Monsters of Television

“There’s pride on Bourbon Street.”

The devil’s grin.

Ah, the resentment episode. Or maybe the resentment series.

There was definitely a different feeling about this episode than the last. While the pilot exhibited more hope, this second episode demonstrated a lot more pain, suffering, and anger about the state of New Orleans. And a lot of that resentment is redirected at the city’s burgeoning tourism industry, especially the pity-tourists who came to see the damage.

Last time I reviewed Treme, I broke it down into the main storylines and talked about each in turn. This time, however, it’s a little crowded (there are a lot of characters to follow and, I assume, it’ll thin out eventually) so I’m going to break it down into “Interesting Storylines” and “‘Nobody Cares’ Storylines.”

The terms are probably self-explanatory but an issue with such a crowded show is that a couple of the threads are overshadowed by how good the other stuff is or that the thread is just made me fall asleep. So boring that not even John Goodman can save it. Oh, was that a spoiler?

Interesting Storylines

We start off with our man Davis. Although walking a thin line between “abrasive” and “completely unlikeable” last episode, this second episode shows a more complex version. Not necessarily more or less endearing but at least a fuller version of what you saw last week. Shortly after watching Coco Robicheaux sacrifice a chicken on his radio show, the station lets Davis go (apparently the FCC frowns upon broadcasting live animal sacrifices) and he’s forced to find something else. He asks his parents for a loan (one of several themes in this episode) but his father says it’s contingent upon him getting a job. The job: working as a receptionist in a hotel. On Bourbon Street. He reluctantly accepts.

Just like every city, there are areas of town that the New Orleans natives/faithful look at in disdain. They’re the places that are mainstream, the areas of town you know will be crowded with tourists and pedestrian people lacking in inspiration. The parts of town that, at one time, had some credibility but now, from overuse and dilution of culture, are so bland its only uniqueness is its geographic location. In his radio show, Davis mentions his station being in the French Quarter. You might know this as one of the few things you know about New Orleans. He refers to it as a “soulless” part of town that is a “shell of its former self.” So taking a job on Bourbon Street, and almost certainly having to deal with people from all over the country that don’t “get” New Orleans, is a deep sacrifice for a NOLA fanboy to make. But he does.

Seeing Davis in a hotel concierge’s uniform, trying his hardest to make do with this post is funny and slightly piteous, but a brand new character colors him a little differently. Sonny and Annie are street musicians playing New Orleans flavor music for anyone willing to listen. Annie’s kind of a whatever character: a good violinist but only defined by Sonny’s temperament. When a trio of church-goin’ Wisconsin folk relate how they wanted to come down and “help out” after seeing some of the footage of the 9th Ward, Sonny fires back, with more vitriol than Davis would ever muster to strangers, “You ever heard about the 9th Ward before the storm? Then why are you so fired up about it now?” He has honest anger for these strangers, dupes to a media-contrived narrative not representative to what happened to his home. Suddenly, you realize even the niceties he opens the conversation with are just as sarcastic and heartless as everything else he says, semantic equivalents of eye-rolling and heavy sighing.

In fact, in the capacity of a hotel concierge, Davis, who has had to deal with guys in cowboy hats all day, meets the same trio of “cheesehats.” Instead of using the opportunity to express his anger and disappointment in the rest of the country for their lack of flavor, he decides to demonstrate his knowledge of the New Orleans underground by directing them to a seedy bar with great music. While Davis may be abrasive and elitist, he revels in the ability to flex his NOLA local muscle, using newbs as validation for his investment in this city.

He sends them to a bar where they meet our man Antoine Baptiste just before he’s about to play with Kermit’s band at Bullets. Antoine is hot off swallowing his own pride by playing a gig on Bourbon Street. You get the feeling that Bourbon Street is the Disney version of New Orleans, the snapshot that looks good on the back of the postcard but misses the flavor of the city entirely. To play a gig on Bourbon Street is akin to becoming one of the robots on the Small World boat road. You play for a house that’s probably either collectively drunk or unappreciative of what you offer them and, at some point, you have to play “Saints.” Or “Freebird.”

But Antoine has to play Bourbon Street. Being a musician is hard enough but being a musician in a town where most of the folks are still struggling to survive is something else. He has bills to pay, children to feed. His girlfriend insists that he gets a job to support their family and she isn’t without a point. So Antoine has to capitalize on the tourism of New Orleans in order to make his bread. Wherever he goes, he hears the mantra from folks who know, “There’s pride on Bourbon Street.” Because no matter how falsely-idyllic the postcard-worthy Bourbon Street is, no matter how soulless and pedestrian making music for the tourists can be, it is teeming with people that want New Orleans to survive and are willing to go out of their way to experience something they almost lost. You go where there is work. And there is demand even if it is in the tourists’ New Orleans. There is pride on Bourbon Street.

