Monday, April 25, 2011
Treme No. 11: Accentuate the Positive
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.

By Edward Copeland
It's All Saints Day 2006 and it's brought many out to the cemetery to visit their lost loved ones, some with flowers, some by touch and others — since they most hail from the Treme section of New Orleans — in music. It's been 14 months since Hurricane Katrina ravaged their city, though only seven months have passed since


The season premiere, written by co-creator Eric Overmyer from a story by Overmyer and Anthony Bourdain (Yes, that Anthony Bourdain) and directed by Anthony Hemingway, a producer on Treme and director of two of last season's episodes, including one of the best, "All on a Mardi Gras Day." Hemingway includes an interesting shot immediately following Antoine's trombone playing for his friend. The camera slowly moves through some kind of tunnel-like structure — I'm not sure what — which leads back to the cemetery where we find Albert Lambreaux (Clarke Peters) placing a single rose on a tombstone. Briefly,


Sonny (Michiel Huisman), without Annie as either a musical or romantic partner, continues to try to exist as a street musician, singing and playing on keyboards until he's drowned out by a louder band playing across the street. "Poseurs," he shouts to no one in particular. Viewers suddenly get greeted by an unusual street scene — lots of traffic on crowded roadways, including classic yellow cabs, and skyscrapers. Yes, we're in a different


Sonny may be continuing to show off his musical skills to anyone who will listen on the streets of New Orleans, but his ex has definitely moved on careerwise. Annie (Lucia Micarelli) plays indoors now, having hooked up with the band the subdudes (cq) for a tour. The band's leader even singles out her fine fiddle playing and then tells the audience that they might not know the next number, but if you're familiar with New Orleans as Annie is, you definitely will. Back in New Orleans, 16-year-old Sofia Bernette, sits in front of her bedroom mirror with her

What Sofia was listening to at home happened to have been "Drop and Gimme 50," a tune 10th Ward Buck, that was being spun by Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn), who amazingly has retained his employment as a disc jockey at the radio station for the past seven months.

Police Lt. Terry Colson (David Morse, now a series regular) finds himself fielding a call from a New York Times reporter. He tells the person on the phone that they expect the four wounded to recover. "Sorry to disappoint

Arnie (Jeffrey Carisalez), the Houston bar bouncer turned New Orleans roofing contractor, picks up his cousin by marriage Nelson Hidalgo (new regular Jon Seda) at the airport. Hidalgo asks how business is going and Arnie says it's booming, impressing Hidalgo.
In New York, Janette bids adieu to a one-night stand and awaits critical comments from her two male roommates, tattoo-covered Nick and Chas, who currently are getting stoned for breakfast. At first, they

Sonny wakes up less than pleased to find that the two men he now shares his apartment with since he kicked Annie out are using it as a place to conduct drug deals, though they insist "it's cool" and it's how they come up with their part of the rent each month. Arnie takes his cousin Nelson to one of his work sites and introduces him to one of the workers, Riley (Tim Bellow), the man whose business he took over thanks to LaDonna forcing him to or face criminal charges for trying



Toni tries to bring Alison Myers (LeToya Luckett), her new assistant, a transplant from California who has only been in New Orleans since September, up to speed on her cases, including some shootings at a second line on MLK weekend. "If there's violence after a second line, NOPD always blinks with clubs," Toni informs her. She adds that after that, they bumped permit fees to justify police overtime for two hours before and after an event. "Next thing you know, they'll be trying to make the Indians have permits and then there will be blood in the streets," Toni says, waving one of her high heels. Alison asks then if she's suing the city to roll back the fees. "It's a huge thing. It's about sustaining the culture. The city's always at war with the Indians, musicians, the second liners about noise, curfew, permits...They just don't get it. We came so close to losing everything, you'd think they'd appreciate what we have," Toni tells her. She adds that she's representing one of the families in the Danziger Bridge case. Alison promises she'll get up to speed. Toni tells her that she'll spare her the details of what's going on at home with Sofia and school, but she's not taking any new cases and then she dashes off to court.

Delmond Lambreaux (Rob Brown) plays a New York gig promoting his new CD. At the after party, while chatting with some attendees, the subject of New Orleans comes up and one of the concertgoers admits that she wouldn't know he's from New Orleans just by listening to his music. The conversation grows heated when one man asks how the recovery is going and compares it to 9/11 and Ground Zero still being a hole in the ground five years later. It gets worse when the subject turns to New Orleans music itself. One of the men says Delmond "transcends" New Orleans just like Wynton (as in Marsalis) but Delmond argues that Marsalis embodies that city. Another man joins in, calling New Orleans jazz "Dixieland jazz" and a "tourist economy minstrel show," finally getting Delmond steamed enough to say, "Fuck you all. You don't know what you're fuckin' talking about" and walking off.

