"All on a Mardi Gras Day" is Episode 8 in HBO's Treme series, and this one is written by sometime New Orleans resident Eric Overmyer. It shows. I'm going to try to not infiltrate each Mardi Gras story with a similar story I've experienced, though locals are all the Sun King one day a year and could be allowed that indulgence. Katie Perry in blue hair at the MTV Awards tonight looked like part of the blue tarp Burnette family, and I couldn't be more grateful for the chance to think about something besides the BP Oil Volcano, but who am I kidding? It's snaking its way into every level of our existence, as evidenced by yesterday's Krewe of Dead Pelicans march.
Albert - Lockdown
I don't know that non-New Orleaneans could understand what a brutality it would be, taking someone's first post-Katrina Mardi Gras Day. The Big Chief sewed. The Big Chief is ready. The Big Chief punched a cop over reopening public housing that never did reopen. And there goes his Mardi Gras Day.
Annie - Lyrical
It's possible that enough people begged that Sonny not ___ Annie in a ___ gumbo as happened in a horrific French Quarter scenario that the writers have found a new angle for Annie's story. She spends the day with Pirate Davis, and witnessing her gratitude for a good time makes me hope that she sticks around. A returnee starts the episode as Annie and Sonny play, "Over in the Glory Land." The man tells her that he used to hear the tune on WWOZ, he lived in Lakeview where three of his neighbors drowned and he is now in St. Louis with in-laws. "But I'm home for Mardi Gras Baby, huh?" he says through tears. Annie gives him a gentle, "Happy Mardi Gras, Honey," that lays the groundwork for the episode.
Antoine - Laid(?)
He specifically did not have this level of clearance, Clarence, from TV Phyllis. But there Antoine goes, escorting his wife and baby around Mardi Gras morning, going solo after they need to return home, and squiring a distressed Ladonna - hey, that's not squiring! Knock it off! I have a terrible habit of barking the word "Whore" like an old timey villager at the television if the scenario calls for it, and my husband's ears got a workout tonight. Have added the question mark because a commenter makes the excellent point that actual cheating was not shown, just the kiss, fadeout and next day's walk of shame.
Creighton - Lying Low
The biggest cheerleaders for New Orleans sometimes took the deepest mental toll. My environmentalist friend's psychiatrist killed herself, and he's not doing so well himself on any given day. So there are the days when you howl for the world is wrong. But in Creighton's case it ruins a sacred day for his wife and child and that is tough to abide by in a year when any kind of ease was so hard fought for.
Davis - Lovely
Real life Davis didn't co-write this episode, so he has simply coming into his own as a character for the world to experience Mardi Gras through as the pirate Jean Lafitte. The appropriate aspect to his singing, "We fired our guns but the British Kept a Coming, There wasn't 'bout as many as there was awhile ago, We fired once more and they began to runnin, On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico," was that not only was it one of the biggest routs in military history, but that the war was already over and no one had bothered to tell Louisiana. Can I connect the dots to the Gulf of Mexico oil leak? I could, but this is supposed to be my mental health break.
Delmond - Laid
Not to be shallow or imply that Mardi Gras Day is any kind of guarantee, but darned if Delmond isn't a mile cheerier when greeting his father on Ash Wednesday. His character has doubted the Mardi Gras Indians, the viability of New Orleans returnees and our way of life as a whole and what turns his head around? It's all on a Mardi Gras day.
Janette - Leaping
Janette cooks a gumbo that doesn't bring Creighton out of his funk, but there's only so much you can depend on food to accomplish even in New Orleans. When she packs up her mobile cookery and got into a car my husband said, "She's not going to try to drive, is she?" worried for fictional Janette's fate. But she was only becoming the changeling that Mardi Gras demands of us. "What is you? a boy asks. "Why, I'm me!" she answers. "And a wonderful me you are," respond two men walking by. It's a classic Mardi Gras exchange.
Ladonna - Lying
Ladonna is carrying all the stress of hiding her brother's death from her mother and husband in her shoulders. It doesn't take Antoine long to locate that, and other sites of her stress, and the look on her mother's face the next day shows that you can talk a good game, but don't try telling momma that your phone didn't work all night.
Toni - Low Tide
For all the heartache Toni has endured, finding out what became of her friend's late brother, she deserved one day of joy. But the day you deserve isn't always the day you get, and eventually she and her daughter give up on pulling off a glorious Mardi Gras in the face of a despondent Creighton. That kind of despondence only happened to me once, hearing a 20-something yell, "I'm too old for this," as the sun set on Mardi Gras 2006. I'll never know why, but it broke my heart thinking that the young were too old for Mardi Gras as hard as we all fought to keep our spirits up. Speaking of which, the seventy-something Bob French is featured in this episode. He's suspended from WWOZ-FM, but that's an article for a different day.
A beautiful line wrapping up the episode is Delmond telling his father as he leaves prison: "St. Joseph's come, you be out there -- the prettiest." His father answers, "Yeah, you right." And the camera pans out to where Daymo lies in state at The Majestic funeral home. It reads, "We Serve with Reverence."
Yeah, you right.
More characters in my complete review on NewOrleans.com.
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Why did Davis run out of the party so suddenly? Who was in the kitchen and why was that significant?
>Ladonna is carrying all the stress of hiding her brother's death from her mother and husband in her shoulders. It doesn't take Albert long to locate that.