Heather Havrilesky

But then you’re talking about an entirely different show. “Six Feet Under” has always focused on death as a starting point — each episode of the show opens with another death, and, for the survivors, death marks a new beginning. The process of Nate’s mourning fits in so beautifully with the show’s premise that the writers couldn’t possibly pass up this opportunity to explore such an intimate, unsettling journey with the show’s lead character. Nate (Peter Krause) can try our patience, as well as his family’s, with all of his howling at the moon (“When do I get to self-destruct?” Claire demands indignantly), but it makes sense that he’s navigating such treacherous waters. Bless his broken heart, his role on the show is to be the guy whose sweater just keeps getting snagged on life, and instead of knitting himself a new one, he rips the whole thing to shreds and then lies in the pile of shredded yarn, weeping.

Luckily, David (Michael C. Hall) and Keith (Mathew St. Patrick) make up for it by providing a little more lightness than they did last season, with Keith taking a job as a bodyguard for celebrities that proves to be a little more challenging than he expected. “My job is to not put my hands on anybody,” he murmurs huskily to David. “My job is to low-tone it and defuse the situation before it becomes a situation.” True to his word, Keith has lost some of his fury, and he and David suddenly have an ability to step back from their squabbles and laugh at themselves.

Typical fictional couples are either dreamily happy or miserable, but Ball and the other writers seem to recognize that a history of big conflicts and breakups and sticking points don’t mean that two people are incapable of being happy together. After all of the therapy and nitpicking and hysteria, seeing David and Keith finally relax and take things in stride is comforting. Although they were a little awkward together and tough to accept as a couple during the first season, at this point they’ve got more chemistry than Rachel and Ross, Sam and Diane, and Donna and Josh combined. Michael C. Hall has such a liquid face; every second thought and passing mood floats across his features like little waves in a pool. Paired with St. Patrick’s macho stoicism and oddly palpable vulnerability, every scene with these two is riveting. You’d be hard-pressed to find a richer, more realistic depiction of married life than the one offered in their scenes together. Staunch opponents of gay marriage, take note.

Meanwhile, a very different picture of marriage is being painted by Ruth (Frances Conroy) and her new husband, George (James Cromwell). For all of her stodgy parenting, Ruth is in many ways far more spontaneous and impulsive than her daughter, Claire (Lauren Ambrose). Having just married a man she hardly knows, Ruth finds herself struggling to incorporate George into her life without the cooperation of her family. In fact, her kids are so rude to George it’s amusing, but it’s one of the only aspects of the show that doesn’t seem all that realistic. A subtler approach — having the kids try to interact with George and fail, then get snippy — would be more compelling. As it stands, it’s a little too clear to the kids (and therefore, to the audience) that George is bad news, despite the fact that his character isn’t really revealing that many warning signs, outside of vague statements he makes to Ruth like, “You’ve lived your life one way. I’ve lived mine another. The costs are different” or “I’m looking forward, not back.” Either a severe and sudden turn to the dark side on George’s part, Tony Blundetto-style, is forthcoming, or future episodes will feature a few more hints at what George is all about. As it stands, he may be one of the flattest characters on the show, but Ruth’s uptight chirpiness, alternating with a strange, almost ethereal grace and luminosity, bring life to their scenes together.

Meanwhile, Claire’s scenes are livelier than ever. “I’m sick of everything being so fucking awful all the time,” she announces to her family at the kitchen table in the first episode. Fed up with the hysterically melodramatic antics of her drama-queen ex-boyfriend Russell, Claire is ready to move on to bigger and better things, making new friends at school and finding new sources of inspiration. Suddenly she’s waking up to all of the possibilities in life, sexually and otherwise.

In a breathtaking attempt to express herself openly and tell others exactly what she wants and doesn’t want, Claire is experimenting with her assertiveness. While her cocky flirtations and insensitivity can be tough to take, it’s clear she’s trying to find a style that feels right to her. Could she end up like Margaret, Brenda’s self-indulgent, borderline sociopathic mother? Or will she find some middle ground as an emotional, assertive artist? For all of her mistakes, Claire might be the most grounded of the Fishers, and she’s certainly the most dedicated to pursuing her own path. While she started out with such blandly boy-crazy story lines, these days it’s both inspiring and fun to see Claire sort through art-school pretensions, hipster afflictions and empty intellectualism, casting each aside in her relentless pursuit of something pure and worthwhile.

Like Claire, “Six Feet Under” has evolved far beyond its beginnings, and only concerns death in as much as death brings our focus back to the problem of living. While zany undertaker stories are nice as an occasional diversion, the meat here is in the finely drawn characters trying desperately to sally forth in the face of such a rich awareness of how little time they’re given.

