We've been watching Six Feet Under the last few weeks. We've recently signed up for Netflix and we're using it to watch all the TV series' we've been interested in. We got Dexter first and were in love with it from the first episode. We watched two full seasons in two weeks (we're just waiting for season 3 to come out on DVD) and when deciding which show to start next we went with Six Feet Under because we loved Micheal C. Hall so much.
It took a good six episodes for me to get interested in Six Feet Under. I hated all the characters, I couldn't connect to a single one. I have a whole host of issues with death and funerals, and given that the entire series is based around a family running a funeral home, it makes it very hard for me to focus on the show when I'm squirming around in my chair because I think embalming and viewings and burial are unnatural and gross (strangely, I'm perfectly ok with cremation, something that most people find horrible. I'm weird about death, I'll give you that).
Eventually I was able to mostly get over my squeamishness about the funeral business and the characters started fleshing out and I began to enjoy the series. Then they killed off a six year old kid. And then they killed of a baby. A THREE WEEK OLD BABY! Both of those episodes had me panicking. I got so agitated, I hopped out of my seat and yelled at John to turn it off, TURN IT OFF! KIDS CAN'T DIE! NO NONONONONONONO NO! My reaction to those stories was so visceral, my heart raced, my stomach cramped up, my vision got a little blurry and I was feeling sick and dizzy.
I think I've still got a little PTS from what happened to Max, and the sudden loss of my mother in law has made me all jumpy. People in my life usually die after long painful battles with cancer. I've always thought of death as something you can emotionally prepare yourself for, but the last year taught me that I was all wrong. Horrible, awful, unthinkable things can happen at any time. They can sneak up behind you and fuck up your entire life. It occurred to me that all of my happiness is perched precariously on the fragile lives of my husband and sons. I'm suddenly aware of a million little things in my body that could be signs of horrible illness and near death.
Nearly everyone in the first scenes of Six Feet Under die unexpected and tragic deaths. It's exacerbating my already growing phobia. We went to bed last night and John was complaining of pain in his ribs and I very nearly hauled him off to the ER because I was SURE he was having a heart attack. I already check Alex three to four times a night to make sure he's breathing and I've allowed the baby to sleep in our bed again after we'd made so much progress getting him to sleep in his own crib.
We've decided it's not healthy for me to watch the show anymore. We're returning the unwatched disks and we're going to get How I Met Your Mother instead.
