Still from JOHN FROM CINCINNATI: "His Visit: Day Five" (2007).
© HBO
Mania Grade: A+
Episode: His Visit Day Five
Created By: David Milch
Starring: Rebecca De Mornay, Bruce Greenwood, Luis Guzman, Brian Van Holt
Episode: His Visit Day Five
Created By: David Milch
Starring: Rebecca De Mornay, Bruce Greenwood, Luis Guzman, Brian Van Holt
JOHN FROM CINCINNATI: His Visit: Day Five
By: Stephen LackeyReview Date: Tuesday, July 17, 2007
OK, we’re officially at the halfway point for this season and things are finally starting to happen. The things that are wrong with the show are still wrong this week (Rebecca De Mornay’s character) but the things that are right, are at their best (John). Every complaint I’ve thrown at this show, while legitimate, was worth suffering through if this is where the show is going.
So, let me start with the character I hate the most in this series, Cissy. I hate the character and I hate the many of the performances. I was reminded of the mom in Malcolm in the Middle a few times. I finally stopped watching Malcolm because I hate the mom so much. Well, the difference is in this show we now know why Cissy is the ball buster extreme, and it’s a pretty shocking revelation. She and Mitch lived the wild beach bum life when they were young surfing and partying and in a drug induced state she taught her son Butchie a lesson he didn’t need to be taught and since then, she’s fought guilt over it and tried to turn herself into the opposite of what she was when she was younger. It’s almost like she had been blocking that event but she’s still been m aking herself and everyone around her pay for it. The reappearance of Shaun’s mother, a porn star, brings everything to such a head that she believes she’s pushed so hard that she may have lost Shaun and she retrieves the gun and seems to be considering using it on herself. Then John appears to her, offering her a way out, in the form of infomercial dialogue. He knows Cissy’s dirty little secret but convinces her that continuing to live, no matter how painful, will be worth it. This scene is fantastic in its presentation because it’s jaw dropping, emotional, and hilariously weird. After a few of her previous scenes, I didn’t think De Mornay had it in her, but she did just fine here.
This week, John steps up his game and shows us just a little of what he can do. He knows everything about everyone but he chooses to only share the bits that are necessary, or maybe he only has the ability to share a little at a time. Up to now John has just been able to sort of float from person to person and work with them on a individual basis but this week it’s time for him to begin connecting everyone and he does this through a sort of dream state or astral projection. Not only does he communicate a message to Cissy by forcing her to deal with her past but he even gets Bill to help him by channeling Bill’s dead wife. He continues to work with Joe by giving Joe’s inner thoughts a voice too.
The culmination of this week’s episode is a group projection where John brings all of the major players together and shares the events in their pasts that connect them and vision he has from “his father” of a better future for all of them. Bill climbed a set of stairs to nowhere while Freddy played his sax, John brought the dead man out from the haunted room in the motel, and everyone else stood around and listened to John’s sermon. I especially liked the way he showed an evolution from almost caveman-like drawings of circles and lines to the digital ones and zeros of Cass’ camera. In his mind, basic communication of the ways of his father are the same only evolved as man has evolved. The obvious answer to the big question is that John’s father is God but I believe that answer is just a little too obvious. At the same time, I have no clue what an alternative answer could be.
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Also just to note, in last weeks episode...It blew my mind when Cass Put that towel on her head and John came back with the first negative comment he has said in the show and that was the fucken towel heads are going to get them selves eradicated and then in this weeks episode he said something to the effect that 9/11 is big and not every towel head is eradicated but my fathers word is big, we are coming 9/11/14... I wonder what he was trying to say there?