Of all the great TV shows, ‘Treme’ is the best

By John Soltes

The brilliant television series, Treme, which is currently in its second season on HBO, is the best of the best when it comes to primetime. Eric Overmyer and David Simon’s little baby, which follows a group of New Orleans residents a few months after Hurricane Katrina, is that rare gem in the pantheon of television history: An atmospheric series that proves to be both unsettling and life-affirming. The acting is superb, and the realism of Treme breaks the heart. These characters think and feel like they were actual locals, that the hurricane was much more than just an inconvenience, that the vitality of family and friends (and music!) may be the only recipe for resurgence.

Treme brings the goods.

Looking back at the first season, I can see why the show has been slow to find an audience. Although Treme has been coined “important” television, the plot and characters are uncompromising and, in some ways, unabashedly mundane. This doesn’t mean they aren’t interesting — far from it. What it means is that Treme spins yarns organically, and lets realism dominate. This may not be the best fit for an hour-long drama, but for those audience members who commit to the series, the rewards are plentiful. After the first season, one knows these people on the screen, much more than most other shows on television.

The Sunday-night show follows the few ups and many downs of a motley variety of people in and around the New Orleans neighborhood known as Treme. Recent Oscar winner Melissa Leo and John Goodman play a married couple who have been forced to relocate their daughter out of the New Orleans school system and into nearby Baton Rouge. Goodman’s Creighton Bernette is an angry academic who refuses to hold his opinion back from the throngs of media suddenly interested in the Crescent City. His screeds become so eloquent (and so laced with profanity) that he becomes an Internet phenomenon when he posts his monologues on YouTube. He becomes that angry guy down in New Orleans.

Steve Zahn, who is turning in his finest performance to date, plays Davis McAlary, who lives and breathes the local jazz and blues music. He is a third-tier disc jockey who likes to play the “real” greats rather than the “radio” greats. Though he was a child with a silver spoon in his mouth, he has taken on the guise of a devotee to all things New Orleans. He is so much in love with his city, much like Creighton Bernette, that he decides to run for political office.

Davis’s on-again-off-again girlfriend is Janette Desautel, played by Lost’s Kim Dickens. Janette is feeling the aftermath of the storm in her restaurant business. She has major bills to pay and dedicated employees she needs to take care of.

Wendell Pierce — nay the great Wendell Pierce — plays Antoine Batiste, a trombone player who is similarly hurting for more money. He gets some gigs on the weekends, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to provide for his family. Antoine’s ex-wife, Ladonna (Khandi Alexander), runs a local bar and is on the hunt for her incarcerated brother, who has been missing in the Louisiana penal system since the storm. Completing this full circle, Toni Bernette (Melissa Leo’s character) is Ladonna’s legal help.

There’s even more: Sonny (Michiel Huisman) and Annie (Lucia Micarelli) are wandering musicians on the streets of the French Quarter; Albert Lambreaux (Clarke Peters) is a local tribal leader in Treme who is growing increasingly estranged from his son, Delmond (Rob Brown), a successful trumpet player; and the web continues to spin.

All of the plot details are dealt with much care. You never feel overwhelmed or lost. You simply get to know these people, in both their most triumphant and darkest corners.

Most of all, New Orleans comes to beautiful life through the people captured in Treme. The music is addictive; the landscapes are vivid; the feeling in the air of community is real. Treme outshines the competition because it is able to recreate pain and resurrection in the realest of ways.

Treme

HBO, Sundays at 10 p.m.

Created by Eric Overmyer and David Simon

Starring Melissa Leo, John Goodman, Steve Zahn, Wendell Pierce, Khandi Alexander, Rob Brown, Kim Dickens, Michiel Huisman, Lucia Micarelli and Clarke Peters

Bubble score: 4 out of 4

Click here to purchase Treme: The Complete First Season on DVD.