I foresee the toughest thing for people to accept about this show is its apparent lack of plot. “Treme” is not like “CSI” or any of the other acronym shows. It doesn’t start with a murder that’s summed up nicely by the end of the hour. Shows like “Treme” follow characters not plots.
I recently had a discussion with Black Beard and friends about TV shows and their lack of focus. My friends tore down “Mad Men” as slow moving and boring because of its lack of focus. The discussion ended poorly. No one was stabbed but there was a threat of violence.
This is just my taste but a show like “Treme” is far superior to a “CSI” for the simple reason that I can tell you where the plot is going to go but I can’t always predict where characters are going to go. I love movies, TV shows, plays and books all for the same reason: I love characters. Plot driven stories are good fun but they don’t make great movies or TV shows.
Last night was episode 2 of “Treme”. The show opens with Coco Robicheaux and a little voodoo, which is something very dear to my heart having lived two years in Benin, the voodoo capital of the world. Someone even threw out the word “gris-gris” which got me a little excited. I haven’t heard that term since I left Africa nearly two years. More importantly who is Coco Robicheaux? I had no idea who he was until last night but he’s a New Orleans musician.
David Simon has always been great at casting non-actors on his shows. The ability to cast real people gave “The Wire” a feeling of authenticity that’s missing from every other TV show. I never feel like anything is real on a “CSI”. (Why am I picking on “CSI” so much? Oh yeah, because it’s terrible television.)
David Simon continues the tradition of local casting by non-actors in “Treme”. Even a significant role, Antoine’s new baby’s mama, is played by a non-actress. I only know this because I watched Spike Lee’s “When the Levees Broke” documentary about New Orleans this weekend and one of the women interviewed plays the “Treme” role. It makes sense because she was the most animated and definitely had the most personality of anyone in the doc. I think she’s meant to be an actress and so far she’s holding her own.
The show is also beginning to expand on some of the wider issues of the aftermath of the storm. While searching for one of his Indians Albert is lead to some boarded up projects. He expresses disbelief with the security guard tasked with keeping squatters out, on why the buildings would be closed since they suffered no damage from the storm. It’s left at that.
But if I’m reading it right I think they are referring to a big problem in New Orleans where some residents of lower income communities were told they couldn’t return to their homes because they were unsafe when in actuality the landowners and developers just wanted to tear them down to rebuild more expensive homes. A lot of developers came to New Orleans to buy cheap and sell high. That leaves a lot of people who can’t afford the new places without homes.
I think the real drama that is building is for Toni as she searches for LaDonna’s brother. It turns out that no one kept any records of any of the prisoners and everyone is being held like it was Guatanamo Bay. I recently finished Dave Eggers’ “Zeitoun”, yes I actually do read every now and then, and the book focuses on one man’s life before, during and after the storm. I won’t ruin that for you but is about this specific issue. Hopefully it doesn’t turn out that LaDonna’s brother was in Camp Greyhound.
Some new characters were introduced. I’m not sure how I feel about them yet, so I’m not going to go into detail but I’m ready to see what’s next. Oh shit, I didn’t even refer to the title of the blog. Well, let’s just say that Lester Freamon, Clarke Peters’ character from “The Wire”, was for the most part a gentle father figure for a lot of the other detectives on “The Wire”. “Treme” started out in a similar fashion. He’s the chief of a group of Mardi Gras Indians and he wants to find them to start again. He also has two kids and so on. Well in last night’s episode he made it very clear that his reputation is very important to him. I’m not sure Lester would have done the same thing. Not that Lester was incapable just that Lester used his brain more than any other part of his body. Albert is definitely not Lester Freamon.
Related posts:
