Fur is big. Bill Clark is big. Deadwood may be small.

In case you missed it on the comments to the "John From Cincy" finale post, HBO has, not surprisingly, pulled the plug on the adventures of Butchie, Cissy, Freddy, Palaka-y and the rest. Meanwhile, HBO has signed David Milch to a development deal.

But even though Milch is both freed from "John" and signed to stay with HBO, I don't think the "Deadwood" reunion movies are any closer to reality. This story in Variety says that the first project he hopes to work on is another Bill Clark-inspired cop show, this one a period piece based on Bill's experiences coming home from Vietnam and being recruited by the NYPD to go undercover in the anti-war movement of the early '70s. It's an idea Milch has had in his head for a while (I remember him telling me about it shortly after the first season of "Deadwood" ended), and the premise is far enough removed from "NYPD Blue" that it wouldn't feel like a retread. (Plus, Milch's writing style has changed quite a bit since those days.)

As for the "Deadwood" movies, I just think there are too many logistical hurdles for them to ever happen. The cast is huge, and while "John" showed that Milch can get a lot of the supporting players if he wants them, Ian McShane has been working non-stop since "Deadwood" ended, Molly Parker's committed to a new series (CBS' "Swingtown," though who knows how long that'll last), Tim Olyphant seems focused on his suddenly-thriving movie career, etc. Finding a window when all of these people will be available, not to mention reconstructing all the sets that were dismantled and/or sold, just seems impossible to me.

I've said before and will say again that "John" shouldn't take the blame for the demise of "Deadwood," as it was really HBO's alibi for cancelling an acclaimed but prohibitively expensive show. ("You see, we would've loved to keep 'Deadwood' around forever, but David had this idea about surfers, and he was really excited, so...") But once they let all the actors out of their contracts, that effectively killed any future movie prospects. This isn't the kind of thing where Milch can grab three actors and film it in his basement, you know?

Over at Time, James Poniewozik thinks he'd rather see Milch do something new, anyway, and I can see some merit to that. Even though it wasn't intended that way, the season three finale worked surprisingly well as a series ender, I thought. I would never object to more Al Swearengen, but I don't think we're ever going to get it, and I'm okay with that. Click here to read the full post

John From Cincy: The rules of the game

Spoilers for the "John From Cincinnati" season (series?) finale coming up just as soon as I grab my jump-balls...

I can sum up my chronological reaction to the finale roughly as follows: Wow. Huh? Whoa. Wha? Um, okay...

On the one hand, we get the majesty of John and Shaun surfing their way down from "Cincinnati," perfectly edited and then scored to Bob Dylan's "Series of Dreams" (which at one time was being considered for the show's theme song). It's a sequence at once so beautiful and so fist-pumping that I've already watched it at least as many times as I revisited The Sermon At The Motel.

And we got a character -- Linc, of all people -- finally start to make some headway in deciphering John's echolalia-riddled speech patterns. (So that's what "If my words are yours, can you hear my father?" means! Thank you!) And we even kinda sorta explained (I think) the point of Mitch's levitation: he's been floating away from his family for years, and it's not until he recognizes this, swallos his pride and asks for Butch and Shaun's help in getting down that he can truly put his feet on terra firma and engage with the world and his loved ones again.

On the other hand, we come to the end of the season -- and, I suspect, the series, for reasons I can elaborate on one last time below -- with no greater understanding of John's (and Milch's) master plan. The episode just keeps piling on the subplots and characters in a way that seems less in service to the story (whatever it is) than to Milch's desire to, say, squeeze in Jerri and Dwayne, or to give cameos to old buddies like Keone Young (aka Mr. Wu, as one of our Hawaiian visitors), Peter Jason (aka Con Stapleton, as the car salesman who, it's implied, may be John's "father") and Bill Clark (aka the real mind behind "NYPD Blue," who pops up as the Imperial Beach chief of police with the sickly dog). And even Linc only can get so far with John.

I don't think Milch is blind to how the audience is reacting to all this, nor to the notion that this would probably be his last opportunity to tell us much of anything about these characters. He has Linc berate John into giving him a straight answer about what he's supposed to do (which John turns into another chance to play parrot), and has Mitch bark out a line like, "I need to know what this is about!" And then there's John's list of way the bleep out of left field pronouncements about what will happen to many characters in the future, which I will reproduce here rather than attempt to explain, because the Dr. Smith thing in particular just hurts my brain:

"Dr. Smith comes back 20 years younger from Cincinnati. Cissy gets knocked up. She's bigger than Leona Helmsley. Earth puts Dickstein on retainer; Daphne keeps his head straight. Jerri meets a slew of new harelips. My father forewalls (four walls?)Barry's bar. Dr. Smith trains Dwayne and Ramon. My father freelances in Cass' camera."

As I said in my column the other day, it's like John is reading from Milch's outline for the theoretical second season, but it doesn't do much, if anything, in helping us decipher what happened in the here and now. (For all I know, Garret Dillahunt was just busy getting root canal work the week this was filmed and Milch made up the "20 years younger" thing as some bizarre explanation for Dr. Smith's absence from the rest of the episode.)

