I like Lisa: Unpopular Opinions on Six Feet Under

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[DXD526]

I liked Lisa, too, for the most part. It was a shame what happened to her character and how we never found out the truth about her demise. It's assumed that her brother-in-law killed her, but he blew his brains out before that could be confirmed. 

 

My UO: I liked Arthur. He's basically a ridiculous character, but I liked him and thought he contributed nicely to the show while he was around.

[vendredi3]

Lisa is a lot easier not to hate once you know the arc of her story. Her character is much more likable on re-watch. Actually, Season 3 as a whole is much better once you know where's it's headed.

 

My UO: I've always disliked the 5th season (apart from the final montage scene), so much so that I regularly skip it on re-watch. Instead I just end the show at season 4 with Nate Fisher Sr. telling David that "you can do anything because you're alive."

 

A lot of season 5's storylines just scream "result of writers' room discussions." "We need Ruth and Claire to have a serious falling out, because drama! Ruth should even slap Claire at a wedding!" "What to do with Nate? Let's just have his season 2 AVM return!" The story progression just seemed much more calculated and less organic than in other seasons.

[MsJamieDornan]

Hated Lisa...really creepy character. I felt so bad for Nate.

[Slovenly Muse]

I liked Lisa too, and I get how she's not easy to get on board with right away. But that's one of the things I LOVE about this show, is that it does an excellent job of peeling back the layers on all its characters and connecting with their basic humanity. To Nate (and by extension, the audience), Lisa was controlling and paranoid to an unreasonable extent (which made her unlikeable). But the thing is, she's not wrong. This isn't who she is as a person, it's how she's driven to behave in her relationship with Nate, because she can sense that he is only hanging onto her by a thread and that any obstacle, no matter how small, legitimately COULD be the excuse he's looking for to walk out on her. So when the tiniest things make her fly off the handle, it's actually not "psycho" behaviour, but a reaction to the total lack of security she feels in her relationship. Nate and Lisa are in this totally toxic relationship, and it's not because Lisa is a psycho, or Nate is incapable of commitment, but because they are both good, decent, loving people who are fundamentally incompatible: They feed each others' insecurities and bring out the worst in each other. I loved the subtlety of that dynamic and how it grew into the kind of really engaging dysfunction that makes for great television (capped perfectly by the emotional sucker-punch that ended the season), and it wouldn't have been possible if the writers had worried too much about whether or not Lisa was likeable. I think she was just as likeable/unlikeable as Nate, it's just that she got the majority of the blame due to Nate being the main character/audience proxy.

 

All the characters were deeply flawed, but ultimately human, sympathetic and likeable... except Rico of course. Shut up, Rico.

 

Other unpopular opinions, hmmm... I know Claire's art school shenanigans get a lot of side-eye, but I like them. In terms of coming-of-age tales and the rocky road to adulthood, art school was a good choice. Art is subjective, and it's nearly impossible to set a common standard distinguishing "good art" from "bad art" which makes it the perfect way for Claire to navigate her budding creativity without ANY roadmap or easy answers. It was really interesting watching her balance the art school social philosophy of "do everything, try anything, life is art" with the real consequences the resulting behaviour had on her relationships and ultimately her happiness. It was frustrating, sure, the way it's frustrating watching ANY teenager act like they know everything while never managing to do anything right. But it paid off big time in the finale when, after navigating disasters, dealing with pretentious fuckwits and posers, and making awful choices her entire adult and pre-adult life, she finally accepted and trusted what she'd learned and who she'd become, and stepped off into the unknown with nothing to break her fall. And I just know she was going to be great.

[ByTor]

Hated Lisa...really creepy character. I felt so bad for Nate.

Funny you should mention "creepy," that's the word I always used to describe Maya. I thought she was a little cutie, and I can't quite put my finger on why I thought she was creepy. It's like I felt that she didn't exist and the other characters only imagined her. Or maybe I'm the creepy one :)