Six Feet Under made a grown man cry.

Six Feet Under is a show from the early 2000s, it had 5 seasons, and it was a pretty big hit culturally. I'm sure if you ask 10 people about the show, who aren't young bucks like me, at least 5 of them would say they were moved.

It's a show about one family, and it all starts with dealing with… spoilers… Nathaniel Fisher Sr., dying in a bus accident. A mother, 2 sons, and a daughter, dealing with grief. Also there is a Puerto Rican who's cool as fuck.

Like Mad Men, the show has one pull, wholesomeness. None of these characters are dark or monstrous like a Sopranos character, they're all just regular people who get no introductions, they just exist and we have to get a read on them.

The show is about perspective. They say that every story has 3 sides, one side, the other side, and the truth. The show demonstrates more than that. There's way more sides than that, every action has neither a positive or negative reaction, but a massive blur of reds and blues.

Risk-Taking is probably a top 5 word to describe this show. The entire show, from season one or two (I binged it so the idea of seasons is lost on me) drops an anvil off a rope and it lands two inches from our heads, and you can hear the rope tearing.

Spoilers incoming…

Six Feet Under made me cry… Twice. It's a show inherently driven by death, all the characters live at a funeral home (Yes, that's why they're called that, it's an actual home). So early on when they say the main character (Nate Jr.) has AVM, and will probably have a brain bleed and die, I'm just waiting for the anvil to drop.

It drops, and it drops hard. At the beginning of the last act of the final season, Nate, right after cheating on his wife, suddenly says his arm is numb and his brain bleeds. They do a fake out, he actually survived, and as he's watching TV with his brother, BOOM, the fake out was a trick, and he died right there. That was my first cry, but it wasn't serious, just a stoic couple tears. I took it to the face and didn't flinch.

As I was watching it I was thinking of my family, and since I AM Nate Fisher (minus the cheating) I was thinking about what would go down if I croaked like that. Conclusion: It would be sad, for like everyone. Except me of course, I'd be dead. I don't know what the hell I'd be thinking about. Probably anal.

So they got me to cry with like 3 episodes left, big deal, shit happens. I'm very sensitive, of course I'd cry. But then, the finale pulls something on you…

The Ending

The ending involves Claire, the daughter, finally moving on from the funeral home, moving to New York with really no view in the future, to a Sia song, which I've heard that song became a huge cliche after the show, that's a testament to the power. Power.

As she's driving, we’re getting peeks into the future, but not the good moments, just when literally everyone dies, which the show explains can actually still be good. The mother, Ruth Fisher, actually died last year. The alive son, Dexter, he sees his dead gay husband Keith (who was shot while unloading a truck, rest in fucking peace, Keith) and dies while watching his family frollick.

So far so good, I'm thinking “This COULD get me crying but I made it past the big part, the show isn't gonna get me again.” Then, as the song really swells, we’re looking at a wall of pictures, and I instantly know what's happening and I cried again. A serious cry. The type where you’re laughing like “What the fuck is happening?” It was all pictures on Claire's wall, and soon we see an elderly woman in a bed fade away, that's Claire, and she was being watched by a Chinese person, so she died alone.

But Claire dying alone isn't what got me, I honestly don't even know what got me. The song helped, but seeing all of those memories on her wall just tore me the fuck apart, I saw so many of them get made, I missed just as many. I genuinely cared about all of these characters, and it felt like they all FINALLY can start their life, and I won't be able to see it.

They're all Claire, they all are finally ready to go to New York, and as proud as I am of all of this development, which as a note, had an all around fantastic cast who never had a bad delivery, I wish I could come with and see New York. I wanna see Dexter, the gay son, get some rowdy grandkids and hang around. I wanna see Brenda and Billy getting to enjoy life, as much as Billy never changes. I wanna see Ruth, the mother, enjoy her time hanging around with THE Kathy Bates.

In a way that's how life is, which is probably why it's so powerful. No matter how close you are with people, no matter how often you really are there, you're never really there. Every time someone dies you think about times you should've been there. There's never enough.

Everyone WANTS to spend more time with people, but not everyone DOES. That's a basic cognitive dissonance that we all have. I know, you know, everyone we know, will die. How does that impact the often…ness that we enjoy our time with other people? If you died tomorrow, or if your best friend died tomorrow, you'd probably spend today differently, and we hear this all the time but think “Nah not me.” But it's always you. It's probably already been you.

Most people deal with things like this and still pretend the world isn't even real and these things don't happen. If you're reading this. Instead of watching Six Feet Under, hangout with your buddy and stay up one hour later than you think you should, smoke a little weed, and enjoy yourself. You could literally just fall in the bathtub one day.

-Bryan