Wow. I had read the script for John From Cincinnati last fall so knew what to expect but even I couldn't have anticipated the bloated, pretentious mess that ended up on screen.From the fertile mind of David Milch (Deadwood), comes this metaphysical surfing series about a network of burn-outs, losers, and a crumbling family in a small, beachside town beside by illegal aliens (perhaps of the garden variety and the extraterrestrial kind).
Launching on the back of the final episode of The Sopranos (which I watched, despite giving up on the show a few seasons back), John From Cincinnati certainly won't be the program to redefine HBO as The Sopranos did all those years ago. Instead, it's a more turgid, modern-day version of the network's own Carnivale, which (though I was a fan) did nothing to engender the network to the viewers.
John From Cincinnati is meant to be a convergence of genres: surf movies of the 1960s, apocalyptic visions, and the family drama. Into this kitchen sink drama comes the titular John Monad (Austin Nichols), a cipher who is early on called "a babe in the woods." Is he a prophet, come to warn the town about the end times? An idiot savant who can effortlessly surf like a champion? A rich brat with amnesia and, er, learning difficulties? We're not entirely sure. But he comes into the Yost family's lives just as they themselves are experiencing certain miracles: pater familias Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood) finds himself levitating a few inches off the ground after a morning surf; family friend Bill (Ed O'Neill) discovers his beloved dead bird come back to life. Are these signs and wonders or portents of things to come? Is it truly Judgment Day?
Ah, I couldn't really care. Sure, John From Cincinnati has that trademark Milch hard-boiled dialogue, laced liberally with expletives, but the characters grate from the moment they appear on-screen, whether its the caustic Cissy Yost (Rebecca DeMornay), the aggressive faded surf champion Mitch, vulture surf manager Linc (Luke Perry), or the smack-talking junkie Butchie (Brian Van Holt). (Not to mention Willie Garson, Matt Winston, and Luis Guzman.) Yes, these characters certainly are "colorful" but they aren't remotely sympathetic enough to make me want to take another gander at this series.
The Sopranos left its audience screaming "Don't stop" as it faded to black, but to follow up the end of a network-defining drama that rewrote the book on crime dramas and infused the zeitgeist with its tough talking lingo, makes John From Cincinnati not only a bitter pill to swallow, but I definitely have a hard time, as Journey might say, believin'.
Comments
Of course I didn't watch it since I canceled all my movie channels last week, to save money for the arrival of my first child.
and why does Rebecca Demornay keep yelling at me?
I actually liked the surfer family drama aspect of the show but the rest was needlessly complicated and slow. Overally, it just made me sleepy. Not a good sign.
If I'm not at least a tad more clued in after the next episode, the end is near (for it's place in my DVR schedule.)
Ed
it didn't get much better. rebecca demornay kinda stopped yelling at me, but then butchie started, so...
I will give it another episode. I loved Deadwood so much, that I am willing to see where it goes, but it better get better soon.
I like the surfer family aspect, and I am mostly curious about Bruce Greenwood's character and Ed O'neill's character. The rest didn't leave much of an impression.
Give JfC a chance! I love the comments: "Sounds like a lot of good talent is being wasted on this show. Of course I didn't watch it...", "I only watched 40 minutes...".
I can't say that I loved it and can't wait for the next episode. I did watch the whole show and thought it was a bit different, but good overall.
-God
Nice to see a show that requires thought and imagination and doesn't rely on canned storylines, recycled humor, and laugh tracks. You can alway try Disney and CSI if you need to be walked through every scene.
that being said, this show rules. i sincerely hope that they don't give up on it. it's very well done, and even the surf scenes, lingo, and culture are spot on authentic.
if this show is too smart for you, cancel your hbo subscription.
Who knows where the show will go, which has me intrigued and I have faith in Milch. Overall after the second show I am hooked.
I honestly have no idea what the show will turn out to be about but watching this broken family heal itself both figuratively and literally is something new.
Milch wrote NYPD Blue and Deadwood...it's a good bet that he knows a bit better than you how to write compelling TV.
The extras on the HBO on demand that we have had the actor playing John describing his character as taking in the toxicity of the characters around him and giving back what they are really saying, without the suffering. And Milch talks about responding to what he feels are the extremely desperate times. So I think what I was responding to how Milch and this show are taking these people, this dysfunctional community on the edge of disaster, drawing off the poisons and presenting them with an odd purity. Everyone here (much more so than Deadwood) is accepted and loved for who they are. This is John's perspective on his new family; he doesn't overlook their faults, rather, he sees them as insubstantial in the face of the numinous within them.
In the third episode, after John and Kai return from their "boneing", they stand before the human zoo outside the Yost's house and he again says, "See God, Kai," meaning that here it is, right in front of us. We are It and we keep missing it until someone like John comes along and points it out. I've met monks like John and they'll shake you to the core with the way they reflect back to you who you really are at depth. And it's not just shit and pain.
I really believe that what JfC is presenting is a truer vision of life than what is typically presented in art, certainly in television. Not in the magic stuff happening in physical ways, but metaphorically, we're missing the magic ALL THE TIME. I.e., think about your capacity to read this post and then follow it's roots. What do you actually know about the brains ability to code and decode? How does it actually happen? Given that the other planets in this solar system are as far as we can tell blobs of minerals, think about the crazy magic of your ability to read.
That's what I think JfC is getting at, that we're missing the magic of common life, settling for a dumbed down version, an obsessive picking at our own scabs. It's doing it in an outrageous, inflated way, but the point is true, and the vision is actually real.
So, my two cents.
