***Official Treme Thread***

How was the bounce show?

Really like the addition of the Jon Seda character this season. I like how they are showing how connected people worked the system to get rich off of recovery money.

 

dammit. Just fucking DAMMIT at that ending. Fuck.

Personally thought this was the best episode of the season. Loved Ladonna's husband laying down the law at the beginning, and I feel like the case that Toni is chasing is getting good.

 

yes

 

Interview with Steve Earle:

http://www.nola.com/treme-hbo/index.ssf/2011/06/today_in_treme_steve_earle_exi.html

Today in 'Treme': Steve Earle exit interview

If you don’t know why I wanted to talk to Steve Earle on Monday (June 20), stop reading now.
steveearletreme.jpgPaul Schiraldi/HBOSteve Earle in 'Treme.'

There’s a massive spoiler straight ahead for anyone who hasn’t seen Sunday’s (June 19) “Treme.”

Earle saw the episode for the first time minutes after coming offstage following a concert in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Walking beside Washington Square Park with Annie Tee (played by Lucia Micarelli) after an evening of street-corner busking, Earle’s character, Harley Watt, was shot in the face during a holdup.

The scene ends Earle’s two-season acting run on “Treme,” though he said he’ll continue writing songs for the series as needed.

Earle’s “This City,” which played under the closing credits of season one’s finale, appears on his current album, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.”

The title’s the same for a new novel by Earle, and is borrowed from the Hank Williams song Harley and Annie played during their final “Treme” performance together.

Earle is on a tour that will bring him back to New Orleans for a July 11 performance at the House of Blues. He said he intends to donate his performance fee for the House of Blues show to the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic.

Here’s an edited Q&A from my Monday phone interview with Earle, conducted a few hours before he took the stage for his next tour stop in Edmonton, Alberta.

How did you learn that Harley was going to die?

There was a little bit of a snafu. It’s funny, David (Simon) and I haven’t discussed this because both of us were so busy as the season was winding down. I was cranking up for the record and the book, and I was running in and out of New Orleans. I was in the last few episodes more than anything before. From the time my character shows up, I’m in it a lot more than last year, and a lot more than “The Wire.”

I had a hint in the off-season. I sent David an e mail -- I was just being paranoid and trying to make sure I had a job – saying, “Hey, do I have a job this season?” And I got an email back saying, “Yeah, we’ll work you in, but we have a sad story planned for you. You’re going to make people cry.”

I know he blamed (“Treme”) writer George Pelecanos (who co-wrote the episode with Simon). He always does this. Every time anybody dies, he throws Pelecanos under the bus. He’s kind of Dr. Death around there. He writes the episodes where people die. He did it in “The Wire” and he did in this. In “Treme,” a lot less people die, because it begins when a couple of thousand people are already dead. So they’re the ghosts in this.

(Later), Simon sent me an email. I changed over from an AOL address to a Mac address and some mail didn’t get through. He wrote me a long, detailed email at some point. Several people had already started to figure out that something was up. I told a couple of people in the cast, (Steve) Zahn, Lucia, that I was toast. I never found out from David directly. (Executive producer) Nina (Noble) told Lucia on-set when we were shooting (episode) eight. I still had not been told directly. It was just a mistake. David sent me an e mail just explaining it. They don’t kill people off for no reason on this show, or any of his shows.

I totally understand why it had to happen. I’m really going to miss the job. I’m still going to write music for next year, but I won’t get to come to New Orleans anywhere near as much. I like this job quite a bit.

Except for people who knew Pelecanos’ role as Simon’s angel of death, most viewers didn’t see this coming.

That character was always going to die. Harley, from the time they started season two, was going to die. I know that for a fact because of the conversation we had. It being somebody that no one expects is part of telling a story about the nature of New Orleans that maybe nobody wants to deal with. Even before the storm, New Orleans was a place where you had to watch your back. Ask Ray Davies.

Coming out of nowhere in that neighborhood – that’s a really interesting part of New Orleans, the way those particular neighborhoods back in there connect, between Frenchmen Street in one direction and Treme in one direction, and in the other direction your headed out into the city -- I just think that was part of what he wanted to say. It needed to be something nobody saw coming to tell the story about the nature of crime then.

And maybe that people think they’re safer than they really are.

I almost hesitate to say that. I’ve always had a soft spot for New Orleans, and after the last two years even more so. I’m going to miss coming on such a regular basis. Every show I’ve done on this tour, before I do “This City,” I say, “If you’ve ever thought about going for Jazz Fest or Mardi Gras and getting outside the Quarter, now’s the time to do it, in the next few years. Because New Orleans is important, and it almost didn’t exist.”

I do think the story in “Treme” this year is important for people to see. Before the economy of the whole country collapsed, there were people who planned for New Orleans to be very different at this point in its history. You can look at that as an accident, or you can look at New Orleans being just as important to God as it is to us. Something intervened, and (that plan) didn’t work out. I prefer to look at it that way.

So you had an inkling that Harley was going to exit, but what’s it like to finally get the script pages and read the scene?

It’s a weird thing to experience. Lucia and I had been talking about it. I went home after my work in episode eight and kind of knew by that time. That’s when I finally found the lost email.

I was in a guitar shop in Nashville and Lucia texted me. “I got the script. You want to hear it?” I texted her back and said yeah. She called me and read it to me. “It’s pretty bad. You get shot in the face.”