A commenter to Friday's post complained about my desire for explanation, saying "Irreducibility, & non-conformity to existing concepts and frameworks are kinda the essence of the miraculous." And, look, I understand the whole notion of God working in mysterious ways, as well as the one about proof denying faith, etc., etc. But I'm not one of the Yosts, or Vietnam Joe, or Barry Cunningham, someone who's experiencing John's miracles directly; I'm the viewer of a television show. I don't need John to tell Linc "I'm an extraterrestrial from the planet of Grapthar's Hammer, and I'm here to inspire your entire planet to take up surfing because we really dig watching it," but I need something to keep me engaged during the stretches in between the grand moments like The Sermon, or John and Shaun's return, or Bill's belated trip up the stairs, and a few hints about the grand plan might help.

In fairness, even if we don't know the purpose or mechanism behind John's miracles, at least we've seen tangible results over these ten episodes. The Yost family, once a damaged, splintered group with little more than a name in common, have been healed. Butchie's clean and sober, Cissy has forgiven herself for molesting him, Tina's back in town and not completely unwelcome (loved the moment during the parade where the entire Yost clan joined in unison to insult the jerkoff who was hassling Tina) and Mitch has gotten down from the air and back in the game. Linc has a conscience, Cass a purpose and, in one of the best, most touching "character unburdens his soul to an inanimate object" Milch monologues ever, Bill got the courage to go up that damn spiral staircase and make peace with his wife's death.

(Maybe it's just my difficulty in translating all Milchspeak, but I hadn't realized until he got up there and we saw the hospital bed that Lois was ill even before she fell down the steps; why would you put an invalid up there?)

To recycle another line from Friday's column, what an enthralling, frustrating, amazing show. I can't explain it, but I'm going to miss it.

Some other thoughts on the finale:

• So here's why I think the show's not coming back: it's about as expensive as "Deadwood" (minus the period sets and costumes but plus even more reshoots and overruns), but with at best a quarter of the buzz and critical acclaim. (Even I, Blurby McBlurberson, have been guarded in my praise throughout, and most mainstream critics just gave up after the first three or four episodes.) "John" was created in the first place as HBO's alibi for cancelling "Deadwood," but that's not relevant anymore. (If anything, cancelling "John" increases the chances -- however slightly -- that those "Deadwood" movies might get made some day, in that Milch won't have anything else on his plate. I still will only believe the movies are getting made when the review screeners cross my desk, though.)
• Best payoff to a set-up that didn't seem like a set-up: Shaun returns to Mitch and Cissy's house and asks Cissy to make him a "peanut butter and butter" sandwich. Cissy, stunned, asks, "Not tuna?" Maybe you should've asked him how he liked it at some point, huh, Cissy?
• So, is Con the car salesman John's father, some other celestial being, or just an eccentric guy who happens to throw around John buzzwords like "Zeroes and ones"?
• Anyone care to offer an interpretation of the final shot and line? I've replayed it a half-dozen times, and best I can make out it's, "Mother of God, Cass/Kai." Huh? (I kept going back to make sure it wasn't "bless Kai," which it's clearly not.) On the plus side, Keala Kennelly's got some moves on the board.
• Speaking of Kai, nice little moment where she thanks Ramon for taking care of Butchie during his long time in the heroin wilderness.
• Liked Bill's running commentary on all the participants in the parade ("Here's a drug casualty, he thinks his car's normal... Here's the homosexual in the hybrid... look at the breasts on these women. This country is doomed.")
• Couldn't care less about Mr. Wu and our other visitor from Hawaii. Freddy and Palaka have discussed their impending arrival enough that it's not a completely out of left field development, but it still felt completely extraneous.
  

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

I don't know Flash Gordon instead

Today's column is a triple-decker: a review of Sci Fi's spectacularly underwhelming "Flash Gordon" remake (which will not be getting blogged here), a review of VH1's "NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell Documentary" (which basically covers all the stuff that "The Bronx Is Burning" doesn't have time for) and, in between, a preview of the "John From Cincinnati" finale, which has some tremendous moments but not a lot in the way of concrete answers to much of anything. (Printer-friendly version.) Click here to read the full post

John From Cincy: Mitch Yost gets back in the game

Spoilers for the penultimate episode of "John From Cincinnati" coming up just as soon as I fire up my grill...

So we have one episode left, maybe for now, maybe ever, and while I'm engaged, I don't for a minute believe that all our questions will be answered next week, or even most of them. Milch has always been better with beginnings than endings, and "JFC" is such a messy, shaggy story that I can't picture him tidying things up in a single episode. Hell, Mitch Yost -- our main character when this story began, don't forget -- just came back after being MIA for a bunch of episodes while Bruce Greenwood was off shooting a movie, so I think anyone believing that Milch has a firm grasp of his master plan are just wishing for the best the same way Butchie and Kai are when they convince themselves that John could never hurt Shaun.

