Six Feet Under: Parallel Play

October 2, 2019 8:38 PM - Season 4, Episode 3

Some young girls are amusing themselves with prank calls during a sleepover when one of them falls off her bed laughing and breaks her neck. George receives another gift package of feces, and Ruth accuses Arthur of doing it, which so offends him that he resigns from Fisher & Diaz. Nate and Maya make new friends at Mommy & Me. Keith gets a new assignment guarding for pop star Celeste. Claire's feeling as disaffected with everything as usual... except her new friend Edie. Rico continues to help Sophia out financially. The Fishers have a yard sale and then a bonfire.

The obituary for this episode:

Kaitlin Elise Stolte (1989 - 2003)

Born on February 16, 1989 to Genevieve and Leonard Stolte in Thousand Oaks. Kaitlin brought great joy during her brief life to everyone she knew and showed enormous musical talent at an early age. She took private piano lessons at age 6, and placed in the Semi-Finals in the Chopin Society Youth Piano Competition in Tarzana last year. She was also a proud member of the Junior Varsity cheerleading squad at Sycamore Middle School.

She is survived by her loving parents and grandparents and by her younger brother Walter. Visitation will be 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 15 at Fisher & Diaz 2302 W. 25th Street in Los Angeles. Private burial to follow at Evangelical Methodist Cemetery in Thousand Oaks.

posted by orange swan (3 comments total)

It always amazes me how easily one can break a neck/fracture a skull. Fall a few feet and land in the wrong way, and it's lights out. We're more fragile than we realize.

Poor Arthur, getting wrongfully accused of such a thing when he was beginning to feel that the Fishers were like a family to him. Ruth should have known better than to accuse him. She had no proof whatsoever, and while Arthur is certainly an odd duck he has never been known to behave inappropriately, let alone maliciously, towards anyone. I'd love to know what's going on with Arthur's sexuality (Keith thinks he's gay, David thinks he's asexual, Ruth thinks he's straight with intimacy issues, and perhaps even Arthur doesn't know what he is yet), but it seems that will remain a mystery as Arthur doesn't appear in the show again.

I hope that suit's returnable.

Nate's Mommy & Me friend didn't seem like a bad person objectively speaking, but she annoyed me no end anyway by coming across as vapid and self-indulgent. She's a very wealthy divorcée who has both a nanny and a housekeeper and who poses as a stay at home mother who loves spending time with her daughter when she actually spends very little time with her, who doesn't want to have to feel guilty for having an SUV, and who bangs a cute widower (who is very freshly widowed and under particularly traumatizing circumstances) without much concern for what effect that might have on him. I try not to be an envious asshole about people who aren't struggling financially the way I am, but I'm feeling a little Madame Defarge-like at the moment [knits one, purls two].

Keith's new job is an improvement on his last one, even if he does face certain toileting restrictions. How did they even know he used Celeste's bathroom? Did he leave the seat up? If so, not a smooth move there, Keithy.

Claire's disaffection continues to annoy me, but I did get a smile out of her comment that she's done with "paisley shit" and wants to wear simple, plain clothes now. It felt so realistically age appropriate because one's tastes are so capricious at her age.

Russell's mustache is so... tragique. As is his continued pining after Claire. And he's a terrible knitter.

Rico, you stooge. Sophia is totally, clearly, obviously, working you for money and you think you're such a man that you can enjoy having both a madonna and a... stripper.

I'm trying to figure out if Sophia genuinely doesn't have an adequate income coming in, or if she is just really terrible at managing whatever money she has. It could be both, of course. She could at least get Nicole some thrift shop toys.

George's superiority is mostly hot air. He was not only wrong about formica, he doesn't know what folie à deux means. AND he thinks being a geology professor makes him controversial and politically important.
posted by orange swan at 5:46 PM on October 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

George absolutely knows who’s sending the poop. Probably one of the 6 ex-wives or his two grown children that we haven’t even met yet.

Sophia probably doesn’t have money problems but why not get some idiot to pay for new boobs if you can? Unless you have morals of course.

I really thought Keith would get in trouble for letting Ellen in the room.

Hello Skylar! I’m enjoying just pointing out characters from other shows.
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:38 AM on December 24, 2019

it seems that will remain a mystery as Arthur doesn't appear in the show again.
Part of the essence of the show is that we see many people just once as they are about to die - or because they are associated with somebody who has. But beyond that, it is striking to me how many of Six Feet Under's recurring characters - just don't recur very much: Nikolai, Gabriel, Claire's counselor Gary, ruth's sister Sarah, Keith's niece Taylor etc. These are well written and acted roles which just get discarded. Maybe that's a leftover from a time before streaming when TV was more about episodes and seasons without so much continuity. I find it hard to think of one of today's prestige TV shows neglecting to circle back to these characters - and even to link them together in their own sub-narratives.

Also: This episode felt like the writers were just looking for an excuse to build up things thematically so that they could use Radiohead's Lucky as an outro. Not saying that is a bad thing.
posted by rongorongo at 7:35 AM on May 31, 2022