I know shows take a "shake down" period, usually a few episodes to half a season, sometimes needing a full season to "settle in".
Not so for me with John From Cincinnati. I was hooked from the get-go, Episode One, my mouth hanging open and promptly watched Episode Two, not able to get enough from the first. Thank the Gods for HBO On Demand. And as with Marty, the Third Episode, while it didn't have me crying, I was just stunned, goosebumps to the point of almost pain.
I'm not a religious person, don't believe in "God" per sae. But I do believe in a sense of the "Divine" if you will. And "See God, Kai" - That sums the whole show up right there. The brilliance of Life manifesting in the Universe, boiling down even to this crazy, messed up, dysfunctional circle of family and friends. That even within suffering there is "God". Deadwood has this quality too, although I think more Deadwood says that even within suffering there is humaness. JfC has a much more mystical, spiritual bent than Deadwood.
Milch is an Artiste, a poet weaving the craziness of life around your head, to be soaked in and to be metabolized into such sweetness, humaness, spiritness.
I am hoping that John From Cincinnati sticks around for its full deserved run, however many seasons that might be.
I love this show and urge folks to give it the chance it really deserves.
To Everyone: "See God."
Saddled with stereotypical characters and vapid dialogue, HBO’s “John From Cincinatti” is a stranded ship that will draw viewers in with an interesting hook, then be sunk by their tears of boredom. HBO is the network that does not know how to end a series. So now it is ending them at the beginning.
The new HBO series “John From Cincinatti” is receiving some good reviews but has key flaws.
The series is advertised as being from the same Producers (headed by Ted Mann, who also is a writer) as another HBO series, “Deadwood.” Deadwood was a violent (some say vile and ugly) treatment of the Old West and was mostly historically accurate in its portrayals of human depravity and viciousness. It appears that “John” is intended by these producers as a deliberate counter to that work with a positive message of miracles, hope and redemption in the backdrop of the brutal realities of human existence. Or, in this case, in the backdrop of dumb Californians.
While saintliness was largely non-existent or two-dimensional in “Deadwood,” which is closer to human reality, “John” attempts to give us a genuine saint in the form of an idiot savant who is out to save airheaded, self-absorbed California Caucasians from themselves by making their faults more obvious to them. Anybody with half a brain knows their own shortcomings. Most people do not need or want a saintly idiot-savant to point out their faults with less-than-subtle miracles. And if they encountered one, they just might kick his ass. Especially in Southern California. Unless, of course, they were afraid of being struck by lightning. In that case, John would probably get whacked.
Which he does. What would Jesus do? He’d undoubtedly go to the West Coast and get killed by gang members.
To compare two completely different shows is unfair. But the lack of certain parallels is fair game for criticism. Deadwood had numerous interesting characters and many good artists. It was unfairly cancelled after two seasons but probably could have lasted a few more. “John” has excellent actors, also, including at least two from Deadwood, Steady Lopez and Garrett Dillahunt. But “John” is unlikely to last as long.
And what a waste of talent saddled with empty and badly-written characters! Rebecca De Mornay desperately over-acts as if to say, “This script really sucks!” Her exchanges with Bruce Greenwood are borrowed from daytime soap operas. And they seem to go on forever, like dental surgery. SNOOOORE! Ed O’Neill has really deserved a good role for a long time. And he gets involved in this bomb as a crazy recluse who talks to his birds. Fire your agent, Ed.
The only really interesting character in the new show is the title character, played by Austin Nichols. His lines, with very few exceptions, are simply the repeating of anything said to him. Which would definitely get his ass kicked just about anywhere. The rest, perhaps with the exception of the two characters played by Lopez and Dillahunt, are excruciatingly bland. But even these two must wander through this empty drama like desert nomads thirsty for a character with direction.
The issue of boring California stereotypes continued with the recent episode which showed John being stabbed in the heart by LA Hispanic gang types. Now he can rise from the dead. No need to look for Jesus, HBO has found him. He’s an idiot in California.
The story lines demonstrate that the show has nowhere to go. It will be a show of situational scenes with John causing supernatural occurrences and nobody really understanding why. What can’t they understand? He’s obviously a person with God-given supernatural powers; a genuine holy man. But once they reveal the true nature of John and explain what he is and why, and have the other idiot characters in the show finally understand, the show is kaput. So they probably cannot and will not, even if they could. They could have him crucified, but that ending has already been done.
In “John From Cincinatti,” the hook is the entire deal. Nobody wants a good show to end, but a bad one ends at the beginning. “John” will inevitably be a long tease without a pay-off. Deadwood left their fans hanging, but it wasn’t the producers’ fault. The plug got pulled by the Execs. It’s been joked that they reached the HBO quota for profanity in one series. It makes one wonder if John is the apology to the producers for canceling a good show like Deadwood. Like they give an Artsy film once in a while as a thrown bone to Actors who make money for the studio.
The flaws are as easy to spot in “John” as the incredibly vapid dialogue.
“See God, Kye!,” John says. Slutty Kye goes into a trance and finds God in her nipples and vagina where she has repeatedly alluded to numerous piercings. Give me a break! If Kye felt a burning down there, it was no miracle.
HBO has done much better than this, and should. “John” would have done better to just have good surfing, good music, and nothing else, like another cable channel. By the way, wasn’t there supposed to be more surfing in this show?
Give it a chance, folks.
I love 'John From Cincinnati', so far.
This show sucks and that's that.
By making random ramblings and being blatently self-indulgent does not make it smart.
Bottom line: This show sucks like a Dirt Devil upright.