I'm done with Six Feet Under.
My entry from about a month ago mentioned the show's recent problem of veering away from its comedic roots in order to plunge the characters into misery (Lisa's death, Claire's disastrous string of boyfriends/lovers, and David and Keith's unendingly on again-off again relationship, to name a few examples). This week's episode might have finally sent me away for good, however.
For starters, I understand the grieving Nate is going through a lot right now, but wouldn't the wise move - from an alleged black comedy standpoint - be to put that in the background for a little while instead of focusing on what a pathetic wretch the man's becoming? Throwing this red herring out there about the possibility of Lisa being alive is just further torture for the character,
I don't see much humor in Ruth's new marriage either, except that - Babe aside - James Cromwell's past acting roles are making it hard to believe the man is going to turn out to be anything less than a Grade A bastard. I mean, what do you have to do to your son to get him to mail his own shit to you? I think the worst I ever did to my old man was teabag his Stroh's.[1]
And as funny as I may find it, there's no way Rico inexplicably playing house with a stripper is going to end well. Finally, does anybody really belive Brenda's relationship with the bad guy from Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle[2] is going to last?
Truth be told, I probably would've continued to put up with that stuff. The few bright spots (read: laughs) this season have come from David's experiences as a bodyguard and Brenda's manipulative uber-bitch of a mother. But this latest episode may just have put me off for good. The final half hour was nothing more than the adventures of David and the guy he stupidly gave a lift to as his passenger: robs him; beats him; makes him smoke crack; beats him some more; then steals his van and leaves him in a Long Beach alley. Not only was the audience subjected to 30 minutes of pointless sadism (and David's incredible inability to escape, even after the time the shmuck got out of the van without him, or the other time David got the drop on him and made the guy lose his gun), but - if the previews are to be believed - we can look forward to episode upon excruciating episode of David's PTSD. Not a lot of laughs there, I predict.
Maybe this was Alan Poul's vision all along, gradually turning what was once a darkly amusing show into a weekly cavalcade of angst and physical or emotional brutality. If so, I wish him and his show luck. For now, I can finally get caught up on Arrested Development.
[1] Just kidding. Dad drank Bud.
[2] Maybe if it was Demi Moore.
I assumed, when Jake was dumping the gasoline on him, that the whole thing had been an elaborate fantasy sequence which would snap back to David in the van as he sped away from Jake back at the underpass. Had that happened...well, I still would've been annoyed, but not as much.
Arrested Development is one of the strongest (if least-watched) comedies on the boob tube. Added a Tivo season-pass after the first episode.
yes, our household was similarly traumatized by this week's episode, but i'm sure we'll be back for more. it's hard for me to give up on an interesting show, just like it used to be hard for me to break up with asshole boyfriends.
on the whole, though, that episode was unnecessarily brutal, did nothing to advance david's development as a character, and, in fact severely compromised our sympathy for him. not to blame the victim, but jesus christ, man! stop sniveling and use those legs for running/kicking! ridiculous. by the time he was in the alley, covered with gasoline, i was thinking he pretty much deserved to be torched and/or kicked some more simply for being so monumentally stupid.