John From Cincinnatti (spoilers) Latest: Cancelled!

[JoeHova]

The kid that plays Shaun isn't an actor, he's a surfer. That probably explains his poor acting. However, plenty of real 13 year old kids also seem pretty brain-dead so his lack of acting ability kind of fits the show (I always thought the same thing about AJ on the Sopranos). The actor who plays Kai is also a world-renowned surfer, btw.

 

Anyway, about the last episode (spoilers), we find out that the Grandma accidentally(?) molested Butchie when he was 13. But I couldn't really figure out what John was saying about the lottery winner also being molested. Did he say that Butchie somehow helped that guy (I assume the corpse that John removed from room #24 was the molestor) molest the lottery winner?

 

I think the show is really picking up steam, but I am also curious about where they could possibly be going with this. I don't think John turns out to be Jesus, just because I don't see it being that kind of meta-show. So far everything is centered on the Yost's and there hasn't been one character who is not intimately connected to that family (well, maybe the doctor). From what I understand about Jesus, he wasn't so specific in his interest.

[TheCrew07]

Season Finale tonight, anyone else looking forward to it?

[gypcasino]

Season Finale tonight, anyone else looking forward to it?

 

It's about time. I really dislike this show even though I haven't stopped watching. It's not good. For the same reasons as AndThat mentioned before. De Mornay's character annoys the hell out of me the most. I think the only character I like is Steady Freddy. And Cass, only because I think she's really hot. And the girl that plays Kai does a pretty good job considering she's a surfer and not an actress.

[BuckyTuba]

i'm reading a lot of reports that they are going to cancel JFC.

 

the finale was really messed up and didn't really solve many issues from the first season, in fact it complicated a couple things. the addition of the hawaiian mobsters just made things more messy.

 

the show has too many characters and not enough plot resolution. it's still a visually beautiful show with one of the best opening sequences.

[And That]

What bothers me most about John from Cincinnati is that I have to watch each show twice - not because it was very enjoyable or because I want to catch some plot intricateness that I missed out on the first time around - but because I have no idea what is going on. The show is a jumbled mess. Too many characters, too many needless little plots. Deadwood balanced a number of characters and storylines well for the most part, JFC does not.

 

I did find Linc's conversation with John from last night's episode very interesting, but the show's promo stated something like, "All your questions will be answered." They certainly weren't. The ending just made me more confused and frankly, I don't care if they renew it or not.

[gypcasino]

not because it was very enjoyable or because I want to catch some plot intricateness that I missed out on the first time around - but because I have no idea what is going on.

Yeah, exactly. Don't get me wrong. I don't need to be clubbed over the head with obviousness and explanations but come on. Make a little bit of sense once in awhile. It's like every episode is the same. I could forgive lack of coherence if the characters were more likable but most of them just annoy me.

[dpapo]

The following is from Steve Hawk who is a writer and surf consultant for John From Cincinnati. The following did help me understand a few things better, though I have to say I was disappointed in the season finale as well. I tried to replace any swear words in the article with words that have similar meanings or just placed (darn) parenthesises http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Inside the Episode

With Steve Hawk

 

The Future Tense of Joy

 

David Milch, JFC's executive producer and head writer, likes to talk about the many ways in which the future continuously reinterprets the meaning of the past. In that context he often quotes a poem by his mentor, Robert Penn Warren: "This is the process whereby pain of the past in its pastness / May be converted into the future tense / Of joy."

 

That concept came to life several times over the course of the first season of JFC, but perhaps never more so than in this episode when Butchie (Brian Van Holt), Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay) and Shaun (Greyson Fletcher) leave the Snug Harbor Hotel together to help Mitch (Bruce Greenwood), who's back at the Yost house, levitating to the ceiling. As the three generations of Yosts climb into Cissy's car to drive away, John smiles and says, "Meet the Jetsons."

 

John's recalling a moment from the show's first episode, after Butchie challenged his father, Mitch, to a fistfight and in anger said to John, "You want to meet a happy family, watch the Saturday morning cartoons, John. Meet the (darn) Jetsons." To which John replied, in his parrot-like fashion, "Meet the (darn) Jetsons."

 

Here, eight days later, the meaning of that line has been reversed: Butchie is joining his mother and his son on a mission to help his father. And thus the future reinterprets the meaning of the past, and the pain of the past is converted into joy - or at least something approaching it.

