Tremé, Season 3, Episode 4: The Greatest Love

Tremé, like The Wire, is partly about the ossification, corruption, and failure of the governmental institutions meant to safeguard against urban decay and to improve quality of life. It’s also partly about the persistent humanism that grows between the cracks of those institutions: people who help each other out in both big and small ways; people who fight a knowingly futile battle against that ossification and corruption, and people who do their best to steer clear of the trouble those institutions bring. And of course, it’s also about music. And food. And musicians. And cooking. And family. And sex. On the whole, you might say it’s little like jambalaya. All of these ingredients were certainly in effect in this week’s episode.

This week, however, institutional corruption seemed to be at the forefront, because the LP and Toni scenes carried with them an extra special spice: some very slow-burning suspense. LP has been digging around a case where the police seem to be responsible for the death of an innocent man during the storm, while Toni has actively antagonized the police by placing an ad in a newspaper soliciting witnesses to come forward to testify against a corrupt officer. Last week, Toni warned her daughter Sofia to be extra careful not to get involved in anything which could land her in trouble with the police, and this week, LP comments somewhat worriedly on all of the people who’ve told him to be careful (including, in this episode, an extra-skittish law enforcement informant who provides him with incriminating photos).

All of these developments start to simmer in this episode, and the police become a menacing presence in these characters’ lives. Sofia is pulled over and given a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. LP encounters two patrol officers having a conversation in front of his car. Described this way, these scenes do not sound suspenseful, but the episode gives each of them room to breathe. Even in a show where very little can seem to happen over the course of any given an episode, Tremé still has no absolutely pointless scenes. Thus when a scene begins with Sofia leaving work, getting into her car, and beginning to drive, it’s easy to suspect something bad might happen. Sure enough, the police pull her over, and an officer aggressively explores for reasons to get her into trouble. In LP’s similarly uncomfortable scene, LP excuses the officers as he gets into his car, and in his rearview mirror he sees them staring somewhat hostilely at him as he drives away.

All of this suspense culminates in the episode’s final scene, where Sofia drives her boyfriend and LP to a show. LP notices they are being followed by a squad car. He has Sofia turn right, and the squad car follows. He has Sofia turn left. So does the squad car. He has Sofia pull over. He gets out, and looks at the car as it slowly rolls by. In a point of view shot, both officers angrily glare at LP as they drive past. It’s a somewhat tame-sounding resolution to the episode’s buildup, but considering Tremé’s sometimes glacially-paced plotting, this dollop of foreboding is quite possibly the most suspenseful scene the show has ever had. It’s like encountering an extra spicy pepper you didn’t know was in the jambalaya, one that makes the whole stew all the richer.

Other thoughts:

 - Davis and Annie continue to grow a little farther apart. Goofy Davis antics – sacrificing a sock to the music gods that rule over a former recording studio-turned-laundry, for instance – that previously would have amused Annie now seem to mildly annoy her, and he can’t get a hold of her when she’s on the road. This is a sad development, because I like them as a couple. It makes sense though; as Annie becomes more and more of a serious musician, Davis likely looks more and more like the clown he is.

- LaDonna and Albert finally have a scene together, and they immediately take a shine to one another (of course). His stubbornness has finally met its match in her brassiness. These two characters were cut from the same cloth, so it’s nice to see them play off one another. The practice session at her bar is also pretty neat, with another big chief joining the festivities for a showdown. This scene was also laced with a bit of suspense: last week we learned Albert has lymphoma, and this week Delmond finds out. I was just as worried as Delmond that too much activity might make Albert keel over.

- Some nice editing in this episode, including a great montage sequence of Toni having the same conversation with people in different settings as she tries to get informants to come forward in her case against the corrupt office. It’s all done with shot/reverse shot: a potential witness would say a line, and in the next shot, Toni would respond. Cut to a reverse shot of a different witness responding, and then cut back to Toni, in a new location, responding to yet another witness. All of the conversations are identical (no one wants to come forward out of fear of reprisal from the police), so it gives a nice sense of the futility of Toni’s case.

