Elaine Richardson

Your whole life has been leading up to this, goes the tagline for HBO's mega-successful summer series "Six Feet Under." God, I hope not. Being bickered over by neurotic undertakers doesn't sound like a good way to spend the afterlife. But for some reason, it's addictive. I can't even really tell you why I like this show so much. Perhaps it's the combination of summer fun and funeral home creepiness—a bit of a bite when other networks are jerking us around with crap. We're finally to the show's double episode season finale, and, even if you haven't seen it before, or if you've only seen a few episodes, it's worth tuning in to see what happens. There are so many loose ends to tie up, the episode will almost stand alone. All you really need to know is that the Fisher family runs an independent funeral home and lost dad (his hearse got run over by a municipal bus) in episode one. Black sheep son Nate (Peter Krause) dates Brenda (Rachel Griffiths), a woman with a pretty messed up family, while his brother David (Michael C. Hall) is a closeted gay man with problems coming to terms. Mom (Frances Conroy) is a jittery control freak; younger daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose) has a suicidal boyfriend and drives an old hearse. Personally, I'm most interested to see what happens with Nate, Brenda and Brenda's psycho brother (Jeremy Sisto), who seems to be obsessed with her in a singularly unhealthy way. Last week he followed Nate and Brenda to the funeral home director's conference in Vegas, broke into their room and took pictures of them while they were sleeping. No, that's not weird, not at all. Catch it if you can.

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