 

A Shepherd Without Crook or Understanding

 

The scene in which Linc (Luke Perry), Jake (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and John (Austin Nichols) buy an El Camino from the Dealer (Peter Jason) at the Cherry Oldies car lot is probably the most important puzzle-solving moment of the season. It's not my place to provide a line-by-line interpretation, but I can say this: If you sensed that the car-buying sequence provides some clues about why John has come to Imperial Beach -- and about the show's fundamental cosmology and intent -- trust your instincts. Here's a transcript, with narrative from the original script:

 

EXT. CHERRY OLDIES USED CAR SALES - DAY

 

Linc and Jake and John with the owner/operator of Cherry Oldies Used Car Sales. The Dealer's appearance invokes P.T. Barnum's trustworthiness, and his manner Chicken Little's hurried angst --

 

DEALER: I feel that you boys are ready for this Camino ....

 

LINC: (Includes Jake) Between the two of us we own more cars than you have on this lot. My guess is that your feeling's probably right.

 

Linc meant to put the Dealer off his pitch and thereby abbreviate their business; instead the Dealer bridles --

 

DEALER: That's not what I mean by ready - number of vehicles owned.

 

Jake and Linc tag-team their message of impatience --

 

JAKE: What do you mean, Pops?

 

LINC: We got to, uh, boogie.

 

The Dealer comes over their top --

 

DEALER: Oh, so I've got to know what I mean before I can have a feeling. Do I have to know that you'll understand me? Do you have to know you'll understand before you'll listen?

 

Which appears to put Jake in a different, passive state --

 

DEALER (to Linc): Twenty-five cars between you -- you should've let me sit down before you told me. I got that many dealerships in each of that many sectors, and brands on god (darn) franchise. I've got to boogie, me.

 

John indicates the Dealer, in whose rhythms and accents he reproaches Linc and Jake for their failure to take the Dealer's premise on its face --

 

JOHN: He feels you're ready for the Camino.

 

Where Jake's gone, Linc has now gone too --

 

DEALER (to John) You're off-line now, Country.

 

JOHN: I don't know Butchie instead.

 

DEALER: (To Linc and Jake, re John) How's he for high-performance? And he ain't who's worst-underpowered.

 

If the Dealer had suspenders he'd flex them to indicate who he means --

 

DEALER: Intrusions, evanescences - I'm a shepherd without crook or understanding. Fits and stops and starts. Waves and ripples and ramifications. Busted knee, mother-son handjob .... Christ, Jesus Christ Jesus Christ.

 

The Dealer's tight smile is not fully persuasive --

 

DEALER: Crosses and shoulders to bear 'em.

 

He smacks his hand on the El Camino --

 

DEALER: El Camino, fifteen thousand, as is.

 

Linc and Jake have regained their faculties --

 

LINC: Is it gassed?

 

JOHN: Darn-A right it's gassed Linc.

 

As John puts on the counter the fifteen thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills which has materialized in his pocket the Dealer's stern gaze goes to Linc --

 

DEALER: You and your twenty-five cars. Circle and line on the wall, and zeros and god (darn) ones, is what to turn the both of your gifts to --

 

The Dealer's "both" appears to include Jake --

 

DEALER: -- and not one damn minute to waste.

 

JOHN: Ragheads are going to get themselves eradicated.

 

DEALER: (vigorously interrupting John) Country, I took you off-line. (calling off camera, re El Camino) Manuel, get a cage on this thing.

 

John leans over the hood of the El Camino and employs the entirety of his wingspan to offer it a hug. Off which --

 

Why I Don't Come Up Here

 

If Linc and Jake's encounter with the car dealer is pivotal for its code-cracking aspect, the season's most powerful emotional moment (to me, anyway), comes at the end of this episode, when Bill (Ed O'Neill) finally works up the nerve to return to his late wife's sick room. Bill's soliloquy contains one of Milch's trademark "watch what people do, not what they say" moments. "Safely returned, happy outcome," Bill says as he shares the good news with Lois that Shaun has come home. But listen to his voice and look at his face - he's clearly on the verge of breaking down from his continuing sadness and loneliness over the loss of his wife.

 

It could be argued that Bill's final scene, in terms of its artistic import, is more representative than the car-lot scene in communicating the central point of JFC: to move viewers in ways that not only surprise, but also sometimes fail to rise to the level of consciousness. I know not everyone felt the same gut-punch that I did from Bill's speech or Zippy the parrot's sudden return, but if that scene got to you, ask yourself this: when's the last time you teared up because a bird flew in a window?

 

The World's Best Skateboarder

 

The red-shirted skateboarder who appears a few times toward the end of the episode is street-skating legend Rodney Mullen, who gets my vote as the best skateboarder in history. Today, in his early 40s, he still rides better than anyone. He's also without doubt the most kind-hearted skater I've ever met. I've known Rodney since he was a teenager, and I invited him to meet Milch last summer. At the time, we thought the John character might do some skateboarding in the show, and Rodney agreed to help train Austin Nichols, who plays John.

