Treme and In Treatment on SoHo

Complexity rules in a series about a post-Katrina New Orleans.

Treme

If the Devil gets the best tunes, Sky’s SoHo channel is cornering the quality drama. Some of the series will turn up on Prime – Sky has the free-to-air screening rights for HBO programmes – but for now a lot of must-see television is a user-pays proposition.

This is a particular shame in the case of the haunting, complex series Treme. It’s set in New Orleans, three months after Katrina. You can’t help but think of Christchurch. Treme (Truh-may, the name of an old New Orleans neighbourhood) is challenging from the start. I initially understood not a word of the naturalistic dialogue, bar the odd, internationally unmistakable “motherf—–”, “Know what I’m sayin’?” and “F— you, man!” But you soon get your ear attuned.

There is a merciful freedom from exposition, so you just pick up the local references – second-line parades, the Mardi Gras Indian tradition that dates back to at least the 1800s – as you go. Part of the pleasure is the way Treme keeps you on the cultural back foot. There’s a telling scene where a Katrina tour bus pulls up at a Mardi Gras Indian funeral. “Drive away, sir”, the tour guide is told. “Just drive away.” The mortified guide says, “You’re right. I’m sorry”, and drives away. Voyeurs, electronic or otherwise, not welcome.

This is from The Wire’s David Simon, so it’s made for an adult audience. Though Simon has been accused of being too infatuated with New Orleans to give the Big Easy the tough love he dished out to Baltimore in The Wire. But if he wears his sympathy on his sleeve, who can blame him? As someone says, “Look around. Look at this damn place.”

Not that Simon backs away from the political. “What hit the Mississippi Gulf coast was a natural disaster, a hurricane pure and simple. The flooding of New Orleans was a man-made catastrophe, a f— up of epic proportions,” rails academic and born-again New Orleanian Creighton Bernette (the excellent John Goodman). And the media come in for a spanking – “The media … likes a simple narrative that they and their listeners can get their tiny brains around.” We’re used to that sort of thing.

Even so, the British reporter interrogating Bernette at a press conference was ludicrous, speaking in tones that suggested he’d just teleported in from the BBC Home Service circa 1950. He couldn’t see the point of New Orleans. “I suppose if you’re a fan of the music, which has rather seen its day, let’s be honest,” he brayed improbably. “The food? … typically American: too fat; too rich.” Goodman has to be restrained from tossing him into the Mississippi.

Still, the few bum notes only stand out because almost everything else is so damn good. Authenticity is aided thanks to appearances by real musicians, including Dr John, Kermit Ruffins and, redeeming the Brits, Elvis Costello. And there’s scene after scene charged with a strange, charmed beauty. Returning resident and Big Chief Lambreaux, seeking help in cleaning up his bar, materialises out of the night in full Mardi Gras kit, chanting, “Won’t bow, don’t know how.” It would stir a heart of stone. Don’t like New Orleans jazz? After this, you will.

SoHo is also responsible for peddling my guilty pleasure of the week. In Treatment, an HBO remake of an Israeli series, features a gloomy Gabriel Byrne as a truly hopeless therapist. We find Paul Weston in series two of his benighted existence, divorced after falling for a patient. He has moved to Brooklyn, and is being sued for malpractice after a war vet patient dies in a plane crash that may have been suicide. Seeking legal advice, he bumps into yet another former patient, Mia, who blames him for an abortion she had 20 years before. Even when Paul hasn’t managed to cross the patient-therapist boundary, his clients seem to bolt from his office at an alarming rate. Though the female ones have only to look into his hurt puppy-dog eyes to go into a state of erotic transference.

Did I mention Paul’s mother killed herself when he was a teenager? No wonder he’s seeing his own therapist – the wonderful Dianne Wiest. He’s uncertain about getting into his troubled past. “I’ll start smoking again, drinking too much,” he threatens. What a mess. Which is why In Treatment is so therapeutic. Most of us don’t have to put in years of study to be that screwed up. It has a Pinteresque theatricality – almost no action, just a couple of people engaged in that perilous pastime, talking in a room. Not all Paul’s patients would agree, but each episode – 25 minutes, five a week – is an appointment you feel oddly compelled to keep.

TREME, SoHo, Thursday, 9.30pm.

IN TREATMENT, SoHo, weeknights 11.30pm. Omnibus Sunday, 10.30pm.