Treme: I'll Fly Away...and Be Back Again Some Day

"Still here. One day after the next."

David Simon and Eric Overmyer’s first season of Treme was marked by high expectations - the expectations of devoted Wire fans, the expectations of New Orleanians anxious to see the recovery to Katrina’s heartbreaking devastation accurately portrayed, and the expectations of music lovers to see, finally, a television show successfully harmonize story and song. Glee notwithstanding.

I asked actor Sean Gormley about his own expectations in going to New Orleans and making what is now an iconic Treme scene between outspoken NOLA resident Creighton Bernette and the BBC reporter. Looking back on the past ten episodes, it is this standoff that epitomizes the whole series so far, a situation that motivated New Orleans viewers of the season preview to stand up and cheer. The reporter challenges the frazzled Bernette as to what exactly is worth saving in rebuilding New Orleans, voicing many Americans opinions, from the outside looking in, about why poverty-stricken neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward should be rescued and rebuilt.

The scene is at the one minute mark of HBO's "Making Treme:"

Sean did not have many assumptions coming into the filming:

“I expected it not to be too big a deal, just me interviewing some local guy - a small scene that perhaps would not even make the final cut, and if it did, that I wouldn't be shown much. It was only during my costume fitting that I learned my scene partner was John Goodman.“

This was a return trip to New Orleans for the Dublin-born actor who first went there as part of "The Commitments" band. I asked him how New Orleans appeared post-Katrina:

“We shot our scene by a canal in the lower ninth ward. The drive from the hotel to the set was the real eye-opener for me as we drove past the area that was one of the worst hit by the storm. You could see the water marks high up on now-abandoned houses. As many of the drivers and crew were locals, I got first-hand accounts of what they had been through.” (more of the interview can be found here)

A dramatic first-hand account of recovery is what Simon and Overmyer undertook this first season of Treme which wrapped up last night with "I'll Fly Away," directed by Agnieszka Holland who also directed the first episode. The season is bookended by second line funeral parades, this time a tribute to Ladonna's brother Daymo, another casualty of Katrina, much like New Orleans itself. As for Daymo's death, as Creighton says, it wasn't the hurricane, "it was a man-made catastrophe."

Daymo, possibly a homicide victim, wasn't the only a man-made catastrophe. Creighton himself was one as well. Suicide is not painless when viewed through the family's eyes, and there was not a scene with Melissa Leo as Creighton's wife Toni that did not invoke an audience resentment toward the professor for his selfishness. He did quit. There may be lots of anecdotal evidence for this storyline, however it doesn't make his family's grief any easier to watch.

As Joe Strummer said in his upended version of "Stagger Lee" via The Rulers, an admonishment to Creighton's despair:

"you must start all over again-all over again

don't you know it is wrong

You got to play it, Billy, play,

don't you know it is wrong

you got to play it, Billy, play

And you will find it is the right 'em boyo"

So many Stagger Lees. So little time.

Steve Zahn as Davis McAlary developed nicely throughout the season from one-dimensional obnoxiousness to redeeming moments of charm, but, boy, did he recover quickly from Janette's departure despite all his best efforts to show Janette all the reasons why she shouldn't leave New Orleans. It was a day that began with John Boutte and ended in the Columns Hotel where Pretty Baby was filmed. I was convinced, but Janette ultimately wasn't.

On second thought, Davis' resiliency, his ability to shrug off such a setback, is his charm. Exit Janette. Enter Annie. It is a parallel and contrast to the immobility of Creighton: "you must start all over again." Davis starts all over again every day.

Lucia Micarelli as Annie evolved too: a parallel journey to where her character's music leads. From Sonny to Steve Earle is a fantastic voyage. Might we see Lucinda Williams next season?

The ending flashback to the onslaught of Katrina counterbalanced an episode that wildly veered from cliche to cliche: Antoine losing his gig money in a poker game to a woman no less; do-gooder Texan, Mr. Reyes, fixes Ladonna's roof forcing Reilly to do the right thing; Lt. Colson wants Sofia Bernette to be "able to believe" that Creighton's death was an accident. Thank goodness this scene was in the hands of David Morse. One of the highlights of the episode, of the series, was acting greats Melissa Leo and Morse at Creighton's abandoned car.