- Another nice bit of editing was the crosscutting back and forth between LaDonna being shown potential houses by her husband, and Janette interviewing potential kitchen staff for her restaurant. Both are presented with a parade of lemons, until they each hit upon the perfect candidates. These crosscut scenes had two things I liked, one for each scene. During the house-hunting portion, LaDonna’s husband gets the best line he’s ever had when he shows LaDonna a house that’s way too big. She sarcastically asks him what they’ll do with the five extra bedrooms, and his deadpan response is that she can move her bar into the third floor and throw the customers out onto their residential street at closing time. The thing I liked about Janette’s scene is that she notices that her business partner, Tim, is interviewing only attractive young women rather than experienced professionals for positions on their new restaurant's wait staff. So already there’s trouble in paradise, and only one episode after Janette agreed to this whole arrangement.

- The scene that opened the episode was fun as well, as a little smartass in the marching band Antoine teaches plays a musical stinger at the end of a disappointing practice session. Wah wah indeed.

- The Indian practice session had four regular characters in the same scene: LaDonna, Albert, Delmond, and Antoine. I think that might be the most the show has ever had in the same place at the same time. Although since it was a music scene, none exchanged a word of dialogue with one another (of course).

- No Sonny this episode, which unfortunately means none of my new favorite character: Sonny’s Vietnamese girlfriend’s dad. I laugh my ass off every time he pops up on one of Sonny’s dates, having a great time with them and preventing Sonny from fucking his daughter.

- Colson had a fun little scene where he got to sleep with a hotel concierge. Their spontaneous sex initiation was nicely timed for maximum laughs.

Tremé Season 3, Episode 1: "Knock With Me - Rock With Me"

Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to post in-depth about the season premiere of Tremé, but Sepinwall gives a nice summary of what makes this series great in his review of the new season. Some particularly choice excerpts:
"Tremé doesn't bend to the demands of the market. It's a show about New Orleans and jazz, a city and an artform that are distinctly American but have both been half-forgotten. Its priorities are character, music and local color, with plot waaaay down the list."
...
"The performances... are so good that the characters can drive the series whether their stories are big... or small. The music is so well-chosen, and eclectic... that the show can get away with pausing the (minimal) action several times an episode just to let us enjoy the performances. And the sense of atmosphere and local color is unmatched among any show in recent memory."
...
"The longer you get to know the people on a character-based show, the more their stories come to matter, so that even small changes... have tremendous weight."

There's no other show like it on television, and I'll be happy to spend 10 more hours with it. I might try a few more recaps as the season goes on.

Okay, I lied. Here are just a few thoughts:

- I know of no other mediated experience that recreates the thrill of listening to live music better than this show. The power of the performances on Tremé are one of the reasons that I have the patience for them. On other shows, I'd be itching to get them over with, but the music - and the characters' passion for it - is so palpable that it becomes imbued with a heightened sense of liveliness. Good thing too, as music is such an integral part of the show; it is so important to the characters that show must respect it, embrace it, relish it.

- Davis, Davis, Davis. I've always had a soft spot for him. His glaring failures, missteps, and idiosyncratic personality tics are often played for laughs (and it works, at least for me), and it makes those moments in which he succeeds all the more impressive and heartwarming (like his relationship with Annie). This week, he leads an appallingly underwhelming cultural heritage tour full of nothing but sites that have been torn down, re-purposed, or closed in the wake of the storm, and he is abandoned by his dismayed tour group midway through. The proceeds are intended to go toward an intriguing cause: a New Orleans jazz opera about life after the storm. Knowing Davis though, his vision will likely be too uncompromising to be successful.

- I continue to love everything related to Delmond and Janette's stories. Their plots are like shows unto themselves (although you could probably say that about each of the main characters), and are oddly similar, each revolving around their artistic expression, one musical, the other culinary. Compromise, satisfaction, creativity, commercial success, and the creative process are interesting story hooks that are rarely told this well.

- I love LaDonna's sass. Khandi Alexander is great.

- Antoine is to Tremé as Norm is to Cheers. Antoine always wears his milkbone underwear in this dog eat dog world. I'll be intrigued to see him get more invested in his assistant director marching band gig.

- Is it just me, or does Sophie's boyfriend seem at least 10 years older than her?

- I like what the show is doing with Sonny, but mainly because I think his boss/father-of-his-Vietnamese-girlfriend is pretty fun (Sonny's still kind of a scumbag). Paraphrasing:
Sonny: "Can I take your daughter to a nice restaurant for dinner?"
Dad: "Of course not. You'll eat with me and the rest of the Vietnamese community just like on all of your dates."

