1x03 The Foot

[6.7/10] I don’t know when exactly I got over the “I’m not gonna give into your corporate bullshit, man!” line of thinking as the most profound and rebellious thing in the world. Maybe it made more sense when this episode was released, when America was still prospering from the dot com boom and the national struggle du jour nation was whether we’d lose our souls amid this period of success.

But in an age where inequalities and political and socioeconomic issues far beyond “Don’t sell out to the man, bro!” are more salient and acknowledged, Nate Fisher’s insecurity over selling his father’s funeral home business to a corporate conglomerate just feels trite. It’s of a piece with series creator Alan Ball’s work in American Beauty, another story centered around choosing authenticity and self-direction over corporatized conformity. It just feels hopelessly quaint as a major throughline in the present day.

It doesn’t help that I still don’t care for Nate Fisher, or his generic Manic Pixie Dream Girlfriend, Brenda. They’re both still a pair of generic archetypes with little in terms of performance or character detail to make them distinctive or noteworthy. This episode hints at some psychological trauma behind Nate’s squeamishness around bodies that could theoretically be interesting. It also suggests that Brenda still has some personal drama (I’m guessing sibling and mental illness) that takes precedence over Nate. They’re not cute (certainly not as much as the show seems to think they are), and the efforts to use their relationship to reveal character fall flat.

But once again, there’s some good impressionsitic parts of the presentation and amusing black comedy, which keeps me hanging on! For one thing, Claire’s post-romance musical moment was an utter delight. While I don’t want the show to turn into a Scrubs-style cutaway factory necessarily, those sorts of interludes help mark the show as something different.

The same goes for practically the entire family and friend contingent being on the hunt for a missing foot. It almost feels like a sitcom storyline, but given the macabre connection, it works as something darker and yet that much more rib-tickling here. For one thing, while Claire’s unfortunate social stigma after her would-be boyfriend blabs about their podiatric dalliance feels very Dawson’s Creek, her using her proximity to dead bodies to get back at him is delightfully out there and inventive.

What’s more, I really enjoy the combination of David, Frederico, Keith, and eventually Claire herself trying to find it. There is something very wacky about David and Nate having to reassure the family and hold them off from options like sandals or coffin-climbing that could expose what’s missing. The ridiculousness of the situation, from David having to awkwardly try to play “bad cop” when his boyfriend is interrogating Claire’s boyfriend, to a dog showing up with the foot in his mouth, makes it the most enjoyable and funny element of the hour.

The only other contender is the endearing relationship between David and Keith. In truth, Claire is right to ask Keith what he sees in her brother. David is, as Keith admits, often uptight, can clearly be a handful, and doesn’t seem to appreciate the good thing he has going. But Keith explains that David sees him and appreciates him for who he is, which goes a long way. That helps us as the audience warm to David, who is sympathetic but can also be very prickly, and also helps account for why Keith puts up with a lot of his B.S.

Were that I felt the same way about Ruth’s storyline in this episode. The frustrating thing about this corner of the show is that there’s a really compelling story to be told here. The conflicted feelings of a widow who is plainly glad not to be weighed down by her husband anymore, but also guilty about that fact and still grieving over not only the loss but the way her life doesn’t fully make sense anymore is rich material to mine for a television show.

Six Feet Under doesn’t do a very good job of it though. Her attempts to inject the feeling of a new start or the next chapter of her life by flipping mattresses, rearranging pillows, or betting big at the racetrack plays as cliché. Frances Conroy is very hammy in all of her scenes, losing the truth of the moment. Worst of all, her speechifying to the lovey-dovey couple at the track is the most writerly, facepalm-worthy stretch of dialogue in all of the episode, which is saying something for an installment that also includes Nate’s “fight the man” plot thread.

It involves the funeral conglomerate turning around and trying to crush the Fisher Funeral Home after Nate reneges on the family’s acceptance of their offer. The conglomerate’s tactics verge on the utterly cartoonish, apparently able to wield massive power over vendors and the health department practically overnight, trying to poach Frederico (something spoiled if you understand Spanish), and attempting to turn the house across the street into a crematorium. Again, there’s a worthwhile story to be told about a small business not being able to compete with corporate America, but this fight is so caricatured that it loses all meaning.

It also loses that meaning because it’s wrapped up in Nate’s generic “finding himself” story. We’re three episodes in, and already Nate has decided that this is what he’s meant to do and that anything less would be selling out his father’s dream. The irony here is that it’s meant to be a sign of maturity. Here’s a grown-up version of Nate deciding to work at something rather than just take the money and run. But his reasons for doing so, a four-color anxiety about corporate invasions of small town America, ultimately come off as positively juvenile.

That’s my overall sense of Six Feet Under after three episodes. It’s aspiring for all the profundity of adult dramas grappling with real issues, and occasionally it even identifies the right one. But too often it plays like a set of overdone teenage musings about life and love masquerading as something deep.