Six Feet Under: That's My Dog

October 9, 2019 7:56 PM - Season 4, Episode 5

A married couple's hot tub and tequila celebration goes awry. Ruth tries to play matchmaker for George's oldest son. Nate tries group therapy. Claire's latest art project is not well-received. Brenda has lunch with her mom. Sophia drops by Fisher and Diaz. Keith goes on tour as security for pop star Celeste. And David offers a ride to a guy he believes to be a motorist in distress.

The obituary for this episode:

Obituary
Anne Marie Thorton (1966 - 2004)

Born in 1966 in Medford, Massachusetts and died suddenly at home this week. Anne Marie was an educator with the Los Angeles Unified School District for 17 years and for the last nine years she taught English at Westlake Village High School. 'Mrs. T' will be greatly missed by the Westlake students and faculty. She is survived by Louis, her devoted husband of 13 years, as well as her loving parents Philip and Diana Fogelman of Medford, Massachusetts, and her sister Judith Fogelman of Warwick, Rhode Island.

Visitation at 4 p.m. on Sunday, January 18 at Fisher & Diaz 2302 W. 25th Street in Los Angeles.

posted by orange swan (5 comments total)

This is such a shocking, upsetting episode of this show. Maybe it's uniquely upsetting to me because I'm queer and I can strongly identify with David here and in the PTSD arc that follows. Even on a rewatch where I know how it ends I'm still terrified the entire time.
posted by zeusianfog at 4:21 PM on October 11, 2019

This episode is the worst. It’s like this weird bottle episode gone completely awry. I always have to brace people for it and then reassure them that it takes a few more episodes but the show will get back on track (I’ve introduced many friends to Six Feet Under).

Ugh.
posted by iamkimiam at 12:45 AM on October 13, 2019

This episode was indeed shocking the first time. When it starts turning is probably one of the strongest senses of dread I've ever had from a TV. Every time I see the actor who plays the attacker on TV I think of this character. I wonder how typecast he is outside of my head.
posted by rhizome at 4:49 PM on October 13, 2019

How the hell can Ruth have such poor judgment about matchmaking? George's son is clearly too dysfunctional to be a good partner, and finding him a woman who is dysfunctional in the same way is not going to fix that. And she tells George she feels like she doesn't even know him. No shit, Ruth, you married the guy approximately 40 days after you met him. I don't know how a woman of Ruth's age can be so naive.

I don't blame Nate for not finding the group therapy helpful. His grief really isn't the same as the grief of someone retirement age or older who lost their partner after decades together.

I had an idea the car jacking was later on, like maybe next season, and realizing *this* episode was the one was a very unpleasant surprise. It is well done for what it is, but it is a hard watch. And even in the midst of his terror, David could not get his mind off that woman's body being discarded in the street. He's a thorough professional, our David.
posted by orange swan at 6:11 PM on October 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

The car-jacking sequence felt a little bit like having Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" grafted into a Six Feet Under episode: it is a really brutal, tense and well acted - but it felt like it was from another show. We see other traumatic events occurring for Keith and Nate and Claire - but nothing that is so drawn out as what happens to David.

Claire's photos: the ones she gets so much negative criticism about from everybody - were great, I thought. Don't pay too much attention to your peers or teachers, I guess.
posted by rongorongo at 2:36 AM on June 2, 2022