John From Cincinnati – Review

John From Cincinnati is all about angry stupid people.

But not uninteresting angry stupid people.

The show was created by David Milch, co creater of NYPD Blue and Deadwood. Set in the California surfing town of Imperial Beach, the show is in some sense a family drama, revolving around the spectacularly dysfunctional Yost family and their equally disturbed and tortured friends.

The joker in the deck is John, a mysterious stranger who appears at first to be a developmentally challenged young man who has a habit of repeating what other people say to him. Asked to empty his pockets, he has just the right amount of cash, a cell phone, and a platinum credit card.

Then the miracles start.

The Yosts and their friends notice the strange occurences when they happen, but they’re so tied up in their own personal crises that they can barely muster a reaction to these miracles. Mitch Yost levitates, for example, and it bothers him, but it’s not the only thing that’s on his mind. Some of the other residents of Imperial Beach, however, can think of nothing else.

John isn’t involved in these miracles, but we get the sense that he’s responsible for them, and we notice more strange things about him—the weirdest so far being that he apparently has no idea what a toilet is used for. Maybe he’s an angel. Maybe he’s the second coming and these people are going to be his disciples.

I suspect we’ll never get the details about John, because I think the show is going to be about how people react to him and the kinds of things that happen around him. Then again, I really have no idea where all this is going.

But I’d like to find out…