Black As My Soul: Six Feet Under

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January 30, 2007

Six Feet Under

It's the first TV series I have really liked in a long time.

Granted, I'm seeing it in re-runs. When it was originally being filmed I wasn't getting the premium cable channels.

Lately, Bravo has been airing three episodes in a row every Monday night. Three. In a row.

Last night I watched them all. Three straight hours.

There is a lot of gravity. And the way they tell the story jibes a lot with my experience of reality.

Have I said this before?

Last night, after putting myself through all three episodes, I cried. The last scene I watched has Nate burying his the remains of his wife Lisa in the middle of nowhere, without the benefit of any embalming. It was his last tribute to her wishes. I wondered if the character was motivated by his own sense of duty or by his feeling that somehow carrying out her wishes would be a message to her.

He had a very difficult time breaking the ground for her grave. When he laid her to rest he wretched in revulsion at the state of her remains, and presumably at the stench. He clamored quickly to get out of the grave and away. As the sun rose over the scene, he was kicking at the dirt to disguise the grave site, having finally filled it in.

He began kicking at the ground with more and more fury and then began screaming, wordlessly.

That was where the episode ended.

I immediately thought "impotent rage." I know that feeling. I could identify.

I wept. It was just a story—but I could imagine myself in that place and I wept.

What did it really amount to—the effort he put into the grave? It was an expression of love—yet an absolutely final one. An end. At the same time, it was dawn. The comforting cover of dark was removed. Life goes on. The cycles continue.

No rest for the wicked.

[+] Posted by Sinner, who was transgressing at the time (January 30, 2007 11:26 PM) by seeing evil. [+]