HBO *Treme*, End Of The Season

Gumbo party at Blake's tomorrow night and then we see the conclusion, "I'll Fly Away." This probably means funerals, since last week (episode 9, "Wish Somebody Would Care") the writer-blocked, depressed Creighton dropped himself off the ferry that runs between New Orleans and Algiers, and LaDonna was repairing the family crypt for Daymo's funeral.

I have no expectations for anyone's status changing in any significant way in this final episode. The best thing that Sonny ever did for Annie was in last week's episode when he kicked her out. Then, he told her he still wanted her, and that she should come back. Janette, kicked in the teeth by the conditions of New Orleans just too many times in one day, has decided to leave New Orleans and go to New York. But she may stay, because Davis wants her to.

That Creighton would go was telegraphed constantly from almost the beginning. I thought his checking out was done very well but it didn't have any emotional impact over here. That isn't because I've never been depressed or had anyone close to me commit suicide, or try to. I learned a lot about what it means for those of us left behind when someone who matters deeply choses that path, when my baby sister chose suicide by slow dynamite. The reason was because the more we saw of Creighton the less he felt 'real' to me; I could not believe in him as a professor in the English dept at Tulane or as a blocked novelist -- and I know both English profs (at Tulane even) and blocked and unblocked, unsuccessful and successful novelists very well. The other Treme characters became more 'real' to me as the episodes rolled on

In episode 9, "Wish Someone Would Care," again, as a Tulane English Dept. professor, Creighton was all wrong.. That was supposedly his freshman English class. The Awakening -- no novel, in fact -- would be taught in freshman English. As we did that team-teach thing in September of The Awakening to the Tulane English Dept's seniors honors students, I feel up to speed on the book, whereas Creighton's character didn't understand it. So unbelievable was he that I relieved when he finally took himself out. Harsh, but there ya are. It's tv.

Maybe if Creighton had to have to have done something, i.e. act, during all those weeks before the spring semester started maybe Creighton wouldn't have spiraled down so far, because he'd be too busy surviving. And, in fact, all our English dept. colleagues and amigos WERE working their butts off, for the school, for the dept. and putting their houses and lives back together. The weeks before that, in diaspora around the country, they were at least salaried, and so once they'd found their temporary perches, they worked on their research-book projects, because, as they knew damned well, when they went back to NO and Tulane, they were going to be so over-worked they wouldn't get to do any of that for three more years.

Now, Toni -- she's working, she's doing, she's listening. I'll bet she does have friends and family. She was born and raised in New Orleans, as she pointedly responded to Creighton's waxing nostalgic about the krewe of Momus. She was right. Those kerosene flambeaux, carried by the raggedy poorest guys of New Orleans -- not only are these things scary because so dangerous, it's ugly as hell to look at because they are so dangerous and the men carrying them are so poor. Nor are the flames pretty -- and they stink. They're a billboard that says who is in charge, and it ain't people with dark skin no matter who is mayor, and don't you forget it. Toni knows, no one better, speaking of her character in the narrative, that these poor figures are part of the still deeply embedded white supremacy of Mardi Gras and the krewes. What was surprising is that she saw it and it made her sad and sick, while Creighton, the insider-outsider didn't. That's a reversal of our real life experience, as opposed to television drama. We saw it, while the born New Orleanians or long time resident New Orleans denied, or else were shocked to have it called to their attention since they'd never noticed it.

So, is it Creighton then, unconvincing English professor/ novelist, transplanted into a fantasy New Orleans, getting a jazz funeral in this last episode, or is it Daymo, LaDonna's brother, who was killed by the New Orleans police department, whose coverup Toni unraveled?

Bet it's Daymo.