Karyn Paige drops Game on: TREME

The beautiful and talented Miss Karyn "Game" Paige has honored me by dropping her first bloggy blog on Dublin's World. This will hopefully be the first in a series of posts about the new David Simon show Treme. KP, take it away:

Treme: Episode One

Karyn’s first rule for getting into any new series: Always get past Episode One before you make any lasting decisions on whether you’re going to stay with it or not. In the case of “Treme”, I am at fault for compromising my own rule.

“Treme”, pronounced treh-MAY, is the newest series by David Simon, creator and principal writer for the critically-acclaimed and socially-respected HBO series, “The Wire.” Without knowing anything else about the show, I was already intrigued by what “Treme” would have to offer based on “The Wire’s” reputation. Once I discovered that it was a series depicting a community of musicians in New Orleans three months after Hurricane Katrina, I was that much closer to being sold on the series sight-unseen.

The premise of this series also hits very close to home for me, personally. My father and his entire side of my family were all born and raised in New Orleans. They all evacuated during Katrina, and many of them have since returned to rebuild their lives there. Also, I am a singer and surround myself with musicians who strive to tap into the soul and jazz that was born and raised in New Orleans. Needless to say, I can identify with the subject matter of “Treme” on many levels.
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There are so many familiarities between “Treme” and “The Wire” that it is eerily comfortable to watch. As usual, HBO has cast its characters for the series from a very small, but very worthy, pool of actors. If you tune into the show you will recognize Wendell Pierce, who played Bunk, as a trombone player, and Clarke Peters, who played Lester Freamon, in the role of someone who returns to a ravaged Treme to rebuild his dysfunctional life. You will also see Khandi Alexander from “The Corner,” Simon’s precursor to “The Wire,” as Pierce’s elegantly haggard bar-owning ex-wife.

Episode One opens with one of Simon’s ambiguous prologue, leaving you almost dizzy with fragmented images that you won’t be sure what to do with, but you don’t mind that so much. As the episode unfolds, the viewer is introduced to characters filled with intricate complexity; the kind that leave you uncertain if you should love them, hate them, or keep them at arms’ length. One perfect example of this is Steve Zahn’s character, Davis McAlary. He plays an aging DJ who is a has-been guitarist who never was. His character is smarmy at best, but as you continue to let the episode unfold he constantly rides the fence of social redemption. Characters such as this are just one reason why David Simon is so good at what he does. He makes you want to care about what will happen to even the most pathetic of men.

Expect to immerse yourself in another signature Simon trait; deceivingly dense dialogue that stretches your ear. There is little coddling and condescension for the viewer’s convenience here. The actors deliver their lines so conversationally it is as if they are being caught on candid camera and you are the voyeur. The script is filled with authentic colloquialisms like true dat, shawty, bruh, so-and-so and dem, etc., that never feel forced. As someone who grew up hearing that vernacular on a regular basis, it comes across very true to life. One of my favorite lines comes from the well-cast John Goodman, who claims to be “as cool as a cucumber up an Archbishop’s ass” even though he is obviously getting hot under the collar as he speaks.

There has been some criticism by internet bloggers that “Treme” does not really have an interesting enough premise to hold up as a series. The naysayers feel that a series about Katrina is too somber, and that all New Orleans has to offer is jazz and food, but that isn’t enough to keep the show going either. David Simon cleverly addresses that in the aforementioned John Goodman scene, when a British reporter tells Goodman that jazz is “passe’,” and New Orleans cuisine is “provincial,” and like America is “too fat and too rich.” Goodman responds by throwing the reporter’s microphone into a canal. Naysayers, this is your cue to change the channel. Every show on television isn’t for everybody. Lord knows I don’t watch “Grey’s Anatomy.”

You will find little telegraphing and overt explanation of the havoc that Katrina wreaked on New Orleans in the script. The characters all have the underlying backstory of being survivors, and when they talk about the past, it comes across as very polite yet in-the-loop conversation. Imagine dialogue like, “How are you? How’s your house? How much water do y’all have?” There is an understanding of what everyone has just gone through, and Simon does not give it all away in the first episode. Like New Orleans cuisine, it’s got to marinate and simmer before it is ready to be served.

The final scene of Episode One takes place at a funeral procession in which Pierce’s character has been hired to play in the brass band. They play a slow ragtime march, displaying the tradition of generations and the inevitability of death and remembrance for its verious reasons. In this case it is the death of an evacuee, but it plays as a familiar scene for this community rich and elderly in culture. It is bittersweet and haunting, yet more of what Simon is best at creating.

In case you were wondering, “Treme” has already banked 20 episodes, so there is no need to worry that the show will not make it to the second season. With that in mind, take a chance on Episode One. You will want to stay for Episode Two. True dat, bruh.

xoxo,

KP