Insiders and Outsiders: Season Three of Treme

Season Three of Treme is perhaps the season in which the show final came into its own, developing its own particular narrative structure. Sadly it will also be the last full season of the show. Comparisons with The Wire are still unavoidable, but at least at this point they suggest a real difference--a different idea--and not just the relation of lauded original to failed copy. David Simon initially suggested that the difference between these shows was one of positive and negative. As Simon states, Treme is in part an argument for the city.

The Road Home: Treme Season Two

After two seasons Treme still does not elicit the passion and dedication that can be found among fans of The Wire. One common complaint heard about the show is that it is dull, that it takes forever for things to happen, and in place of events or plot we get long musical numbers. I don't agree with this criticism, but I do think that it gets to the central question of the show: what is it about? and what does it mean for something to happen? As innovative as The Wire was it was still at its core a police show, and as much as it troubled the narrative logic and politics of the typical police procedural, replacing the weekly convictions of Law and Order with bureaucracy and pointless investigations, it was still punctuated by the events of the police show, arrests, convictions, and murders. As Wendell Pierce, who plays Antoine Baptiste, has agued, Treme is as much about culture, how it is produced, sustained, and destroyed, as it is about New Orleans.

Works and Days: Remarks on the First Season of Treme

Comparisons between Treme and The Wire are inevitable. Unlike Generation Kill, which seems more and more like a side project, Treme has the same sprawling story line, the same focus on an American city, and even some of the same actors as The Wire.