- I loved the scene that ended the episode, where Terry shares a few friendly words with a busker in a crazy getup and a bike bedecked with Christmas-lights. The thoughts in Terry's head are visible on his face: "Only in New Orleans would I have an encounter like this." Likewise, only on Tremé would we get a show as relaxed, laconically paced, and enjoyable as this.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 8: “Gliding Over All”

“Gliding Over All” is a fairly calm and quiet episode to close out this half of the final season of the series. Overall, I found it somewhat lackluster, and while still a good hour of television, probably the weakest of the 8 episodes to air thus far. Given that we’re only halfway through this final season, I suppose I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up for a suspenseful climax like those Breaking Bad usually accomplishes. However, even by the standards of a typical episode of this show, this particular episode seems to coast along with very little eventful happening, outside of some developments near the end. But then again, perhaps that’s part of the point.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 7: “Say My Name”

Poor Mike. Mike knew something like this could happen; he could see it coming in the second episode of the season, when he referred to Walt as a ticking time bomb whom he wanted to be far away from when he exploded. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to realize that Walt’s fuse is best lit by a wounded pride. Or perhaps he realizes it, but thinks that he’s impervious to the blast if there are no cops around. Twice this episode, Walt expects Mike to thank him when the two are about to part ways: once for getting Mike his $5 million at the start of the episode, and then again at the end, for tipping Mike off that he is about to be arrested and for retrieving Mike’s “go” bag. In the first instance, Walt’s request for Mike’s thanks is somewhat insincere: both of them know there will be no love lost, and Walt is still high off of his impressive negotiation with Declan (more on that scene below). Mike simply stares at Walt with his mackerel eyes and reiterates the need for Walt to remove the bug from Hank’s office, and Walt smugly nods his head and walks away. At the end of the episode, however, things play out differently.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 6: “Buyout”

“When it comes down to it, are we in the meth business, or the money business?” Jesse asks Walt midway through this episode. It’s an apt question, one that points to a larger issue the show has dealt with from time to time: what is Walter White’s motivation to cook meth? On the surface, the answer to this question seems to keep changing: he wants to make enough money to pay for his cancer treatments; he wants to make enough money to provide for his family; he wants to cook because he takes pleasure in the excellence he brings to the craft; in Gus Fring’s steady employ, he’s able to make more money than he’s ever dreamed possible; he enjoys being Heisenberg too much to let go of it, and so on. However, as we’ve gotten to know Walt over the years, the answer is actually much more consistent: Walter White is a prideful man, and both his failures in his previous life and successes in this current one have stoked the fires of his pride into megalomania.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 5: “Dead Freight”

“Yes, I have children, so what? You think because we’re both parents that I won’t let my partner do what’s necessary?” Walt asks this of Lydia near the middle of the episode, when Lydia is trying - once again - to talk her way out of being murdered by Mike. Lydia wants Walt to swear that she won’t be killed after she divulges how they can steal an “ocean” of methylamine, and tries to prey on Walt’s sympathies as a parent. Little do we realize how prophetic these words will be at the episode’s end, when Walt stands by and watches, to his horror, as a partner shoots dead a little boy, doing what’s “necessary,” for the episode’s thrilling heist to come off without a hitch.

Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 4: “Fifty-One”

When this episode began with Walt picking up his Aztek from the mechanic, I thought to myself that show runner Vince Gilligan likes that car just as much as Benny the mechanic does, considering all of the paces it has been through over the seasons. I also recalled Gilligan once stating in an interview that there’s a very specific reason Walt drives an Aztek and not some other car. When Walt finds his Heisenberg hat in the backseat, and decides to sell the car to Benny the mechanic for a pittance, this episode finally delivers that reason. The Aztec is a relic of Walt’s former life as a downtrodden chemistry teacher. It’s an ugly but practical car, one well-suited for a humble family man. This is not at all who Walt is anymore, and seeing the Heisenberg hat sitting in the passenger seat makes the contrast very salient for him. The Aztek is no longer fit for the person he is now (or the person he thinks he is), so he sells it for next to nothing, and leases a flashy car in its place, one more appropriate for Heisenberg. And then, in one of the funnier montage sequences the show has done, he also decides to re-up Walt Jr.’s Challenger, which Skyler had previously nixed. Walt was beholden to his wife’s wishes, but Heisenberg is not so easily cowed.