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falafel_musingsI finally caved and bought the SFU box set. I wish I had bought this lovely collection in its lovely tombstone case from the start. I could have saved a lot of money on DVD rentals. But I've wanted to rewatch this show ever since I finished it. Also I haven't treated SFU to my customary 'Favourite Moments' tribute. I'm a little spoiled for choice but here goes.
Please share your own favourite SFU memories! Spoiler warnings if you haven't seen the full show.
Please share your own favourite SFU memories! Spoiler warnings if you haven't seen the full show.
My 12 Favourite SFU Scenes (in chronological order)
1. Nathaniel Fisher's Room.
Possibly my favourite of all SFU fantasy sequences. Nate discovers that his father had a secret room above an Indian restaurant and wonders what his father did in this room, imagining him reading, dancing, smoking pot, getting blow jobs, shooting people from the window, etc. But like Brenda says this room represents the private side to the Late Nate Sr. that nobody is meant to know.
2. David comes out to Ruth.
I love any intimate scene between Ruth and David because they are so similar and so painfully repressed. There are many great moments of David coming out to other characters in S1 but coming out to his mother is the most touching. David lived his life trying to make his parent's happy and trying to be the dutiful conservative son he assumed they wanted. As Ruth expresses, loving her children is not a choice for her: "I don't choose the parts of you I love like some kind of chicken!"
3. Brenda has Billy committed.
While the Fishers have always been the heart of the show, in the first season I was sometimes a little more captivated by those crazy Chenowiths. Billy could be perceived as the villain of S1 but it still breaks my heart when Brenda gives in to having her dangerous brother placed in an institution. Billy's very sincere apology to Brenda is enough to redeem the character for me and show why Brenda has been so determined to support her brother through his turmoil.
4. Ruth's speech to The Plan.
I think Ruth became my favourite character in this moment (over the seasons my favourite character switched between Ruth, Brenda and David). There are a lot of great moments where a member of the Fisher family lets rip and rants about their true feelings. Ruth's epic "Fuck This!" speech is by far the funniest and most satisfying. I want to make a speech like this myself one day.
5. Nate and Brenda's fight.
I never had much faith that Nate and Brenda would last, but Nate/Brenda is one of those TV relationships that's at its best when it's imploding. After all the lies and betrayals that fell between them over the course of S2 they really earned this apocalyptic fight and break up with all its ugly harsh truths. Obviously this wasn't the end for Nate/Brenda but it's the point where they became damaged beyond repair in my opinion. I just don't think calling your fiancee a "cunt from hell" is something you can fully recover from.
6. David and Claire keep Nate company.
Lisa's disappearance is one of those nightmare scenarios I hope I never have to face in my life. A loved one dying is hard enough, but a loved one going missing followed by a long period of agonized waiting as they go from 'missing' to 'missing, presumed dead' must be unbearable. The show does a scarily good job of portraying that agony. So it's such a relief when David and Claire show up at the beach so Nate doesn't have to go through it alone. I wanted to hug them and cry all over them just like Nate does.
7. Keith and David at Church.
I was always fond of the Keith/David relationship but it's this scene at the church where they talk about the first day they met and the first things they thought about each other, that really got me rooting for Keith/David to have a happy ending together. I'm not usually this sentimental but the moment when Keith says "Don't you know I think you're beautiful?" and David struggles to believe it, makes me melt every time.
8. Nate buries Lisa in the desert.
As Lisa tells him in a dream vision, Nate released too late that Lisa was a person, not Nate's symbolic chance at redemption. The only way Nate has left to honor Lisa as a person is to give her the burial she wanted, even though he has to go against her families wishes and put her half-rotten remains in the ground all by himself. It could be viewed as Nate's most heroic loving act or it could be seen as an act of masochistic narcissism. Either way it's a hellish and cathartic moment.
9. The Rapture.
So I wanted to include my favourite cold open death sequence on this list. There's so many great ones to choose from but nothing beats the short-sighted woman who sees a batch of helium-filled sex dolls floating up to the clouds and thinks she is witnessing the Rapture. And then runs into the road and gets hit by a car, poor dear. The writers really got inventive with their death scenarios over the seasons but I'd still love to know how these sick twisted minds came up with the Rapture death.
10. David's abduction.
I'm sure this torturous twenty-five minute kidnap sequence is on many fans 'least favourite' moments list. It's not like I enjoy seeing our dear David Fisher getting terrorized by a psychotic crackhead. But this whole show is about the trauma of living very close to death. So I appreciated that the writers pushed that central theme to its extreme by having one of the main characters suffer a truly nightmarish near death experience. And it had to be David so the audience would suffer along with him.
11. Nate's Green Funeral.
All I remember about watching this scene the first time around was how much I was crying. Nate's green funeral was the perfect tribute to his character and I'm sure he would have appreciated his loved ones all bearing their emotions and getting their hands dirty for him. For me, it doesn't really matter if you loved or hated Nate by this point. The show admirably doesn't offer any token redemption for Nate to ensure we feel sad that he's died. The show trusts that we'll feel Nate's loss simply because he was a person we knew. We'll feel Nate's loss because we know what Nate meant to Ruth, to David, to Claire and even to Brenda. That loss is painful enough on its own.
