Nate Fisher

Nate Fisher is the one who got out. He's flown home to Los Angeles for Christmas, restless and unmoored at thirty-five, working an aimless job in Seattle and avoiding the family funeral home he swore he'd never join. Then his father dies, and he's pulled back into a life and a business he never wanted.

Peter Krause plays Nate's discomfort with his own life so plainly that you recognize it before you can name it — a man allergic to commitment who still can't stop reaching for meaning. The show never lets him off easy for his charm, and that friction, between what he wants and what he's willing to become, is the engine of the whole series.