I'm actually less interested in the return of Mitch (the show improved quite a bit when he left and the focus had to move off of the Yost marriage) than I am with Erlemeyer the chemist, the latest addition to the show's gallery of familiar TV faces. (For you young'uns, he's played by Howard Hesseman, best known for playing 60's drug casualty Dr. Johnny Fever on "WKRP in Cincinnati," and only slightly less well known for being hipster substitute teacher Charlie Moore on "Head of the Class.") I'm told this isn't a coincidence. One of Milch's chief themes of the series is our tendency to make character judgments based on first impressions, and he wanted his cast populated with actors the audience would feel like they knew -- often, in the case of people like Luis Guzman and Willie Garson, playing the sorts of roles they usually play -- so he could then show us how much deeper people like Ramon and Dickstein and Bill were than we first assumed when we saw the actors in question. I don't know that it's working all the time -- Ramon is nearly as big a cipher to me now as he was at the start, last week's comic ranting notwithstanding -- but it's interesting, and it's not hard to connect the dots between Johnny Fever and Erlemeyer. (Also, from "in Cincinnati" to "from Cincinnati." Better Hesseman than Gary Sandy.)

Another of Milch's pet themes, both on "Deadwood" and here, is the growth of community. As some commenters and other bloggers have pointed out, the Yosts and their friends have for the most part been existing independently of the rest of Imperial Beach. But that world has already been expanding in the last few weeks with the addition of Jerri and Dwayne at the internet cafe, and in one of my favorite sequences from last night, we see Cissy recruit a bunch of surf kids and Vietnam Joe to join the hunt for Shaun, and they in turn recruit more kids and more Vietnam vets. John, whatever his main agenda is, clearly wants the Yosts and the Snug Harbor people to reach out to the world at large. Maybe Butchie and Kai are right: maybe John doesn't mean Shaun any harm, and this is all just a device to help the Yosts "engage," just as Mitch re-engaged Erlemeyer.

The fact that Zippy disappeared along with Shaun and John shouldn't be a surprise, as all three have been tied together ever since Shaun brought Zippy back to life and Zippy returned the favor. What sort of Holy Trinity is this: the surfer, the birdie and the holy frat boy?

I still feel like the writing on this series has been too haphazard. Even if Milch wants, like David Chase's, to move away from TV's familiar narrative conventions, but you have to provide your audience something else in place of the usual rewards, and Milch has only done that some of the time.

But the highs, I'll admit, are pretty damn high. I don't usually think of Milch as a visual writer, and yet some of the strongest moments of "John" have been entirely wordless: the image of Shaun's wetsuit hanging empty like a ghost or a hanged man; the casual insertion of Mister Rollins (the grey man who molested Barry) in the background of the bar scene; and the closing sequence of Butchie sitting in the water, waiting for a wave to come.

That's as apt a metaphor for the series as a whole as I can think of. There are brief moments of tremendous excitement and fury and magic, and then a lot of sitting around, waiting for the next wave to hit. Does the finale give us something great to ride, or does the water remain frustratingly calm?

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

John From Cincy: Get with the big and huge already

Spoilers for the latest episode of "John From Cincinnati" coming up just as soon as I organize my teddy bear collection...

Eight episodes into a ten-episode season (or, more likely, series, as I can't imagine HBO bringing this show back), I should be prepared by now for the digressions, the halting pace, the stories that come out of nowhere (and then quickly go back there) and all the other narrative oddities of Milch's latest work. Yet I keep expecting something more than (or different from) what the show is offering -- maybe because each episode offers a moment or three that suggests something grander, if not more coherent, than what we're generally getting.

Take Bill's interrogation of John. Milch has written a few thousand of them in his life. The episode's director, Jesse Bochco (son of Steven and one of the in-house directors in the final years of "NYPD Blue") has been behind the camera for a few dozen, at least. Yet somehow this felt completely new, and riveting. Of course, it featured elements you don't often see in an interrogation scene: a mentally-unstable cop who communicated telepathically with birds, a suspect who only mirrors what other people say, who maybe Jesus, and who can stab himself repeatedly in the gut and draw blood without injuring himself.

It's a hell of a scene. Bill's terrified of John and what he represents, John wants to help Bill but, as happens throughout the episode, he can't find the words to explain his meaning, and stabbing himself seems like the only way to drive home the point that he's not some kidnapper or child-molester or whatever human brand of evil everyone suspects him of being. Throughout the show, people have been unsure how to react to John and his miracles. Here, even as Butchie lists them one by one, everyone's too panicked by the "Shaun will soon be gone" message to believe there could be a higher power at work; instead, they compare him to a terrorist like Bin Laden (who himself claims to be doing the work of his god).

And what does "Shaun will soon be gone" mean, anyway? Maybe this has all been in service of making Cissy sign with the now benevolent Linc, and Shaun will be "gone" on the surfing circuit, I don't know. But I have a sinking feeling we're not going to find out nearly enough in the course of the next two episodes, not when we keep stopping for weird digressions like Barry and his teddy bear.