Not surprisingly, imitations of “Six Feet Under” abound: “Dead Like Me,” “Tru Calling,” “Out of Order” and the now-canceled “Wonderfalls,” all trying to mimic the show’s strange mix of cynicism, earnestness, magic and melancholy. No other show comes close to packing even its smallest stories with such a dramatic punch, though. Part of the credit for this should go to Alan Caso, the show’s director of photography, who makes sure every single shot is as clean and beautiful and dramatically lit as a photograph hanging in a gallery. Much of the credit should also go to the talented actors that make up the cast.

Mostly, though, the show’s imitators make the mistake of trumping up the importance of each plot twist instead of lingering as close to reality as possible. Oddly, realism is what gives “Six Feet Under” its high stakes. By depicting life’s experiences the way they feel to real people, the show’s writers bring a tangible sense of elation or regret or confusion to the smallest scenes. When Claire sees classmate and performance artist Edie (Mena Suvari) onstage for the first time, and her eyes get wide and glow, even as Russell panders for her attention, you remember that feeling of awe you got when you were young and you met someone who was everything you wanted to become. When David and Keith glance at each other and laugh after a moment of pointless bickering, you can feel that sense of familiarity and deep love and regret that comes from being with the same frustrating but lovable person for years. When Nate seeks out affection in the wake of Lisa’s (Lili Taylor) death, you get a taste of how it feels to endure the death of someone close, the intense desire, in the face of despair, to feel and celebrate the fact that you’re still alive. No matter how weighty and dramatic the story lines might be, no matter how beautifully the scenes are shot or how salient and rich the dialogue is, the whole always feel organic and familiar.

By this point, most viewers are inured to courtrooms and hospitals and police headquarters. We’ve occupied these spaces for far too long. Thanks to this familiarity, their dramas have to be amped up beyond realistic proportions just to get our attention. Look at shows like “The Practice” and “CSI: Miami” and “ER” for a slice of the current cartoonish, absurd streak that runs through most dramas. Disasters must be bigger and more horrifying than ever, crimes must be more complicated and absurd and difficult to predict, and the stakes are pushed so high we can’t buy one bit of it, let alone relate to it.

Meanwhile, the stuff of everyday life holds all of the tragedy and elation and melancholy that it ever has. On “Six Feet Under,” we encounter characters who are just normal people, trying to find happiness the way normal people do. They talk around the truth, they cringe, they smirk, they lie to themselves, they show up late, they make mistakes, they try again. It’s all so fucking impossible, and that’s what makes it all so extraordinary.

To all of Salon’s readers: You’re some of the most engaged and outspoken readers on the Web, and my writing has benefited from both your criticism and your encouragement. I genuinely appreciate your support over the years. Please feel free to drop me a line via Twitter, keep up with my latest work through my website, the rabbit blog, and look for my memoir, “Disaster Preparedness,” on Dec. 30 from Riverhead Books.

Few writers ever get the chance to enjoy a job that’s as creatively fulfilling as this one, or to write for an audience as smart and as insightful as Salon’s. Although it’s time for me to move on to new challenges, I will look back fondly on my years at Salon and feel grateful for them.

While the old familiar faces of late night don’t do much more than make us chuckle ourselves to sleep at night, one man has been calmly and quietly upping his game: Jimmy Kimmel. Despite his distance from the action, it was Kimmel who took some of the most direct shots at Leno during the late night wars. In addition to imitating Leno on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and then appearing on Leno’s show and insulting him to his face, Kimmel has been more outspoken than Conan himself about Leno’s sneaky strategy to take back “The Tonight Show” (although Bill Carter’s new book, “The War for Late Night,” seems to suggest that Leno wasn’t quite so calculating as Kimmel and others seem to assume). When asked in an interview with GQ this month what he learned from the late night dust-up, Kimmel replied: “The lesson is, it pays to be sneaky. I think that’s the main thing I learned. That, and don’t trust Jay Leno.”

It’s this frank talk that sets Jimmy Kimmel apart from his peers. Throw in the sharpest and funniest opening monologue on late night, an incredible knack for improv, and liberal use of off-kilter gimmicks and skits, and it’s no wonder that Kimmel has risen to the rank of late night king. Whether he’s launching a multitiered attack on Facebook idiocy with his National Unfriend Day, finding creative new ways to insult Matt Damon, or shooting an entire episode during a power outage using only his webcam, Kimmel has always had that combination of swagger and imagination that separates the good talk show hosts from the great ones. Like Johnny Carson and Letterman in his heyday, Kimmel has the bluster and the quick wit to make every moment watching him on the air feel dynamic and exciting.

