Alan Ball’s all-in-the-funeral-family drama expanded on the themes of his movie American Beauty: families keep secrets, people maintain facades, and while death may be final, life is messy. The saga of the Fishers reveled in its characters’ contradictions: matriarch Ruth (Frances Conroy) was both uptight and free-spirited; artist daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose) was insightful yet whiny; son David (Michael C. Hall) was repressed yet brave; other son Nate (Peter Krause) was idealistic yet could be a total jerk. In its bravura last few episodes Nate dies of a brain hemorrhage — just after splitting up with his wife from his hospital bed — and the Fishers themselves became the mourners, celebrating Nate’s imperfect life and moving on. The elegiac epilogue, fast-forwarding through the lives and deaths of each remaining main character, was the series’ best imaginable epitaph.
- Meet TIME’s Newest Class of Next Generation Leaders
- After Visiting Both Ends of the Earth, I Realized How Much Trouble We’re In
- Google Is Making It Easier to Remove Personal Info From Search
- Oil Companies Posted Huge Profits. Here’s Where The Cash Will Go (Hint: Not Climate)
- Column: We Asked Hundreds of Americans About Abortion. Their Feelings Were Complicated
- A Short History of the Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of the Marcos Family
- Long-Lasting Birth Control Is Already Hard to Get. Advocates Worry It May Only Get Worse
- Who Should Be on the 2022 TIME100? Vote Now
