U2 I have tickets to two of their shows, one is on the weekend before I go on break, and one is on the weekend of break. So, I'm thinking of selling the tickets to the first show and buying tickets to the Across the Narrows festival in Brooklyn, where The Polyphonic Spree and Belle and Sebastian are playing, not to mention Beck also. Basically, if the Spree are playing, I need to be there. Their concert last year was one of the best events I've ever been to.

It's just annoying that these concerts couldn't be one month earlier, because I would have loved to gone to them all. Because there's really been nothing going on concert wise here this summer.

Six Feet Under: 'All Alone'

When a major character dies on a show, it's sort of a double edged sword for the writers. Do you want to spend a whole bunch of time dealing with grief, or do you want to try to move things along and get back to moving the plot forward. One of the greatest TV episodes ever made, Buffy's 'The Body,' was devoted entirely to dealing with the aftermath of a major character's death, and was the most realistic depiction of the grieving process I've ever seen in any piece of fiction. This episode doesn't reach the heights that 'The Body' did, it's much more of a standard TV eulogy, giving us an overview of the process, and at the end, there is a feeling of if not resolution, at least closure.

I think this was a really well done episode, with some phenomenal moments, but on the whole, it felt like too little content, considering we only have two episodes left after this one. Obviously Nate was a huge character and I don't think he should have went unmourned, but there's a lot of unresolved character stuff and I was more interested in seeing that than just seeing people mourn. I did love the funeral scene, particularly Rico's speech, as well as Claire's drive around town with Ted.

Bringing back David's attacker just felt like too much of a plot device, a way to give a narrative arc to David's grief, plus I never like when crucial information to a story is introduced in the episode it's used. Maybe I just forgot it, but I don't remember any of that stuff with bullying from the past. That said, I was feeling really sad as David struggled to get through his speech, so the device did serve its purpose.

The best scene of the episode was the only one where there was really lasting character conflict, and that was when Maggie goes to Brenda's house. Brenda's in such an awkward position now, having been dumped by Nate, however, I don't think anyone else actually knows this, and I'm not sure if Brenda is ever going to tell someone else. Maggie is also in an incredibly awkward position, I love the shot at the burial when Maggie is crying and Brenda is looking at her, hating the fact that she's crying for him.

The other really standout scene was Brenda's confrontation with Nate's spirit. If you look at this scene and the scene with Lisa in the premier, Brenda clearly still has a lot of issues with self esteem, particularly in regards to her relationship with Maya. I think that she should keep Maya, to abandon Maya now, the third parent to do so, would do horrible damage to her. I don't think any of her blood relatives have the right to be Maya's parent that Brenda does. Though there would be a certain justice in Ruth having to raise Maya, because it would give her the purpose she's been seeking since losing George. Maybe Ruth is the sort of person who can only function when taking care of others, and even though she resents it, she seems to be unsure what to do when she's not in the role of caretaker.

Over with Keith and David, we're finally getting to the dark side of the deal with Roger. I don't want to see Keith and David broken up when their family seems to be so together right now, but Roger doesn't seem like the kind of guy you want to have against you. It would be odd to just include mention of the 'blowjob video' and then not have it come back as a plot point, but I really don't see how you could play out a major storyline with it in only two episodes.

I guess that's my major problem with the episode, I loved all that was going on, and it was good to see the characters mourn, but with so little time left, each scene needs to be great to justify its presence. If you look at the end of Buffy, 'Chosen' is a great episode, but spending half the episode finding the demon army felt like a waste of time when we had so few moments left with these characters, and to some extent that's how I feel here. There's so much unresolved stuff, and even if the ending is pretty ambiguous, it's going to be tough to find closure in just two hours.

But, this is a show set at a funeral home, and when Nate dies, his funeral is certainly worthy of screentime. Part of it is the fact that I had already processed Nate's death and come to terms with it, so watching the characters do that felt a bit odd. This is definitely one that should be watched in succession with Ecotone, though coming after that brilliant episode, nearly anything was going to be a bit of a let down.

Six Feet Under: 'The Silence,' 'Singing for Our Lives' and 'Ecotone'

I already did an extensive writeup on Nate's fate yesterday, and what happens to him makes almost everything else that happened in the previous episodes seem utterly insignificant, but that doesn't mean there's not a lot of cool stuff going on.

Other than Nate's story, Claire's stuff in these three episodes was the most interesting. We get to see her pushed out of the art world bubble she had been in for the past two seasons and have to deal with 'common people,' who perhaps aren't as attuned to the fine points of culture, or particularly worried about being hip, something that's most notably evident in the fact that they're still using a seven year old catch phrase to answer nearly every question. So, it's fun to see Claire totally dismissive of going to the corporate chain mall bar, Doc Hannigan's. I love the fact that Claire first looks down on these people, then finds herself watching TV alone at home and realizes that maybe doing something, even something lame, is better than doing nothing. This is a storyline I found really relatable, and it's the sort of conflict you're not going to usually see on TV, the conflict that occurs when high standards prevent someone from engaging with common people.

So, the next episode brings back some characters from Claire's art school days for what I'd suspect will be, a final farewell. I liked the way they compared the brutally normal frat boys with the self consciously out there art school kids and concluded that both of them are living in constructed worlds, unable to think of any life outside what they had. Claire was fully into this world, but looking back on it now, it seems ridiculous, and all the stuff they went through seems painfully insignificant. This episode goes a long way towards showing how much Claire has gone. Is it good that she's moved away from the art life, that's difficult to say, but she's gained some perspective. I'm really not sure how to feel about the Claire storyline, it seems like she's happier now than she was early this season, but I don't like the idea that she finds happiness by giving up her art and working in an office. Considering what's already happened to Nate, it'd be tough to give another character a rather down ending and have Claire become a lifer at the office.

