Monday, April 26, 2010
News 'Treme,' Season 1, Episode 3
Posted by Curt Holman @Curt_Holman on Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 7:20 PM
On “Treme’s” third episode, a subplot involving Ladonna (Khandi Alexander) evokes television’s previous great TV series about New Orleans. While trying to find her brother, lost in the New Orleans penal system, Ladonna reluctantly contacts her brother-in-law, a civil judge. Ladonna alludes to friction with her in-laws that seems to extend to the judge’s secretary, who cops major attitude with Ladonna when she pays a visit. Ladonna informs her lawyer Toni (Melissa Leo) that her husband’s Creole kin bear deep-seated prejudices against darker-skinned African-Americans.
One of the best episodes of the short-lived dramedy “Frank’s Place” put a comedic spin on the same theme. Frank Parrish (Tim Reid), an Ivy League college professor, inherits the French Quarter restaurant-bar of his estranged father. On “Frank Joins a Club,” he finds himself under consideration for membership from a snobby men’s club, which he eventually learns has a history of admitting only light-skinned Creoles. A well-meaning member tried recruit dark-skinned Frank, who replied that, after a lifetime of being the “only black” in this class room or that faculty, he wasn’t about to be the “only black” in an all-black club.
On the “Treme” episode “Right Place, Wrong Time,” Davis voices a theme of bigotry and racial profiling, when he claims that a National Guardsman arrested him because he was hanging out with an African-American friend. (Never mind that Davis was dropping f-bombs at the guardsman, who let his black friend off.) This week, however, the police seem to be equal-opportunity oppressors, as a sheriff stonewalls Toni, while patrolmen give a drunken Antoine a shocking, unprovoked beating for banging his trombone against their squad car. “Treme” very much seems to be in its element with its “Wire-y” critiques of law enforcement, which also help unify the disparate plot strands.
Antoine’s musical woes provide humor and pathos this week. The episode opens with Antoine bragging on his “bone” while getting it on with a stripper. Later, alas, he discovers that while he’s playing music at a strip club, he’s more famous pals have flown to New York for a Lincoln Center charity gig. Antoine drunkenly croons “I don’t have a ghost of a chance with you” with Sonny and Annie, but then runs afoul of the cops. By the end he’s not only misplaced his trombone, he has a loosened tooth and a cut lip, all of which threaten his livelihood.
This week’s Special Musical Guest is Dr. John, who records a rollicking tune about Mardi Gras Indians in the studio. If the studio’s going to be a recurring locale on “Treme,” why not explore the seedy underbelly of the recording industry? (You can’t tell me there’s no drama there.) The Dr. John tune puts the narrative momentum on pause, but nicely nods to the real Indians’ wake for their friend at the end. I’d actual welcome a little more exposition about the heritage of the Mardi Gras Indians: the final tune sounds remarkably ancient. Alas, then a “Katrina tour” bus shows up with rubberneckers hoping to take, in the words of the Sex Pistols, “a cheap holiday in other people’s misery.” At least the show spared us an angry diatribe.
I’m going to suggest that “Treme’s” characters prove more effective when their dialogue drives their actions, rather than simply serve as out-of-thin-air sermonizing. Creighton remains an impassioned but passive figure, although maybe his discovery of Youtube (still new back in 2005) will give him a pet cause. Davis, on the other hand, still pontificates but has become a bohemian man of action: he also teaches Creighton and Toni’s daughter to play “Tipitina,” writes a terrible song about strippers moving into his neighborhood and takes Janette out to a fancy restaurant.
Davis’ largesse brings down Janette’s defenses, and Kim Dickens deliciously pauses before delivering the line “Did you change your sheets, at least?” At her restaurant, Janette’s financial stress is almost nerve-wracking, and Dickens proves once again to be a sexy, subtle and invaluable character actress – and I’m not just saying that because we knew each other in college.
Angry street musician Sonny makes his own romantic gesture this week, when he buys his violinist girlfriend Annie a bottle of wine for her birthday. While Annie plays violin at a fancy gig, Sonny recounts his Katrina war stories about searching flooded out homes for survivors. Is he exaggerating? The way he snacks while talking about seeing vermin on dead bodies suggests maybe so, and his jealousy leads him to fall back on his habit of substance abuse. Sonny, like most of “Treme’s” men (but few of the show’s women, it seems), has internal demons, which seem to be reasserting themselves by the end. Incidentally, the Back of Town blog speculates that Sonny and Annie are based on a real couple who met a tragic outcome, and that possibility gives even more reason to keep tuning in.
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