Silo 2.1: The Post- Apocalyptic Ladder

Well, Hugh Howey's Silo is back on Apple TV+ for its second season -- which will happen one episode at a time -- and it couldn't have come back at a more appropriate time.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

Juliette escaped/was thrown out of the silo at the end of the first season. She and we knew that the air wasn't really poisonous outside, but, hey, you can never be sure.  But she and we were right, and after we discover/confirm that it's not quite the world that has gone to hell, Juliette makes her way into and through another shelter or whatever it is, within easy walking distance from the silo with Sims and all those other characters we saw so much of last year.  One question that immediately arises: why are these two silos so close to one another?  What is it about this particular area?

But there ensue three parts to Juliette's journey now: 1. She uses a series of rusty ladders to get over the huge caverns in the shelter she enters (she's an engineer -- the title of this episode -- so she knows how to position a ladder across cavern and make her way across it with almost by not getting killed).  2. She hears a song faintly in the background, which gets louder as she walks on  -- it's "Moon River," you can't go wrong with that, though "You'll Never Walk Alone," especially Patti Labelle and the Blue Bells' version, with that impossibly high note she hits at the end, would have worked well, too.  3. And we learn that someone has been playing that song -- it's not some remnant of Spotify that's been programmed in the future -- and that someone ends this episode with a threat to kill Juliette if she opens the door.

I'll mention here (in case you haven't read my reviews of the first season, for which, see below) that I haven't read any of Hugh Howey's books, and once I started watching and enjoying the series, I didn't want to, because I wanted to enjoy all the twists and turns in the TV series.  So I don't know who any of the characters who are new to the second season are.  All we see of the man who plays the music and makes the threat are his eyes.  I thought the actor playing him might have been Steve Buscemi.  But it turns out the actor is another Steve -- Steve Zahn (a fine actor, I first noticed him in Treme).

Anyway, the return of Silo is off to a good start, with a nearby silo, and fine music and acting likely to take place there, and I'll be back here likely every week with a review of each episode.

See also Silo 1.1-1.2: A Unique Story, Inside and Out ... Silo 1.3: Like Chernobyl, Repaired ... 1.4: Truth, Not Quite ... 1.5: Revelations ... 1.6-1.7: The Book and the Water ... 1.8: What Really Happened ... 1.9: I knew It! But What Then? ... Silo 1.10: Three Truths

The Crossing: Lost Again but OK

I somehow caught the pilot of The Crossing - a new time-travel series starting in April on ABC - on Hulu, and I came back to file this little report.

Here's what's good about this - The Crossing has echoes of Lost and Flashforward, both on ABC, you will recall.  There's a guy who doesn't look like Sawyer but he has something of Sawyers demeanor, especially when he first comes into view sitting not that far from a beach under an umbrella.  And while we're at it, there's even a main character who reminds me a little of Kate.

As to the story, it's about a group of people who wash up on shore in the northwest, many but not all dead.  The ones who are living say they're from the future.  And the Sawyer-like guy says that people from their future have previously come to our time and earlier.   Before the hour is over, we get to meet one of them, an FBI guy.  (Why didn't Trump fire him?)

And it turns out that some of the folks from the future are genetically enhanced or advanced and have super-strength and who knows what else.

But if this sounds a little trite - because it is - this first hour was nonetheless well-played with a couple of good surprises and a somewhat interesting, idiosyncratic set of characters - especially Steve Zahn as the sheriff (I last saw him on Treme, where he was also memorable).  So that, along with the fact that I'm always willing to give a time travel story a chance means that I'll definitely try the next few episodes ... and, if I had to bet, I'd say I'll stick with it.

Treme!

Seeing as how The Wire was one of the best shows ever on television, I figured I'd give Treme a chance.  It's another creation of David Simon, who did The Wire.   It has even has Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters from The Wire (Bunk and Freamon), and lot of other incandescent talent (Melissa Leo, John Goodman, Khandi Alexander, more) and New Orleans music.   It debuted on HBO tonight.  I loved it.

The story starts in New Orleans, three months after Katrina.   What The Wire did for Baltimore, Treme does for New Orleans, more specifically, one particular part of it, Treme.  The details, the colors, and, most of all, the musical performances, are true and stunning.

Pierce plays Antoine Batiste, a trombone player.   He's constantly short-changing cabbies - promising to pay them someday, in one case, leaving his "bone" as collateral (in that case, he gets a gig from Kermit Ruffins, playing himself, the real musician, and pays the cabbie back right away).   The music he's part of, ranging from clubs to funeral processions, is just the thing.

Treme is as much about the music as New Orleans, which is only right, since New Orleans is so much about the music.   One of the best scenes, near the close of the first day, has dj Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn) playing Louis Prima's "Buona Sera" under all kinds of action.   The song plays pretty much in its entirety - the kind of thing you might see and hear in a movie, not usually on television.  Prima was born and lived the first part of his career in the 1930s in New Orleans, so his music was especially apt.

McAlary is a wannabe musician as well as a disc jockey.  He breaks into Tower Records, which is pulling out of New Orleans, to get copies of his band's CD, which he left there on consignment.  While he's there, he helps himself to a CD in which he was playing guitar, as well as a CD he says was stolen from his car  (so he's "karmicly" entitled to it).   He's sleeping with restaurant owner Janette Desautel - played by Kim Dickens - seen in Lost, FlashForward, and, most memorably so far as Matt's mother in Friday Night Lights.    But she could be even more memorable in Treme.

Even Elvis Costello's in Treme.   Kermit seems not to know of him, but McAlary certainly does, and is determined to get to better know Costello -  certainly can't hurt McAlary's musical  aspirations.

Goodman's a college prof, married to Melissa Leo, a civil rights attorney.   Each in their own way is fighting for New Orleans - against the media's misreporting, and various official misconduct in the wake of Katrina.

The Wire's realism had strong rays of optimism, but was mostly about the soul-lacerating, dead-end life of Baltimore's drug culture.   Treme's realism is about a city determined to survive what Goodman aptly insists is a "man-made disaster" - a levee system not up to the task.   The people and the music will make this story one of triumph.

And I'll be back here next week with my review of the next episode.


8-min podcast review of Treme