The inherent conflict between her and that lifestyle is apparent in the first scene of 'Ecotone,' where Claire and Ted argue about the Iraq war, Claire once again is having her assumptions challenged. She figured that no intelligent person could be pro-Bush, and yet here's someone she likes who she finds out is an Iraq War supporter, and who actually presents a decent argument in favor of it. Obviously, I don't agree with what he says, but his argument does a good job of puncturing liberal views about the war, and doesn't make him a less sympathetic character. I like the scenes of them together in the waiting room, and though I doubt Ted's going to be the 'one' for Claire, he's put her character in an interesting place.

Off elsewhere, Brenda did much of the same. My favorite scene with her was when Jackie finally tells her to stop talking about her problems with Nate. This year, Jackie and Ruth's knitting friends were set up as basically sounding boards for the characters' problems, so to have one finally react against this was great, and this leads Brenda to reach out to Nate, in the tragic image of her sitting alone in the Quaker church.

The best material for Ruth came in episode nine, when she's shooting down all the men in her life and we get some nice cameos from years past. The basic point seems to be she doesn't know what she wants, it's the same conflict she's had from the beginning of the series, when she was left single with Nathaniel's death. She's sort of been written into a box, because to give her a new guy at this point would seem trite, while we know things wouldn't work out with George. Add in having to deal with Nate's death, and I'm not really sure if she can get a happy ending. If I had to guess I'd say she'll end up leaving the house to live a lifestyle more like Sarah's, and maybe David will move his family in.

Speaking of David, he has more adventures in parenting which are entertaining, but his story doesn't have the overarching grandeur of the best stories on this show. It's fairly conventional soap opera material and we can imagine their lives will go on in much the same way until the kids are grown. With Nate, I always felt there was some greater purpose to his life, and all his traumas along the way were leading somewhere, and ultimately they were. Not so with David, who's never had an experience like Nate had during 'Perfect Circles.' Maybe the surfer vision will lead to something, but I doubt it.

One choice I'm really happy with is that Ruth wasn't there for Nate's death. By taking her out, there's no one who can really take control, Brenda feels left out because of Nate's infidelity, Maggie can't take charge because of Brenda and David has problems dealing with it because he knows what Nate did.

I'm still not sure of the decision to make Nate go out like he did, as someone who didn't regret at all what he did. I think it's in character, but still sad. Nate may wander out into the sea and leave it all behind, but he leaves no peace on earth with his passing. Brenda must be devestated that the love of her life, the person she changed everything for rejected her in the moments before he died. All she'll remember is that he would rather have been with Maggie then her, and she'll see that in Maya, who she will presumably have to take care of now, raising two kids as a single mother.

This string of episodes is a testament to what television can do, in telling huge stories that span over many, many hours. Very few films reach the emotional power these episodes had for me, to go through such a long journey with this character and then lose him, it's tough. And I can't wait to see what we get in the next string of episodes, will Nate be a ghost like Nathaniel, and will the characters get any sort of happy ending, or will they all pay for the bad things they've done, as Nate did?

Six Feet Under: Goodbye...

Goddamnit. Fuck. Shit. I was not expecting that to happen. I wasn't planning to watch all the episodes I had tonight, but this was one of those runs where it was not possible to stop, and I'm glad I didn't because this was one of those multi-episode runs that just builds as it goes and by the end, I was completely furious, first by what Nate says to Brenda and then by what ultimately happens to him.

DON'T READ ON IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN ECOTONE


In all my previous reviews I was saying how Nate was the character whose storyline I was most interested in, and also the person I was most unsure how things would turn out for, and I was not expecting this. I'd heard some things that suggested Nate may have been in some sort of already dead state, like in Mulholland Dr., but this turned out to be totally false, and while it's a cool idea, the way things turned out now was so dramatically impressive, I'm glad they went down the path that was chosen. I guess it's a bad sign when a character starts reflecting on how things began for them on the show, and that's what Nate did when he met with Maggie.

The whole season I'd been saying that something was going on with Maggie, and that she was being set up for a big role at the end of things. I wasn't sure that they would end up sleeping together, but the way it happened had me at once really excited to see them together, since I liked them as a couple, and angry because it's such a betrayal of Brenda. I'm not sure about the direct correlation they create between sleeping with Maggie and Nate's death, but I think it ties into what Nate and Brenda were talking about a few episodes ago, with regards to the idea of a higher being speaking to the Quakers. She wrote this off as ridiculous, but Nate seemed entranced by the idea that a higher being could speak to him, and even concluded that when Maggie made something up, what she made up was in fact that message God wanted to send her.

So, by giving him the second AVM, Nate receives a message from a higher power, namely you can't keep behaving like you are. He heals quickly, and is given a second chance, and maybe he finally does the right thing and tells Brenda they shouldn't be together. The problem is, he's using that as an excuse, a justification for why he could leave her. He just wants to be with Maggie, because he thinks she can give him what neither Lisa nor Brenda could. Back at the start of the show, Nate was someone totally unable to keep a stable relationship going, Brenda seemed to have changed that, but now that they were finally together without any obstacles, he goes out and finds obstacles and destroys what was working. It's so sad that the last thing she heard him say was that they can't be together. Maybe the saddest image from this entire arc of episodes was Brenda sitting alone in the Quaker church, finally having reached out to Nate, and he's not there.