Antoine has wrangled an energetic gig with Bonerama at Tipitina's with a group of trombonists when one of the other musicians summons Batiste to the microphone and he actually sings for a change instead of just playing his bone. Back in New York, Delmond and his date Jill Hudson (Danai Gurira) have gone to a rooftop where Delmond still seethes about the party conversation with the Empire State Building standing in the background. "Fuckin' know-it-all New Yorkers," Delmond groans as Jill claims they were trying to be sympathetic. She also points out that she's heard Delmond say many of the same sort of things such as New Orleans music belongs in a wax museum. He says he's never used the word minstrel. "You are always talking about


Albert and his fellow tribe members load up cars with their equipment as Poke tells them, a bit sorrowfully, that Albert had to know he'd be coming back sooner or later. Poke tells them he appreciates them clearing out so quickly and anytime they want him to open up for Indian practice, just let him know. While the other men speak, Albert stays noticeably silent throughout the loading except for the loud slamming of car doors and he shoots Poke an icy glare as he gets into the car and drives away. At Davis' apartment, McAlary takes care of his version of cleaning. He tosses the dust off a throw rug and douses it with a spray, hides a bunch of dirty clothes in a closet and then he faces the kitchen. He starts by systematically knocking empty beer bottles one by one off the counter's edge into the trash can. Then he stares at the overflowing sink full of dirty dishes. He picks up the first one, looks at it a moment and decides discarding it in the trash makes for an easier solution than cleaning it. He moves to the next plate, uses his thumb to scrape at whatever food remnants remain and trashes it as well. Finally, he grabs the whole stack of dirty dishes and dumps all of them into the garbage. He does a half-hearted job at making the bed, sprays the apartment some more and straightens the kitchen table, blowing dust off it, wiping it briefly and tossing the dustcloth as far as he can.

Arnie drives Nelson downtown for a meeting with powerful banker C.J. Liguori. The name means nothing to Arnie, but Nelson describes him as "one of the powers behind the throne, a kingmaker." Understandably, Arnie asks how Nelson would know such a person, but Hidalgo says he's "a friend of my friends." Arnie inquires if this C.J. "whatever" is really going to make Nelson a king, but Nelson just winks. At the banker's office, the large assortment of plaques, photos and awards adorning C.J.'s wall enthralls Nelson until he addresses Liguori (Dan Ziskie) about his family, which is very large. Nelson admits he has no kids yet, but that he comes from a large family himself — Hidalgo resides as the exact middle child of 13 kids, with six older and six younger siblings.


Davis tinkers on his piano at composing a new song when Annie walks in and he greets her with a "Hey" and gets a "Hey you" back. Davis tells Annie how glad he is to see her and she concurs before they share a long embrace. Not only has Davis been able to hold on to his D.J. job for seven months, it appears what looked like the start of a tenuous relationship at the end of season one has held up as well, only it looks in much better shape than the job. He asks how the tour went and Annie says it was awesome — they even let her jam with them during their set every Saturday night. Davis asks if any of the guys hit on her, but Annie insists they were "perfect gentlemen" though Davis is skeptical since he knows most of them and their horndog ways, but he does have faith in Annie to resist if they tried. Despite Davis's haphazard effort at the job, Annie turns, quite seriously, and says, "Davis, you cleaned for me." He points out that it sort of smells like a free meadow.

Now homeless again, Albert and his friends arrive at his home. Lambreaux unchains the gate and steps inside the darkened structure which remains much like the last time he laid eyes on it. The unmoving ceiling fan hangs motionless above them. LaDonna comes home and Larry (Lance E. Nichols) turns on the bedside lamp and reaches for the remote control until he hears her say from the other room, "You're not going to turn on the TV, are you?" He quickly puts the remote back down with the expression of a kid caught doing something he shouldn't and says, "No." Larry says to remember to thank her mother for taking the boys. LaDonna tells him her mom didn't want to stay over. She just wanted to check out Daymo's grave and visit a bit before heading back to Baton Rouge. LaDonna brings them both glasses of water and tells her husband she

