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Season 01: Episode 08 - His Visit: Day Seven
By admin | July 31, 2007
Sonny Mack, the surfer who joins Butchie in the water as the episode opens, is played by Brad Gerlach, one of the most stylish surfers ever to ride a wave. Gerlach was a Top 10 pro in the late ’80s and early ’90s (finished second on the Association of Surfing Professionals tour in 1991). Several years after his competitive career waned, he surged back into the spotlight as a tow-in surfer, using a jet ski and a waterskiing rope to get whipped into waves that are too big to catch by paddling. Over the past seven years or so, Gerlach (aka “Gerr”) and his tow partner Mike Parsons have ridden some of the biggest waves in the sport’s history. In December 2006, Gerlach caught a bomb at Todos Santos Island in Mexico that was later measured at 68 feet. Here’s a picture – That’s a big wave.
A Test of Faith
If a miracle-worker came to Earth but his miracles scared us, or appeared to have malevolent intent, what would we do? In the absence of absolute faith, we’d do what we always do: call it a monster and send out a posse to kill it.
The message from John – “Shaun will soon be gone” – that ripples through this episode triggers panic among most of the characters. If the day before (Episode 7) was a time of increased unity (Butchie reconciling with Shaun, Tina helping Linc, the Snug Harbor rallying around the ailing Palaka) and a growing acknowledgment of the strange visitor’s benign powers, John’s ominous message here causes people to fall back on their self-centered fears. That’s the point David Milch, the show’s creator and head writer, made repeatedly to actors during rehearsals and to the writing team as we brainstormed scenes.
“it seems to me that we’re all for the music of the spheres – as long as it’s playing a tune we like,” Milch told us. “Here we’ll see all the forms of persecution that are rationalized [when an innocent boy is threatened]. The characters are surrogates for that feeling, which is, ‘It’s OK to beat the balls off of John, in the same way it’s OK to beat the balls off of any rag-head who might have information about a threat to something I really care about. I mean, I’m down with the mysteries and harmonies of the universe, but if someone’s gonna take my Cadillac away, put ‘em in f**king Gitmo.’”
When everyone gathers at the Snug Harbor to watch John’s video message on Dwayne’s computer, they try to trump their fear by taking familiar courses of action. Bill goes back to being a cop, Freddy a murderer, Cissy a ball-buster, Palaka a protector of his boss.
“People tend to catastrophize as a way of relating to something they don’t understand,” Milch said during rehearsal. “Now, it isn’t self-evident that Shaun being gone would be a terrible thing, but self-centered fear is a way of dealing with uncertainty.”
My favorite scene of the episode comes during this sequence, when Bill (Ed O’Neill) interrogates John (Austin Nichols) in Room 24. This is what Milch told Austin before that scene was shot: “Bill doesn’t want to hurt you, and you know he doesn’t want to hurt you. Your pain is that you’re trying to tell him what you’re doing but you don’t know how. There are two people in the room who don’t know what’s going on. One’s stabbing himself, the other’s watching.”
The Voice in Barry’s Head
The deep voice of homophobic recrimination that haunts Barry in the eerie scene in the Snug Harbor saloon belongs to Milch. He did the voice-over.
Found Moments
Early in the episode, when John tells Cass they made a tape the night before, he leads her around a surf camp that’s at the north end of Imperial Beach. Almost all of that sequence was improvised on location, as Milch keyed off stuff he found there. I’m going to risk a wrist-slap here and reveal what John says to that big wooden tiki face, even though his soundtrack is mute: “Stare me down! Stare me down!”
Milch improvised another line after the motel’s shuffleboard court was finished. Someone accidentally stenciled the numbers “10-10″ at the base of the triangles, rather than “10 OFF,” which is how it’s supposed to be painted. Apparently, shuffleboarders are supposed to lose 10 points, not gain 10 points, if they overshoot. Rather than have them fix it, Milch wrote a line for Dickstein (Willie Garson) to deliver to Ramon (Luis Guzman) that put the mistake to use. “This represents failure,” Dickstein says with inordinate anger just as everyone’s worry for Shaun reaches a peak. “You don’t reward failure, Ramon.”
A First Date
During rehearsal for the scene in the Internet café between Linc (Luke Perry) and Tina (Chandra West), Milch told the actors to play it as if they’re 12-year-olds on a first date.
“All of these people are shame-based and have developed detailed strategies to accommodate their shame,” Milch said. “Now, because of John, all that stuff is falling away from them.” But still, they can barely look each other in the eye. “This guy just made $65 million and this is obviously a very attractive woman. How the f**k is it that these two people are shy with each other? That’s what this scene is about.”
When Linc takes Tina’s hand at the end of that scene, it shows that both of them have found some faith. And at that precise moment, Dwayne (Matt Maher) responds to John’s video message with profound fear, telling Jerri (Paula Malcomson), “I’m afraid.”
August 1st, 2007 at 12:42 pm
by far this is the best show on tv. love it!!!
August 1st, 2007 at 1:07 pm
wow, thanks for your comments everyone, this is my favorite show of all time!! just can’t get enough. sadly, it probably will not last too long because it’s to deep and not mainstream enough. we are blessed to have john,buthie & the gang at least for one season….
August 2nd, 2007 at 4:46 pm
“..I’m down with the mysteries and harmonies of the universe, but if someone’s gonna take my Cadillac away, put ‘em in f**king Gitmo.’”