Sonny has voiced some surprising self-awareness in the last couple of episodes: "you're so much better than me, as a player, and now you're leaving me behind." As a musician, this is as painful a truth as could be faced. Sonny had one of the most effective, quiet codas of the night - watching a taxi go by, sitting on the darkened street - a motif for the loss of Annie. Like Toni learns: "the truth doesn't set you free, it's just another burden that you have to bear."

The St. Joseph's Day meeting of the Indian Chiefs was magnificent. Or at least I thought it might have been. Shot by flashlight, this scene was murky with glints of brilliance and sequin. The gangs worked so hard on their outfits; I wished we could have appreciated them more in full daylight. There was one positive, a cliche avoided: the punch-up between the Indians and the police.

Have to go, there's "always more to do to be most pretty." Until season two, here are some items up for discussion:

How vacuous was the "Hi, I'm Paige" scene? Even the "nice tats" comment did not redeem that mess. As an addendum, the season started with Steve Zahn's naked rear and ends with Michiel Huisman's. A backend bookend?

Wendell Pierce as Antoine was consistently splendid, holding his own with a myriad of musical meta-stars.

Love the flashback to Janette back in Huntsville, actress Kim Dickens' real birthplace: Janette looks so much like her actress mother. Janette and Delmond sat next to each, waiting for their plane, heading to New York, an appealing moment. Now if only Jacques had come and sat down between them. That would have made for a perfect scene: chef and sous chef. Together, into the sunset.

And speaking of New York, was Treme at all for us New Yorkers? or Chicagoans? Or any of the other of the U.S.'s great cities? Or its great open spaces? If we can't truly appreciate what New Orleans went through, can we still enjoy a television series devoted to and written for the Crescent City? Musical and cultural learning curves were steep! But I did recognize Trombone Shorty without a prompt, so I am getting there, thank you Mr. Simon.

How wrong was I about Creighton's demise? Didn't think it would really happen. But then again, I thought Omar wasn't really dead either. Creighton's suicide made my Spalding Gray analogy that much more, unfortunately, spot on. Maybe the Moviegoer did Creighton in.

Was post-Katrina New Orleans conveyed more starkly, more effectively in Spike Lee's devastating When the Levees Broke? Perhaps, but I would argue the two works are complementary. An introduction to the culture of the Indians was certainly an asset to Treme.

Season one: It was a great start with a beautiful, vérité ending. Season Two? You must start all over again.

One more thing: we do take naps in New York. Wake me up in time for dinner.

Originally published on blogcritics.org

Treme: Right Place, Wrong Time

A toast: "To doing what we love."

Sunday's episode of Treme had an especially poignant significance: it was written by the late David Mills who died of a brain aneurysm on a location shoot in March. The episode on its surface bristles with a theme of the quasi-military occupation of New Orleans after Katrina. Under the dark surface is an unintended homage to David Mills, a story of love — a love for city, a love of culture, a love for music, a love for another. "I need your love so badly/I love you oh so madly," sings Antoine Batiste (Wendell Pierce) to the young street violinist, Annie.

"Right Place, Wrong Time," named for a Dr. John song from the '70s that even I, clueless New Yorker, am familiar with, takes place four months after Katrina, and crime and tempers begin to flare. The heavy-handed police and National Guard presence frustrates city residents: "Cops are wound tight. Guard is on edge." Characters Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn) and Antoine both have physical run-ins with authority, Batiste getting the worst of it. You have to worry about how he's going to play his "bone" with a mouth as pummeled as it is. In the first of many references to the title, the military presence is in the right place but at the wrong time - the guard would have been much more useful four months prior - during "the greatest engineering failure in the history of the country," as co-creator David Simon calls it.

In other plotlines, Big Chief Lambreaux continues to gather up his tribe, and big prof Creighton Bernette discovers the joy of YouTube.