A man who knows a thing or two about pride (though you don’t think he would ever make his way to Bourbon Street before Fat Tuesday) is our man Albert. Chief is still trying to get his people back together for a practice and struggling to do so. And, yet, he is calm. He works as a contractor building homes with people that want to take shortcuts. And, yet, he is calm. His son barely wants to stick around and help him out, insisting they leave New Orleans for Houston. His tools are stolen and electrician is really, really slow to act. And, yet, he is calm. There’s a serenity about him that, on the surface, appears to be that of a common trope: the sage minority elder facing troubling times. But you know a passion lies underneath and an anger for his fellow man is brewing. If you don’t, then the scene where he finds a kid stealing the brand new wiring for his house is especially shocking.

Did that really just happen?

He finds him pulling the wires from the walls. At first, you think he’s going to just talk to him. And then Albert starts accusing the kid of stealing his tools. The kid tries to make a break for it but then Albert beats the kid with his bare hands and then a crow bar (lead pipe? something heavy) until he’s lying lifeless on the floor of his tenement. The next scene, where Albert is washing his hands of what I assume is blood, made me lean forward. That’s TV telling me the kid’s dead. Did Albert just kill a kid? And the next time you see him, one of his fellow Indians shows up and they sing a ditty. No, seriously. Is that kid dead?

Speaking of kids that might be dead, last week I said the only thread I could see continuing was the Damo story, where Toni tries to find Ladonna’s missing brother. Somehow, this became the most boring of the interesting storylines. I like watching Davis struggle to be a New Orleans fanboy in a city embracing the dilution of its culture. I like Antoine’s journey through the “real” New Orleans and his struggle to keep a family. And, no, really, is that kid dead? But all the Damo story had to offer this episode was that they thought they found him and they didn’t. Some other guy named David Brooks. Common name. I knew they couldn’t find him in the second episode and I appreciate that the writers didn’t spend a whole lot of time focused on trying to build the suspense for a reveal. Better luck next time.

Nobody Cares Storylines

• Tulane cuts a bunch of engineering programs but keeps a bunch of language and “let’s sit and contemplate the glory of me” studies (women, African, musical theatre — digital media). His words, not mine.
• Albert’s son gets arrested for smoking weed after a gig and Albert has to bust him out
• Creighton decides to focus on his book about a flood that happened 80 years prior. Worries about capitalizing on it being “timely.”
• Ladonna’s husband wants her to sell her bar and move her mother to Baton Rouge (this might actually become somewhat interesting in the future but only because of her involvement with Antoine).
• Janette’s restaurant, despite doing good business, is having a hard time keeping its head above water financially. She asks her dad for a loan. If people aren’t waiting for insurance money, they’re hoping family members can shell out oversized sums of money.
• Elvis Costello is in town.
• Creighton’s daughter goes to boarding school.
• Okay, it’s not that I don’t care that Elvis Costello is in town. I know why he’s doing the show and he’s doing an okay job in it (the line about “not going out tonight” was actually pretty funny) but, besides the fact that Delmond is playing on his tracks, there really is no intrigue here.

Quick notes:

• As much as people didn’t like Davis, I don’t think I like Sonny. He’s the violent version of Davis’s urges. Davis is the Comic Book Geek but instead of comics, he likes New Orleans music and culture. Sonny is ready to set tourists on fire.
• Antoine’s gig on Bourbon Street is at a strip club. Interesting how long Treme held out before showing a nipple (unless you count Steve Zahn’s pale nude cameo last week). Generally HBO shows get that out of the way in the first fifteen minutes. And I’m intrigued by the strip club with a live band.
• My favorite line in the entire episode comes near the end and I feel like this sums up a feeling that anyone that knows his or her city inside and out feels. Davis is walking in town, freshly from being fired from his job at the hotel. The kids he sent to Bullets didn’t report to the housing clean-up like they were supposed to, never checked in with anyone as a matter of fact, therefore Davis’s job became “untenable.” He sees the trio later as they wander around, hungover but extremely happy to have experienced the “real” New Orleans. They want to know a place to grab a bite to eat and Davis offers a suggestion, presumably a really great place. The trio cheers in that way pedestrian people cheer and Davis faux-cheers along with them. He melts as soon as they turn around. “Now where the fuck am I going to eat breakfast?” Blessing and a curse to have all the knowledge in the world of a city but the only people you can offer it to are those that would ruin its credibility.
• Music Guide for this Episode