Some random thoughts on a random episode:

• Callback to the Sermon: "The internet is big," just like mud, fur and the stick.
• I was pretty sure that was Milch's voice on the intercom taunting Barry, and Steve Hawk's insider report at HBO.com confirms it.
• I've noted in the last few episodes that Keala Kennelly's gotten much better as an actress, but she's not so good with the monologuing.
• Unexpected levity: Butchie's "If this is an intervention, I'm clean."
• Luis Guzman has been underused, but he had a bunch of funny moments here, including Ramon's "Go, Barry, get your vision, get your number, go, go, go, Barry!" chant, his reference to Barry's man-purse, his monologue at the shuffleboard court ("Alert! Alert! Diving in! Latino verging on luck!"), and, especially, his explanation of where John came from. ("Cincinnati?")
• I'm still having a hard time reconciling Jennifer Grey as Dickstein's fiancee with the Jennifer Grey of the '80s, or even the Jennifer Grey of "It's Like, You Know..." If it wasn't for the voice, I'd refuse to believe it.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

John From Cincy: Attack of the '90s teen idols

Spoilers for episode seven of "John From Cincinnati" coming up just as soon as I order some fries at the Peach Pit...

So after last week's episode left me equal parts baffled and enthralled, this week brings an episode that was more coherent but less engrossing. I'm not saying Milch has lost all the goodwill he built with John's sermon, but I feel like I've stopped seeing the magic again because all I can notice is the magician trying too many tricks at once.

We're seven episodes down, three to go, and I have no idea what, if anything, this is all building towards. Instead of getting back in the game, as John admonished in the very first scene of the series, Mitch Yost has gone AWOL from the last two episodes (and the previews didn't make next week look like a Mitch-fest). Linc spent the first five episodes cooking up some kind of unexplained scam involving Cass (then Tina) and the Yost family, has a change of heart thanks to John and then spends an entire episode ranting about business models and playing a game of digital recorder double-cross with Mark-Paul Gosselaar. (That casting, by the way, I suspect is less of a meta-commentary on '90s teen shows than it is that Gosselaar starred in the final years of "NYPD Blue" and got on well with "John" producer Mark Tinker and was no doubt available quickly when Milch dreamed up the character at the last minute.) Palaka gets yet another pointless mystery ailment, which is largely an excuse to keep Dr. Smith on-stage, which in turn is an excuse for Cissy to worry about the hospital throwing him under the bus -- which is only a problem if the Yosts decide to sue someone, no? I don't get it.

Are there brilliant isolated moments? Absolutely: the look in Bill's eyes when he looks up his spiral stairway to Heaven, Shaun rubbing the back of his dad's head, Dickstein making a stick figure in the wet cement (a callback to "the line and the circle" from the sermon), virtually any scene involving Kai (for someone who got dumped on so much in the early episodes, Keala Kennelly has really proven herself as a worthy addition to the Milch repertory company), and the first real surfing action since the second episode (since the pilot, really, since Shaun's competition was an afterthought).

But the episode was so lacking in an overall through-line that I can't even get too mad at the HBO promo people for inserting John's "Shaun will soon be gone" -- the episode's climax, and major foreshadowing for what's to come -- into the ads for this episode. What the hell else were they going to put there? Linc yelling at Wonderboy? (Who?) Cunningham reveling in his new calling as a candy-striper?

Last week made me feel like I was floating a little, just like Mitch; this week made me feel like I was disappointingly back on terra firma, just like John in his wetsuit when he looked down at his bare feet atop the raised ground.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

John From Cincy: My father's word, my mother's hand, my God what just happened?

Spoilers for episode six of "John From Cincinnati" coming up just as soon as I play a few bars of "Yakety Sax"...

I am confused. I am baffled. I am enthralled. I am still confused.

What. The hell. Was that? And why did I love it so much?

Okay, so the first two-thirds of the episode were fairly conventional -- by "John From Cincinnati" standards, anyhow. John brings together Bill with Vietnam Joe, and channels the ghost of Bill's late wife Lois. (Bill also draws the line between John and his parrots, not only in how John's speech just mimics others, but in how both John and Zippy have healing powers.) Dr. Smith takes Palaka to get his hand fixed. Cissy arranges for Shaun and Tina to have a proper meeting, and while contemplating suicide is greeted by an apparition of John, who talks her out of it while revealing The Big Secret that explains so much of the Butchie/Cissy dynamic (while high on acid, she sexually abused him at age 13). Attorney Dickstein helps Ramon clean up the motel, then takes his fiancee out for lunch (where he's waited on by Trixie The Whore!). All in all, a mix of the powerful (with Rebecca DeMornay vastly improved from a week ago), the silly and the slightly confusing.

But then... I'm not even sure where to begin. I have rarely been as riveted to my television as I was for the nearly seven minutes that comprised John's sermon at the Snug Harbor -- and yet I'll be damned if I can understand half of it. It just shows you the power of words, how when used correctly they can move you without having to make some kind of linear sense. (Images, too, as I'm not sure I'll be able to get the shot of John walking out of Room 24 -- the scene of Cunningham's greatest nightmare -- with the greying body.)

