Six Feet Under · A Viewer's Companion
One funeral home, one family — and the dead father who never really moves out.
The show opens with the Fisher patriarch's death, then spends five seasons pulling wives, boyfriends, in-laws, stepsiblings and adopted sons into the house above the mortuary. This chart untangles them: sage green is Fisher blood, violet is the brilliant, boundary-free Chenowith clan, and slate blue is everyone who married in, moved in, or was adopted into the home on 25th Street.
Spoiler-safe mode is on: death markers, secret-reveal labels and finale outcomes are hidden on this chart and in the notes below. Use the “Spoilers” button in the top bar to show everything again.
Why everyone seems related to the funeral home
Five seasons, one house, and a revolving front door. These are the five things that untangle the rest:
Dad dies first — and stays
On Christmas Eve of the pilot, Nathaniel Fisher Sr. is killed when a city bus hits his brand-new hearse. His sons inherit Fisher & Sons — prodigal Nate and dutiful David — and their dead father keeps strolling into scenes to comment. That's not a twist; it's the show's whole engine. Every episode opens with a death, and the Fishers bury it.
The Chenowiths make the Fishers look calm
Margaret and Bernard are two boundary-free shrinks who raised their daughter as a research subject: Brenda is "Charlotte" of the famous case study Charlotte Light and Dark. Her brother Billy is a gifted photographer with bipolar disorder. When Nate falls for Brenda in the pilot's first hour, he inherits all four of them.
Two wives, in the confusing order
Brenda is there from the airport pickup in episode one — but the woman Nate marries first is Lisa Kimmel, the old Seattle friend who turns up pregnant with Maya. Lisa disappears driving to Santa Cruz in Season 3 and is found drowned; the show finally points at her brother-in-law Hoyt. Widowed, Nate finds his way back to Brenda, and they marry in Season 5.
The couple who actually build the family
David, closeted deacon of a funeral home, and Keith Charles, an LAPD cop, are together (and apart, and together) from Season 1. In Season 5 they adopt brothers Durrell and Anthony from foster care — which is how two more Charles-Fishers land on this chart with no bloodline at all.
The widow does not stay home
Ruth grieves by dating: Hiram the hairdresser, Nikolai the Russian florist, a chaste flirtation with live-in apprentice Arthur — and then George Sibley, a geology professor she marries within weeks in Season 3. George comes with six ex-wives and a grown daughter, Maggie, which is how Nate gets a stepsister — and Season 5 gets its most fateful one-night mistake.
The flash-forward that buries everyone
The last minutes of "Everyone's Waiting" are television legend: as Claire drives east, the show leaps ahead to every main character's death — Ruth in 2025, Keith in 2029, David in 2044, Rico in 2049, Brenda in 2051, and Claire in 2085, aged 102. And one arrival: Willa, Nate and Brenda's daughter, born after her father's death.
The name decoder
A small cast, but the names rhyme and the surnames migrate. Keep these apart:
Nathaniel vs. Nate
Same name, two men. Nathaniel Sr. is the father who dies in the pilot; Nate is Nathaniel Samuel Fisher Jr., the eldest son who comes home for the funeral and never leaves.
Brenda vs. Lisa
Nate's two great entanglements. Brenda Chenowith — from episode one, brilliant and chaotic. Lisa Kimmel — the gentle Seattle friend he actually marries first, mother of Maya.
Charles vs. Chenowith
Unrelated, despite the matching Ch-. Keith Charles is David's partner (the adopted boys become Charles-Fishers). The Chenowiths are Brenda and Billy's family. No connection except the Fishers between them.
Margaret · Maggie · Maya
Three M-women, three roles. Margaret = Brenda's mother. Maggie = George's daughter, Nate's stepsister. Maya = Nate and Lisa's little girl.
Fisher & Sons vs. Fisher & Diaz
Same building, new letterhead. The home is Fisher & Sons until Season 3, when restorative artist Rico buys in and it becomes Fisher & Diaz. He's staff-turned-partner — never a relative.
Sarah vs. Bettina
Ruth's two liberators. Sarah O'Connor is her actual sister — bohemian, Topanga Canyon. Bettina is the blunt friend (Kathy Bates) who arrives via Sarah and adopts Ruth's cause.
Durrell vs. Anthony
The adopted brothers. Durrell is the older, pricklier one who tests David and Keith's patience; Anthony is the sweet younger boy they met first at an adoption picnic.
Maya vs. Willa
Nate's two daughters by two wives. Maya is Lisa's, raised in the Fisher house. Willa is Brenda's, born prematurely in 2005 — after Nate's death — and raised a Chenowith.
Not on the tree — but always in the house
Sarah O'Connor
Ruth's bohemian sister — Topanga Canyon, artists, and every impulse Ruth spent forty years suppressing.
Bettina
Sarah's unshockable friend, who takes Ruth shoplifting, road-tripping, and generally off the leash.
Nikolai
The Russian florist Ruth works for — and briefly dates. Flowers, gambling debts, and two broken legs.
Arthur Martin
The deeply odd live-in mortuary apprentice, and Ruth's most chaste almost-romance.
Russell Corwin
Claire's art-school first love — until the mess with their professor Olivier broke them up.
Ted Fairwell
The cheerful Republican lawyer Claire swears she won't fall for — the finale's obituaries list him as her husband.
A note on the portraits: stills from the Six Feet Under wiki, cropped to head-and-shoulders and served from this site so nothing hotlinks. The chart covers the complete series (2001–2005) — all five seasons and the finale's famous flash-forwards, so spoilers run to the very end.