Perhaps what frightens Nate about committing to Brenda is the fact that she was able to pull her life together and create a stable situation at home. She'd been through a whole bunch of shit in the past, but she was there now, and Nate could no longer use Brenda's problems as an excuse. He was ultimately left with his own fantasies, constructing other lives for himself in his head, never able to live with the reality he had.

So, Nate's a tragic figure, and here at the end, his character flaws are magnified, and essentially an act of God strikes him down. This is the same storyline we saw back in year three, and the same character conflict present in year one.

But despite all that, I still love him as a character. He's the heart of the show, the flawed center around which all else revolved, and now he's gone. I'm not sure what's going to happen in these next three episodes, but it's going to be a very different show.

His final moment on screen was absolutely phenomenal. I always love dream sequences and this one was really surreal and perplexing. First, the song, 'Strawberry Letter 23' is a really great song. Nate seems to take another trip to an alternate reality, much like he did in the series' best episode, the season three opener 'Perfect Circles.' Surfer David was great and for a moment I was thinking that maybe the entire series would move to this alternate reality. But, we soon wind up at the beach where real David returns and Nate runs out the water, bidding farewell to the mortal world, even as David calls out to stop him. I'm really glad they went for this sort of symbolic storytelling and it's really fitting for the end of Nate's life. This is an echo of a previous episode I don't remember exactly, but it ended with Nate walking out into the water.

Then that final fade to the title was brutal. I was affected by this more than almost any TV series moment I can remember. I'm not saying Ecotone was the greatest episode ever made, but the only comprable moment I can remember is the last scene of Twin Peaks. Going in unspoiled and seeing that title come up, I'd been following this character for five years, through so much, and to see him die, I can't think of another series that offed its main character in such an ignoble manner. But, Nate is dead, it's astonishing that a fictional world can have so much power. That's why we create art, to tell stories that move people and that's what this story did to me.

I'm going to go back in tomorrow and do a bit more general review of these three episodes, since there's a lot going on with the other characters, and more to talk about the construction of the episodes themsevles, but I'm too in the emotional moment now to really analyze, it's just got to sink in.

Six Feet Under: 'The Rainbow of her Reasons'

So, I've seen another episode. This one was a big improvement over episode five, and really has the plots moving forward in an interesting direction. As the episode opened, I was wondering if this was going to be Sarah's finale, but I figured that they wouldn't bring her back only to have her die in the first scene.

First, the most notable thing about this episode was the 'Calling all Angels,' which brought back some memories of the 'Wise Up' singalong scene in Magnolia. Here, they didn't go as far as to have the other characters actually sing, but we had that same feeling of seeing them all connected, and I really liked that. One of the problems with these ensemble shows is that it sometimes feels like the characters live in worlds all their own and there's no overarching connection in the narrative. So, a scene like the party two episodes ago, or the singing here, goes a long way towards making it feel like a more coherent universe.

David and Keith finally got some good material to work with, as they have to deal with the difficult reality of raising kids. Both of their views on how to treat the kids are relatable, and I liked the way they didn't make Keith out to be the bad guy. We see that there's a need for moderation, to find a path that isn't just letting them do whatever they want, but at the same time not walking the line of near violent behavior. I liked the fact that the kids were very challenging for them, and seeing how it broke up the life they had been living. If they were to adopt those kids, things would never be the same. I'm waiting now to see what Nate and Ruth think of David's decision.

The best storyline here was Claire's time in the office. After living in a sort of fantasy world, she now finds herself brought into the crushing mundanity of an office, where art and creativity are seen as hindrances to doing work. I loved the guy imitating Austin Powers, there is no more played out imitation. I loved the way they had Claire's clothes become a physical prison for her, echoing her feeling of being mentally trapped in a pointless endeavor. I don't think Claire will become a 'lifer' at the office, but it's the sort of thing that could help her, by giving her some perspective, and perhaps even inspire some new pieces of art.

I liked the scene where Claire catches Ruth trying to take some weed from her, and the moment they share. They basically switched roles here, Claire was the calm one, while Ruth was rather unhinged. All of Ruth's storyline in this episode was great, her enthusiasm as she talked with the women, and ultimately her confusion when George finally tells her she can leave. This is exactly what she wants, but now that she has it, she feels guilty about ever wanting him to leave.

So, I'm not sure where this leaves George and Maggie on the show. There's definitely something building with Maggie and Nate, I liked the way he slipped in "Brenda's at mom's, it's just me and Maya here." I'm not sure what's going to happen with her, but there's been a lot of buildup and I feel like it's going to be something big.

And now Rico is back with Vanessa too. I don't find them too interesting this season, they're fun to watch, but there's nothing particularly worth writing about. There's none of the layers in the relationship that you have between people like Nate and Brenda.

So, moving on, there's a major crossroads. I'd like to see Sarah stick around for another episode, so Ruth could talk to her about her newfound freedom from George. At this point, it's Nate and Claire I'm most interested in, largely because I'm really not sure where they're going to end up. David and Keith I think will probably end up adopting these kids and working out as a family. I'm not sure what's going to happen with Ruth, but if I had to guess, I'd say something bad's going to happen to George and she'll feel really guilty about abandoning him. And Billy's definitely going to factor into things somehow. But, I think we'll ultimately get an up ending, with all the families together and Nathaniel phasing out of this realm, his mission done because his sons have now become fathers like him.

But, I may be totally wrong. There's only six more episodes in which to find out.

Six Feet Under: 'Eat a Peach'

Another day, another episode. This was the weakest episode so far, I don't have too much to write about it, watching an episode and reviewing it each day means it's a bit of a challenge to not just write the same stuff each time.