That’s no small feat, of course, but it’s what real late night heroism demands. Kimmel tackles pop culture with more sharp wit and weirdo flair than any of the other late night hosts, whether he’s addressing the new Spider-Man musical (“I’ve been working on a superhero show myself, it’s called ‘Aquaman on Ice.’ Aquaman on skates, trying desperately to speak to his friends who are trapped under the layer of ice. That’s a musical!”), rumors that Snoop Dogg will play at Prince William’s bachelor party (“I’m excited for His Highness, and by His Highness, I mean both of them”), airline security pat-downs (“We freak out if a TSA agent touches us on the outside of our pants, but Black Friday, we will hump each other’s heads to get at Walmart to save 8 bucks on a PSP”), or even the plans to have Lindsay Lohan appear on “Dancing With the Stars” (“I would love to see her vomit on Len Goodman”).

When he’s interviewing guests, Kimmel is arguably better on his feet and more ready with unexpected quips than any other host. On a recent episode when Ben Affleck waxed sympathetic about hard economic times in America, Kimmel soon hinted that no one wants to hear a megastar fake emotion for the little people.

Affleck: I don’t think there’s anybody in the United States that hasn’t been affected (by the recession) in some way or another.

Kimmel: Oprah hasn’t been affected at all.

On another recent episode, Kimmel took an otherwise bland interview with Kate Bosworth and livened it up. (And let’s face it, the real test of good late-night hosting lies in finding some way to spice up interviews with dull, self-involved young actors and actresses. In addition to Kimmel, only Letterman and Craig Ferguson manage it with any regularity.)

Bosworth: (on her Korean co-star) He literally is the Brad Pitt of Korea. It’s pretty wild.

Kimmel: Really? ‘Cause I was told I was the Brad Pitt of Korea. That’s disappointing. I feel like I was lied to. (pause) He’s the Brad Pitt of Korea. And so does that mean he adopts a whole bunch of white kids, or how does that work?

He even managed to save an interview with Paris Hilton from the bowels of hell:

Hilton: (on her current boyfriend) Right now, I’m just so happy. He’s my best friend.

Kimmel: Wait a minute, now. I saw a television show in which you picked a best friend and he wasn’t it. Are you telling me that was not your real BFF?

Later, when Hilton called her new perfume “my tenth fragrance,” Kimmel countered, “That seems like too many fragrances to me.”

This is where the fans of Jimmy Fallon, who have been rallying lately to crown their contagiously giddy leader the supreme ruler of late night, really must admit defeat. While Fallon’s antics try our patience in all the right ways (Zach Galifianakis’ recent appearance, followed by a skit the very finest flavor of stupid, marked a recent high point), Fallon is a pretty bland interviewer, sometimes resembling Chris Farley’s guffawing yes-man talk show host of “SNL” legend. Nonetheless, Fallon is undoubtedly in the groove lately, with such sure-footed oddball gimmicks and quirky enthusiasm that it makes you wonder if “The Chris Farley Show” itself wouldn’t have morphed into something deliciously strange, if given enough time. And let’s face it, anyone who makes Helen Mirren play beer pong deserves at least an honorable mention, if not an Emmy.

While he might be the best Neil Young impersonator on late night (or anywhere else), Fallon has none of the subtle snideness that made Carson, Letterman and now Kimmel masters of the craft. Sure, the kind folks down at the local elementary school’s bake sale might find such a tone distasteful, but the rest of us, who’ve been marinating in a toxic mix of “The Love Boat,” People magazine and celebreality shows for years now, need a healthy dollop of scorn to make the celebrity promotional appearance go down a little more smoothly.

Fans of Craig Ferguson will point out that he shares the requisite doubting tone in his interviews, and also scores very high for sheer courage of conviction. And it’s true that to watch half a second of Ferguson’s show is to love him, from his googly-eyed knowing looks to his perverse but genius rambling asides. His self-effacing charms make his perhaps the most unpredictable and unruly of the late night shows. However enchantingly strange Ferguson’s monologues and interviews may be, they just don’t stack up to Kimmel’s.

And like Letterman, Kimmel carries the torch of bemoaning his network overlords, lamenting the dumb stuff ABC makes him promote. The imbedded advertising — Bud Light signs on the stage, Old Navy promotions at the start of the show, constant appearances by “Dancing With the Stars” contestants — isn’t all that easy to ignore, but Kimmel makes the best of it. He’s taken to calling himself “the three-headed dog the stars must pass on their way to no-dancing hell,” and after that show’s big finale, he told his audience, “I tell you something, I had a good morning. I woke up this morning, and for about three minutes, couldn’t remember who won “Dancing With the Stars” this year. It felt great, it really did.”

