Note: the following will be likely unintelligible if you haven’t seen the show. Spoiler warning. I think that this show actually benefits from being spoiled, though, as it can be pretty confusing. So here we go:

John From Cincinnati was a television show created by acclaimed television writer David Milch for HBO as a follow-up to the quite popular show Deadwood. Deadwood had been cancelled abruptly after its third season, with neither a satisfying conclusion nor a satisfying explanation for its cancellation. When John From Cincinnati debuted, people wrongly believed that Milch had abandoned Deadwood to make it, so their ire was already way up, primed to hate whatever it was because it wasn’t what they wanted. In addition, JFC made its debut immediately following the beguiling and controversial series finale of The Sopranos. Seen in this context, it’s no surprise that the show was vilified, and cancelled after only 10 episodes. It could have been about anything—there was no way audiences would embrace it.

I’m here to tell you now, here in 2014, that John From Cincinnati deserved better. In the true style of David Milch, it above all presents a group of characters, all of whom are rendered as deeply flawed but also deeply human, struggling against the current of their own humanity: their compulsions, their failures, their regrets, their successes. Beyond that, it deals with modern life in a manner that is at once highly sophisticated and deeply profane. It raises questions of man’s relationship to technology, in particular the Internet, as well as of man’s relationship to the divine, which comes to the Yost Family (a clan of once-famous surfers in Southern California) in the form of John Monad, an agent of the divine principle in the form of a peculiar man with a penchant for mimicry and materializing the wishes of anyone he meets.

More to the point of this specific article, it also deals with 9/11, albeit in a less direct way. The importance of this cannot be understated. Most television shows that are set in modern times like to pretend that 9/11 did not happen. And if they do reference it, it’s in a superficial way. There is not a single television show (that most American of popular artistic media) that deals with 9/11 in a way that is true to the event itself. Excuses are made for this, of course: it’s too traumatic to address directly, “too soon,” etc. The truth is that we do not address it because we are unwilling to confront the ugly truth. We do not want to address how deeply the event affected our perception of reality. We do not want to face the facts of how our perceptions were deliberately molded to suit the agenda of the ruling class, and that we are suffering from a collective PTSD and a cognitive dissonance so severe that it makes Orwell’s “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” look tame by comparison.

So how is this presented in the show? To give the most obvious example, in Episode 5, John and Cass go to a crowded street fair to get footage for Cass’s film and, well, see for yourself:

“Investigate 9/11" sign prominently featured in front of John (white shirt)

“Question 9-11" sign right behind John watching the wrestling match

What other message could we possibly take from this? I can’t think of any other TV show that even vaguely references 9/11 truth, let alone one that prominently and intentionally features its advocates such as this one does. Such folk, when attempting to get involved in public discourse in any way, are promptly removed and possibly arrested. Here, they are given considerable camera-time. That’s the first, and most obvious clue.

Less obvious clues may be found in the obscure words of John Monad. In the final episode, Linc Stark sits down cross-legged with John and becomes the first person to really listen to John and try to engage him. They have an extended conversation:

Grab your jump-balls, Linc.

John: If my words are yours, can you hear my father?

Linc: Let’s say I can.

John: Let’s say, the zeroes and ones in Cass’s camera help you hear my father’s word.

Linc: Cass and I go back.

John: Let’s say you and Cass go back, Linc Stark. Let’s say, in my father’s word, in Cass’s camera, the Internet is big. 9/11 is big. But not every towelhead is eradicated.

It must be explained that John is a mimetic instrument: a parrot. He takes “your words,” internalizes them, and then spits them back at you, re-contextualized. These are his “father’s words” (the words of God). In the course of his time in Imperial Beach, he has heard it said that “them fuckin’ towelheads are gonna get themselves eradicated,” a phrase that epitomizes the prevailing post-9/11 jingoistic sentiment. So here he uses “towelhead” to mean not Muslims but “those that perpetrated the attacks of 9/11.” He has some preprogrammed information (“some things I know and some things I don’t” is his response when he doesn’t know what to say), and seems to know about 9/11 and the Internet. So what John is saying in the italicized statement is this: 9/11 is extremely important and influential, as much as fire and written language (which he also calls “big”), and those responsible for it have not been dealt with yet.

The conversation proceeds:

Linc: (pauses) This is me grabbing my balls and jumping here, John.

John: Grab your jump-balls, Linc.

Linc: You use my words, and when you speak them, if I listen right, I can hear your father?

John: Yes Linc.

John: If you are then end, I am near you.

John: Yes Linc.

Linc: Without Cass’ camera, whatever the fuck that is, we’re all toast?

John: You’re all going to be toast. We’re coming 9/11/14.

Linc: Fuck me, John.

John: Fuck you Linc.

This is the crux of the matter. This is getting right down to the heart and soul of our situation. Without “the zeroes and ones in Cass’s camera” (art, self-reflection, symbolic literacy), and the zeroes in ones that make the Internet (free, open venues of communication), we’re all going to be “toast” (burnt to a crisp, living in our own personal hells). How much clearer can it get?

Later in the episode, Linc and John go to buy an El Camino for the Stinkweed parade. The used-car salesman seemingly has transcendent knowledge of all the events that have taken place on the show. He rants and raves at the impatience and arrogance of the two men:

Salesman: (to Jake) Oh, so I have to know what I mean before I can have a feeling? Do I have to know that you’ll understand me? Do you have to know you’ll understand before you’ll listen? 25 cars between you? You shoulda let me sit down before you told me. I’ve got that many dealerships in each of that many sectors, and brands on goddamn franchise. *I* gotta boogie! Me!

John: He feels you’re ready for the Camino.

Salesman: (To John) You’re off-line now, country.

John: I don’t know Butchie instead.

Salesman: (To Linc) How’s he for high-performance? And he ain’t who’s worst under-powered. Intrusions, evanescences… I’m a shepherd, without crook or understanding! Fits and stops and starts, waves and ripples and ramifications! Busted knee, mother-son handjobs. Christ, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ! Crosses… and shoulders to bear ‘em. … You and your 25 cars. Circle and line on the wall, and zeros and goddamn ones is what to turn the both of your gifts to…and not one damn minute to waste!

The scene concludes with this image of John and his “El Camino.”

Father, Son, Holy Yost

Look familiar? God appears to us as a sleazy used-car salesman, but s/he has humanity’s best interests in mind. S/he’ll provide us with a vehicle, but we have to be the ones to drive it home.

Only 212 more days ‘til 9/11/14. Grab your jump-balls, humans.