The highlight of this episode by far was Nate and Brenda. They're unquestionably the center of this season, and the people I most want to watch. Their storyline this week addresses one of the major issues that was sort of lost in the gap between season four and five, and that's how has the spectre of Lisa affected Nate's relationship with Brenda. Back in season one, we saw her confront Lisa, comparing herself in terms of being Nate's partner, but here she is forced to consider what the effect of her taking over from Lisa as Maya's mother will have on her.

It happens nearly every week, but there was another great argument scene between Brenda and Nate. But, unlike most episodes, this one ends with a positive resolution. Nate apologizes, which he definitely needed to. Calling Maya 'my daughter' was just nasty, not that Brenda wasn't out of line in asking Maya about Lisa. I think Maya will probably be pretty confused when she grows up, considering all the crazy stuff that's gone on around her during her life. But, for now, things seem pretty good, Nate and Brenda have resolved their differences, and Nate has realized how important Brenda is to Maya. However, the question still remains of whether he sees her like he saw Lisa, someone he has to be with, not someone he wants to be with.

I thought they would use the dinner with Maggie to set up a dynamic where her and Nate connect, with Brenda left out, but instead that whole dinner is basically a device to let George bring up Hoyt. I'd have rather seen more development of Nate's relationship with Maggie.

Paralleling Brenda's need to create a narrative for Maya is David and Keith's decision to adopt Anthony despite the fact that he already has a narrative, and said narrative is not a good one. I'm glad that they finally got their kid, because every episode with them this year has been basically the same, and now something different can happen, as I'd imagine we find out that having kids isn't that easy. I'm guessing that David and Keith are going to be having a lot of problems, but that means more material for stories, so it works for me.

It's appropriate that as a show about death ends, it's all about people trying to create and foster life. This season, new life has become much more important than the recently deceased. In fact, the show has drifted so far from the funeral home as a central component that the death of the week being a major factor in this episode was a bit jarring.

The Rico plot had some interesting bits, but I'm not as interested in what's going on with him as what's up with Nate or Claire. His only really good episode this season was 'Hold My Hand' when he holed up in the hotel room with Illeana Douglas.

Claire's story was pretty solid this week as well. Leaving Billy like she did was wrong, and I'd guess that it's going to end up causing some problems down the line. The best scene was between her and Nate when he places things in perspective by comparing her to Maya, something that might give her a better understanding of her mother's position. I don't think it's entirely ridiculous to suggest she should get a job if she's not going to go to school. Claire's always been drifting, not sure what she wants to do, and here she again denigrates the one thing she's done that people really responded to, the photo collages.

So, things move forward. This wasn't the best episode, but it works to get us to a new phase in some of the plots and whatever's next. Only 7 episodes to go.

What's up with me?

Well, considering the fact that I'm writing this blog at 11:17 PM on Saturday instead of being out doing something, you may say, 'wow, it must be slow times with Patrick, yeah?' In the short term, you'd be right, but in the long term, much is going on.

My biggest project right now is my graphic novel, Division Shadow. This is a story I started writing two years ago, it centers around a covert military organization called, as you might have guessed, Division Shadow, but it's not really about military stuff, it's really about showing the lives of a whole bunch of characters connected by the organization. There's three basic story strands. One is about a family man working in the military who's offered a promotion that would take him away from his family, then there's two people battling US military control over in Middle Eastern 'borderlands' that are controlled by the US government, and finally there's an old man who's dying and needs to get something to his son before he dies. Structurally, and even a bit in the plot, it's heavily inspired by Magnolia, but I think the different genre and settings make it a totally unique piece.

So, two years ago, I had an artist set up and we worked on the project for a while, but he always had some excuse for why he wasn't starting and eventually we drifted apart and the project lay dormant. But, one day this summer I decided, I'm bringing it back, I posted an ad looking for artists and got a ton of responses. I picked three of them, one for each chunk of the story, and now we're moving forward. I've already got two finished pages in, and the fact that we have three artists means we can finish the issues relatively quickly.

I'm hoping to finish the first issue by the end of September, and I'm going to print some minicomics up to mail to comic pros to try to get some review quotes for the first real volume, which will be 96 pages long. Then, six months down the line, the second volume will drop, containing the rest of the story. Right now, I'm planning to self publish everything, but there's the chance a publisher will pick up the book, which would be awesome. I'd love to make money off the book, instead of lose it, but either way, this is what I want to do with my life, tell stories, so if I have to spend money on something, it's going to be that.

If you want to check out the art we've got so far, you can see it here. I think it's pretty awesome, this book has really come together and has become my primary creative outlet. I've got the whole story mapped out already, but I'm always thinking about how to break down the next chunk into pages, and how to make the stuff I've already written better.

So, that's one major project. The other thing I'm doing now is running a video workshop for LMC-TV, the local public access station here in Mamaroneck. This consists of instructing about ten 12-15 year olds in the basics of filmmaking and also making a film with them. I did this last year, and the film turned out great. It's really stylish and always looks good, even though there were some complaints about the story not making sense. This year, I've been doing more actual teaching of film techniques, using clips from films I really like, Wong Kar-Wai's stuff, some Magnolia, some Once Upon a Time in the West and so on. The goal is to give them ideas they can 'homage' in the film, so we basically jumble together a whole bunch of interesting shots and hope it hangs together.