I had to figure out who I was going to tell and when I was going to tell them. I didn’t want my mother to be watching it and see, especially out of nowhere. My mom’s not exactly the most discrete person in the world. I told her about 10 days ago. I told my brother a couple of days ago. I forgot to tell Tony Fitzpatrick, who’s done all my album covers. I got this pissed off email from him last night when I got off stage.

It’s a weird one. It’s a real tough thing for me. I’m a writer, so I totally understand why I had to die. But I really want my job back.

Harley had really become this angel to Annie …

When Harley was created, there was a point at which -- before I said the first word or saw the script -- I got an email from David that said, “You can call your agent and tell him you’ve officially been typecast.” There are huge similarities between Harley and Walon on “The Wire.” Walon on the wire existed for Bubbles, and Harley for Annie. That’s about where they’re going with Annie. I know a little bit about that, but David would send George Pelecanos to kill me again if I say much more about it.

Let me ask you about “After Mardi Gras,” the song Annie writes. You and Lucia co-wrote it?

It’s almost entirely Lucia’s melody and almost entirely my lyrics. We just trusted the life-imitating-art thing on this deal. I’m really proud of that song. I think it’s a really good song. I think Lucia’s intention is to record it on a Lucia record. In the long run, that’s up to her.

I got an interesting email from a reader wondering if the song isn’t a play on Annie’s first composition, borrowed from Bob Dylan. He said the chord changes for the verse are the same as “All Along the Watchtower,” and that the changes for the bridge are “Simple Twist of Fate.”

The fact of the matter is, there’s only so many notes. I’ll tell you one thing that everybody kind of missed is that the chords are most similar to “Sunny Came Home,” Shawn Colvin’s song. The melody’s not anything like that.

Trust me, when you take too much from something else, you usually get sued. I haven’t been sued yet, not even close. I got paid some money when somebody got too close to one of my songs, and I didn’t even ask for it. It’s one of those deals that happen, and it sort of polices itself.

People hear stuff. What I do is not something everybody can do. Like waking up the next day after Simon came and asked me to write a song as my character would’ve written in ’05 and coming up with “This City.” Not everybody can do that.

It’s a little weird for me as an outsider writing these songs. Harley is an outsider, like a lot of the musicians, especially the younger musicians, in New Orleans. He’s the one who made up the rule that you’re a local if you survive two summers.

My favorite scene for Harley was when he and Annie were working on “After Mardi Gras” and Davis wouldn't shut up, then his phone rang.

That’s absolutely my favorite scene. For one thing, I got to work with Zahn, and that was a blast. That scene was cut down a little bit. There’s stuff that gets cut just for time. That scene started with Davis going on and on about his cup of coffee, “The secret to a good cup,” the beans, and he’s going on and on. They cut that part out. It’s just more Davis being Davis. I think that story line, the whole Davis and Annie thing, is like really, really cool. People really disliked the Davis character in the first season, and I think there were good reasons for it. I just think the fact that Annie loves him makes him more likeable. That story line adds a lot of depth to that character.

Well, I’m sorry Harley had to go.

I remember David saying, when we were shooting the last episodes of “The Wire” and talking about the New Orleans thing, that there was a part in it for me. “I don’t know how it’s going to do,” he said. “Nobody dies much.” He wondered if anybody would be into it because it wasn’t as violent. I said, “Put a vampire in it, then you’re safe.”

It’s a blast to work with these guys. I’m really, really, really going to miss it.

 

Here's another interview. It has pretty much the same content as the Times-Picayune article, except for the part below about his new novel:

 

bump for show night

also Wynton Marsalis being featured on 60 Minutes right now

 

sucks what Antoine's band did to him (not Davis though, hate that douche)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzLVKedgZUI

 

bump for season 3 premiere

 

Good opening episode.

Finally got to see Janette's tits

 

Sep 24 2012 12:24 PM ET
'Treme' will end with a short final season

by Darren Franich
Tags: Treme

Image Credit: Paul Schiraldi/HBO
Treme executive producer David Simon has long expressed his hopes that the New Orleans drama could run for four seasons — a proposition which seemed unlikely, given the show’s small audience and tiny cultural footprint. But Simon has a good history with longshot propositions, having coaxed five full seasons out of the apocalyptically-rated The Wire. Now he’s done it again: The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that, at a screening of Treme‘s third season premiere, Simon announced that HBO had officially greenlit a shortened final season of the show. “We are going to be back for a season 3.5,” said the Simon. “[HBO] fought very hard to give us half a loaf. We’re going to take it and run.”
A representative for Simon tells EW that the precise length of the final season has yet to be determined, but it will be between four and six episodes long. (As for the subject matter, in a recent interview with EW, Simon hinted that the final season would carry Treme‘s chronology into the dawn of the 2008 Recession.) Students of HBO’s history can rejoice that a beloved TV auteur named David has been given the opportunity to complete a low-rated four-season saga, a karmic substitute for those Deadwood TV movies which sink further below the horizon with every passing year. Meanwhile, fans of good music can rejoice that we are now infinitely closer to a reunion tour of Antoine Batiste and His Soul Apostles.

 

Somebody is going to die before this season is over. Colson or Ladonna seem too obvious.

I'm hoping for Davis.