But Kimmel should wake up feeling great every morning. After all, who would’ve thought that this guy would be the big winner of the late night debacle of 2010? When you flip from Conan to Leno to Letterman, or stay up for Carson Daly or Fallon or Ferguson, even though you might appreciate Ferguson’s bizarro self-deprecating digressions or Fallon’s raw enthusiasm, Kimmel is the only host who will make you laugh out loud more than a few times per episode. He’s got the sharpest monologue, the most interesting digressions and skits, and the best interviewing skills. Now that the dust has cleared, “The Tonight Show” doesn’t look like a prize worth squabbling over, because, with or without the Cheesecake Factory backdrop, Jimmy Kimmel is the new Johnny Carson.

“OK, have a great weekend!” I replied.

Old people are a little checked out, it’s true. But we’re amiably comatose. This friendly state of autopilot is the only way we’ve found to manage our dashed dreams, our growing contempt for the culture, our creeping disappointments, our fibromyalgia. We grind our teeth at night and have vivid dreams about screwing cheerleaders. We resent the unflattering shape of matchstick jeans and daydream about gigantic claw-foot bathtubs we can’t afford. Our elbows hurt and our hair always looks bad and we secretly think all electropop sounds like Kraftwerk.

Recognizing the defeat in each other’s eyes, we smile warmly and say things like, “Of course! We’d love to,” and “Fantastic! I can’t wait!” because we recognize that everyone is flawed and just barely able to accept their own mediocrity or tolerate the frustrations of advancing age. The least we can do is be nice about it.

Youngish (under 35) skeptics will tell you that the men of “Men of a Certain Age” (premieres Dec. 6 on TNT) don’t talk like men at all, they talk like post-menopausal book club members. This show isn’t made for those youngish people, though. It’s made for the oldish (over 35) among us, who recognize the self-doubting, second-guessing, pot-bellied guys on their TV screen as a painfully palpable embodiments of the humiliations and tiny little ego victories of middle age.

The charms of “Men of a Certain Age,” like the charms of growing old, are lost on the common whippersnapper. While youngish people tend to reevaluate and reappraise their oldest friendships constantly, questioning whether this or that old friend is up to speed with just how advanced and mature and evolved the new “me” is, old people recognize that they haven’t actually advanced or matured or evolved much over the years. Thus do they humbly turn to each other, all rumpled feathers and matted fur, and sigh deeply. Less important than how far you’ve come, to old friends, is how far you haven’t come — and also, where you were before you got old. The fundamental importance of old friendships, plus that peculiar flavor of shared, comfy nastiness that bounces around between old friends — these make up the soft center of “Men of a Certain Age.” We grow old, we fail, we reproach the gods and grimace in pain, and then we meet to eat pie and complain at the same diner each week.

“Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, don’t give up on your dream, Terry!’” Terry (Scott Bakula) tells lifelong friends Joe (Ray Romano) and Owen (Andre Braugher) of his acting career. “What would’ve been so bad if I had, huh? We’re at this place in our lives, we’ve come all this way, and I’ve got nothing to show for it. You’ve got something — families, careers …”

“Families suck,” Joe replies. This harshness, which of course we don’t expect and don’t believe entirely (even from a divorced guy with an anxious teen son and a moody teen daughter), is what balances out the vulnerability of “Men of a Certain Age.” As hand-holdy as the talk can get, these guys are still just guys.

And if you think their confessional, supportive tone with each other comes out of left field, tell that to the wood fence contractor who volunteered to me last week that he’d been “journaling a lot” about his dad’s death, or the plumber who, apropos of nothing, discussed the struggles of raising teenagers. Middle-aged strangers tell each other emotional stuff out of the blue, and middle-aged friends tell each other everything. (The only exception may be certain varieties of hipster intellectual, who could literally chat about Sufjan Stevens’ latest album on their deathbeds instead of confessing the hopes, fears and regrets of their final hours.)

