Six Feet Under
Season 1
13 listed hours · 2001–2005 · HBO
From the desk
How this season is filed
Alan Ball’s funeral-home family on HBO: death as a weekly frame, therapy as plot, and a finale the culture still uses as a measuring stick.
TV Flash files Season 1 of Six Feet Under (2001–2005) on HBO as the first listed season of 5 — 13 listed hours, 2001-06-03–2001-08-19 from “Pilot” (S01E01) to “Knock, Knock” (S01E13). Titles, dates, and synopses on file — no invented recaps.
Desk essentials in this season
- S01E01 Pilot
The weekly death as series grammar. A family business stating its terms before anyone has time to pose.
- S01E03 The Foot
Tone lock: the parlor’s black comedy and the family’s inability to keep the body, or the joke, at a professional distance.
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S01E01 Pilot
When the funeral director is killed in an accident, the family comes together to mourn and decide the fate of the funeral home.
Pilot note — From the desk: Six Feet Under opens its catalog run with “Pilot” (2001-06-03). HBO's emotional counterweight to antihero crime; death as weekly structure. Cast breakouts and the "best finale ever" industrial complex.
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S01E02 The Will
The family attends the reading of Nathaniel's will. A widow is unable to pay the funeral bill after her late husband leaves her with a mountain of debt.
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S01E03 The Foot
The family considers selling the business. Their latest client had an unfortunate accident with an industrial dough-mixer.
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S01E04 Familia
When a gang member is shot, his family requests that he is buried, but the gang's leader wants it done a different way.
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S01E05 An Open Book
An adult film star electrocutes to death in her bathtub, which leads to a memorial service that is anything but ordinary.
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S01E06 The Room
After a woman passes away in her sleep, her husband proves to be a very demanding client.
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S01E07 Brotherhood
The family must persuade the angry brother of a war veteran who died of lung disease that his brother should receive a military-honoring burial.
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S01E08 Crossroads
A divorced woman meets an unfortunate end while partying with her friends, and the family discusses renting out the home to a seniors' dancing group.
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S01E09 Life's Too Short
A boy accidentally shoots and kills himself while playing with a gun, and his mother is nearly comatose with grief.
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S01E10 The New Person
An egocentric husband is killed with a frying pan after his wife finally has enough of his mouth.
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S01E11 The Trip
Nate and Dave travel to Vegas in order to attend a convention for funeral directors. A newborn child dies from a case of SIDS.
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S01E12 A Private Life
A gay couple is attacked and one of them is killed, causing controversy among the family and a confession to be made.
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S01E13 Knock, Knock
A simple game of golf results in the death of a woman.
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