What is Milch insinuating by dropping the “Gitmo bomb?” John certainly doesn’t deserve to be beaten or stabbed, but someone who is involved in terrorist plot should be pummeled and quickly. He can’t possibly be equating losing a car to being a terrorist. A better analogy would have gotten the point across….I agree that we ruffle easily at the slightest perturbation of our personal air space. But somehow car theft, the senseless slaughter of 3,000 New Yorkers, and a potential terrorist attack might be enough to justify bringing anyone out of their particular Karmic bliss.
BTW…I absolutely love the show.
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
What’s with the van? On the window you can faintly see “colorbeauty.com”. Is that intentional vision, or an oversight?
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:47 pm
AWESOME!! Love this show! Totally hip to the premise that as long as shit is working out for everyone, John is just a funny parrot. As things start to get a little scary John becomes the problem. I tihnk Butchie gets it though. He realizes John special and defends him because he sees how his life has benefitted from John being around. Bill has always been a skeptic so he is at least consistent. I really despise Cissy,please do us a favor and kill yourself over guilt of jerking off Butchie!!!
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:01 pm
has anyone seen an aerial view of I B ??
there is a similarity to symbol they trace out.satellite view on google works.it looks cool.
August 4th, 2007 at 2:22 am
Sana..yeah…saw the Google hybrid map of IB - and the Mexican side…the bull ring that John stares at is right at the US/Mexico border. The Google photo seems to have been taken during a bull fight….you have to view it in hybrid mode to see the bull ring - right at the edge of the water and on the Mexico side.
August 4th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Nobody mentions the choice for theme song! Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, “Johnny Appleseed”, great tune,from a great musician. What do you guys think tomorrow’s show will involve?
August 5th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
this show is wonderful, maybe even important ! it is very emotionally connected… it seems the deeper shows go misunderstood, sometimes. it is also very painful which, perhaps, turns some people off from watching it week after week. (which isn’t to say it isn’t very fun, too !)
i hope my weekly viewing will help make sure it lasts as long as it needs. also, i too am so glad about the theme song !! I’m not sure what’ll go on in tomorrow’s show (never can tell), but I just hope we get a good helpin’ of cissy being feisty (oh, how i love her
August 6th, 2007 at 2:31 am
In episode 8, Mitch returns from Mexico with a friend. That friend is played by the same actor (Howard Hesseman) that played Johnny Fever in “WKRP in Cincinnati” back in the ’70s. Yet another John from Cincinnati! Coincidence? I don’t think so!
August 6th, 2007 at 3:09 am
Sorry . . . my comment about Dr. Johnny Fever in episode 8 refers to DAY 8, episode 9. Thom
August 6th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Does anyone think that Shawn actually is dead and never returned to life after the “miracle.” And, that maybe John is a messenger from God-knows-where who has come to earth to make Shawn’s passing less difficult for the Yosts by allowing him (Shawn) in a Thornton Wilderesque way to affect the family by extending his time on earth. He certainly seems like a ghost sitting on that bar stool.
August 6th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
John is much like a prophet or a messiah, sent to this earth to perform his fathers work. The only difference is john is a bit retarded, always repeating what everyone else is saying. I don’t know why there wasn’t a huge reaction to the fact that john could all of a sudden surf his first time out. Trust me surfing is not an easy sport, some kook from cincinnati couldn’t buy a board and paddle out and shred with local IB’ers without some special powers.
Anyway I love the show because it introduces to a lot of people the spiritual side of surfing, or “getting wet” as they call it on the show. By the way I have never heard anyone call it “getting wet.” I’ll keep watching waiting for something big…and it better come or I’ll be pissed. They’re really giving me blue balls right now.
August 7th, 2007 at 1:45 am
I don’t think it’s a bull ring. I think it is some sort of sophisticated antenna array, used by naval security to detect communication signals. Hmmmm…..
August 7th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Good catch, a wink from milch?
August 7th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
It is a bullring. This is an excerpt from Nancy Franklin’s article in the New Yorker on June 25, 2007.
…we see a huge, hulking structure in the background, a shot that comes as a visual shock to anyone who isn’t familiar with this region: it looks like a giant spaceship. In fact, it’s the Tijuana bullring; in Nunn’s novel “Tijuana Straits,” the main character observes that it could pass for “the mother ship of some extraterrestrial and conquering race, settled there to survey its holdings.”…
August 7th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I’ve been watching the show because I keep waiting for something to happen and I want to know what it’s about but I gotta say, I must be the only one who doesn’t get it. The dialog tries to be too clever all the time and is exhausting.
Cissy is always screeching and angry and I’m over her. It’s an interesting show but I guess I’m just not intelligent enough to get it. I much prefer the banter in the way more entertaining Entourage and Curb shows. Don’t blast me for being pedestrian.
August 11th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Just to note.. and unless we’re talking about different things, the “building” that John keeps staring at appears to be an antenna array of some sort. I was visiting my brother in San Diego and made a day trip down to IB specifically to see locations there. It’s on the US side and honestly is weird looking. There’s a security fence around the whole place and has a building in the center.
As a side note, the tower John climbed after he made faces at the Tiki could be seen from the road too.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
The fuckin towelheads are going to get themselves eraticated
September 17th, 2007 at 4:00 am
I wish it would of lasted longer, I though it kind of original to say the least. the prophanity was a little harsh,but for the most part it had a great plot ,excellent aciing by all the cast . but why end it so short ,HBO kind of screwed up by drpping it so soon, they don,t have to paint a complete picture , to get the drift of the plot, but they did do a go job of raising more quetions than the sierse final episode . it could have been a good sierse.