So let me start by reproducing, courtesy of "John" writer Steve Hawk, the full text of John's sermon, and then I'll attempt to make some very small sense of it before opening up the field to you:

"If my words are yours, can you hear my Father? Can Bill know my Father, keeping his eye on me? Can I bone Kai and Butchie know my Father instead?

"My Father's shy doing his business. Kai helps my Father dump out. Bill takes a shot. Shaunie is much improved.

"Joe is a Doubting Thomas. Joe will save Not-Aleman. Joe will bring his buddies home. This is how Freddy relaxes. Cup-o'joe, and Winchell's variety dozen.

"Mitch catches a good wave. Mitch wipes out. Mitch wipes out Cissy. Cissy shows Butchie how to do that. Cissy wipes Butchie out. Butchie hurts Barry's head. Mister Rollins comes in Barry's face. My Father runs the Mega-Millions.

"Fur is big. Mud is big. The stick is big. The word is big. Fire is huge. The wheel is huge. The line and circle are big. On the wall, the line and circle are huge. On the wall, the man at the wall makes a man from the circle and line. The man at the wall makes a Word on the wall from the circle and line. The Word on the wall hears my Father.

"The zeroes and ones make the Word in Cass's camera. In the Word on the wall that hears my-Father-in-Cass's-camera, the good one Mitch catches doesn't wipe Cissy out. In the-Word-that-hears-my-Father, Cissy shows Butchie something else. In-my-Father's-Word, Cissy shows Butchie in Shaun. In-my-Father's-Word, Tina raises Shaun at lunch. In Cass's-camera, Butchie lays the court out for Barry, and Mister Rollins watches, and he doesn't come on Barry's face. In Cass's-camera, Butchie knows Kai kept the faith. In-my-Father's-Word, the Wave lifts them up.

"In Cass's camera, Bill doesn't bump his head on the stairs. In Cass's-camera, as long as he's being stupid, Bill gives Lois a kiss.

"In His-Word-in-Cass's-camera, the Internet is big. Nine-Eleven is big, but not every towel-head is eradicated. In His-Word, We are coming Nine-Eleven-Fourteen.

"In my-Father's-Word, Bill sees how Freddy relaxes. In Cass's-camera, Ramon wants to know who's hungry, in the courtyard and Room Forty-Five.

"In my-Father's-Word-to-come-in-Cass's-camera, Doctor Smith calls Ocean Properties. In Cass's-camera-to-come, my Father stares Not Aleman down, and Freddy sees Bill much-improved.

"You will not note my-Father's-Word, nor remember Cass's-camera, but you will not forget what we did here."

So, some very preliminary, very obvious thoughts:

• If there was any doubt that John was Jesus, all the references to "my Father" (not to mention the separate "My Father's birthday is the same as mine") should lay them to rest.
• If his Father's Word is theological power, then what is Cass's camera? Science? If the 0's and 1's translate the Father's Word, does that mean that science is just another extension of God? And what does that mean for the different versions of events as seen through the Word versus the camera?
  
• There were several 9/11-related signs during John and Cass's field trip last week, and here he talks of a future 9/11, seven years from now.
  
• The Father runs the Mega-Millions, and therefore sent the lottery-winning vision to Cunningham, who used it to buy the motel, which in turn is being transformed into the meeting place for all of John's acolytes.
• Is Mister Rollins the dead of Room 24, or a man Cunningham will encounter in the future?

Most importantly, what the hell did they do there that John didn't want them to forget? Why has he gathered them all here? What is John's plan? What is the camera supposed to film? Why does Linc need back in the game? What is Milch's plan? And can he possibly reveal it all -- or even any of it -- with only four episodes to go?

Faith is about belief without tangible proof, and this series is one giant leap of faith. It won't give up its secrets to me any speedier than Room 24 will give up its dead, it's so baffling that I can barely believe that it's allowed to exist, and yet now I'm filled with fervor and the need to see it to its conclusion. Wow. I wish I could explain this better, but that was something.

What did everybody else think? Do you take Vietnam Joe's last line -- "Well, this was time well spent." -- straight or ironically? Click here to read the full post

John From Cincy: See gun, Kai

Spoilers for "John From Cincinnati" coming up just as soon as I participate in a wrestling exhibition...

First things first: If I never hear Rebecca DeMornay scream again, it'll be too soon. I can respect the notion that genuine grief and hysteria doesn't really resemble the way most actors play those emotions, even the good ones, but that performance was so far over the top, the only way it could land safely was if it had Harold's purple crayon to draw a hot air balloon. (Sorry; just got done with bedtime.) If I had fillings, I think the scene where Cissy woke up Kai would have loosened them.

That was the worst news of an episode filled with disappointments. After a couple of episodes in which the focus had spread beyond the Yosts and there was a genuine sense that the story was going somewhere, we get an hour in which Dr. Smith and the Three Wise Men are absent, Bill and Freddy's involvement is minimal, nothing much happens and did I mention Cissy and the screaming? Because I really feel scarred by it.