 

Rodney and Milch hit it off, and Rodney ended coming in for several visits. It was a pretty big deal when he agreed to appear as a background skateboarder in the season finale, because Rodney almost never skates in public anymore. He prefers to ride in isolation around the streets of Los Angeles from midnight to daybreak.

 

When he began performing tricks on the set in Imperial Beach, it nearly stopped production. His skateboard talents are otherworldy - combination ice skater, gymnast and punk - and people can't help but watch. While we were shooting the scene in which Bill is handcuffed, Paula Malcomson, who plays Jerri, stood transfixed by Rodney's skating. "When I watch him," she said, "I just feel so ... happy."

 

The End is Near

 

One of Milch's favorite themes, given voice throughout the first season of JFC, is that mankind's perceived differences and estrangements are both illusory and dangerous. He's particularly concerned about the way technological advances, in the form of 24-hour news channels and the Internet, have outstripped society's ability to deal rationally with the unsettling images that bombard it daily. Here's what he said in the writer's room about that subject during a brainstorming session last October:

 

"What makes the danger of ethnic cleansing so much more acute in contemporary times, and one of the things I want to engage in this series, is the extent to which we now reside in virtual space, and the homicidal impulse that's generated by the violation of our virtual space. After the planes flew into the World Trade Center, we were subjected to the stimuli of those images in our virtual space over and over and over again. And because of the way we're set up physiologically, we experience those as continuous ongoing attacks. They predispose us to a violence toward the people whom we take as the perpetrators, because we can't individuate. And because of the way we receive information, we identify the attackers as Ragheads. Our willingness to respond in a genocidal fashion, I think, is not to be underestimated, and that's one of the reasons that this postulated force from elsewhere [John] has dispatched these various miracles - to arouse the recognition that the apocalypse is upon us."

 

Before shooting the climactic Stinkweed "street fair" near the end of the episode, Milch gathered the entire crew together to explain how the scene, and especially Linc's speech, fit into that broader theme. Here's an excerpt:

 

"Here's the thing. If you've (messed) up unremittingly for decades you wake up and you say to yourself, 'How the (heck) am I still alive? Don't they come and revoke the license at a certain point?' That's what the universe gives us every morning. No matter how far we have veered from reverence for the miraculous fact that we exist in a universe that we don't understand, every day we get a chance to start over...

 

"John is the chance that the universe gives you every day. And commerce, in the form of Linc, has been persuaded to enlist itself in the service of a miracle. Now, Linc's going to think he's bull(wasting), because no one is ever sure of their sincerity. The only way that you demonstrate your sincerity is in action. Whatever Linc thinks he's doing, however uncertain he is, he has decided to take action and enlist Jake in protecting John's identity, so that the anxiety that people feel when they see a plane flying into a building, which makes them want to kill a stranger, doesn't happen to John. And the way that commerce is going to try to protect John is by saying, 'All these miracles that have been going on? It was all Stinkweed. It was all bull (waste). It was all commerce. It was a big (darn) promotion.' ... What we're seeing is the elaborate resourcefulness of commerce once it has devoted itself to attempting to protect the universe."

 

http://www.hbo.com/johnfromcincinnati/inside/index.html?ntrack_para1=feat_sec1_title

[Roscoe Chill]

I hope the show does get canceled. That way I won't be tempting to watch anymore. I've caught every episode, and I thought the finale was terrible. I would watch it again if I thought I would get something that I missed, but I know after this season that I won't, so the season is done, and so am I.

[dlk9s]

The show has been canceled.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/08/14/television.john.reut/index.html

 

My favorite part of the short article:

 

"For the few devoted fans of the show...the mysterious final line in the season finale -- John saying, "Mother of God, Cass-Kai" over a shot of Kai (Keala Kennelly) surfing -- will remain just that, a mystery."

 

That is the part that will remain a mystery? Just when I had figured out everything else!

[And That]

Part of me is disappointed to see it go, but most of me is happy I won't be tempted to tune in again. I do want to say that one of the common criticisms of the show was that it was poorly written - from a plot standpoint, unequivocally yes - but the writers created a pretty gorgeous palette for the characters. There was some hidden beauty in a number of the lines... I guess that's why I kept tuning in. The English major in me was turned on to the show just for the words themselves. So, I'll miss that.

 

And I doubt they'll be much fan fervor over trying to get John renewed.

[BuckyTuba]

if they don't renew flight of the conchords, i might cancel my subscription. i don't care how long it takes them to write enough material for a second season. i just want the hope of them putting forth the effort for a few years down the line.