Treme Review: “Promised Land” (Season 3, Episode 7)

And it is there he meets Janette, who is still stinging from her awkward attempt to become a media-friendly face for her new restaurant, even after a pep talk from Emeril Lagasse, who isn’t afraid to drop a few “fucks” here and there. Al Roker and her make a decunstructed crawfish etouffee during a three minute spot filled with little pratfalls. This, in addition to her already creeping despair over the way she is being forced to run her restaurant, primes Janette to fall for Davis’s uninhibited enthusiasm for the old traditions. These two used to be together, and given the way their new lives have begun to treat them, their relapse into a physical relationship makes sense. It is painful to watch, however, especially given the way Davis reacted to the first kiss from Janette. He knew what was coming, but stayed in the fold anyway, waiting for himself to become convinced.

“Mardi Gras fucks don’t count,” they say to one another, a statement that underlines the poor decision. It was Mardi Gras, after all, when Davis met Annie.

Annie, meanwhile, continues to pursue her career, though with all of the innocent glee would could expect from her. She bounces on a bed in her massive hotel suite as she orders room service. She’s bummed out when the Washington elite don’t react to their music with the same enthusiasm as the hometown crowds. (Included in this gathering, in one of Treme’s trademark subtle and believable crossovers, is Nelson, who is still hustling for an inside line on some work.)

Back home, on Mardi Gras, Annie does take some time to try and indulge in the traditions she will be missing, though she can’t manage to get a pair of beads. Mainly, she goes with Harley’s sister to the water to disperse his ashes in the same ceremony that Toni attended when her husband died. And there, sitting on the rocks and watching the procession of people saying goodbye to their loved ones, is Sofia.

Sofia is stinging from a series of letdowns. It turns out that she has dropped her street musician boyfriend, most likely due to his attitude and his deleterious influence on her. At the same time, it’s very possible that she was hoping to affix herself to LP, though that hope is torpedoed after she goes with him to a bar and finds out he was the one who told her mother about her boyfriend, and that he thinks that the age difference was inappropriate. The conversation is subtle, another excellent piece of writing. “He isn’t that much older,” Sofia says, and looks faintly heartbroken when LP counters, “He’s my age.” All the men in her life are unsuitable replacements for the father she may never have properly grieved over, which is why she finds herself at the waterfront.

LP and Toni, meanwhile, are both enjoying the fruits of their labor. LP has enough information from enough credible sources to write his article, but now that he’s become embedded in the culture and lives of the people of New Orleans, he wants to follow up, and make the police pay. Toni is well on the way to this, having gotten a sympathetic judge to sign the necessary papers to get some more evidence she needs. Melissa Leo does great acting in this scene, on the verge of tears, though whether of sadness or desperation or happiness is unknown until the moment she finally gets that signature.

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