There were some interesting things happening on the margins, whether it was Vietnam Joe's visit to the local military bar, or Cass and John's sightseeing tour. (The latter, by the way, was shot in a very atypical style for the show, and it's not like you can consider that a choice to represent the POV of Cass' camera, since many of those shots on the different film stock (or video quality or whatever) were shots of Cass herself.) And the Tina/Linc pairing is interesting, even though the episode did a poor job of conveying the fact that they were strangers when they ran into each other in the lobby; I like that Tina's just lost and confused and not nearly the evil creature Cissy has made her out to be, though I imagine Linc will try to turn her into another tool in his still-unexplained plan at worldwide Yost domination.

Maybe the most interesting development of the episode was the realization that, for all the bashing she takes for being a surfer-turned-actress, Keala Kennelly has some chops on her. Sure, it helps to play several scenes against the even more primitive Greyson Fletcher (who resembles an actual 14-year-old in that most 14-year-olds would have wooden screen presence), but the bits where Kai dealt with seeing Butchie and Tina together were very nicely-played.

I believe there are only 10 episodes of this season, which means we're halfway through. I have no idea where this is going; I hope Milch does.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

John From Cincy: When did Lloyd Dobler check in?

Day-late spoilers for "John From Cincinnati" coming up just as soon as I finish bubble-wrapping my staircase...

I have to say, this show is definitely growing on me. I realize that the first couple of episodes had to lay a lot of groundwork to make these last two possible, but the more recent shows feel much clearer of purpose -- and, therefore, more entertaining -- than anything Milch and company did in the first couple of weeks.

Things that have me happy this week include the expanded role for Dr. Smith, quickly becoming my favorite character with his genuine awe of John and the events surrounding him; the new sober Butchie, whose clearer mental state has forced Brian Van Holt to dial down some of the more annoying tics in his performance, and whose flirtation with Kai managed to be both sweet and dirty at the same time; Cass finally becoming useful as John's new roommate (and leaving Linc to no doubt turn into this show's version of Cy Tolliver, bitching off in the corner while the rest of the cast does stuff without him); the promise of many, many scenes to come of Dayton Callie and Ed O'Neill bickering in Milchspeak; and the sense that the motel is finally becoming important as a gathering place where all the characters may become "permanently associated." (Or is that too overtly gay?)

Best of all, though, was the way that John stopped feeling like a quirky plot device and became, if not a person, someone interesting. When he was in the first van, his echolalia seemed dangerous; he was baiting the guy to stab him, because he needed to help Vietnam Joe (who clearly fell down on the job in a similar situation when he was in country) and find a way to connect with Cass. And there was a confidence to him when he returned to the motel that I hadn't seen before. (Maybe he was feeding off of Dr. Smith's abject worship of him?)

If you want a more thorough breakdown of all the religious symbolism in episode four, check out Keith Uhlich's review over at The House Next Door. Some other quick thoughts:

• Well, now we know both how Bill got involved with the Yosts (his late wife urged him to cut 10-year-old Butchie a break), and why he's crazy (his wife broke her neck falling down the spiral staircase in their home, which Bill now pads with bubble wrap to protect future stair-climbers).
  
• There was a lot of speculation that the earthquake that snapped Shaun's neck was connected to Freddy punching John, but John got both punched and stabbed here with no major environmental consequences.
  
• The mysterious blonde (whose identity was made quite clear in the previews for episode five) was played by Chandra West, late of "NYPD Blue" (in the post-Milch era) and wife of "John" producer/director Mark Tinker. In more direct Milch alum news, we have Stephen Tobolowsky (aka Jarry from Yankton) on board for at least one episode as the hospital's liability lawyer. I'm just glad we didn't have to see him motor-boating.
  
• Lovely economy of dialogue: "Bill's not Freddy's first Bill" and "Freddy's not Bill's first Freddy."
• Still don't give a damn about Mitch, Cissy or Shaun. Sorry.

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John From Cincy: He is risen

Spoilers for "John From Cincinnati" coming up just as soon as I find a good pea soup restaurant...

First things first: I think we can scratch "extraterrestrial" from the list of possible John origin stories after tonight. Whether he's actually Jesus or just a herald, we're clearly being pointed in a Heavenly direction, first with the "See God, Kai" scene, and especially with the bit at the end where Linc says "Jesus Christ" and the shot immediately refocuses onto John and Kai. I may not understand a lot of what's going on in this show, but it doesn't take a genius to decipher that clue.
That's not the only part of the show that's providing me with more clarity. Three episodes in, I'm starting to sniff out a unifying theme, in the way that all these characters respond -- or, more often, don't -- to the miracles happening around them.

Mitch levitates and thinks it's brain cancer. Butchie shakes his addiction and is puzzled at best, annoyed at worst by it. John gives Kai some kind of psychic vision ability and she rejects it. Zippy's kiss brings Shaun back to life, and the only person (other than maybe Bill, who I believe is supposed to have mental health problems) who seems amazed by it is Dr. Smith (wonderfully played by Garret Dillahunt, who as far as I'm concerned can play 50 different roles on this show, maybe even in the same episode).

