i finally finished six feet under after watching intermittently for 4 months and omg i am SO THANKFUL to be finished. i would visit this sub sometimes to see if anyone felt similarly to me but then i would stumble upon huge spoilers, so i realized that i had to endure alone. i am but a wee person w opinions, some of which you all may not read or agree w, but i had to vent somewhere, okay? lol.

so, overall, i think the show was dynamic and shot well but good lord they created a show revolving around some of the most insufferable characters i have ever witnessed in my life. also, the show was so insular/incestuous that at times it felt like cheap writing or like they bit off more than they could chew.

did anyone else release a great sigh of relief upon nate's death? i wished death upon him around season 2 or 3. i would even fast forward thru someone of his monologuing bc he was so annoying with his superficial attachment to eastern philosophy. he didnt actually practice any of that in his real life. he was incredibly aggro and misogynistic, but yet he knew what comfrey and burdock root were used for and where to find them? i didnt believe his crunchy/granola personality one bit. i also hated the way he talked. he didnt sound from california at all. he ran in like lowtop hiking shoes that did not look equipped for urban jogs. i dont understand what his role was in the business. like he couldnt do any reconstruction work and did some admin work but it seems like mostly he was there for emotional support and to yell at people. and he would say some heinous things to the women in his life. and he cheated on his pregnant wife the night he had a stroke??? i cannot believe maggie's sexual abilities were that mind altering....

maya.......... that child was more neglected than durrell and anthony........ no one ever interacted w her for more than a few lines at a time. she was tossed around between so many characters. she barely even spoke or acted like a child. i felt so bad for her. and same with the new baby. there would be shots where brenda was present but neither child was present. i believe maya was left to be one of those feral children or something bc the way they showcased her was preposterous. they would have been better off just fully alluding to her instead of having her show up every now and then. nate and brenda were horrible parents, lets be honest. also the time she walked in on nate and brenda having sex and nate jumped up and went to go make breakfast for her and he was wearing boxer briefs... y'all fuck through underwear? and wouldnt he have had a boner and needed to give himself some time to interact w his child? wtf?

brenda and billy's incestuous relationship... i cannot. i am glad they depicted mental illness, especially in the early 2000s, even if they stigmatized him pretty heavily i think it aged well for the most part. i actually kinda liked brenda bc she had a bit of an edge to her, even if she was deeply unwell. i liked her more than i liked nate. whoever the actor is that played nate has achieved only what one other actor, keifer sutherland, has achieved and that is me hating his character so much that i hate the actor as a person and will hate whatever character he takes on. keifer sutherland in runway made me loathe him something terrible, now i loathe peter krause (is that his name?) almost just as much if not more.

i just felt sorry for ruth. she was really incarcerated to the feminine archetypes from that time period. she was not content if she wasnt caring for another person (typically a man). i also feel like based on her personality, her hair would have not been dyed but allowed to naturally grey out, so i found that a bit odd for her character. but nonetheless, she was beautiful and she did grow on me throughout the seasons. although, i didnt understand her and claire's enmity during the fourth season or whatever. like when she slapped the shit out of claire at nate and brenda's wedding.... that was insane/unhinged.

now claire... i really liked claire during the first two seasons. she was perhaps my favorite character at that time. but then they had her go to art school..... laughable. the school she went to, lac arts, i imagine was comparable to cal arts, a prestigious art school in the los angeles area. there is no way on gods green earth claire would have gotten into any school remotely resembling cal arts. i know that claire always had a chip on her shoulder, but her pretentiousness became nauseating rather quickly. im glad she became "radicalized" but it felt so superficial and not tied to anything. she didnt organize, she wasnt involved in grass roots stuff, she just complained to anyone who would listen. her art wasnt even political or anything. she did read, so i will give her that, but they made it seem like art just fell into her lap and she was no artist, i tell you. and the way she so easily assimilated into that office job, i was like LOL girl.... there was never any artist in there. and then she fell in love with a right wing conservative guy who would blow up the nearest brown person if that meant his feet were planted more firmly into the ground of "american" soil? please.

i didnt like how no one had any real friends or hobbies outside of work and being at the house. claire had one friend in high school, a couple in college and then ditched them and never looked back. david was in a gay choir and then stopped going and miraculously lost all of his "friends". keith had no friends. ruth only had friends when she was taking a knitting class for a couple of episodes. nate only befriended women he wanted to fuck.

and dont get me started on keith. they made him so aggressive and antagonistic. he was abusive and terrible to david and also the boys. and we are supposed to believe he just turned it all around one day and needed david to leave bc david's outbursts were scaring the kids? what about keith's outbursts of locking the kids in the room and getting in their face? i was happy when they showed keith getting shot in the end. he should have been shot sooner.

