John From Cincinnati Mondays, Eps. 1 & 2, “His Visit: Day One” & “His Visit: Day Two”

18 June 2007, By Keith Uhlich, The House Next Door Blog

Credit is due to David Milch: It took balls to commence his new series, John From Cincinnati, with a weathered and wizened Luke Perry (as surf promoter Linc Stark) stepping from an SUV into the early morning quietude of a California beach. For those many souls reeling from the now-infamous final moments of The Sopranos, the transition between James Gandolfini’s quizzical mug and the age-hollowed stare of a former beach bum teen idol was an associative burden I suspect they’d rather not bear. “The end is near,” says John Monad (Austin Nichols), who emerges from both the sand dune boonies (teeming with illegal aliens crossing clandestinely into the border town of Imperial Beach) and from the literal shadow of the man who was Dylan McKay. Both prophetic Adonis and idiot man-child, John is given to statements of holy writ portent, though he’s less a messiah from on high (Jesus Fucking Christ) than an absolving creature of the sea, a sponge who soaks up the pain of others and reconstitutes it as fully-lived experience… [more]