Treat Williams passed away on Monday. He was driving his motorcycle through Vermont when another driver spun his car, the actor was unable to avoid it and crashed into the vehicle. He was 71 years old at the time of the tragedy. And, while there are those who remember Williams as his early sexual awakening with the movie Hair, for others seeing his face will always be synonymous with tranquility, presence, calm and community. It is what he has to be in charge of a series like Everwood for four seasons, a fictional model in danger of extinction.
He was Dr. Andy Brown, who was moving from Manhattan to a Colorado town with his two children after losing his wife. Vivien Cardone was Delia and Gregory Smith was Ephram, a diligent teenager but with underlying rage, a feeling caused by the loss of maternal role and an unwanted move, and the need to pay off someone whose pillars of his life had been dynamited when It was still early for him to process it (if there is an ideal moment to discover the injustices of life, the arbitrariness, the desolation of losing a loved one).
It was in that Everwood, the end of the world compared to New York, in which Ephram found love, an Amy played by Emily VanCamp, who in turn was in love with a young man in a coma. Dr. Williams found peace, connection with the locals, even the warmth of developing a friendly feud with Harold Abott (Tom Amandes), the other local doctor. