Six Feet Under season 2
Aug. 24th, 2010 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalI've been focusing most of my brain power on Lost lately (the jury is still out on whether this is a good or bad thing, lol), but I figured I should put together some sort of a reaction post for Six Feet Under as well. I finished season 2 over the weekend, and I kind of remembered why I didn't get through this season the first time. I mean, I still think it's a great show, but it is definitely not up to season 1's standard.
I think part of it is that, although the Fisher family is as fantastic as always, I find a lot of the supporting characters to be terribly grating. I am back to finding Brenda incredibly self-absorbed and I mostly want to slap her every time she's on screen. I felt that way about her the first time I watched season 1, though, so maybe the key to liking Brenda is to rewatch enough times that I'm completely desensitized to her, I don't know. I also find Nikolai overbearing and selfish, and I have no idea what Ruth saw in him. Both break-ups were way overdue, though I don't imagine that's the last we've seen of Brenda. I could also do without Rico's family - Vanessa isn't bad, but the extended drama with the sister and gay Ramon, not so much. Oh, and as happy as I am to have David and Keith back together, that niece of his (and her exceptionally awful mouth) needs to be slapped silly.
One guest star I was happy to see was Adam Scott as David's (brief) boyfriend. I also got a HUGE kick out of seeing Glenn Fitzgerald as the cancer patient who forms a relationship of sorts with Nate, since he and Peter Krause played half-brothers later on in Dirty Sexy Money, and Brian was one of my absolute favorite characters on that show.
Anyway, the Fishers. I love Nate's fascination with and fear of death, and his desperate need to figure out the nature of life after death brought on by his condition. I thought his relationship with the rabbi was interesting, and more than once I wished he'd date her instead of Brenda or Lisa. (I've already established my feelings about Brenda, but Lisa strikes me as such a painful "crunchy granola" cliche - trying to reason with the ants? Ugh. And then she's super passive-aggressive with Nate about the pregnancy. I'm actually pretty disappointed that she and Nate have a kid together, because it means she's probably not going away.)
Since I immediately followed SFU by starting Dexter season 4, I was of course completely blown away by Michael C. Hall (again, in reverse). It's weird how he seems so much older on SFU, I guess because David is so uptight and clueless and proper and Dexter's all scruffy and, you know, a serial killer. But David is definitely getting a lot more comfortable with himself, and he'll probably always be uptight and proper but at least he's not so repressed, you know? I also enjoyed the closer relationship Nate and David seem to have this season.
I loved seeing Claire discovering her talent and her passion for art. She needs something good to happen to her for a change, so I hope that goes well for her. I think Toby was right when he challenged her about being so negative all the time. She's turned being disaffected into an art form, and as much as I understand that teenage mentality, I really want her to find something that proves that everything in life doesn't suck.
Having Ruth's sister come back into their lives was an interesting contrast. I like Ruth, even if I can't always understand her, and I like watching her struggle with her relationship with Claire (omg, when Claire was high and made her the jingle pants! I laughed so hard). Her sister - who seems at times to understand Claire better than Ruth, and to understand Ruth herself pretty well - is challenging to her. I also enjoyed seeing her so happy to be a grandmother. As much as my enjoyment of this show comes from how fucked up the Fishers are, I really just want good things to happen to them, lol.
I'm also glad to see the end of Kroehner. I honestly felt like that subplot was played out by the end of season 1. Exchanging Gilardi for Mitzi made it more fun, but I'm tired of Fisher & Sons constantly being under siege.
One last, rather random thought - the fighting/fucking scene with David and Keith (although we didn't actually get to see the fucking part - which fooled me at first, because I was so sure that's where they were going, and then they cut away before one of them jumped the other, and I was like, "Oh, maybe I was wrong," but then they cut back to them post-coital, and I was vindicated). See, in general, I really don't get the appeal of those kinds of scenes. I don't get how violence is a turn-on. But for some reason it seems to be a really popular trope, never more obvious than with Buffy and Spike in "Smashed." And I can handle it in BtVS, because Buffy's a Slayer, but in any situation where the woman does NOT have superhuman strength, I can't get past the troubling violence against women aspect of it. So I was curious to see the trope play out without a woman involved, to see if it was just that aspect that bothered me, and without that it'd be sexy. And it's not. Still don't get it. So that was an interesting exercise, I suppose.
