“Man, you could hide a dead hooker in here and no one would know.” – Morial on Davis’ disheveled house
I was a little bit hard on Treme in my review of the last episode, “Shallow Water, Oh Mama,” where I wondered for the first time whether some of the multiple storylines that interlace the show were planning on going anywhere. The caveat – and this goes for any criticism of a David Simon show – is that overall Treme is of such a quality that we have the relative luxury of being picky about its finer points.
This week’s “Smoke My Peace Pipe” was one of the finest episodes yet, and I would argue that it has a little to do with improvements that I suggested in my last review (that’s not to say that I have the delusions and belief that TV Geek Army has the power to contort time and forces and budgets and wills to have a direct impact on the show, but I think you’ll get my meaning!). For example, I was delighted that we didn’t see Delmond (Rob Brown), Albert’s jazz musician son, anywhere during the episode. His journey and storyline are just about the show’s weakest, I’ve stated before, and I’ve grown bored of his attempts to distance himself from the music and culture of his people.
But really, this was an episode where there were a lot of interesting and enjoyable and funny and poignant things going on that added up to more than the sum of its parts. To me, that’s “going somewhere,” and we don’t need to see murder and mayhem and Jack Bauer stopping a dirty bomb from going off with the clock ticking down to get it.
It was great fun, for example, to see Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn) bask in the minor celebrity he attained through his “Davis Can Save Us” political campaign and subsequently quit, bail, and cave in return for a simple “get out of jail free” business card from a judge representing a city council candidate needing every vote he can get. Great fun, but emblematic of the show’s (and series’) deeper theme about how New Orleans (and entrenched institutions) can be its own worst enemy, which Creighton Bernette (John Goodman, who is rocking his role like a powerhouse these days) echoes in a much more serious and subdued YouTube entry. Meanwhile, the uncompromising Big Chief Albert Lambreaux (Clarke Peters) makes his own stand and play for political exposure, breaking back into the projects closed by the feds. He gets his exposure and spreads the message, but pays the price, painfully and humiliatingly.
We saw resolution too in the seemingly long search for Daymo, as LaDonna (Khandi Alexander) and Toni Bernette (Melissa Leo) discover that his body had been stored in a tractor trailer for months post-Hurricane Katrina under the wrong name. His death was caused by cranial hemorrhage and noted as an “accident” stemming from falling off a prison bunk, which will likely lead to LaDonna and Toni delving further into the problems and corruption in New Orleans’ law enforcement and prisons. Annie (Lucia Micarelli) meanwhile can’t shake her junkie boyfriend Sonny (Michael Huisman) and ends up tanking an audition to hit the road with a Cajun band as it’s clear she feels conflicted and held back.
So many storylines on this show that it’s hard to give each its do (and it’s telling that I’m this far in and haven’t mentioned Antoine Batiste, played by Wendell Pierce, arguably the closest thing to the show’s man character), but I’ll end in saying that I enjoyed Janette’s (Kim Dickens) resilience and spirit in opening a mobile outdoor grill and cafe of sorts, adorned by the music of a feisty street band and fronted by Davis himself at the counter.
Overall, there was a terrific blend of warm and dark tones, great music, and pacing throughout the episode. Perhaps last week was something of a transitional episode too as there seemed to be more “happening” this week, with strong momentum now heading into the season’s second half.
I came away too understanding a little bit better that if Treme has a message beyond those mentioned already, it’s a call to activism in the broadest sense. The actions of Creighton and Albert (and all the characters, really) seem to demand that in order to live in the society that we want, we need to get up and do something – <em>anything</em>, I suppose – about it.
More thoughts on “Smoke My Peace Pipe”:
- “It is better to live here, in sackcloth and ashes, than to own the whole State of Ohio.” – Creighton, quoting Lafcadio Hearn, in a beautiful tribute to the city of New Orleans. Goodman is flat out fantastic in this role.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.