"You've got to spread joy up to the maximum/Bring gloom down to the minimum/Have faith or pandemonium's/Liable to walk upon the scene," is where we come in on the lyrics to the song that gives this episode its title, currently being sung by Annie, John Boutte and two other musicians sitting on stools at The Spotted Cat Music Club with Annie occasionally bringing out her violin while others strum a guitar and play a trombone right after the lyric "Don't


At home, Toni looks disturbed to find that Sofia has followed her late father's path with an angry YouTube rant, complete with Creighton's expletives that Toni's uncertain she likes hearing her teenage daughter broadcasting to the world over the Internet. Back at The Spotted Cat, Annie, Boutte and the other musicians have moved off their stools to perform a standing set at the same club and Sonny somehow has horned into the performance on guitar. By this time though, Davis has arrived to wach his woman perform. Annie's violin solo brings a big grin to Davis' face. At the song's completion, Annie politely tells Sonny, "That was nice," shakes his hand and quickly says, "See ya" and heads to Davis. They hug and she says it must be rough on Sonny, so Davis goes to talk to him. He tells him about her coming off a tour with the subdudes and how great she's doing. "The sky's the limit," Sonny says. Davis says it was good to see him and heads back to Annie as Sonny takes a big swig of his beer.

Nelson shows up at his cousin's work site in a spiffy rental car and catches Arnie having trouble giving instructions to his crew. Hidalgo tells him they can't understand him because his Spanish sucks, but he wants to take him to lunch. Arnie suggests a dive, but Nelson remind him that he's in New Orleans with a reputation for great food. Besides, he's heard of a place. Already having lunch are Lt. Colson and Toni, disagreeing over the details of a shooting. Toni says the only people firing were cops and Terry wants to know how she could possibly know that and she just gives him a look that reads, "Come on now." Colson says he guesses it will all get sorted out. She asks him when the police

The lunch does not disappoint Nelson who asks Arnie why he didn't tell him about the city earlier, but Arnie insists he's been urging him to come down for six months. Hidalgo asks his cousin where's a good spot for them to hear some good music that night "because there's more to life than money." Yes, indeed. There's


Annie, with Davis at her side, actually watches a performance for a change instead of giving one as the couple takes in a show at Tipitina's. "How do they put that all together?" she asks Davis as the varied styles of Galactic, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Juvenile merge together to play. "This is New Orleans, we put everything together," Davis tells her. "Do you know what gumbo ya-ya really means? Everyone talks at once." The jam they're listening to mixes rap with more traditional jazz instruments. Davis encourages Annie to play with the rapper, sometime, but she doesn't think so. In New York, Janette sits at a bar, drinking alone and looking around, almost as is if she might be looking for "take out" again.
On the street, Sonny stands behind a police line listening to Baby Boyz Brass Band really bring it on to the enjoyment of passing pedestrians, who drop donations their way. Also in the crowd is the boy Robert from the show's opening, still struggling with his trumpet. A man asks how long he's been playing and Robert says two months, but it's hard. The man reassures him it will get easier. The music begins to be drowned out by the wail of sirens and flashing lights can be seen in the distance. Lt. Colson arrives and asks the detective already on the scene what he knows. "Straight up robbery. Two kids on bikes, a little slow picking up her purse," the detective reports. Colson takes the slow walk to the victim lying dead in the street. He stares down for a moment before crouching for a closer look. He then hears the trumpet. He stands and spots Robert. "Kid, there's a curfew. What the fuck are you doing? Go home."

*Hat tip to Dave Walker's Treme explained column at the Times-Picayune for clearing that up for me.
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Labels: Clarke Peters, D. Morse, David Simon, HBO, Kim Dickens, Melissa Leo, Oscars, Overmyer, The Wire, Treme, TV Recap, Wendell Pierce, Zahn
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Morse and Leo's chemistry is so good I keep arguing with myself about whether or not there's a new romantic undercurrent there.
I don't think there could be. We know she's not healed and got Sofia to deal with and I'm not sure what his family situation is beyond having a son. Is there a Mrs. Colson? Beyond that, I think their two professions would just keep them butting heads too often, just as we see in an upcoming episode where he doesn't want to be perceived by his fellow cops as being her helper since she's sued so many of them.
I am glad though that Annie has been paired with Davis. I never disliked her, just her story last year but now it's so much easier to like her character since she's not tethered to Sonny.
I loved to see Davis' unadulterated joy when he watches and listens to Annie as opposed to Sonny's simmering resentment. That's the difference to me. If she can't be with someone as talented, she should be with someone who loves her for her talent. When has "you cleaned for me" ever been so sweet?
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