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OK, this might be a little harder than we thought. The anticipation for David Simon’s Treme, which premiered last night on HBO, has been extraordinarily high, at least in my head, but now that it is here, we are going to have to deal with it on its own terms. It’s hard to approach a show like Treme with the knowledge that it is from the creator of The Wire without wishing that it just was The Wire. Although season 5 wasn’t my favorite season, with its heavy-handed Jayson Blair parable, and the multiverse alternate-timeline plot in which Frank Sabotka had never even worked at the shipyards (JUST KIDDING, WIREHEADS, JEEZ), I think we all would have loved to see that show continue for 1,000 more years. At least. But if you try to satisfy your Wire cravings with Treme, you are going to be disappointed. It’s like momma always said, Treme is as Treme does. (She also said: life is like a box of jazz.)
So, Treme, you guys:
Let’s face it: a little boring so far! For one thing, I could barely understand a single word that anyone said for the first 15 minutes. And just from a purely technical stand point, as someone who lives in a Big City Apartment Building, the constant volume shift between explosive jazz and mumble-mouth dialog made it very hard for me to remain conscientious of the sleeping baby who lives next door. (It’s a 9-year-old in a studio apartment by herself. ONLY IN NEW YORK.) Of course, most of these problems are Gabe problems, not Treme problems, but I refuse to believe that I am alone in this, because if I were to believe I was alone in this, I would be all:
But let us pretend for a second that I am not a 78-year-old with a Benjamin Button ear horn hearing aid glued to my head. For one thing, I was trying really hard last night to remember what it was like watching the first episode of The Wire, and I definitely know that I was really confused. Of course, I watched the first few seasons of The Wire on DVD, so I had the benefit of knowing that I was watching the first few episodes of a great show, and my patience would be rewarded. Moreover, a police procedural, however complicated and focused on the social lives of its characters, is going to have an immediate dramatic pull that is more powerful than a loving portrait of a ruined city filled with music. However, what I am trying to say is that last night’s episode was laying a lot of groundwork for what is to come, and David Simon has a tendency to avoid too much hand-holding, and so for now we sit back and absorb and we wait.
Having avoided most of the pre-show publicity, I was happy to see that Steve Zahn is in this. Steve Zahn! He’s great!
His character is also a little annoying. Let’s be honest. With his musical obsession and adolescent sense of aesthetic superiority. Also, why was he being such a jerk to those two dudes who were just trying to tend to their garden? But the scene in which he was trying to hang out with Elvis Costello was LOL, and just in general Steve Zahn is the best. And he was not the only character who was a little too flatly drawn for my tastes. There was John Goodman’s militancy and Wendell Pierce’s constant taking of cabs he can’t afford.
The person that I am most into so far is Clarke Peters’s character, Albert Lambreaux, perhaps because he’s the one that we know the least about. He’s back in New Orleans, cleaning out a bar he doesn’t own, and trying to get his crew back together for Mardi Gras. His children don’t like the sound of this at all! They are like “daaaaad!” But he is stubborn. Everyone in this show is stubborn. Matt Saracen’s mom is stubborn. Do not ask her about her house!
But, of course, the character that I am most into so far is NEW ORLEANS HERSELF (haha, barf, sorry, but also yes!). This show is, after all, a portrait of a broken city filled with music, and in that way, I would say that it is already a huge success. Not to get all White Tourist Filled with Self-Satisfaction at His/Her Own Appreciation of Cultural Exoticism, but this show definitely featured traditions of which I was completely unaware, starting with the opening scene’s unexplained (as far as I am concerned) impromptu parade through the streets replete with feather costumes and so many adorable dancing children, down to the elaborate, gothic funeral parade through the streets, complete with horse-drawn glass-walled hearse, patterned marching, and ornate funeral decorations the likes of which I have not seen before.
And as far as the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, this was handled best of all. The show certainly deals with it outright, both through the physical incarnation of human outrage in John Goodman’s character, as well as its insinuation into numerous plotlines, including the understaffing of the fancy restaurant, and the missing brother of Antoine Batiste’s ex-wife. But the show deals with the aftermath in a much more subtle visual way that I found really compelling. For one thing, the opening credits, featuring stylish, decontextualized images of various waterstains was visually stunning, and then you had small moments where it just crept up on you:
Or stared you right in the face:
In any case, Treme is filled with complex characters (despite Wendell Pierce’s insistence on only taking expensive cabs he cannot afford, his character also has a rich background story that we are only just beginning to learn about!) in an interesting city at a historical American moment. And David Simon’s track record strongly suggests that we are right to trust him and see where this goes. It is not The Wire, but that is OK. We already have The Wire, and no one can take that away from us. And now we have Treme. Hi, Treme!
