John from Cincinnati

Episode Overview: John and Shaun return from wherever they were.  Linc Stark, through his surfing company, decide to throw a parade announcing the signing of the whole Yost clan.

It's the season (and likely series) finale of John from Cincinnati, which means one of three things will happen.  1) It will miraculously answer all our questions and those who doubted the show's genius will be proven wrong.  2) Nothing will be answered, and those of us who watched all 10 episodes will be furious that we wasted our time.  3) Questions will be answered, but it won't be that satisfying and we'll still be kind of upset.  I'm hoping for 1, fearing for 2, and expecting 3.

The opening scene shows all the major characters, interspersed with shots of something zooming above the clouds, then down through them onto the water.  Butchie and Kai, asleep on the beach, wake up to see the missing John and Shaun surfing towards them wearing army fatigue wet suits.  It's a very promising start.

Dwayne's computer at the diner is magically turned on and showing Butchie and co. rolling up to the motel.  Cass is filming them, but how that gets to the computer is a mystery, unless her video camera has some special wi-fi capabilities.  Kai asks John where they were, and he says "Cincinnati."  Everyone is surprisingly calm about the sudden return, and Butchie takes Shaun to see his grandparents.  John stays behind, though Shaun wants to stay with him.  The return to Cissy and Mitch goes surprisingly smoothly,.

Linc Stark and John have a talk, and suddenly things start to become clear.  John tells him to get in the game, but not like Mitch Yost, who should get back in the game.  Linc is finally listening, responding with the obvious, "So I've never been in the game."  John spouts off a few more of his classic lines about his father words and the 1s and 0s in Cass' camera, and how it will be big and huge like 9/11.  Linc brilliant puts things together.  John uses Linc's words, and if he listens right, he can hear John's father.  Also, John is the end, so Linc is near him.  He's still puzzled by Cass' camera, but Linc fears everyone will be toast.  "You're going to be toast.  We're coming 9/11/14," John says.  Who knows if that's a date or a time or what.

Later, Linc tries to get more about John's father, and his father's father.  They're all named "Father," and all their words are "Listen to your father."  Linc pleads for John to just tell him what to do, and gets nothing but a fist pound.  John's mother is his father.

Shaun wants to move in with John and Butchie.  Mitch is fine with this, Cissy questions whether it's because they're not good enough.  Shaun just leaves.  Then Cissy sees Mitch go up in the air, and orders him to come back down.

John, Shaun, Butchie and Linc stand around, looking at the camouflage wet suit.  "They want to sponsor us," Shaun says.  When Butchie asks who, Shaun just shrugs.  Shaun doesn't remember where he went with John, but he sort of remembers some things.  They want to sponsor him and the waves were good, but Shaun doesn't know who they are or if the waves were on water.  They went to Cincinnati Shaun says, pointing up.

John unveils the motel's new shuffleboard course, and 9, 11, 14 are written on it.  Cissy gets Bill, Butchie and Shaun to help with floating Mitch.  Linc plans a parade for Shaun and John with all the show's main characters involved.  Linc wants to promote John's symbol and message to as many people as possible through his former surfing company.  They go to buy an El Camino for the parade.
The whole gang heads out for the parade.  Down at the pier, Linc promotes the company, Stinkweed, and the Yost family, all wearing John's symbol.  It's a surreal vision of commercialism, as Linc tells the tale of all the crazy things that have happened, selling it like a huge marketing ploy, giving John cover to spread his message.  John offers up an insane voice-over charting where everyone is or will go or something.  Cissy gets pregnant, Dr. Smith returns from Cincinnati 20 years younger, then trains Ramon and Barry, while Attorney Dickstein represents Earth. 

Bill goes up to his attic to talk to his dead wife.  Zippy returns to him.  Then, while watching Kai surfing, John narrates, "Mother of God, Cass, Kai."  And that's it.  Is he saying Cass or Kai or both are the mother of God.  Is he simply marveling at them?  Is he telling Cass Kai is the mother of God?  Nobody knows.

What does it all mean?  I have no clue.  The finale offered up no real answers about what anything meant.  It's a maddening, puzzling show that may or may not mean anything and everything.  Feel free to offer up suggestions, because right now, I'm left wondering what the hell I saw.  It's not awful, it's not great, this show just is, or was.  Part of me wants to spend hours trying to deconstruct it.  Another part wants to forget it ever happened.

All I know for sure is that Keone Young (Mr. Wu from Deadwood) guest starred on this episode, making him, by my count, the seventh actor from that show to also be on this one.  It just makes me angry David Milch's far superior Deadwood was canceled.


-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of HBO)