Depressing Six Feet Under

Damn, last Sunday's episode of Six Feet Under really dragged me down (don't read more if you want to watch without spoilers). In a 30 minute sequence, one of the sympathetic main characters gets beat up and robbed, has the body he was driving back to the funeral home get dumped in the street, gets forced to smoke crack, gets gasoline poured all over him, and finally gets his funeral van stolen (which is better than getting burned I guess). While the sequence was effective (and somehow reminiscent of the 20-minute dream sequence from The Sopranos), I felt like it was too much of a manipulative stunt and a desperate plot device. I really liked Six Feet Under for its unrelenting darkness in past seasons, but I think they need to find something new to say to keep the show fresh. Hopefully they'll treat this traumatic incident in a new way and make the show interesting again.