6fu last days thought

ADDENDUM: OMG OK SPOILER ALERT BUT SERIOUSLY, DOES ANYONE READ THE PAPER OR WHAT?!!
Since Nate died on six feet under, the role of the posthumous apparition has shifted. The ghosts are still speaking untrustworthy truths from beyond the grave, words the characters must mull over and choose. BUT Nate was the show’s fabric, so in ghost form, he’s embodying the still-living characters’ worst fears–which is to say, I don’t think the ghost version Nate actually exists, at least as much as the other ghosts existed. His function as devil’s advocate/Id says much less about how the other characters perceived nate than how they perceive themselves. He is, in death, both a projection and a mirror.
As virginia heffernan kinda pointed out in her actually great piece in the Times on monday, Nate was so much more tragic than anyone else–he had no drug problems, he had no brushes w/schizophrenia, he was actualized in a certain way that others (david, even claire at times) were not–but the constant “i am finding myself,” “i am dumping this messy relationship and blindly getting with yet another messy relationship,” “hmmm, i think i am a quaker now,” was a way for him to justify living a shallow emotional life and never deeply engaging with anyone, beyond the first few layers of his onion. None of the characters knew Nate as well as they know themselves, hence the limits of their after-death encounters with him.
That his role as ghost-mirror is to justify and encourage his family’s worst impulses, rather than truly assuage their grief–as Nathan Sr., o.g. apparition, did–also says a lot about how the writers have been framing consciousness–or, rather, in a retrospective moment of self-awareness, the writers DECIDED they’ve been framing consciousness over the last however many years. So the conversations chris and phoebe and chris and melissa and i have been having, about IS SIX FEET UNDER STILL A GOOD SHOW, OR ARE WE TOO ATTACHED TO THE CHARACTERS TO KNOW?, are still inconclusive until the final episode, but it’s looking good.
[per the other apparitions–the only person who ever had similar self-reckoning ghost experiences, really, was Nate, w/Nate Sr.–remember that roulette wheel w/life and death, the real surreal sequence I think 2-3 seasons ago?–even david, in his encounters with the episodic basement stiffs, were more philosophical learning experiences–distant ones.] [the above theory was alluded to by lisa’s reaction to brenda at brenda’s and nate’s wedding, but i just assumed it was cause brenda was fully popping the klonopin to cope with getting married one day after miscarrying. still not sure if she is going to commit suicide–i think she might have an abortion, though. 2 episodes left, the theories still flow!]