There's some larger purpose to John's presence, to Mitch's flying and Zippy and Shaun swapping resurrections and the like, and I hope Milch intends to get around to explaining his grand design in the not-too-distant future, but this episode at least felt cohesive in a way the first two didn't. Maybe that's because Milch borrowed much of the template from "The Whores Can Come," the "Deadwood" season 2 episode set in the aftermath of William Bullock's death. Again, we have our central family confined largely to their home as various friends, enemies and acquaintances gather outside, wondering how they can help (or how they can use the tragedy to their advantage). The only major differences: the boy here is mystically brought back from the dead, and the media level has exploded from just A.W. Merrick and his hand-cranked printing press to a wall of faceless TV and newspaper reporters.

The show still has a number of problems, not least of which are that I really dislike both Mitch and Cissy, who are in theory our main characters -- though with Mitch and Butchie's role reversal meeting at the fences, that may not be the case for much longer -- but I'm feeling much more patient and generous now than I was an episode or two ago.

Some other thoughts on "His Visit: Day Two, Continued":

• One area where the episode fell down was in giving us a good establishing shot to make clear the geography of the Yost home, and the various onlookers, so it would be more apparent how everyone could see Shaun's miraculous return to the half-pipe.
• I usually pride myself on my ability to decipher Milchspeak, but I'm struggling with all the scenes between Steady Freddy and his new "monkey in a tree" assistant (played by Paul Ben-Victor, who played one of my least favorite "NYPD Blue" characters, the overly-mannered Steve the Snitch, but who also was amazing as Spiros on "The Wire" season 2). Specifically, is Freddy supposed to be a drug dealer with a heart of gold, who gave Butchie the burn bag just to save Butchie's life, or is he working an angle, and spared Butchie merely so he wouldn't lose a steady customer?
• I still have absolutely zero interest in the contents or lack thereof of Room 24, but the motel guys are starting to become amusing comic relief in the E.B. Farnum style. I especially liked the "Animate or inanimate?" "Inanimate" exchange.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

John From Cincy: You're getting a little hard to follow

Spoilers for "John From Cincinnati" episode two coming up just as soon as I update my temblor insurance...

What an intriguing, frustrating show this is. I want to give it the same kind of deep analysis that "Sopranos," "Deadwood" and "The Wire" merit, and yet I can barely make heads or tails of it at times. There's obviously something about it that's compelling me to keep watching (and it's not just loyalty to Milch, as "Big Apple" lost me around here), yet I'm hard-pressed to explain why I'm watching, or what the hell this show is about.

In fact, I'm so flummoxed by the damn thing that I feel the need to go straight to the bullet-points, rather than attempting any kind of rigorous analysis. Maybe I'll be more in the flow in a few episodes time, but for now let's take it piecemeal:

• I'm not sure which irritates me more: the Luke Perry/Emily Rose long con that no one can be bothered to explain (shades of Wyatt Earp's "brilliant plan" that Milch never got around to telling us about on "Deadwood"), or the incoherent goings-on at the motel that lent this post its subject line. I don't know whether the motel stuff would be more or less appealing if the characters used plain English instead of Milchspeak; I have a sneaking feeling that the only vaguely interesting thing about Luis Guzman and company here is that they're hard to follow.
  
• And the extended "Deadwood" reunion continues. Last week gave us Jim "Ellsworth" Beaver as Vietnam Joe and, of course, Austin "Morgan Earp" Nichols as John. This week we have Dayton "Charlie Utter" Callie nearly unrecognizable as Steady Freddy, Butchie's Hawaii-based drug dealer; and Garret "Jack McCall/Francis Wolcott" Dillahunt as Dr. Smith, who's going to have a whole lot of 'splaining to do after he discovers what Zippy did to Shaun. Not that I expect "John" to get a second season, but it would be amusing, in an in-jokey way, for Dillahunt to come back as a new character sporting a new hairstyle (maybe one of Butchie's junkie pals?).
  
• Speaking of Zippy, is it coincidence that the bird can resurrect both itself and others at the same time that John and his magic pockets have arrived, or are the two phenomena related? Between the resurrection stuff and Cissy telling Dr. Smith that he'd get to crucify Shaun with more tests, this week would seem to put John's identity more in the Jesus column than the space alien column.
  
• Cissy and Mitch are, on paper, the main characters of this show (John's more of an inciting incident in human form than he is a character), yet it wasn't until their fight in the hospital that I really felt like I understood them, or like they were that important.
  

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John From Cincinnati: End is near, beginning is here

Countdown to the "Sopranos" finale has eaten virtually all my time and mental energy this week, so in lieu of a new "John From Cincinnati" post, I'm going to paste in the relevant portions of Friday's Star-Ledger column, then leave things open for you guys to discuss what is a very strange, sometimes fascinating, sometimes frustrating show.