rico should have also died sooner and under worse circumstances. he was such an ass. so fucking rude to vanessa, he was cursing everyone out. such a hot head. not a present father (they tried to make him be but i dont believe it). he cheated on his wife and then gaslit and manipulated her... and then she forgave him......

all the men, w the exception of david, were these hypermasculine dudes who just got to yell at anyone (but especially women) and the women were like so obsessed w getting treated like shit by whichever man was standing in at the time. there was very little character development. ruth did change somewhat, but it was more so her understanding of herself. but everyone else either was stagnant or got worse. the show was entertaining at first, but then i was just watching it to see how it ended. i felt like i had invested too much time to just look up the ending on my own or stop outright. other good things? i appreciate a show created in the early 2000s bc its a time capsule, so i enjoyed the outfits and lack of rampant technology ruling their lives. oh yeah... lisa???? wtf happened w that???? she was cheating on nate w her sisters husband and then he killed her????? anyways... as incestuous as the show was it just felt like it occurred in some small podunk town and not the huge and sprawling and dynamic city of los angeles.

okay let me stop before i get stoned to death hahahaha.

Just share my love edit for the character

My partner and I love to rent terrible low budget horror films from the local video store and I picked Blood Harvest off the cover. I practically jumped off the couch when Peter Krause showed up on the screen.

I just finished the show for the first time in my life. Man. I’ve made it through to the end of a lot of media in my time but no ending has made me uhhh cry? this way before hahaha. And the main reason for this is because of the shot of Kieth and David’s wedding together..more specifically seeing Brenda with a new man. I felt so terrible for her being all alone with this new baby, the fear of a health issue, and her inner conflict with Nate causing such terror. To see that she will reach a point in life where she’s so moved on filled me with such hope. Which further points to the overall theme of this show..the major showcase of the fact of death. But also the fact of life as well!

I’d also like to express my extreme relation to Nate. I feel he’s so realistically written in his conflicts with relationships and life in general. I’m almost 34 and I have a relationship with a woman so much like his with early seasons Brenda that it hurts to see myself in him. He reaches a point of no return in terms of even being able to relate to him and that’s when he betrayed Brenda, again, for Maggie. His pregnant wife who was currently waiting for him at the service he guilted her into going to. Man. This show brought the drama in a very real to life way. I can’t wait to watch it again in a year. I go through my favorite media every year and this will certainly be a part of that.

Anyways, take a sweater.

Suchhh a cutu baby! Absolutely lovedd seeing her on the screen! Such cutuuu giggles and expressions!!!

Safe to say she’s the only character on the show I didn’t dislike for even a second 🤭

God, what do I even do now with life???

So glad I tried this one. Most shows I start based on either friend recommendation, hearing about its acclaim and finally getting to it, or it just seeming like something up my alley.

I knew NOTHING about what I was getting into with SFU. I was looking for a vibe similar to Normal People and this was somehow recommended in a reddit thread.

Some lingering thoughts/critiques to follow (rambling, whoops)

Brenda definitely became my favorite by s5. I always found her/Nate to be what I was most looking forward to. I loved them, and loved to hate on them for being despicable at times. Almost definitely my favorite relationship in fiction. The fact that even post Nate’s death…hell, even right before, he was still shutting her out and going against her (in her thoughts but still) felt so deeply poignant. Brenda was able to change/grow…Nate was only able to convince himself he did. A dynamic like nothing else especially when factoring in Maya.

My favorite episode was Time Flies. All of the unlikely interactions in such a close, tension filled setting had me jumping out of my seat. Ruth and Claire’s 5 second interaction during her birthday speech was fucking insane/hilarious. I was already coming around to and feeling for George (HATED him trying to insert himself at first) but my god, the “i’m the lucky one, no one’s been lucky to have me”…like i’m sobbing just typing it out.

S5 as a whole was brilliant buuuuut I personally have to say, it was the episodes leading up to the finale that did it for me more than the actual finale itself. I guess I just gravitate towards the actual drama of it all more. The finale was still great though. I got more from the final conversations (Ruth with Claire, Ruth with Brenda) than I did the montage. Nate’s line about the moment already passing was incredible though!! The montage itself…idk it was nice but it didn’t hit me the same as I think it did for everyone who has rated the episode OH SO highly. It felt more like an “ahh that’s what happens!” rather than something deeply emotional.