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But for every taxi cab ride, one increases the chance of getting into a Cash Cab and then Pierce can kiss NO good-bye. People play the lottery on less hope than Pierce has amassed in one episode.
The major problem I see with this show is that it will be hard to come up with new plot lines once George Bush flies over Louisiana in a helicopter and fixes everything. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
You’re doing a heck of a job, notsewfast.
To be fair, lots of the first season of The Wire was really boring. Then BAM, something crazy happens. Also, I had to put on the subtitles a lot in that show because there were lots of volume changes and mumbling. My first experience with The Wire is very fresh because I’ve recently started watching it. I now just have season 5 left.
That being said, I have not watched Treme yet, but I’m very excited about it!
Please turn yourself in to jail, starting right now.
The Wire started off with one of the best-written scenes in the history of TV:
—————–
MyNulty: So your boy’s name was what?
Kid: Snot.
McNulty: You called the guy “Snot”?
Kid: Snot Boogie. Yah.
McNulty: God. Snot Boogie. He like the name?
Kid: What?
McNulty: Snot Boogie?
[beat]
McNulty: This kid, whose mama went to the trouble to christen him Omar Isaiah Betts… You know, he forgets his jacket, so his nose starts running and some asshole, instead of giving him a Kleenex, he calls him “Snot.” So he’s Snot forever. Doesn’t seem fair.
Kid: Life just be that way, I guess.
McNulty: So, who shot Snot?
Kid: I ain’t goin’ to no court… motherfucker didn’t have to put no cap in him though.
McNulty: Definitely not.
Kid: He coulda just whooped his ass like we always whoop his ass.
McNulty: I agree with you.
Kid: Kill Snot. Snot been doing the same shit since I don’t know how long. Kill a man over some bullshit. I’m sayin’, every Friday night in an alley behind the Cut Rate, we rollin’ bones, you know? I mean all them boys around the way, we roll till late.
McNulty: Alley crap game, right?
Kid: Like every time, Snot, he’d fade a few shooters, play it out till the pot’s deep. Snatch and run.
McNulty: What, every time?
Kid: Couldn’t help hisself.
McNulty: Let me understand you. Every Friday night, you and your boys are shoot crap, right? And every Friday night, your pal Snot Boogie… he’d wait till there’s cash on the ground and he’d grab it and run away? You let him do that?
Kid: We’d catch him and beat his ass but ain’t nobody never go past that.
McNulty: I gotta ask you: if every time Snot Boogie would grab the money and run away… why’d you even let him in the game?
Kid: What?
McNulty: If Snot Boogie stole the money, why’d you let him play?
Kid: Got to. It’s America, man.
I think those scenes seem more poignant in retrospect. I was definitely quite bored with the first two episodes of The Wire.
And, in fairness, Kateness, I apologize. I just had a knee-jerk reaction to someone not loving my favorite show in the same way that I love my favorite show. Which is ridiculous. No two snowflakes are the same and whatever.
BUT, I would encourage you, while watching the final season of The Wire, to settle in and trust that the filmmaker respects you enough to not shove everything in your face just for exposition. Boring to some, good story-telling to others.
No no! I do love it! I think it’s one of the best shows ever. I was just a little bored in the first few episodes because I had no idea what was going on.
Man, that is a great scene. So why didn’t it feel like a great scene when I was watching it? I didn’t *really* like the show until the Terace scene in episode 2 when Prez pistol whips the kid and then people start throwing TVs at them.
i was a little alarmed when the standard Simon-season-ending-musical-montage came in at the 45 minute mark. maybe it’s all dénouement from here.
Maybe Treme will flip the Simon paradigm and only have musical montages in the middle of the first episode of the season–assuming there’ll be more than one season of Treme (knock on wood).
Gabe, Top Tip:
DO NOT get involved with that little girl that lives next door. I know things are tough, with all the bullying and homicidal thoughts you’ve been suffering through but hang in there! I know you feel alone and you are tempted to let that little girl play with your Rubik’s cube and I understand that you feel the urge to communicate through the thin wall that separates your apartments using Morse code but stay strong! Just leave that little girl alone, Gabe. Above all else, if she comes to your door and/or window some night asking if she can come in, do not let her in! She is not the right one, Gabe, she is not the right one.
I see what you did there.
i’ve been refreshing videogum since 9am waiting for this post. ok, so, actually, as i sat watching this last night (getting all teary eyed) i was really wondering if people not from/really familiar with new orleans would get all the references/believe that this is what our city really is like. the first second line of the season? the black men of labor walking out in last years’ suits? so sad/so great. the scene where albert walks into his house for the first time? i could remember what that smelled like- what walking on those 2 inches of cracked mud coating everything felt the first time i came down after katrina. if anything, due to the sheer insanity that the city looked like after the storm, it didn’t look real enough- i remember going down to where the industrial canal broke and seeing houses on top of hoses with cars half marooned in trees. the characters all seemed super real to me. also let me just say how happy i am that they are taking on the NOPD/OPP debacle by the horns right off. gaaaaah! i guess what i’m saying is i loved it, but that i know a lot of my love comes from loving my city, and sometimes even i forget all the weight of this place, and yeah, how strange and exotic it can be to outsiders (even still i stumble across little secrets and traditions that are completely new and wonderful)! anyhow. new orleans is a terrible and wonderful place and i hope that this continues to be good and a close representation of the place and the people and the storm and the aftermath.
