“More sex, more death, more weirdness.”
That was the promise for the third season of HBO’s acclaimed series Six Feet Under from the show’s cast and crew, who gathered Feb. 24 at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood for a special premiere screening of the season’s first episode, which bowed on the pay cable network Mar. 2.
In other words, expect more of the same dark-edged, seriocomic plots that have made the sometimes somber, sometimes silly series a major hit.
Series creator Alan Ball admitted he has a dream job, plotting out new twists, kinks and curveballs to throw into the lives of the funeral home-owning Fisher family. “You have no idea how much fun it is. I keep waiting for somebody to knock on the door and say ‘OK, just kidding. Now you have to go back to the real world.'”
However, he says the plotlines are never weird for weirdness’ sake. “We always base things on who the characters are organically, but we do think of ways for life to present them with challenges that test them,” explained Ball, the American Beauty scribe who penned the first episode and, after winning a Directors Guild of America award for his directorial debut last year, will helm the season’s final installment. “We never think ‘Oh, this would be really weird if this happened.’ We try to make everything come out of who the characters are.
The cast was abuzz about the new season, although hesitant to spill the secrets of the story lines ahead. After his character Nate Fisher underwent a harrowing season suffering a potentially deadly condition, fathering a child with an old gal pal and learning of his fiance’s secret sex compulsions, series star Peter Krause revealed, “Nate continues to live the life of Job.
“I want the audience to be surprised,” Krause continued, “but suffice to say Nate finds himself becoming responsible for more people this year, whereas we met him after his voyage of running away from things, now he’s caught up in being responsible for others. And whether it’s in his mind or in his circumstances, he feels very much like he’s suffering.”
We asked Rachel Griffiths, who plays Nate’s off-kilter love Brenda Chenowith, if her recent real-life marriage had added an extra kink–or embarrassment–to her on-camera love scenes with Krause. “I’m not really acting them out this year, actually,” she replied teasingly. “The psychosexual dysfunction is being carried by other members of the cast this year.”
Her comments suggested a potential frost in the Nate-Brenda romance, and Krause happily–if mysteriously–reinforced the notion. “I’m not sure there are love scenes this season,” he added. “There may be, and there may not be.”
Michael C. Hall was only a bit more revealing, hinting at what was in store for his uptight mortician David Fisher, who struggles with his homosexual relationships. “The relationship with Keith remains a focal point and is all the richer for all the water that’s under the bridge now,” said Hall, “but I think David is working to broaden his definition of himself, beyond his relationship to Keith or his relationship to his job. So that provides an opportunity to traverse some new terrain. Whether he unravels or not, he struggles to keep it together.”
Matthew St. Patrick, who plays David’s dysfunctional police officer lover Keith, agreed, saying to expect his simmering character to reveal even more dimensions this season. “We’re still like kids in a candy store,” said St. Patrick of the series’ cast and crew. “It’s really great–the writing is incredible and after you get a chance to work with the group of actors that we’ve been working with, and directors…it’s exciting. It keeps a fire burning in us, to show up and come to work and have a good time and play.”
Other supporting characters will also be grabbing the limelight–like embalmer-turned-funeral home partner Federico Diaz, played by Freddie Rodriguez. “I’m a partner this year, so I think there’s going to be a lot of conflict between Federico and the Fisher brothers, because the Fishers are such bad businessmen,” revealed Rodriguez. “You’re going to see more of his personal environment at home, some twists and turns like last year–like the episode where he caught his cousin [having sex with a man]–You’ll see more shocking moments like that.”
Lili Taylor, who joined the series semi-regularly last season, insisted she was “under a gag order” about what’s happening with Lisa, the mother of Nate’s daughter, but guaranteed she would definitely have an even greater presence this year. And Taylor said the tight-knit cast–including fellow screening attendees Lauren Ambrose, Frances Conroy, Jeremy Sisto and Justina Machado–added her to their off-screen extended family right away. “They’ve been so welcoming, and there’s no attitude on the show among the crew and the cast. They accepted me right away, I never felt really weird.”
No weirdness? On Six Feet Under? Oh, well. She’ll just have to be satisfied with sex and death.
