"Treme" Untangles the Lessons of Trauma

““The Wire” showcased vastly different psychological types: law-abiding, cheerful, productive; unfocused, self-destructive and violent. But you couldn’t say that they had any single, obvious thing in common besides the fact that they all lived or worked in Baltimore. That’s not the case on “Treme” (HBO Sundays, 10 p.m./9 central). The cast of characters consists mainly of New Orleaneans who survived one of the worst disasters of modern times, then continued to struggle long after the rest of America had moved on. The early reaction to that first season (among viewers and reviewers alike) was mostly respectful yet unmoved. You could sum it up as, “I liked ‘The Wire,’ and this seems thoughtful, but it’s not grabbing me yet.” In retrospect I don’t think it was absence of unifying cops-and-crooks storylines, a la “The Wire,” that put people off; the trauma factor probably came into play, too. Almost every significant recurring character had been stomped flat by life, and Simon kicked off the show’s master narrative five short months after the stomping. It was a convention of the walking wounded—not the sort of thing that large numbers of people want to watch on their last free night before the work week resumed.”

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