It's an odd experience being an authority and a leader. I always noticed when you're a kid, adults would tell you to stop doing stuff that might not really be dangerous, but could be potentially destructive, like tossing a ball in the air inside. And, it always bothered me. But now, I do the exact same thing, I tell the kids to stop doing this stuff, even though it probably won't cause any problems, it's just I feel like I have to. I now get that adult mindset of needing to stop kids from getting into trouble, stuff I may do on my own when no one's there, I'll stop the kids from doing. It makes me feel old, because I've become the authority when it seems like I was just the one watching people my age get called out for causing trouble.

I know I'm not old in the grand scheme of things, but there's definitely an impending feeling of adulthood coming on. Two years from now, I'll probably have a 'real job,' I won't be in school and I'll have to support myself. If I think about how quick the past two years have gone, to think I'll be finished school then, it's a bit frightening.

But, at the same time, I feel like all this school is just a prelude to the real world, and it's about time to get there. And, I want to see what sort of job I end up with and what happens when I graduate. Everything so far is basically the standard route, high school to college, but after that, who knows what'll happen?

And hopefully by the time I graduate, this graphic novel will be finished and successful. My first goal with the book is just to complete it and be able to point to my shelf and say, 'see that book, I wrote that.' Second would be to sell enough copies to support another graphic novel.

So, amidst all this, I've also started editing the film I made on break, which was also lying dormant for a long time. It's a pretty good looking film, and I'm psyched to see what I can make of the footage.

It seems like I spend all my time living in fictional worlds, writing it, filming it and watching it. I guess spending the summer making comics and movies, and even being paid for the latter, professionally speaking, it couldn't be much better.

Six Feet Under: 'Time Flies'

Another day, another episode. It's been a long time since I've had new episodes of something this good coming in on a regular basis. Six Feet Under is such a layered, well made series, it really makes almost every other show look like it's not even trying. When watching the show in 'binge' form last year, I saw things mainly in terms of the big picture, the overall character arcs and direction of the season, so I lost the sense of each episode as an individual entity. Even though everything is totally continuous, it's really interesting to see the way that each episode goes a way towards forwarding the story, and creating parallels within each 'chapter' of the story.

This episode is notable for bringing all the characters together, putting their problems into slightly different perspective. The first chunk doesn't have too much notable stuff, the funniest bit was David and Keith's day with the kids. It was a hilarious story, though I was expecting the bad experience David had with these children to cause him to second guess his own desire for kids.

The real 'meat' of the episode was the party scene, which was notable for both how heavy and dramatic it was, and how funny it was. First, the funny bits. The cake scene was hilarious, the way everyone was enjoying cake so much that Claire just has to say fuck it, give me a piece. There was also the George/Billy discussion, and the presence of Tom, Nate's friend from two episodes ago, who got some really funny material. Jokes like the bathroom line are funny here because of how dramatic everything else is. It's the contrast, not the material itself that works.

But, despite any good times there might be, we ultimately end up with darkness, as a number of couples have arguments. I'm always rooting for Nate and Brenda to be together, but I still found their arguing here really interesting. Following the conversation with his father, Nate is starting to question what he had taken for granted. Is he getting into another Lisa-like situation, where he marries Brenda, has a kid with her, and then winds up feeling trapped and unhappy? Just like Brenda provided an out he could always use, his relationship with Maggie seems to be developing into something more than just friends.

I don't see Alan Ball going down the route of having Nate sleep with Maggie, because it would be rather predictable. I think it would be really interesting for them to have a platonic relationship that becomes very close, and causes Brenda to become jealous. I think she, and the audience, always assumed that her and Nate would be together, Lisa was a temporary stopover, but could she stand to be the like Lisa, someone who's become so normal and suffocating that Nate has to find his mental and emotional stimulation somewhere else? I don't know, but we're clearly headed for some major trauma, as Nate is starting to lose it, even as Brenda seems to be increasingly stable.

Elsewhere, Claire and Billy are having problems as well. I found it a bit disturbing that Claire would sleep with the forty-something divorcee, but I think it works for where her character is now. She'd broken ties with her home, assuming that she could live with Billy. However, when Billy starts to break down, she finds she has nowhere to go. Could Claire move back home, or is she going to have to set out on her own, and probably have to enroll in school again. I don't see her lasting too much longer with Billy, but what effect losing Claire will have on Billy is where things could get interesting.

I like the way the George storyline is being played from both sides more now. We still see how Ruth suffers, but also the fact that George desperately wants to be better, he just can't be. I like the way the conversation between George and Billy sets up Ruth and Claire as parallel characters.

Then with Keith and David, there's still some lingering questions about Keith's sexuality. It seems like the reason David may be so resistant to the surrogate is that that would set up Keith as the father, this woman as the mother and leave him with no role. An adoption would serve as a more 'legitimately gay' way to have a child. The scene with Keith and Brenda presented Keith as a father in the context of a heterosexual coupling as opposed to a homosexual one.

So, this is sort of the blow up that things have been building to for a while, but not too much has actually changed. I guess the real test will be in the next episode when we find out the effect that these arguments have on the relationships in question.

Six Feet Under: "Hold My Hand" (5.3)

Well, after an absurd delay of two months, which seemed like barely any time, I'm back on the wagon, or off the wagon, and have finally seen a new episode of Six Feet Under, the third episode of the fifth season, 'Hold My Hand.' It's really difficult to objectively address this episode because part of me is just so damn happy to finally see a new episode. Still, sometimes time absence does not make the heart grow fonder for a series, what will it be in this case?