Do you want to be co-Explainer of All Things Weird and New Orleansy on Treme with me?
I was typing my long-winded comment at the same time as you apparently. There was so much New Orleans “inside info” in the first episode that I can imagine how the majority of people would be totally confused about it. I loved it, though.
i think all of us new orleans monsters need to represent on this.
I’m happy you are happy southernbitch.
aw, thanks. i was really hoping that i could be positive about it and not come in here being all whiney.
Another thing people may not realize is how true-to-life the people and places in the show are. Kermit Ruffins is a real guy, you guys! He’s awesome, and he plays every Thursday at Vaughan’s, just like in the show, and that was even his real house! And that’s the real Rebirth Brass Band, not actors playing them! And apparently Steve Zahn’s boss at the radio station is actually a WWOZ DJ, and I’m sure there’s a lot more that I didn’t pick up on, but oh geez that shit just makes the show so much cooler.
And that was the real Treme Brass Band! And Allen Toussaint is going to be in it next week I think! Yay!
Representin’!
And I kind of love you, southernbitch.
is the season wrapped or will they be making more eisodes without david mills?
i’m pretty sure they are still filming season one. a friend of mine was an extra in it as recently as last week.
Oh please please love this show, you guys. I can already tell that I’m going to be super-defensive of it, because from what I can tell so far, it does an amazing job of portraying New Orleans (and will be awesome, I can just tell). I know it will probably be confusing to non-locals, but I hereby appoint myself Explainer of All Things Weird and New Orleansy on Treme. Ask me your questions, children!
I will vouch for the fact that Gabe always watches TV in his house at a whisper volume and it’s very hard for these old ears to see the road.
That being said, I frequently used to watch The Wire with subtitles and took it as a given I’d watch every episode more than once before I’d catch the nuance of what everybody’s talking about. Because even if you know what words they are saying, it is often still hard to know what they are talking about! “They talk like poems.” – Max’s tombstone
I thought Treme was great. I’d lowered my expectations a bit because I remembered this show wasn’t about crimes and also I don’t know shit about jazz, so maybe that helped. But so far it is like an optimistic version of the Wire, kinda!
I watched The Wire using YouTube subtitles:
They really brought out the nuances of the show.
SPOILER ALERT
Not to sound like a New Orleans elitist, but I can’t help but think that 70% of the show would have gone over the heads of anyone who had never spent a significant amount of time in the city. From the perspective of someone living here, the opening second line parade was not random-seeming at all. And most everything else, too. Steve Zahn plays the exact kind of hippy-ish music elitist that would naturally live in the Treme. John Goodman’s character represents the kind of anger that was abundant after the storm (and still is in a lot of people). The restaurant’s problems were all-too-common immediately after the storm. I think what Treme did best was capture the fear that things would never get back to the way they were – that there wouldn’t be a Mardi Gras, that people’s friends wouldn’t come back, that there wouldn’t be another second line, that the amazing restaurant scene wouldn’t have its same awesomeness.
I’ll be watching every episode, because I know the show will end up being great. Give it some time. It’s hard to watch a guy’s love letter to a city that you don’t know much about, but New Orleans is an easy city to fall in love with if you give it some time.
I agree. It’s so great/weird to see the things that make New Orleans unique being brought to the rest of the country. I couldn’t stop thinking “If I had no idea what a Mardi Gras Indian was, what the hell would I make of that scene??” But I kind of like that it wasn’t explained. It’s better that people have to be patient and figure it out bit by bit, instead of having everything patiently explained.
That’s part of what made me love The Wire, and Generation Kill, the fact that they didn’t feel the need to explain anything, they just set us down in the middle of everything and said “Here! Watch this!” I like figuring out things as we go. Also, I didn’t have any trouble understanding anybody, but maybe that’s because i’m from the deep south and accents are normal for me? Also, i watch TV really loud because my neighbor is never home. Treme! Excited!
i seriously know several people exactly like steve zahn’s character, and god knows i’ve certainly sat through 100 community meetings where someone has blown their tops the way goodman’s character did. and what you said about the fear- yes, that’s basically it exactly, the fear and the overwhelming sadness and just not knowing anything about what was going to happen. i’m so intensely curious to see what narratives they build out to and what they will talk about- i mean, like, they’re going to have to talk about the green dot map and they’re going to have to talk about situations like common ground and the white activist populations that moved in and the housing projects demos and they’re going to have to talk about all this really complicated urban planning bullshit that fell on our heads, you know? like sometimes i feel like i’ve even forgotten 90% of what happened after the storm. like i’ve put it in this box somewhere in my head and now i’m going to unpack it via watching a television show. anyhow. new orleans monsters! we’re going to be so annoying about this tv show! sorry guys!