12. Claire on the Road of Life.
The final six minutes certainly live up to their reputation of being the best ending of any TV show. Who would have thought that watching an extended montage all the main characters deaths as Claire drives towards her future would feel so strangely uplifting? It's a great spin on the conventional epilogues that show a glimpse of the characters later in life to give fans an idea of what happened to them "in the end" (the corny Harry Potter flash forward for example). The SFU epilogue starts with these reassuring glimpses of our characters getting married, raising children, growing old together, etc. But ultimately - there is only one ending and we see it come to all of them. *sniff*
1. Nathaniel Fisher's Room.
Possibly my favourite of all SFU fantasy sequences. Nate discovers that his father had a secret room above an Indian restaurant and wonders what his father did in this room, imagining him reading, dancing, smoking pot, getting blow jobs, shooting people from the window, etc. But like Brenda says this room represents the private side to the Late Nate Sr. that nobody is meant to know.
2. David comes out to Ruth.
I love any intimate scene between Ruth and David because they are so similar and so painfully repressed. There are many great moments of David coming out to other characters in S1 but coming out to his mother is the most touching. David lived his life trying to make his parent's happy and trying to be the dutiful conservative son he assumed they wanted. As Ruth expresses, loving her children is not a choice for her: "I don't choose the parts of you I love like some kind of chicken!"
3. Brenda has Billy committed.
While the Fishers have always been the heart of the show, in the first season I was sometimes a little more captivated by those crazy Chenowiths. Billy could be perceived as the villain of S1 but it still breaks my heart when Brenda gives in to having her dangerous brother placed in an institution. Billy's very sincere apology to Brenda is enough to redeem the character for me and show why Brenda has been so determined to support her brother through his turmoil.
4. Ruth's speech to The Plan.
I think Ruth became my favourite character in this moment (over the seasons my favourite character switched between Ruth, Brenda and David). There are a lot of great moments where a member of the Fisher family lets rip and rants about their true feelings. Ruth's epic "Fuck This!" speech is by far the funniest and most satisfying. I want to make a speech like this myself one day.
5. Nate and Brenda's fight.
I never had much faith that Nate and Brenda would last, but Nate/Brenda is one of those TV relationships that's at its best when it's imploding. After all the lies and betrayals that fell between them over the course of S2 they really earned this apocalyptic fight and break up with all its ugly harsh truths. Obviously this wasn't the end for Nate/Brenda but it's the point where they became damaged beyond repair in my opinion. I just don't think calling your fiancee a "cunt from hell" is something you can fully recover from.
6. David and Claire keep Nate company.
Lisa's disappearance is one of those nightmare scenarios I hope I never have to face in my life. A loved one dying is hard enough, but a loved one going missing followed by a long period of agonized waiting as they go from 'missing' to 'missing, presumed dead' must be unbearable. The show does a scarily good job of portraying that agony. So it's such a relief when David and Claire show up at the beach so Nate doesn't have to go through it alone. I wanted to hug them and cry all over them just like Nate does.
7. Keith and David at Church.
I was always fond of the Keith/David relationship but it's this scene at the church where they talk about the first day they met and the first things they thought about each other, that really got me rooting for Keith/David to have a happy ending together. I'm not usually this sentimental but the moment when Keith says "Don't you know I think you're beautiful?" and David struggles to believe it, makes me melt every time.
8. Nate buries Lisa in the desert.
As Lisa tells him in a dream vision, Nate released too late that Lisa was a person, not Nate's symbolic chance at redemption. The only way Nate has left to honor Lisa as a person is to give her the burial she wanted, even though he has to go against her families wishes and put her half-rotten remains in the ground all by himself. It could be viewed as Nate's most heroic loving act or it could be seen as an act of masochistic narcissism. Either way it's a hellish and cathartic moment.
9. The Rapture.
So I wanted to include my favourite cold open death sequence on this list. There's so many great ones to choose from but nothing beats the short-sighted woman who sees a batch of helium-filled sex dolls floating up to the clouds and thinks she is witnessing the Rapture. And then runs into the road and gets hit by a car, poor dear. The writers really got inventive with their death scenarios over the seasons but I'd still love to know how these sick twisted minds came up with the Rapture death.
10. David's abduction.
I'm sure this torturous twenty-five minute kidnap sequence is on many fans 'least favourite' moments list. It's not like I enjoy seeing our dear David Fisher getting terrorized by a psychotic crackhead. But this whole show is about the trauma of living very close to death. So I appreciated that the writers pushed that central theme to its extreme by having one of the main characters suffer a truly nightmarish near death experience. And it had to be David so the audience would suffer along with him.
11. Nate's Green Funeral.
All I remember about watching this scene the first time around was how much I was crying. Nate's green funeral was the perfect tribute to his character and I'm sure he would have appreciated his loved ones all bearing their emotions and getting their hands dirty for him. For me, it doesn't really matter if you loved or hated Nate by this point. The show admirably doesn't offer any token redemption for Nate to ensure we feel sad that he's died. The show trusts that we'll feel Nate's loss simply because he was a person we knew. We'll feel Nate's loss because we know what Nate meant to Ruth, to David, to Claire and even to Brenda. That loss is painful enough on its own.
12. Claire on the Road of Life.
The final six minutes certainly live up to their reputation of being the best ending of any TV show. Who would have thought that watching an extended montage all the main characters deaths as Claire drives towards her future would feel so strangely uplifting? It's a great spin on the conventional epilogues that show a glimpse of the characters later in life to give fans an idea of what happened to them "in the end" (the corny Harry Potter flash forward for example). The SFU epilogue starts with these reassuring glimpses of our characters getting married, raising children, growing old together, etc. But ultimately - there is only one ending and we see it come to all of them. *sniff*
