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Inside the Episode
With Steve Hawk
Shaun Is Gone
Shaun's disappearance and all that it implies triggers widely disparate reactions among the characters.
Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay) responds with predictable rage, but also a show of nobility as she frantically searches the streets and beaches for her grandson. Here's what David Milch, JFC's executive producer and head writer, said of her manic search: "When push comes to shove you don't see her yelling. Instead, she shows her deepest nature by just doing what she can do to find her f**king grandson."
Mitch (Bruce Greenwood) reacts to the scary news by telling Cissy he's willing to "walk point" with the press to help spread the word about Shaun. It's a particularly painful chore for Mitch, who abhors publicity, and you can see Cissy's gratitude leak through her fury. Even though the scene between them is filled with hostility, Milch presented it to the actors as yet another example of "that radical disjunction between what we seem to be saying and what we mean." The scene, he said, is actually about the reconciliation of a husband and wife.
"It's about a guy who comes home and takes his wife into his arms," Milch said, "even though their way of doing so is to scream at each other. People take each other into their arms in different ways, and here there's actually something beautiful about it. Here are two people who's marriage is a wreck, who've been feeling that their lives are behind them. The deepest truth is that Cissy is glad he's back. She feels comfortable to have someone she can yell at who she knows will discount it. This is how we live: a sense of dignity within a sense of being completely ridiculous and completely wrong."
(A side note: During the scene, Mitch reminds Cissy about some public service announcements he did for the Tijuana Sloughs. You can find one here: Watch.
The Secret Code
The sweetest (and perhaps most naive) reaction to Shaun's disappearance comes from Butchie (Brian Van Holt) and Kai (Keala Kennelly), who choose to believe that John's innate kindness and supernatural powers must mean he's an instrument of good. Butchie reaches his conclusion through junky logic. "That's the secret code from his pilot, Kai... 'John can't dump – I'm not an asshole.'" And so Butchie, acting purely on faith, demonstrates his belief by paddling out to the surf at sunset to wait for his son. Here's how Milch put it: "Those are the two people who realize that John is to be trusted, and if John is to be trusted then there's nothing to be done. And the way that you act in faith is not to try to do something."
The Freddy Bear
The bad-ass teddy bear that Palaka gives to Freddy, who in turn gives it to Barry, was brought to the set by an old surf bud of JFC co-creator Kem Nunn a few days before this episode began shooting. Kem's friend, John Crotwell, also built the strange wave-shaped car driven by the Chemist (aka Erlemeyer, played by Howard Hesseman). Crotwell is a serious surfer and a true character. He's customized a few of those traffic-stopping wave cars for personal use over the years, and still spends weeks at a time in Baja looking for waves.
Anyway, Crotwell visited the set in Imperial Beach one day carrying this stuffed bear that he'd just found at a garage sale or something. The bear wore shades and a leather jacket with the letters "FTW" on the back. (A side note: "FTW" can stand for many things, but in this case it's probably safe to assume it's the vulgar acronym favored by biker gangs: "F**k the World.") As soon as he saw the bear, Milch offered to buy it from Crotwell, and immediately began concocting ways to insert it into the show as a foil for Teddy, the bear belonging to Barry Cunningham (Matt Winston), the homosexual owner of the Snug Harbor Motel.
Milch also had the idea of making the bear a gift to Freddy from Palaka, who'd been too distracted by his various ailments (broken arm, infected tattoo) the past several days to give it to his boss. "You do not buy a gift and not give it," Palaka says just before he finally hands the bear to Freddy. "It's the oldest bad luck in the world."
When Milch initially wrote that bear-sharing scene, it looked at first glance to have the makings of a comic set-piece: callous crime boss receives silly teddy bear from stupid sidekick. But during rehearsal, Milch told the actors, Paul Ben Victor (Palaka) and Dayton Callie (Freddy), not to play it as comedy, and the final result – in my view, anyway – is a rich stew of emotional confusion and unexpected affection.
The scene centers around Freddy's despair and guilt over the fact that Shaun disappeared the night before on his watch, and around Palaka's attempt to allay his boss's pain. "The spectrum of possible behaviors that are open to these two to express their emotions is infinitesimal," Milch told the actors. "They have a limited range. Palaka sees how devastated Freddy is, and how ashamed that he couldn't take care of the kid. So he fabricates a story that will put Freddy back in the power position. And Freddy knows only how to bully Palaka – but that can accommodate tenderness and generosity, even though it's all expressed as hostility."
Freddy's initial response is hostile: he tosses the bear out the door. But after Palaka shows the courage to push past him, retrieve the bear and offer it a second time, the scene turns. "For the boy," Palaka implores. Freddy takes it, glances shyly at Palaka, then zips up the bear's jacket – his way of acknowledging an act of charity from a friend.
This Is Huge
I was enthralled during the shooting of the scene in the Snug Harbor parking lot when Ramon (Luis Guzman) shows Barry and Doctor Smith (Garret Dillahunt) the Avon catalog he received from Rosa the friendly rose-growing neighbor. Ramon, as excited as we've ever seen him, urges his two friends to turn to the catalog's middle spread, which is sprinkled with the mysterious stick-man figure that's been increasingly prominent in recent episodes. As Smith dashes off to get his own catalog, Ramon nearly pleads with Barry:
RAMON: Listen to me! Look at this!
BARRY: I am looking, I am seeing Avon in an entirely new light...
RAMON: This is big. This is huge.
BARRY: I think it very well could be.
RAMON: I want to cook something.
BARRY: I could eat.
Doctor Smith arrives, shows his catalog to Ramon and Barry.
SMITH: Look.
BARRY: Those same marvelous figures.
SMITH (to Ramon): What did she tell you about these?
RAMON: Nothing.
SMITH: This is huge.
"Big" and "huge," of course, are words John said repeatedly during his strange, hypnotic parking lot speech at the end of Episode Six. And don't forget that Ramon cooked for everyone during that speech. But my favorite aspect of this scene is the threesome's inexplicable sense of joy and purpose. Here's what Milch told the actors during rehearsal: "What's happening is, all these subliminal cues are being activated without your knowing it. Essentially what you're doing is activating neural connections. They know [the appearance of the stick figures in the catalog] is huge simply because they've trusted their intuitions. A wave of purposefulness is carrying all of you, even while you're thinking, 'I don't know what's happening here...'"
In other words, you need not know exactly what's going on to be moved by the universe.
Alternate Titles
Three alternate titles to the official one ("His Visit: Day Eight"):
a. "A Whole Different Weight Class."
b. " 'To Whoever's Gone With Shaun...'"
c. "Something Big and Huge"
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 Eight"