I think part of it is that, although the Fisher family is as fantastic as always, I find a lot of the supporting characters to be terribly grating. I am back to finding Brenda incredibly self-absorbed and I mostly want to slap her every time she's on screen. I felt that way about her the first time I watched season 1, though, so maybe the key to liking Brenda is to rewatch enough times that I'm completely desensitized to her, I don't know. I also find Nikolai overbearing and selfish, and I have no idea what Ruth saw in him. Both break-ups were way overdue, though I don't imagine that's the last we've seen of Brenda. I could also do without Rico's family - Vanessa isn't bad, but the extended drama with the sister and gay Ramon, not so much. Oh, and as happy as I am to have David and Keith back together, that niece of his (and her exceptionally awful mouth) needs to be slapped silly.
One guest star I was happy to see was Adam Scott as David's (brief) boyfriend. I also got a HUGE kick out of seeing Glenn Fitzgerald as the cancer patient who forms a relationship of sorts with Nate, since he and Peter Krause played half-brothers later on in Dirty Sexy Money, and Brian was one of my absolute favorite characters on that show.
Anyway, the Fishers. I love Nate's fascination with and fear of death, and his desperate need to figure out the nature of life after death brought on by his condition. I thought his relationship with the rabbi was interesting, and more than once I wished he'd date her instead of Brenda or Lisa. (I've already established my feelings about Brenda, but Lisa strikes me as such a painful "crunchy granola" cliche - trying to reason with the ants? Ugh. And then she's super passive-aggressive with Nate about the pregnancy. I'm actually pretty disappointed that she and Nate have a kid together, because it means she's probably not going away.)
Since I immediately followed SFU by starting Dexter season 4, I was of course completely blown away by Michael C. Hall (again, in reverse). It's weird how he seems so much older on SFU, I guess because David is so uptight and clueless and proper and Dexter's all scruffy and, you know, a serial killer. But David is definitely getting a lot more comfortable with himself, and he'll probably always be uptight and proper but at least he's not so repressed, you know? I also enjoyed the closer relationship Nate and David seem to have this season.
I loved seeing Claire discovering her talent and her passion for art. She needs something good to happen to her for a change, so I hope that goes well for her. I think Toby was right when he challenged her about being so negative all the time. She's turned being disaffected into an art form, and as much as I understand that teenage mentality, I really want her to find something that proves that everything in life doesn't suck.
Having Ruth's sister come back into their lives was an interesting contrast. I like Ruth, even if I can't always understand her, and I like watching her struggle with her relationship with Claire (omg, when Claire was high and made her the jingle pants! I laughed so hard). Her sister - who seems at times to understand Claire better than Ruth, and to understand Ruth herself pretty well - is challenging to her. I also enjoyed seeing her so happy to be a grandmother. As much as my enjoyment of this show comes from how fucked up the Fishers are, I really just want good things to happen to them, lol.
I'm also glad to see the end of Kroehner. I honestly felt like that subplot was played out by the end of season 1. Exchanging Gilardi for Mitzi made it more fun, but I'm tired of Fisher & Sons constantly being under siege.
One last, rather random thought - the fighting/fucking scene with David and Keith (although we didn't actually get to see the fucking part - which fooled me at first, because I was so sure that's where they were going, and then they cut away before one of them jumped the other, and I was like, "Oh, maybe I was wrong," but then they cut back to them post-coital, and I was vindicated). See, in general, I really don't get the appeal of those kinds of scenes. I don't get how violence is a turn-on. But for some reason it seems to be a really popular trope, never more obvious than with Buffy and Spike in "Smashed." And I can handle it in BtVS, because Buffy's a Slayer, but in any situation where the woman does NOT have superhuman strength, I can't get past the troubling violence against women aspect of it. So I was curious to see the trope play out without a woman involved, to see if it was just that aspect that bothered me, and without that it'd be sexy. And it's not. Still don't get it. So that was an interesting exercise, I suppose.