The women in Treme continue to have the most interesting stories. If David Simon took to heart that The Wire lacked compelling women characters, Treme would be evidence for his conversion. LaDonna (Khandi Alexander) cares for her grandmother, searches for her missing brother and runs after errant contractors. Her marriage, revealed to be across class lines in the episode, appears strong - a glimmer of hope among some dark stories that cross Treme. A seemingly sturdy marriage is something LaDonna has in common with another character: Toni Bernette (Melissa Leo) - married to Creighton and the hardest working woman in law business.

Poor Toni. She runs here and there through Treme. Rescuing people from jail, searching for lost sons, arguing with idiotic authority figures, and pouring love and understanding onto her husband and daughter. So far, she is the manifestation of pure goodness. It may make her one-dimensional, pretty thankless too, but I, for one, am enjoying her character, especially after the shock of the Chief finding his Wild Man.

Another strong female character, Janette has her loves too. In one of the most compelling narratives, Janette struggles to hold on to her number one love — her restaurant. She tolerates her other love, one of convenience to be sure, Davis."Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Davis McAlary has to open up the expensive wine and piss away all my money," but we all know the real ending of that song.

Davis takes her out on a date from the windfall of his one day of work at the Bourbon Street hotel. The lovely scene when Davis pours her the last glass of wine from their bottle, upon seeing Janette's pain at the thought of losing her place of business, is one of pure tenderness and subtlety. It almost makes up for the awful song he composes.

There are fleeting sexual assignations: Antoine and the stripper from the bar, the boy and his girl in Big Chief's place, Annie? But the heart of "Right Place, Wrong Time" is in the marriages of LaDonna, Toni, the connection between Chief's tribe, Sonny's love for Annie, and Davis coming out of his egoism and thinking for a moment of someone else - Janette.

"This city loves its music. It don't love its musicians." This is a reiteration of last week's "Everyone loves New Orleans, [but] New Orleans people?" from Big Chief Lambeaux. Treme loves its people. It loves its musicians too. As to be expected, Dr. John figures prominently in the episode. "Right Place, Wrong Time" plays when Sonny is shopping for that perfect bottle of Beaujolais for his Annie. Dr. John himself sings his famous "My Indian Red," apologizing to the gangs and hoping the song is performed with the "most love and respect" for the tradition. Jazz pianist Tom McDermott appears as himself - a musician who is appreciated in the city because he is playing the right places. Trombone Shorty - James Andrews - also plays himself. And that brings me to one of my favorite scenes.

The argument on gentrification.

It's not a matter of black and white. Nothing is in David Simon's world. Davis' neighbors confront him on his un-neighborly ways. They turn out not be outsiders and are pretty knowledgeable on things Treme. Davis, in his most sanctimonious manner, refuses to listen. And he stumbles in trying to retrieve the name of Trombone Shorty's cousin (Glen David): "all those damned Andrews." It signifies that he may be right about the gay couple's taste in decorating - fairy lights and overly large glass ornaments in the courtyard - but he's not right in his assumptions about his community.

Another scene full of gray shades — the final scene. I would argue that no one was in the right place at any time throughout the entire episode until the very end when the Katrina tour bus pulls up in front of Chief Albert and his tribe, mourning their Wild Man. The bus bears witness to the devastation and loss, and in a remarkable moment of being in the right place at the wrong time because there is no right time, the bus driver apologizes and pulls away. But snapshots are taken before he does. We can’t criticize this because we, the audience, are an extension of that bus. The situation is unwinnable. It is a more important dichotomy than the foreshadowing argument between Davis and his gentrifying neighbors. The devastation and loss must be looked at but must not be at the same time. We are "trespassing through the narrative" as David Simon says in his open letter to New Orleans found here.

I've got a Big Chief, Big Chief, Big Chief of the Nation
Wild, wild creation
He won't bow down, down on the ground
Oh how I love to hear him call Indian Red

When I throw my net in the river
I will take only what I need
Just enough for me and my lover
I will take only what I need

— "My Indian Red" lyrics

Up for discussion:

It's a redeeming moment when Albert hires the young boy he earlier found hiding in his bar. Does this make up for the beating he gave the young thief — the one he was searching for in the obits?