Oh god, we really are going to be insufferable. I moved here after the storm, and I think a lot of the stuff in the first ep went over my head, so I can only imagine how someone who’s never live here would feel watching it.
I went back to NOLA this weekend for the French Quarter Fest and took some friends that have never been…I moved there post-Katrina but left after a couple years. It was so amazing to see a show that sums up so much of what New Orleanians felt, and continues to feel, about the state of their city. It was really great to watch this show with them (at the Country Club, a bar with a pool (?) clothing optional (?!?!!)) Seriously, monsters, GO TO THIS BAR NOW.
I totally agree, southernbitch, that watching this show took me back to Dec. 2005 and the entire bar was feeling that too. Raucous laughter, some real somber moments, a lot of anger…As far as the references go, it was crazy to head to the lower 9th and show my friends all the Brad Pitt homes, and explain that some people don’t want that down there, some people are really excited by the green architecture, how disaster tourism is a real uncomfortable feeling, how some want the land to revert to wetlands, while others want the WHOLE city to return to July 2005. And John Goodman summed up a lotta those feelings a day later on the show…
Another local reference-we walked by Hubig’s Pies on Royal, and I told my friends all about the pies, and 30 minutes later, it was a reference in the show! And they didn’t even connect with it-so I think it’s just gonna take some time to deal with Mardi Gras Indians, king cakes, making groceries, crawfish boils, bounce music (and hopefully some sissy bounce too!) etc.
I’m a newbie but really looking forward to NOLA monstertalk, for real! It’s an amazing, heartbreaking story and city.
Did nobody like Generation Kill?
I am pretty sure EVERYONE liked Generation Kill.
Good. Felt like it wasn’t getting any love.
I know I did. I think that was what restrained my expectations this time the most: Generation Kill was pretty dry, and ditto what everyone else said about The Wire starting off slow.
One of my Facebook friends posted this article attempting to catalog all the NO cultural references in the show. I enjoyed it!
http://www.nola.com/treme-hbo/index.ssf/2010/04/hbos_treme_explained_do_you_kn.html
This really is a great resource. Recommend it to all non-NOLA monsters.
Did anyone else notice that Albert Lambreaux’s daughter was one of Omar’s hit girls? Now if Simon can find a way to work in Bubbs…
Whew, I’m glad to hear that other people couldn’t understand what they were saying, either. I actually found it helpful (if frustrating) that most of the characters were one-dimensional because it helped me follow the plot. (Wow, that sentence just made me really sad for me!) Actually, I think that pilots, by their very nature, have to be more or less for dummies so you know what everyone’s about.
Of course, then Lester Freamon put on his Native American drag queen outfit and I was like, wait, I don’t know shit.
Ok so, This is my first post despite reading this site for damn near a year and half. First wanted to say a hearty hi-yo to all you monsters, best commenters in the non existent commenting biz.
sorry had to get that out of the way. Anyways I loved the premiere simply because it was almost completely blank. Just like the wire, I think Simon has the ability to take this show places structurally that has never been done before and that is really really cool. So once he sets us up with the characters he can literally go anywhere and the fact that they do it so beautifully and out of a clear vision of love, I just think this has a chance (small chance but a chance) to be as good as the wire, just very different.*
*Expect the unexpected….and expect to have fun! (thanks David Simon, I will!)
You’re crazy if you are going to label these characters flatly written after the first episode. I know this because I am crazy. After the first couple episodes of season 4 I thought the kids were too “flatly written” and merely stock characters. How did that turn out. I think the scene is set perfectly. While I have never been to New Orleans I thought the “first second line since the storm” was beautiful, even though I didn’t know what a second line was before this episode. You need to take a step back and think before you say this show will be definitively worse than The Wire.
Gabe, do you get to use your premium channel package as a tax write off? (No, seriously.)
Yes, the initial fifteen minutes of the show reminded me of the many times I’ve walked out of subtitled foreign films like Pan’s Labyrinth (I don’t go to the movies to read)…but eventually I began to hear the dialogue clearly and this premier turned out to be great. It sets for itself a more difficult task than The Wire because its narrative appeal is far less obvious, but it’s a testament to Simon’s meticulous humanist approach (The Corner for the most unconventionally sympathetic characters ever created, anyone?) that the premier came off so well.
R.I.P. David Mills