Well, I really enjoyed this episode, it felt good to be back in the world of SFU, and while it's certainly not one of the best episodes of the series, it's one of those necessary episodes that advances the plots to the point where major events can occur in future episodes. It's critical to view series like Six Feet Under as one big story told in chapters. So, some chapters will have a lot of big events, some won't, but there's no need for each chapter to really tell a story in and of itself. This is an episode that you wouldn't really remember when your each the end of the season, but I'd imagine will be crucial in furthering the character arcs.

And, in this show, the characters are so interesting that spending an hour with them is something I love to do. The best series reach a point where the characters can be doing the most mundane things and the show is still riveting. Buffy is a good example, I loved when they scaled back the slaying bits, and focused on the characters. In this show, the funeral services used to serve as the standalone plot for each episode, but any plot other than personal issues has basically been removed from the series.

This is something that bothers a lot of people, who say things along the lines of lighten up and stop whining. It's true that the early years of the show were much lighter, but if you're going to have bad things happen to the characters, it wouldn't make sense to have them be carefree. I guess what the complaint is is that there used to be a balance between the darkness and the lighter material, but I still get a lot of laughs from the show. It's just that the laughs are more isolated amidst a core of darkness.

But what about this episode? I find it interesting how in this season every plotline revolves in some way around wanting to have children and the affect of parenting. David and Keith are struggling to get a baby for themselves, while Nate and Brenda deal with the difficulties of carrying a child to term. On some level, they all see a child as a chance to make up for their mistakes and reinvent themselves. For David, it will legitimize his life as a gay man, Keith will get a chance to be a different, better father than his own. For Brenda, having a child would complete her transformation from rebellious and wild to domestic, it would make her pure again and erase the things she'd done in the past. But, Nate's thoughts here tell us that he doesn't think she can do that, she's not a domestic, and never will be. I found that scene a bit cheesy in context, but it says so much about the character's state of mind that I'm glad they included it.

But, this entire mindset is called into question by Maggie, with her tale of losing her son at age two. The idea that these characters' greatest hope could become their greatest tragedy creates a foreboding around all the events that follow.

Then, there's the difficulty of being a child and dealing with parents. George is still dealing with the awful treatment he got from his mother, and now he wants to hide his weakness from Ruth, fearing that she will abandon him as his mother did. I like the idea that because of his disease, his timeline will break down and Ruth and his mother will become esssentially one person.

Claire also is struggling with Ruth, wanting to be truly independent, but ironically the only route to independence is through her father's trust fund. Ruth is on the defensive in both storylines. I loved the scene where she argues with Claire, the history between the characters is what gives it such power.

Claire's storyline was one of the highlights of this episode. Since I'm still young, it's a bit tough to relate with all these characters' desire for children. So, the fact that Claire wasn't going after a kid was refreshing. I love her breakdown in the camera store, the way she feels that she's entitled to this money, and is totally unable to see why anyone wouldn't want her to have it. She's created an entire world around herself in which she is learning from real life experience, with no mind to the fact that society basically requires you to have a college degree. And now that Billy is off his meds, she's got the perfect counterpart to live in this fantasy with. The Sharper Image scene at the end is a great way of making us wonder about how long Billy can last without his meds.

The other highlight of this episode was the Rico storyline. His affair at the Quality Inn was hilarious, largely because of Illeana Douglas, who plays the scenes to the extreme. Her enthusiasm was a great contrast to the dour mannered behavior of everyone else in the episode. The details were what made this story, with the fritos, and particularly the reference to the orange crackers. It was also nice to see Rico's skill rewarded.

The other scenes I really liked were Brenda's, particularly the dinner scene, where she sees, perhaps for the first time, a 'real family,' that loves each other and is fully functional. I think she would have rejected this idea of family as a 'cliche' that doesn't exist, but there it is in front of her, and this forces her to reevaluate what she wants from her relationship with Nate. What it comes down to is does she really want to lead a family life, and if she doesn't, how long will it take for her to revert to who she once was?

So, there's a lot to deal with, and luckily I've got episodes 4 and 5 on tape, so those reviews will be coming up later this weekend, and from there, I'll have to get people to tape the other episodes for me. I should be caught up pretty soon. But, sadly, there's not that many episodes left, and I'm dreading that final fade to white which means the end of one of the greatest TV shows ever made.

Wong Kar-Wai Day

Well, tomorrow finally sees the domestic release of Wong Kar-Wai's brilliant film, 2046. I saw the film back in January, on an import DVD from Hong Kong, and then I saw it again in June, at the Wong Kar-Wai Q&A event at Lincoln Center. Still, despite having seen the film a number of times, I'm going to go back for another viewing on the big screen. I'd never seen a WKW movie in the theater before, and it was an incredible experience, you truly are immersed in another world of glamour and sadness.

Wong Kar-Wai is probably the world's best director right now, his films are incredibly beautiful, and tell stories that are linked more by visual and musical connections than a strict narrative, and in that sense he's taking full use of the storytelling properties of the medium. So, if you haven't seen 2046, or even if you have, go back for another viewing on the big screen, and be dazzled by the images.

I've been reading some of the reviews of the film here in the US press, and most of them like the film, but express the feeling that it's somehow superfluous, that he's not doing anything new. This is a valid complaint, 2046 is largely a summation of everything that WKW has done to date, and on the surface it is. This film is virtually a remake of Days of Being Wild, but while the plot is roughly the same, the emotional state of the characters is totally different. For one, there's the spectre of Chow's relationship with Su Li-Zhen, Maggie Cheung casts such a shadow over this film, that despite only appearing in it for roughly a minute, her presence is felt in every scene, and we view all the women Chow meets in terms of how they compare to Su Li-Zhen. That's the point, this guy is trapped in the past, he constructs a fantasy world in fiction, where he can recapture his lost memories, but when he tries to recapture the same memories with real women, he finds they can't live up to his idealized memory.