How funny is the conversation between Davis and Creighton who is hovering over his little girl during her piano lesson: "Don't let your mind get ahead of you Davis. Piano lessons. Don't think about what she will or won't do. That has nothing to do with you." There is a lot of humor in Treme. Enough maybe to bring it the awards that The Wire should have received. And speaking of The Wire...

HBO is using actors from The Wire in their trailers to entice Wire fans into the Treme neighborhood (e.g. Anwan Glover), but I find Wire actors disconcerting during the show itself and have to work hard to distance Chief Albert from Lester Freamon and Antoine from Bunk. A few more episodes and more pouring over the Times-Picayune, and I know I shall be successful. That said, the appearance of Jim True-Frost in the trailers for next week is welcome news! Fresh from Fringe, True-Frost is a member of Chicago's famous Steppenwolf Theatre Company and best known for his role in The Wire as Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski, a great math teacher, not so great police officer.

This article was first published at Blogcritics

Treme: Meet de Boys in the Battlefront

DJ Davis McAlary: "Ladies and Gentleman, a live chicken in the studio!"

Not for long.

New Orleans' famous Coco Robicheaux appears in the introductory scene of Treme's second episode, having the dubious distinction of being the first to sacrifice a chicken in the series. The moment was a nod to the significance of Haitian voodoo and more than a nod to the importance of Haitian society to New Orleans culture. Summoning Ezili Dantor, mother and protector, Mr. Robicheaux pours the Barbancourt Rhum, lights the spirit candles, and hypnotically strokes a rooster's feathers with a fearsome knife. Slaughter thankfully takes place off camera. More on Ezili later.

In a recent radio interview Treme creators David Simon and Eric Overmyer posed the question: "Can you do a show about regular people - [a show] not about doctors saving lives or gangsters killing people or people making decisions about the fate of democracy in the West Wing?"

Apparently, the answer is yes. You can.

After just one episode, HBO announced it was picking up a second season of Treme. "I can't think of another show that is more emblematic of what we aspire to be as a network than Treme," Michael Lombardo, HBO's programming president, said Tuesday in announcing the renewal. "We are thrilled that the press has recognized the profound artistry and intelligence of this show and are eager to see where David Simon and Eric Overmyer take us in a second season."

In last night's "Meet De Boys on the Battlefront," named for a famous Mardi Gras tune, Simon and Overmyer take us to the music as New Orleans song moves to forefront of the story, as important as any character. I would argue, sometimes sacrificing forward movement of the narrative for the color and atmosphere of New Orleans. "Music was the raison d'être of the show, the heart of the show," explains Overmyer. "We've been learning how to do the music in such a way that it doesn't stop the show cold." The music in the episode soared; the story wasn't cold but started and stalled through its carefully paced, building and rebuilding storylines.

Simon describes Treme as a "fictional story but we're trying to be rigorous about what has happened in New Orleans since the storm." Trying to be rigorous forces a lot of exposition into the narrative. There is a lot of preaching and high-handedness as well in Treme so far. Moments with Steve Zahn's character thankfully balance all this out. Davis McAlary's (Steve Zahn) storyline was one of the more entertaining of the episode. Losing his DJ job over the bloodletting in the radio studio, an historic event "just not in the positive sense," he returns home, and we get a glimpse of Davis' sheltered childhood. Antiques? Garden District? McAlary is fast becoming one of my favorite characters with his mixture of bemusement and intelligence and his own self-mythologizing.

Summoned by Coco Robicheaux's ritual, the vodou persona of Ezili, subsequently and in a fascinating and successful motif, appears throughout the episode in the guise of many mothers. Some we have already met: civil rights lawyer Toni Bernette mothers her daughter while trying to find another mother's missing son; Ladonna (Khandi Alexander below) struggles to maintain her family business, Gigi's Lounge in Treme, while also trying to care for her sons in Baton Rouge; Desiree, Antoine's girlfriend and mother of his baby, is living hand to mouth: "There is a difference between a gig and a job, Antoine, you gotta get a job."