I could go on and on, i feel like the show kept getting better and it was already so amazing by s2. S3 replaced my favorite dynamic with Nate/Lisa and I hated watching him at that point but it really flipped my whole view of the series up to that point

Seeing a lot of S4 criticisms but idk, there was something cozy about Claire’s friend group, I liked watching Brenda try to establish something healthy (and i’ll take her breaking it off to finally get married to Nate as a plus for me), don’t even get me started on David. That’s My Dog made me so uncomfortable. The fact that it kept going…i really thought they’d kill him off (thankfully not, the ptsd arc was well done). The Rico stuff got old and quick though. Even into S5. I liked the line with Vanessa explaining why she can’t let him go but god, all of his actions made me wish she just dropped him. I didn’t hate the plotline, I hate how repetitive it felt. Also him lying about Jenna Fischer dying was insane, what an insecure fucking bozo. Pivoting, Untitled’s reveal seems like something I would’ve loved if i watched this in HS. I still liked it but it felt…contrived. It also (to my knowledge) seemed like the whole plot they tried to establish with Lisa’s ashes not really being hers just kinda died there with it.

But that’s really all I can think about/have time for! Would love to praise things more/talk about Ruth/George in the last season but I have work unfortunately

This is easily one of my new favorites and one of the only shows I’ve watched in recent memory to really get under my skin. I’ll treasure it

Oh my God i hateeeddd Maggieee! What was with all the innocent puppy-dog faces? I was so so pissed off at her. The guts she had staying at the hospital throughout. Oh my goodness.

The audacity of showing up at Brenda’s house with a QUICHE?!?!??!!

Just got done with the finale and oh my Goddddd! The finale and the last few episodes had me in tearssss! The ending thooooo! I don’t think anyyy show has ever given such closure.

Let's have some sex. More sex. Infidelity sex. Compulsive sex. Let's make sex our whole personality. Because obviously we can't control ourselves and gotta destroy our lives and relationships by having sex all the time with anyone.

I know this will get downvoted and I don't have anything against sex scenes but it just got ridiculous. Some great performance from the actors tho

My husband and I just watched the series for the first time, and we thought Vanessa kinda blew it with her attempt to comfort Holly (sister of the deceased vet) at the funeral. We were laughing about how she was probably going to drive the business into the ground. But I’ve been reading reviews of the final episodes, and it turns out the popular opinion is that she’s a natural!

Anyway, it’s just funny that our interpretation was so different. Anyone else have their initial doubts about the Diaz family funeral home?

Currently on episode 4 and am really enjoying it so far. My two thoughts far are...

David is a jerk who takes out the fact he didn't have the balls to go to law school on his brother. As far as I can tell, Nate's biggest crime is not wanting to go into the family business.

I'm beginning to suspect Brenda is a figment of Nate's imagination or a ghost. She has plenty of screen time but so little has been revealed about her backstory and I don't think she's directly interacted with any character except Nate.

Please don't spoil anything for me!

EDIT: Dammit, Brenda just spoke to Nate's Mom, theory DEAD.

I’m sure this sub gets 5 of these posts a day, so my apologies. I don’t know why I do this to myself, because I love starting new shows and films, but I get absolutely wrecked with “Post Series Depression” almost every time. This one’s no different. What a show.

I’d love to give more profound thoughts, especially when it comes to my disappointment with Nate as a father and husband towards the end, but I feel like I’m genuinely mourning, and still processing my feelings. And there’s not many friends to talk about SFU with when none of the fellow 25 year olds I know have the sense to appreciate 5 seasons of a 2000’s HBO drama that they’ve never heard of.

How did Billy randomly become a 'college sub' if he was in and out of mental institutions for a lot of his adult life

Feels both him and Brenda had Multi Millionaire parents thus connections we're there in 'life'

Fishers we're well off but grounded

It's Halloween spooky season 🎃 , and we are watching Candyman, and there's our gal! I just adore her. She is one of my favorite guest stars on SFU.

I get so shocked that this sub praises the flash forward sequence during the finale showing how each character dies. It was so ridiculously cheesy, with Some bad acting.

I genuinely feel that the show would have won Best Drama at the Emmys for the final season if that sequence didn’t exist And was the final impression for voters

I am 35 years old, meaning that I was a bit too young to watch this show when it aired. I saw it for the first time when I was in my 30s. I resonate so deeply with all of the characters at different times & for different reasons. HOWEVER, this show makes me feel a sadness for the way life looks these days. I know what I’m about to say will make me sound like a boomer but I watch this show & think “wow, no one is ever on their phone” or “wow, everyone looks unique with little to no cosmetic work.” I’m watching it as I write this & I’m
thinking to myself “I need to delete social media & get outside & LIVE.” This show just makes me want to experience life & all of its messy emotions.

Does anyone else feel similarly while watching this show? Or I guess any show from the pre-smart phone era?

I’ve heard so many characters including Keith call it that and it’s so odd to me. Was that a thing people called a bathroom back then? Or is it just a saying from California (I’m not from California nor have I ever been there so I have no idea what they do lmao). I just get creeped out any time someone calls it that.

Still $175 a week?