So, this film is much more tragic than Days, which despite the main character's death, has a sense of youthful optimism with the other characters, you feel like their lives will go on and get better after the film. In this film, Chow's unfeeling treatment of the women has scarred them and with Zhang Ziyi, he has created a new version of himself, someone who will use men in the same way that Chow uses women. The ending of the film is almost apocalyptic, as Tony Leung lies slumped over in a cab, completely alone, a sad contrast to the scenes in Happy Together and In the Mood where he's riding with someone.

Basically, what I'm saying is this is a film that on the surface seems similar, but beneath is totally innovative and new, with much more scope than any previous WKW flick. It's also a film that demands multiple viewings. On the first viewing, it's confusing, and this can dull the emotional impact, but if you watch it again, and are aware of the chronology, it's much more powerful. That's one of the problems I have with film critic reviews, they've only seen the film once, I don't think you can truly evaluate a film until two viewings. 2046 is going to be a film that'll be much more appreciated in the future, once it no longer has to deal with the expectations created by its five years in production. But, right now, I'd call it WKW's third best film, and a film that takes full use of the possibilities of the medium. Other than Revenge of the Sith, it makes every other movie released this year look like it's not even trying.

So, as I did with Richard Linklater a few weeks ago, here's an index of all the stuff I've written on Wong Kar-Wai here on the blog. There's quite a few articles, and you can see my journey from WKW newbie to WKW expert. But, you could know everything about the man, there's still some mystery in those films.

Days of Being Wild Review (First Viewing): 11/21/2004
Fallen Angels: 12/10/2004
2046 Review (First Viewing): 1/4/2005
In the Mood For Love (Deleted Scenes): 1/9/2005
Chungking Express Review: 1/14/2005
Ashes of Time Review: 4/20/2005
Days of Being Wild (Second Viewing): 4/28/2005
Happy Together: 5/5/2005
2046 Review: Screening with Wong Kar-Wai: 6/16/2005

Those are the core posts, then here's some more articles that mention WKW films.

My Favorite Actresses
My 2004 Oscar Nominations
Top 10 Films of 2004
What makes an action movie work?

Brian Bendis Syndrome

So, watching Elephant and the Bad News Bears, I saw two very different works from directors who started out as indie filmmakers and have gone on to flirt with the mainstream. In recent years, most filmmakers start out not within the studio system, but as indie directors, who are then offered studio support for their next project. As a wannabe director, I'm always fascinated to see what people do as they move from the independent scene to the studio system. A lot of the time, it isn't good. And this just isn't in films, it's also in comics, most notably in the sad tale of Brian Michael Bendis, a man who became the most powerful writer in comics, but along the way, lost his soul...

Well, he didn't exactly lose his soul, but his tale still is quite interesting. In the late 90s, Bendis was a writer/artist, publishing his books through small publishers. He did a number of books, but his two most successful were Jinx and Goldfish. These were two serialized noir graphic novels that he wrote and drew. I'm a huge fan of both books, the art is really innovative, and the stories are emotionally engaging. Both books are just well told original tales, something that there isn't enough of in comics.

So, Bendis was a unique new voice in the medium, with the potential to be the next Frank Miller, a writer/artist who would change what the medium could do, or at least create some cool noir comics. Bendis' books were picked up by Image Comics, and published under that banner, along with a new series called Powers, which is about cops in a world of superheroes. It's a pretty solid book, that riffs on all kinds of archetypes from years of comics. So, Bendis was on a roll.

In 2000, Marvel was starting up a new line of comics, which would reinvent their characters for a new generation, in a new continuity. They went to Bendis to write Ultimate Spider-Man, a controversial pick, but one that was generally hailed, Bendis was seen as someone who could bring an indie sensibility to this mainstream comic, someone with a more unique than your average Marvel writer.

So, in the five years between the start of Ultimate Spider-Man and the present, Bendis has become Marvel's lead writer, with four or five books going at once, all set in the Marvel universe, except for Powers, which continues. Bendis hasn't stopped being a good writer, his Daredevil is excellent, and Ultimate Spider-man has its moments, though the early issues are much stronger than the recent stuff. I haven't read much of Bendis' recent Marvel output, like New Avengers or House of M, but going off his other Marvel stuff, I'd imagine it's competent, entertaining stuff that lacks the originality and emotional bite of his early, creator owned stuff.

Bendis seems to have become so enamored of writing in the Marvel universe, writing the characters he read as a child, that he's forgotten the virtue of creating an original story. Alias, a book about a private eye in the Marvel universe, has some good character stuff, but it's an exercise similar to Powers, the entire pleasure is in seeing how two disparate genres mash together. And with House of M, Bendis is writing an entirely conventional superhero story, one that hasn't been getting particularly good reviews.

So, Bendis went from innovative indie comics writer to someone whose only book not set in the Marvel universe is a riff on superhero universes. I'm not saying that doing work in the Marvel universe is pointless, or that working within the superhero genre is a bad thing. Grant Morrison is someone who frequently works within the Marvel or DC universe, and the work he does there is frequently some of his best. But, first, step back and consider how the story of Bendis is not unique to comics.

Music is the medium where an artist is most frequently accused of selling out, but I think it's the medium where selling out is much less of a concern. In comics, a lot of creators have this desire to write the characters they grew up on, and end up writing only those books, as in the case of Bendis. In film, it's a bit more complex. Other than Bond, there's no franchises that are ongoing and always switch directors. But the Bendis problem still exists.

