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Written By: Jami Attenberg
Alan Ball (Executive Producer) directed "I'm Sorry, I'm Lost" (#39), as well as "Pilot" (#01), "Knock, Knock" (#13), and "The Last Time" (#26). This season he wrote "Perfect Circles" (#27) and co-wrote "Nobody Sleeps" (#30).
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Alan also wrote five episodes in the first two seasons: "Pilot" (#01), "An Open Book" (#05), "Knock, Knock" (#13), "In the Game" (#14), and "Someone Else's Eyes" (#22).
Read the full Alan Ball bio.
In the final episode of the third season of Six Feet Under, "I'm Sorry, I'm Lost," David reunites with his estranged boyfriend Keith at the church where they met. During a conversation about morality and spirituality, Keith tells David, "We should do the right thing because we can do the right thing. And because we choose to do the right thing. Even if it makes our lives harder, which it often does."
Executive Producer Alan Ball, who directed the episode, discusses the theme of choice in the third season, and its impact on the lives of each of the characters.
"Making the right choices doesn't always make life easier," begins Alan. "Father Jack says to David in 'Twilight' (#38), 'Truth and relationships don't make life better, David. They make life possible.' The whole notion of an uncomplicated life and the idea that we're supposed to be happy all the time is very naive. Life tests us in a lot of ways, and when we look back at the painful parts of our lives, yeah, they were painful, but they forced us to grow. The good times don't necessarily force us to grow.
"All of the characters made really tremendous choices this season," he says, starting with the character of Nate. He made the tough decision to stay in his struggling relationship with his wife, Lisa, who is found dead in the finale.
"He and Lisa had been roommates, and they'd had a sexual history, but in terms of actually being in a committed relationship, they didn't have that," says Alan. "So of course the first year of marriage is going to be tough for them, learning how to negotiate and live together. That's hard enough without adding the difficulty of raising a child. It certainly would have been easier for him to bail on his marriage, but I think instinctively he knew that it would have been a coward's way out."
"What's really tragic is Lisa's death in the season finale, because it happens right when she and Nate had reached a point of letting go of their own illusions, and were really starting to work on the marriage on a deeper, more human, less romantic level. Did Nate do the right thing by staying with her? I think he did, and yet it made his life much more difficult, because once he made the commitment, it was taken from him."
Another character, David, also chose to stay in a difficult relationship, in this case with Keith.
Says Alan, "David makes the right choice, to commit to the relationship, as opposed to taking this spoiled American consumer baby boomer attitude of, 'Okay, it's not working, I'm getting bored, let's find something else. There's got to be something new and improved out there.' But David tries too hard to please the other person and stops taking care of himself in the process."
"He builds up so much resentment, which he then projects on to the other person, in this case Keith. He thought Keith wasn't taking care of his needs, or allowing him to take care of his own needs. And again, it's very similar in that it's a young relationship. That's where your ego gets a little beaten down, that's where you learn sort of how to coexist," he says.
Will David and Keith's relationship make it through the hard times?
"It's not easy for them. Things will probably never be easy for them. I'll say this: at the end of the season, they're not breaking up. I haven't mapped out season four yet, but my instinct is, there's some work that needs to be done on that relationship if it's going to succeed. And there's work that they both need to do individually. It's up in the air."
The Fisher matriarch, Ruth, worked on developing multiple relationships this season, starting with Bettina and Arthur, and finally ending with a marriage to George, a man she had known for six weeks. But, as David wondered, was she merely replacing her deceased husband, Nathaniel, Sr., with George?
"Ruth has always been looking to someone else to define her life and give her life meaning. But I always felt like George appeared when Ruth chose to stop looking," says Alan. "At one point Ruth tells Claire, 'What am I doing? It's ridiculous. I've stopped looking.' Sometimes when you stop looking for things that are really important to you, that's when they happen."
"But you never know," he laughs. "George is an interesting man. He's a good man, but he's been married six times. What's that about? Ruth is just so willing to jump into this thing. Maybe that'll be a really great thing, and maybe it'll be something completely different. We don't know yet."
The final Fisher, Claire, chose to have an abortion this season. She also made a choice to leave her boyfriend Russell, who had a fling with their art teacher, Olivier. Will Claire ever find what she's looking for?
"I think Claire is looking for someone who understands her, who thinks along the same lines as she does about herself, who doesn't make her feel like quite such a freak, which she's always felt before out in the world, and even within her own family. It's that fine line of being open emotionally and being vulnerable emotionally - and also taking care of yourself. She's got a lot to learn. She's a nineteen-year-old woman. There's still a big learning curve there."
Friends of the Fishers also made some big choices this season, including Brenda, who chose responsibility, after contending with sex and drug abuse problems in the first two seasons.
Says Alan, "Brenda realized that she had a problem. It wasn't just an addiction problem - it's always deeper than that. The 12-step approach tends to oversimplify things...I think the root of all addiction is a desire for transcendence, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It's a very spiritual thing, and it's something that we all need. But getting there via artificial means is not the best way to do it. I think Brenda is really trying to pare down and simplify and just live her life and live day to day in the moment."
Her final choice came when she let a beaten and bloody Nate into her home in the final scene of the season.
"It's interesting how in such a short amount of time the roles can switch," says Alan. "She really is very compassionate underneath it all. I think when she opens the door to him she thinks, 'I can't go here, I can't let this back into my life because it's been so destructive to both of us.' But at the same time she sees this man and he has nowhere else to turn, so of course she lets him in. He needs her at that moment. And that's her real saving grace."
And finally it was a difficult season for Federico who chose, for most of the season, to stand by his wife Vanessa as she struggled with depression and prescription medication abuse.
"Federico's kind of been going through life with rose-colored glasses. It was fun for me, directing the last episode, to see the one character who has always been so sunny and so optimistic get a little darker. It makes him more real."
As for his experience directing, something he hasn't done since season two, Alan says, "I had a blast. In a lot of ways this episode was bigger than the pilot. I had fewer days to shoot it. I'd never directed a fight sequence before. There were a lot of very, very emotional scenes in this episode. But I felt the script was so strong, and Jill Soloway did such a great job with the script. And, of course, the actors in our show are so good. Basically I just figure out where to put the camera, get out of their way and let them do what they do."
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