But I like the way you include Davis–he’s a weird native and tourist in his own town, isn’t he? The NOLA he embraces isn’t the one he came from and yet the two are connected and intertwined in interesting ways…

In this case, we can see Delmond beginning to feel the pull of the city’s heritage in a way that he didn’t seem to in the first season. One wonders whether he might eventually return to the city either through a physical relocation or through a reconnection with its musical culture. At the same time, Janette looks ill at ease in New York City. She looks anonymous in the factory-like kitchen where she works and her desultory figure seems to sink into the streets when she is outside of it. Yet, as you note, she is awakened for a brief moment by the critical evisceration of New Orleans’ cuisine. One wonders whether a return for Janette can be far off, particularly since she does not seem to be prepared to fully inhabit her New York City life.

It seems to me that these two characters provide a means for the program to engage in an extended consideration of what New Orleans means to those who identify with it, those who know it only through tourism and its accumulated mythological weight, and the space in between these two positions. As I consider whether or not these two characters seem likely to return to NOLA, it occurs to me that it’s more likely that they will re-engage with the city through the outward embrace of its culture in New York City. For these two, along with other characters like Davis McAlary, it seems that a large part of living the city’s culture is sharing it with others, whether they be fellow natives or those for whom the city is merely a loose collection of images, be they of Katrina-related pain or Mardi Gras-related pleasure.