But the utter lack of hipness of “Men of a Certain Age,” the total lack of concern for what’s deemed cool and what isn’t, the complete disregard for matching the breakneck pace, the action, the swooning romances, the spitty outbursts, the shiny thrills of other TV shows, is exactly what makes this drama so lovable. Where other dramas would pack in more zaniness and intrigue in every available second of airtime, “Men of a Certain Age” rolls out the familiar, the ordinary, and locates poetic folds and sweet pockets of emotion therein: Joe’s employees are two pure-intentioned teenagers who are genuinely confused by his old-guy ways, and one slow-moving old Spanish-speaking guy, Carlos, who sleeps on the job but Joe still can’t stand to fire him (he lays him off then hires him back at the end of the first season). Owen works at a car dealership owned by his dad, a thoroughly mundane job that Owen dislikes most of the time, but also occasionally excels at. When he breaks away to work for another dealership at the start of the second season, his father is angry, but his respect and investment in his son finally start to emerge out of the fog of his constant hectoring. Even Terry, with his acting career, has encounters with the film industry that will strike anyone who’s actually worked production as hauntingly authentic, less focused as they are on stars and perks and glamour than on a steady flow of deeply humiliating interactions with the most unsavory sorts of egomaniacs imaginable. The big promises and untrustworthy allegiances Terry forms with one director (who refers to him, tellingly, as “T-bag”), only to have the rug pulled out from under him on a whim, echo some essential Hollywood experience that’s rarely portrayed with quite as much clarity and empathy.

But the big impact of this drama comes in its quietest moments: Joe and his son, Albert (Braedon Lemasters), are driving home from the movie theater after Albert has had an anxiety attack and insists that they leave. Suddenly, Albert wants to know if Joe is embarrassed by him. “Embarrassed? No, man. Never,” Joe says, his eyes starting to well up a little. “You’re my hero. I mean that. You’re doing great, man. I’m proud of you.” It’s simple dialogue, nothing fancy, nothing too clever or provocative, but that’s what gets you in the throat sometimes.

Like the oldish and crumpled and vaguely resentful among us, “Men of a Certain Age” casts aside sophistication and witty banter for the comfort of what’s real — even when what’s real is disappointments, missed connections and inadequate attempts to reassure. In accepting our frailty, we locate our souls.

You’re doing great, “Men of a Certain Age.” We’re proud of you.

Oh, and have a great weekend! 

The answer to that question, of course, is zero. Or as Lebowitz herself puts it when speaking to a roomful of young people, “There are too many books, the books are terrible, and it’s because you have been taught to have self-esteem.” This is Lebowitz’s distinct talent: making elitist contempt sound charming.

Toni Morrison, a friend of Lebowitz’s, puts it a little differently. “You seem to me almost always right,” she tells Lebowitz. “But never fair.”

“That’s why,” Lebowitz responds. “I’m always right because I’m never fair.”

Most of us secretly wish that we could be as right and as unfair as she is. But the world has changed a lot since “Metropolitan Life” was first published in 1974. Being unfair isn’t nearly as acceptable as it used to be. Today, people demand prose that is polite, respectful, nonjudgmental, and that never employs terms, phrases, suggestions or hints that could offend any segment of the population. People demand prose that isn’t prose, in other words.

Contrast that with almost any assertion made by Lebowitz in “Metropolitan Life” or “Social Studies”: Jews make good stand-up comedians. Sports are “dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury.” Communism is unpleasant because “I do not work well with others and I do not wish to learn to do so.” Children “tend to be sticky” and “respond inadequately to sardonic humor and veiled threats.”

“Public Speaking” (premieres 10 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22, on HBO) is also packed with Lebowitz’s clever observations, the most gratifying of which may be her reflections on the ways our culture has changed since her books were first published. “An audience with a high level of connoisseurship is as important to the culture as artists. That audience died in five minutes,” she says, referring to the AIDS epidemic. These days, Lebowitz says, “everything has to be broader, more blatant, more on the nose.” The problem? “Too much democracy in the culture, not enough democracy in the society.”

Lebowitz’s real strength, though, lies in explaining the different social classes to each other, either in her books or in Scorsese’s film. In “Social Studies” she includes a “Glossary of Words Used By Poorer People” including meatloaf (“A gloriously rough kind of pate”) and overworked (“an overwhelming feeling of fatigue, exhaustion, weariness. Similar to jet lag”), and outlines the trivializing effects of the international jet-setter (“What, after all, is London to a man who thinks of the whole Middle East as just another bad neighborhood and the coast of South Africa as simply the beach?”).

In “Public Speaking,” it’s clear that, although Lebowitz might mingle with elites, her underlying affections lie with the common man — as unsuitable as she might find his pants or his penchant for installing wall-to-wall carpeting in bathrooms. When the topic of how New York City has changed over the past two decades arises, Lebowitz says, “When a place is too expensive, only people with lots of money can live there. That’s the problem. You can like people with money, hate people with money. But you cannot say that an entire city with people with lots of money is fascinating. It isn’t.”

Even if her writers block continues for another three decades, Lebowitz herself remains undeniably fascinating. Scorsese’s documentary offers us a long overdue taste of her unique, queasily accurate perspectives on our culture — always right, never fair and never disappointing.