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Inside the Episode
With Steve Hawk
Gerr Goes Big
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."
Alternate Titles
Three alternate titles to the official one ("His Visit: Day Seven"):
a. "Index of Suspicion"
b. "Shoot-Out in I.B."
c. "Roy Rogers, Short and Tall"
Steve Hawk is a writer and lifelong surfer from Southern California. He acts as a writer and surf consultant for John From Cincinnati. Bio
Discuss this episode in the John From Cincinnati Bulletin Board.
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"His Visit: Day Seven"
