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HBO: Six Feet Under - Episode 56: 'Eat a Peach'

We all know how much I like to be right, right? Last night Six Feet Under gave me a little gift in that department.

I've been saying for several years now that it's possible that Maya is not Nate's biological child--he never asked for a paternity test, and Lisa just showed up with baby Maya and used her to force Nate to the altar (for the wedding we finally saw, on video, during this season's opener.) During last night's episode, as Nate and Brenda debated how to tell Maya about where she came from--how she used to have a different mom, and what happened to her--Nate finally spilled out all his mixed feelings about the situation. What should we tell her, he asked. That her mom got pregnant and used it to trap me into marrying her? That she was having an affair with her brother-in-law, and he might have killed her when she wanted to end it? That I might not even be her real father?

Thirty episodes I waited--and today I am satisfied. Maybe Maya is Nate's daughter; maybe she's Hoyt's--and will thus grow up with two people unrelated to her because her father killed both her mother and himself. But either way, I'm glad the show has stopped pretending that this possibility hasn't been out there, and that it wouldn't have occurred to Nate from time to time. The scene revealing his feelings about this was, coincidentally, one of the best all year between Nate and Brenda. I hope this bodes well for their ultimate fate as the show draws to a close.