♥♥♥♥♥♥
3 Film Excess wins:
Best Original Song: The Treme Song, John Boutté
Best Music
Best TV-series
4 Film Excess nominations:
Best Lead Actress: Khandi Alexander (lost to Jennifer Connelly for Virginia/What's Wrong with Virginia)
Best Original Song: The Treme Song, John Boutté (won)
Best Music (won)
Best TV-series (won)
+ 2nd Best Title of the Year
+ Best New TV-series of the Year
+ Best New Orleans Title of the Year
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| A joyous black kid dances in a decrepit street on the poster for the first season of David Simon and Eric Ellis Overmyer's Treme |
Treme is a music drama series by creators David Simon (The Wire (2002-08)) and Eric Ellis Overmyer (Homicide: Life on the Street (1996-99), writer), which centers on New Orleans' Tremé neighborhood three months after the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005 had caused widespread death and destruction throughout the city.
The following episode run-through contains SPOILERS:
1. We start to get to know the many characters: Chief Albert Lambreaux's (Clarke Peters (John Wick (2014))) daughter and jazz musician son (Rob Brown (The Dark Knight Rises (2012))) come visit their father and attempt to "talk sense" to him, meaning getting him to leave New Orleans. Toni Bernette (Melissa Leo (Flight (2012))) is a big-hearted local lawyer, who is fighting for justice and information for the city's many struggling people, while her writer husband Creighton (John Goodman (Monsters, Inc. (2001))) teaches and attacks the federal government's poor handling of the disaster on Youtube. Janette (Kim Dickens (Gone Girl (2014))) struggles to keep her restaurant going, while her sweetheart Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn (Captain Fantastic (2016))), a lovable nut and DJ, is stealing his own records and enjoys a moving encounter with Elvis Costello.
2. Davis gets fired from two jobs. Janette's restaurant is riding its pumps. Bar owner LaDonna (Khandi Alexander (Scandal (2013-15))) continues her search for her brother Dave, lost since the hurricane, which for now only turns up a namesake. Chief has his power tools stolen and beats up the responsible kid, while his own son gets imprisoned over a joint.
3. Davis writes a song, earns some cash and straight away spends it on some romance with Janette. He also becomes the piano teacher for Toni and Creighton's daughter. Chief discovers a corpse near his house, and the subsequent burial ritual, a particular New Orleans Indian-inspired tradition, gets disturbed by a Katrina Tour sightseeing bus. LaDonna keeps searching for her brother. The vagrant-y, Dutch street musician Sonny (Michiel Huisman (Wild (2014))) turns to the bottle, and gig-hunting trombone-player/ladies' man Antoine Batiste (Wendell Pierce (Bad Moms (2016))) gets beaten by the cops and loses his trombone, his only means of an income.
4. Creighton makes a Youtube rant that goes viral. Davis writes political ideas on his walls. The restaurant has its gas turned off. The search for David turns up information on a criminal who has taken his name... Chief Lambreaux romances a local mother, while his son gets booked for a tour. On a trip to Texas, Sonny gets tempted by his old demon; dope.
5. While Davis gets a recording session in the can, lands himself a punch in the face for his relaxed use of the n-word and gets closer to his new, gay neighbors, a big parade in town is ruined by a shooting. Everyone is under pressure by the city's vast mess. Lost Dave seems most likely to be drowned. Batiste welcomes a Japanese jazz enthusiast, who is visiting the city and buys him a new trombone, and Janette enjoys a visit from a group of top chefs.
6. The bastard Sonny is, predictably, back on drugs. Janette is forced by financial realities to shut down her restaurant. Chief keeps his head high with the authorities, who want to help him into living in one of their trailers. Toni's search to get to the bottom of David's disappearance gives her new evidence that he was wrongfully arrested just before the hurricane. Creighton is shown interest by his New York publisher and participates in a parade that is hostile to the city's major. Davis decides to run for a seat in the city council with his unconventional ideas.