Take a look at the career of Brian Singer. This is a guy who came to prominence with the film, The Usual Suspects. I think it's an overrated movie, but it's still original and stylish. After Suspects, Singer made Apt Pupil, a film that wasn't too successful. However, his big change happened with X-Men, he directed the film and it was a big hit, so he was hired to do the sequel. After X2, he was booked for X3, only to leave that to direct the new Superman film. Much like Bendis, this was a guy who started out doing small indie films, and in a short amount of time finds himself working exclusively on corporate properties.

Superman Returns is symptomatic of an increasing problem in film. As directors become more powerful, you'll see a lot of them do vanity projects in which they pay homage to a film they loved in their youth. With Superman Returns, Singer's goal is to recreate the feeling of the 1979 Superman movie, a film that's not that good, and isn't even that old. Why not come up with a new take on the character instead of making a slavish homage to a work that is by no means the definitive take on the character. Similarly, Peter Jackon's King Kong is a salute to a film he loved in his youth, but why salute it by just making it again, knowing that you'll probably never match the original. The worst of these was the shot for shot Psycho remake, by Gus Van Sant, an utterly pointless film.

I think the goal as a filmmaker should not be to remake the films you liked when you were young, instead to try and capture the feeling they gave you and update that into a new film. Look at Star Wars, Lucas set out to remake Flash Gordon, but he couldn't get the rights, so he made an original story that does so much more, and has become a totally unique piece of cultural mythology, while the 1980 Flash Gordon remake occasionally turns up on Saturday afternoon TV. He did the same thing with Indiana Jones, rather than remaking an adventure serial, he takes the best elements of them and creates the definitive version. Tarantino's Kill Bill is another example. These works go beyond their inspiration, rather than just trying to recapture the feeling of something that's already been made.

Did all these directors really get into filmmaking to remake movies they liked as a kid? Did Bendis get into comics to write yet another bloated Marvel crossover?

Things are really different in indie comics and indie film. It's conceivable that all Brian Singer wanted to do was make comic book movies, and he made his early stuff as a way of making his name, so he could get the budget for these films. For the successful indie filmmaker, the time always comes when they get studio funding for a film, and looking at this transition movie is critical to seeing what kind of director they want to be. For Kevin Smith, the restraint of Clerks totally falls away when he makes the generic teen comedy, Mallrats. However, Richard Linklater keeps his indie sensibility and fits it into a slightly more traditional narrative structure in Dazed and Confused. Linklater has generally remained more independent than Smith, who has made plays for the mainstream, retreating to more indie work when he fails, as in the case of Chasing Amy and the upcoming Clerks sequel. Clearly Smith's indie work is better than his mainstream films, so why does he keep making stuff like Jersey Girl?

Ultimately, a director's path may not be theirs to choose. For indie directors who succeed making studio films, it's difficult to get back on the indie path. If Superman Returns is a huge failure, Singer may go back to smaller movies, but for now, he's carried along on the momentum of his big budget success. Look at David Lynch's career, if Dune had been a success, he would have made a sequel to it, and from there, he might have taken on another big studio franchise, and never made Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks. Then, we'd have David Lynch, mainstream director, with that one wacky indie film, Eraserhead behind him. Similarly, Kevin Smith would likely never have made Chasing Amy if Mallrats had succeeded.

It seems that failure is the best way to get a director away from the mainstream. All directors who have flirted with mainstream, but remained independent have had one big failure that forces them back to the indie world. Look at Gus Van Sant, after the failure of Finding Forrester, a totally mainstream film, he took stock and went back to the indie world, with his most indie films yet.

In comics, I think the biggest problem is that people start writing with the end goal of writing the superheros they knew as a child. If you look at Bendis' output, it would seem that he has reached his goal, the original work serving merely as a stepping stone to his time on Daredevil. The main difference between comics and film is that in terms of story content, indie comics have no budget restrictions, it's all what you can imagine, so there's no need to get a bigger budget to tell your story, if you've got a story to tell, you can do it just as easily on your own as you can with Marvel. However, if your story involves Wolverine, you do need Marvel.

So, indie comics creators will make their own book as a way to get attention and then wind up writing superhero comics down the line. Unfortunately, to a mainstream audience, a book like Jinx is much more accessible than House of M, that's where the comics marketplace is skewed. What is so called 'mainstream' (i.e. the superhero comic) is actually a genre that has taken over the whole medium. That's not to say that superhero stories aren't popular, in films almost every successful action film this summer has some ties to the genre. Even critically mauled films like Fantastic Four can be saved by their comics connections, while a film with slightly better critical reaction, The Island, just dies, because it has no built in audience.

But, the basic point is, now that he has the ability to do whatever book he wants, what is that drives Bendis to write only Marvel books? Doesn't he have any of his own stories to tell, a story that doesn't involve costumed people fighting evil. Maybe that's what he wanted to do all along, but I'd like to think that people would rather bring original characters and stories into the world, rather than just rework pre-existing concepts.

In film, Chris Nolan may have made a faithful Batman movie, but he didn't add anything to the character as Tim Burton did with Batman Returns. Batman Returns used the character as a way to explore issues really close to Burton, Nolan changed his style to fit the material, while Burton fit the material into the style. Most people don't go Burton's route. What Burton did is the same thing as Morrison did with the X-Men, he used the characters to explore things that were really interesting to him, he didn't worry about what had come before, he drew on the archetypes, and ended up writing much better comics than people who were dreadfully faithful to the material.