"John" carries a double burden. Not only is it following the finale of one of the most revered shows in TV history (will anyone be in the mood for a new drama right after "Sopranos" ends?), but it's been accused, however unfairly, as being responsible for killing another all-time great.

"John from Cincinnati," you see, is The Show That Killed "Deadwood," since HBO claimed producer Milch was so excited to do his new show that he didn't have time for the old one. The truth is closer to "John" being a convenient alibi for the cancellation of the expensive, modestly- rated "Deadwood," but when the legend becomes fact, we print the legend.

"John" would have to be at least the equal of "Deadwood," if not better, to overcome its early reputation, and it's not. It's an odd little show, often more David Lynch than David Milch, and after three episodes I'm still not sure I understand it all.

The short version (relatively): in the town of Imperial Beach, Calif., lives the Yost family, a legendary surfing clan. Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood) was a star in the '70s who retired after a knee injury, and now finds himself floating a few inches off the ground at random intervals. Son Butchie (Brian Van Holt) revolutionized the sport -- or so we're told, since the few glimpses we get of him on a board don't make him look substantially different or better than anyone else -- be fore becoming a heroin junkie. That left the care of Butchie's son Shaun (Greyson Fletcher) to Mitch and wife Cissy (Rebecca DeMornay).

Into the middle of the Yosts and their extended circle of friends and family -- which includes retired cop Bill (Ed O'Neill), motel manager Ramon (Luis Guzman), attorney Meyer Dickstein (Willie Garson) and shady surfing promoter Linc (Luke Perry) -- enters the title character (Austin Nichols), a childlike stranger with magic pockets and other unusual abilities who's either supposed to be Jesus Christ or an alien, I'm not sure which. There's also a resurrecting parakeet that has the power to heal others. It's that kind of show.

In the early going, the hints about John's identity lead more to the Christ theory: the series' initials; John introducing himself by saying, "The end is near"; his briefly granting a friend psychic powers by instructing her to "see God," plus the fact that surfing and levitation are two different ways to walk on water. But the character as written seems more like Jeff Bridges in "Starman," a quiet innocent learning how to be human by adopting the speech patterns of those around him. (Almost everything he says is quoting another character.)

As with "Deadwood," the focus is on a community at the edge of civilization (Imperial Beach is the at the extreme southwest corner of the continental U.S.), filled with people incapable of functioning anyplace else. The dialogue is in Milch's familiar curlicue blend of the sacred and the profane -- in one of the more printable moments, Bill exclaims, "I tell you, I don't know anymore if I'm on foot or horseback, or if a bird's alive or dead." -- and many of the actors are members of Milch's traveling repertory company. (O'Neill was the star of the short-lived CBS cop show "Big Apple," Guzman and Garson both had recurring roles on "NYPD Blue," and "Deadwood" regulars Jim Beaver, Dayton Callie and Garret Dillahunt all pop up in small roles.)

But where "Deadwood" had a clear sense of purpose and several indelible characters (notably Ian McShane's ruthless saloon keeper Al Swearengen) right from the jump, "John" takes a laid- back approach to its early episodes, wandering from character to character without bothering to explain what they're about or why you should care. Guzman's and Garson's characters start out as a kind of Greek chorus, then get sucked into what feels like an entirely separate story involving a gay lottery winner and a haunted motel room. (Again, it's that kind of show.)

Six months ago, HBO screened a "John" trailer for critics. Afterwards, a few of us gathered around Milch, and he asked us what we thought of it.

"I'm not sure I understood it," said one.

"That's okay," he assured her. "You're not supposed to."

Milch is a genius, but with genius comes eccentricity, and "John" feels like far too eccentric a show to launch on the heels of the "Sopranos" farewell.

What did everybody else think?

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Life after Tony

Today's (long) column previews "John From Cincinnati" and "Big Love," both of which I have mixed feelings about:

Can HBO replace Tony Soprano with a levitating surfer? How about a hardware salesman with three wives?

Sunday night shortly after 10 (depending on how much pre-"So pranos" padding we get at 9), the pay cable giant enters Year One A.A. (After Anthony) with the debut of "John from Cincinnati," a new surfing drama from "Deadwood" creator David Milch. The next night, "Big Love" begins its second season, as well as HBO's second attempt to colonize Monday primetime. ("Six Feet Under" tried briefly a few years ago and moved back to Sundays within weeks.) Each show is interesting in its own way, but both illustrate the challenge HBO is going to have filling Tony and Paulie's large white shoes.

"The Sopranos" was the perfect ratings storm for HBO: a blend of highbrow and lowbrow, of equal parts male and female appeal, a market researcher's fan tasy project. Come for the whacking and vulgar humor, stay for the relationships and dream analysis!

Neither "John from Cincinnati" nor "Big Love" can offer that. In better times for the channel, when "Sopranos" was younger and "Sex and the City" still existed, there wouldn't be pressure on it to be all things to all people. But come Sunday around 10, HBO's going to need a new flagship, and I don't see either of these dramas being it.

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