'John From Cincinnati': That vision thing

The current issue of Outside magazine features Brian Van Holt, who plays Butchie Yost, on the cover, and inside, writer Jon Cohen pays on on-set visit to talk about the mystique of the show with David Milch. Milch, in explaining the title character, tells Cohen: "'John purifies intentions,' Milch tells me at one point, likening the character to a mirror others can peer into and see themselves. 'If I could explain it fully, I wouldn't have to tell this story.'"

This quote, to me, is less than comforting. So Milch is working out some creative issues, and we get to see the process? That's...interesting, I suppose. But I'm not so sure how rewarding it is to the viewer. The most recent episode moves the plot along, yes, but Milch's modus operandi of doing so without elucidating any of the characters' motives is increasingly maddening.

Shaun, resurrected from the brain-dead by a parakeet, returns home and a resulting swarm of reporters sets up camp out front. In the quickest case of cabin fever ever, Shaun, with the oh-so-clearheaded permission of his dad, journeys out to the backyard to skateboard on a half-pipe. Cissy, fearful of him breaking his neck for the second time in six hours, loses her mind and shrieks at Butchie, who responds to his mother's anger by shooting up heroin.

For most of the episode, Mitch is unaware of Shaun's recovery, mourning by tooling around in a sports car with the mildly malevolent filmmaker Cass. When he hears that the kid is in one piece, he heads home but becomes too embroiled in his own drama with Cissy to actually see his grandson. He flees the press through the backyard, impaling the underside of his knee on a nail on the fence. Nothing like a little stigmata to put family troubles in perspective.

The most intriguing scene in the episode was the first inkling of what kind of powers John is capable of unleashing. In an appropriately bizarro courting of surf shop employee Kai (surfer Keala Kennelly, who played herself in Blue Crush) they retire to her trailer where he tell her she'll "see God" -- and then promptly conks her out with a series of visions that show what the rest of the characters in the show are up to at the very moment.

Does any of it make sense? No. Is it ever going to? The only possible coherent outcome I see at this point is the entire show is a drug-induced fever dream of Butchie's, setting up for a St. Elsewhere-style paint-yourself-into-a-corner finale. But maybe I don't have my intentions purified just yet.

(Photo courtesy HBO)

Comments

[Ben Brown]

I have developed a Primer and Alphametrical Pi configuration which from the phrase "The End Is Near" translates to "GRANTS PASS HIV CODE & BAD EF (electronic frequency) BURNS EARTH SEED".

[Steve Wimer]

This is HBO at its worst. Whoever heard of a junkie that doesn't nod? Whoever heard of a junkie that thinks about anything else besides a fix? Where is the dramatic tension? Levitation? C'mon now! This show simply doesn't work. What is the theme? It certainly isn't about surfing! Shame on Steve Hawk and Herbie Fletcher for selling out and working with these morons.

[Jeff Reasoner]

You are being way to kind. I tried watching the first 3 shows - as a surfer I gave it a huge chance, but this show is hard to watch, hard to get into. As you implied its an incoherent mess.

Imagine this: you never heard of the show, never heard of any of the actors and someone hands you a dvd and says watch it and tell me what you think.

I imagine your article would much different and much less kind.

[toddsputnik]

"Cissy, fearful of him breaking his neck for the second time in six hours, loses her mind and shrieks at Butchie, who responds to his mother's anger by shooting up heroin."

Twin Peaks, despite its seemingly endless parade of non-sequiturs, was visually interesting, visceral and had interestingly cryptic characters. This show recycles Kem Nunn's surf noir into a bleached out version of Six Feet Under. If HBO is looking for a successor to the fascinating dark narcissism of David Chase & the Sopranos, this ain't it. David Milch is the product of mainstream television and his creative vision is limited by analog, when the rest of the world has become digital.

[Max Edison]

Nobody in this great land of America gives a damn about surfers. We regard them as self-indulgent losers, a lunatic fringe element. If HBO doesn't get its act together, I'm out of here. I'm not paying $15 a month for a bunch of crappy movies that are shown 100 times a week.