We had another crowd over for the second installment of HBO's "Tremé" on Sunday. A freak rain storm had blew up, and everyone arriving was wet. One guest had to bring his dog, too scared by all the flashing lightening to leave at his house or in the car. (Riley and Keely had a petty good time together, but they got a little riled up, no pun intended.) Sunday's crowd included my sister L and her husband, who have satellite but no HBO.
To help set the scene, we played our DVR copy of HBO's "Beyond Bourbon Street" (Big Man growls, "I'd like to get beyond Bourbon Street!"), which is sort of the Da Vinci Code or Rosetta Stone for the Tremé series, explaining all about our New Orleans music, food, culture, and traditions.
My sister demanded we turn out all the lights and so the 8 of us sat in the dark as the episode began -- with the crazy-wonderful Coco Robichaux supposedly in the WWOZ studios, being interviewed by the Steve Zahn character, who trashed the redone French Market as "soulless" which got a laugh in my living room. (That character -- and his real-life counterpart -- are taking a lot of hits from viewers both inside and outside the Crescent City, but I say, how can you totally dislike someone played by Steve Zahn? Even when he's a pain in the ass, he's still somehow cute.) Although all of us in New Orleans are sick and tired of out-of-towners acting like voodoo is everywhere here, the fact is, everyone knows that Coco really IS into it, and so that first scene played well, if a bit over the top.
The scene where the chef-based-on-Susan-Spicer broke down and cried hit us all in the heart. The living room went dead quiet. We all remembered what that was like -- when you couldn't stop crying, or you thought you had stopped and something small and trivial happened, like burning an omelet, and then you would just break down again. And we respected that the incident was not referred to again -- they didn't try to explain it or have her talk about it to anyone. That's not real. Props for getting that right.
The street musician giving "volun-tourists" hell for being so caring about the Lower Ninth Ward post-Katrina (but never having a passing thought about poor folks in New Orleans before) was both realistic and unrealistic. Realistic because a lot of us felt/still feel that way, and unrealistic because a busker dependent on tips would have to be crazy to bite the hand that feeds him. The young volunteers did have the perfect scrubbed-face, wide-open look of so many of the (sweet, well-intentioned) Midwesterners who have come down since the Storm. (And really, God bless them.)
The Mardi Gras Indian practice scene was just right, and satisfied even those of us who, while moved last week when the Big Chief came down the street in his suit, did not feel that either his moves or his chants were authentic.
We were all disgusted by the contractor who ripped off Gigi's Bar, and we all knew stories, first-hand, second-hand, third-hand, of people that had happened/is still happening to. And we were saddened and angered about the Big Chief's tools being stolen from the house he hired to redo. And while we were feeling the anger, still, we were shocked into silence when the Chief found the thief ("copper miner") in the act in an empty house and beat him up badly. We fear the Chief may have killed the guy, and since we all like and respect the Chief character, this has us worried.
Music throughout the episode was perfect. (The Boswell Sisters in John Goodman's scene was an especially nice touch.)
The best tribute I can tell you as to exactly how we felt about this episode is that, when it was over, and we were all talking about it, somebody said, "Why don't we watch it again?" and that's just what we did.
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