7. Davis drops his candidacy to get a judge friend instead. He helps Janette out with a transportable grill kitchen, while Creighton writes and rants, and Toni reaches a breakthrough in the search for David Brooks: LaDonna and her family get an apology, and their brother/son is finally located: In a deep freeze container, where his body has been stored away for six months under a wrong name.
8. Mardi Gras finally arrives. Sonny's much sweeter girlfriend, street violinist Annie (Lucia Micarelli (Manhattan (2014), TV-series)) hangs out with Davis, while Sonny fools around, doing drugs with strangers. Antoine, who is remarried with kids, screws ex-wife LaDonna, who carries a heavy burden in the knowledge of the death of her brother. Creighton is uncomfortable, makes depressed videos and throws his manuscript around.
9. With David Morse (The Green Mile (1999)). Davis plans a party, and Annie decides to move out. Batiste helps LaDonna with preparations for her brother's funeral. Chief continues his preparations for the big upcoming holiday, while Janette hits the wall as her guerilla kitchen drowns along with her home in a storm. Creighton is also down, now with no novel in sight, as he jumps off a local ferry.
10. Toni is horrified to learn of her husband's suicide. McAlary tries vehemently to talk Janette out of leaving New Orleans for New York. Annie finally leaves Sonny for good. Batiste plays another gig, and LaDonna and her family finally bury David 'Daymo', while we get a powerful flashback to Katrina. Chief's big day of 'masking', - wearing incredible, feathered costumes while dancing and singing in the streets, - has finally come. The funeral continues as a powerful 'seconde line' jazz procession through the streets of the wounded neighborhood.
Treme kicks off with a fantastic pilot, already stressing that the show has music - especially jazz - right at its heart. It continues to be ripe with authentic, often depressing facts of life of the city's struggling underclass, which is chronicled in several sad plot points. The police are, unlike in The Wire, almost all a-holes and semi-fascists here. - Nationally, it is clear from Treme how New Orleans was truly left alone in its post-Katrina chaos.
But the show as such never becomes too heavy to bear. - Why? Because of the people of New Orleans, their culture, spirit and music, not least. Behind Treme beats a love for its people that seeps from every pore of every episode. It is romantic, shocking - and funny! The tragedy gets mixed with an intense joie de vivre, a wish to come together, play music, and dance and sing.
Ironically, the Mardi Gras episode (#8) isn't the strongest in the bunch, - ironic because all the characters talk quite a bit of the festivities in the episodes leading up to it.
It is not a primarily plot-based show; it is instead character-based. The plot is a ball that gets kicked a little bit further in every episode, but the human stories are what stays with us: When Creighton's rants begin to become a bit pompous and overwrought, they point towards his demise in the following episode. Apart from him, the people of Treme are a tough bunch of survivors, and no one inhabits their character more forcefully than Alexander as LaDonna. But it is an all-round formidable effort of the part of the actors already mentioned.
Treme is not only entertaining and swinging good TV; it relates culture that is out of the mainstream, both the fascinating and strange African-America-Indian subculture of New Orleans and the city's jazz and blues stage: Several local musical heroes appear and play as themselves throughout the series. If one wants to understand some of the anger that resides in the black America, Treme is a good show to delve into. Besides this, it is magical, unique TV artistry with a deep, social resonance. A show of heart, compassion and indignation, absolutely a must-watch.
Best episodes:
1: Do You Know What It Means - written by Simon and Overmyer; directed by Agnieszka Holland (In Darkness/W Ciemności (2011))
We meet the main characters, many of whom live hand-to-mouth in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
6: Shallow Water, Oh Mama - written by Simon, Overmyer and Tom Piazza; directed by Brad Anderson (The Machinist (2004))
New material surfaces concerning the lost David Brooks. Chief Lambreaux keeps his head high, and Davis and Creighton let their opinions be heard locally.
10. I'll Fly Away - writen by Simon and Overmyer; directed by Holland
Some of the Katrina background is given, as the intensely moving funeral of David 'Daymo' Brooks takes place with grief dealt with the New Orleans way.
Related posts:
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
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