"I went to a place to eat. It said 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered french toast during the Renaissance". --Steven Wright ... If you are a devotee of time travel, check out this song...

Sunday, August 12, 2007

John from Cincinnati Concludes

Well, one thing about John from Cincinnati, which concluded tonight on HBO, was unambiguous: the music was great throughout. And tonight was no different - beginning with Dylan's "Series of Dreams" and concluding with Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally".

And the story ... well, Shawn is ok, as I was sure he would be.

But where did Shawn and John go? Your guess is as good as mine.

The family healing continued. And Stinkweed's doing ok. And we got lots of sage lines about the Internet.

I don't know. Not every narrative has to be immediately or fully comprehensible on first ingestion.

So I'll say this about John from Cincinnati: I have a feeling we'll be talking about it for a long time. Parts of it, favorite phrases, may even become minor anchors in our culture.

Word is that HBO will not be renewing it. If true, that will only increase the show's mystique.

I won't lie to you and say it's been my favorite or even near favorite show, or even in the upper echelon. But I would've looked forward to another season.

In the end, John from Cincinnati was as it has been all season: some kind of murky jewel, which, however much you hold it up to the light, however much you may squint to make it more clear, it still remains murky. Maybe like looking at a spec of light in the sky.

See also John from Cincinnati: The Meaning in a Sentence or Two and John from Cincinnati is ... Neo in the Matrix!

See also reviews of other episodes ... Some Thoughts on John (from Cincinnati) ... Episode Two ... Episode Three ... Episode Four ... Episode 5 ... Episode 6 ... Episode 7 ... Episode 8 ... Episode 9

And see also John from Cincinnati Closes without Closure...

And here's Dylan's "Series of Dreams"...







The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Furthering the religious/new testament parallels, it could be 9/11/14, or 9:11-14. Check out Hebrews 9:11-14 from the new testament, a strong allusion to redemption which seems to be a recurring theme...

Anonymous said...

What a final episode! I think "Listen to your father" is the key to it all. No matter what you believe or what you profess to believe, family is the only thing that makes you alive. Family does not necessarily mean blood relatives, but it does mean connection. John connected the family of IB and made them aware of one another. What else is there in this life? "Work here, Cass...." "It takes a village."

Anonymous said...

I think this show is unwatchable crap.

You can only keep your audience in the dark for so long.

It was twin peaks without the pie.

Anonymous said...

I think it's brilliant and HBO would be NUTS not to contract a second season. How can we find out what is fact rather than speculation on that front?

Kelly Halls
Writer

Unknown said...

"In the end, John from Cincinnati was as it has been all season: some kind of murky jewel, which, however much you hold it up to the light, however much you may squint to make it more clear, it still remains murky."

That's the most appropriate, most astute assessment of the show I've read or heard. It describes exactly what I felt about JfC once it was finally over.

Thanx.

Anonymous said...

I'm convinced David Milch is the real Max Bialystock.

OMG this is the most unrelenting piece of crap ever produced for TV.

Possible fix, next season John winds up in a whole new place with much better scripts and actors that can, well, act.

Bill

Anonymous said...

My gf and I started watching this series found it strange, yet intriguing. We kept hoping that each episode would shed some light, reveal some ground-breaking event or make it all sensible. Not the case. We went to bed last night wanting to sue HBO for 10 hours of our life back, which we feel bilked out of.

Nonetheless, if another season of John were to come about, I would watch it. I would watch it simply for the fact that I need to know more about the people in the story. There is tremendous potential for the show, it just was not harnessed in the first 10.

I just can't beleive that I sat through 10 episodes with the hanging promise that "all would be revealed" only to be left scratching my head saying, "I don't know Buchi instead."

Anonymous said...

One question. Have we all lost our imaginations and interpretive skills?

I see JFC as a story that is in some ways similar to Don McLean's famous "American Pie". McLean left it up to the listener to interpret the song, and never once commented on the meaning behind the lyrics. The only clue is the song's dedication to Buddy Holly and the veiled and not-so-veiled references within the lyrics.

JFC is a rare story that leaves the viewer to take the viewer's own interpretation, and take from that a message based on their own personal experience.

You have one poster pointing to religious overtones, one toward family, along with countless other interpretations and messages across the net.

I think we have a case here of a show that tries to make the viewer think, instead of the usual show that tells the viewer how and what to think.

There's a place for both, and I prefer the former.

Anonymous said...

This was by far not the episode where everything was revealed, but it was really interesting and hopefully will demand at least one more season.

I still think this may be going in the direction of a "second coming/modern day Christ" story. Yes, we did see the Yost family and the IB community come together and begin the healing process, but look at the bigger picture -- look at the massive media invasion this community and family is about to embark on. Now that we have the media element (which goes nicely into the whole radio/communications tower scenes that John did on previous episodes, as well as Cass filming and telling the story) John's word (or his father's, or Shaun's) can now be widely delivered to a mass audience. So, in a sense, John has made believers (or on their way to believing) of the Yost family and the IB community, making them supporters or "apostles" of John, spreading his word and message (what that message is still remains to be unseen or murky -- I like that word, Paul! -- at best). I mean seriously, what would happen if a second coming did occur in this day and age? How would you reach people and how would you make them believe? Maybe this is where Milch is going? It's a phenomenal show, though -- quirky, but phenomenal...

Patrick said...

I don't understand exactly what these vast questions that haven't been revealed are. Post them here, or over on my blog, and I'll try to answer them for you, because to me, this episode pretty much wrapped up everything in a satisfying way, with only a few enigmas to keep us thinking.

Paul Levinson said...

Chris - thanks!

And thanks, everyone else, for your comments, too.

Patrick - here's a question, for starters: where were John and Shawn, really, on the day before last? Really in Cincinnati, or heaven, or?

Meanwhile, I've come up with another metaphor for John from Cincinnati - it will be on a new, short post I'll be putting onj Infinite Regress in a few minutes...

Peter McElhinney said...

When asked where they were, Sean pointed up and said "Cincinatti." Heaven is a reasonable guess, although if John is an alien that would work as well.

The use of language is the key to the show. John is picking up idioms as he goes along, gradually getting better at expressing what he is trying to say.
When he is at a complete loss, as he was with Linc and the guy from Stinkweed, he led them to a used car lot where the dealer spoke their commercial language.

Meanwhile, the IB characters rarely say what they mean, in fact they frequently say the opposite. This adds a level of oomplexity to the show's writing.

I don't find it all that murky, frankly. It's deeply flawed and purposely ambiguous. I'm not convinced Milsch knew where it was going beyond the end of the season.

But, unlike Twin Peaks, it never got fully lost in its own world.

Anonymous said...

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Unknown said...

I really liked the final episode.. Not let down by the lack of a big explanation or payoff.. isn't the ride along the way not the fun part? All you really need to come away understanding is that John is an agent of positive change in the lives of the other characters. Most hilarious episode of the 10, by the way, and that little monologue from Bill at the top of the stairs was a really nice way to close the series.

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