Other mothers make their first appearance in the series: Davis' mother Ramona McAlary (Ann McKenzie, looking very much the New Orleans society matron) is a business owner who must deal with her adult child coming home for a handout. Restaurant owner Janette Desautal must turn to her mother for a loan to keep the restaurant in business

The battlefront noted in the title, to some extent, is between the writers of Treme and its audience: those in the know about New Orleans and those who only know New Orleans from popular culture and maybe a little social studies in high school. There was a smugness in this episode that I hope disappears as the series finds its feet, a smugness personified in the introduction of Sonny (Michiel Huisman), a busker who has no patience with the tourists for whom he is playing. From the beginning of the show with Coco Robicheaux talking about the "tourists and the tee-shirts" to Sonny mocking the do-gooders from the visiting church missions to Antoine's reluctance to play Bourbon Street, there is an "us vs. them" mentality that in all likelihood stems from real, inevitable emotions in the follow-up to the storm.

From what we see, Davis' mother's livelihood is selling to tourists, Sonny's is too. His annoyance with the tourists may be understandable but not watchable: "Have you ever even heard of the ninth ward before the storm? So why are you so fired up about it now?" Some characters in Treme rail against the lack of attention to New Orleans' problems (John Goodman's character, Creighton Bernette) and some characters rail against the help. In Sonny's case, it's hard to imagine what his fellow musician Annie (violinist Lucia Micarelli) sees in him.

There are many famous musicians throughout "Battlefront." Some are world famous like Allan Toussaint and Elvis Costello. Some are New Orleans famous like Mr. Robicheaux and Kermit Ruffins. And then there are so many more musicians ducking in and out of scenes; it's disorienting to the viewer without a scorecard. I knew I should know some of these musicians, but, to misquote Donald Rumsfeld, I do not know what I do not know.

Much of Treme is in a secret language that can be frustrating to the audience. The non-New Orleans resident is constantly reminded of what they don't know about the Crescent City, but patience, as I said in last week's column, patience. "It's a beginning," as Albert Lambreaux, having returned home to clean up and gather up his Mardi Gras Indian tribe, says when only one person shows up for tribal practice.

I appreciate David Simon's refusal to ever talk down to his audience, trusting that they will follow these immersions into unique urban cultures. I also understand those who may be put off. A little patience by the writers with their audience would help. After all, isn't everyone a tourist somewhere? Isn't the audience essentially a tourist buying a tee-shirt, a story a souvenir hawked by a writer?

To their credit, there is acknowledgment of the other side. Creighton Bernette is hesitant to finish his book on prior New Orleans flooding. "I don't want to be accused of cashing in on the storm like some other schmucks I can mention." Just who are the schmucks?

The Wire still casts a heavy shadow on Treme, hopefully to dissipate with time, or maybe it won't. Perhaps that's what is inevitable to the follow-up series to the greatest television drama of all time.

It was disconcerting to see Clarke Peters (below) as Chief Albert Lambreaux beating up a young thief in a scene so dark I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Lester Freamon would never do that! And the scene when the missing Daymo Brooks is found and to be reunited with his family doesn't quite work for The Wire fan. In a case of mistaken identity, David Brooks turns out not to be the vanished Daymo Brooks. "This is not my son" says the mother. "There's been some kinda mistake," says the attorney.

Well, yes, it's a mistake. He was Slim Charles. "Tell them your name." I more than half-expected Anwan Glover to say "Slim Charles." David Brooks turns out to be not the missing son, but one of The Wire's few heroes (if there was any.) Okay, so he's not your son. Isn't Slim's appearance a consolation, though? I joke, but it is an indication of how deeply ingrained characters from the prior series can disrupt Treme's drama.

The pilot was so glorious; some letdown in the second episode is inevitable. Still in love with the concept of the series, my complaining, I suspect, has something in common with the owner of Davis' radio station, with "no sense of theatre - so few do." Word is that Harry Shearer has much to say about Treme and that actor David Morse will soon join the cast. Now I'm off to steep some tea and burn some toast.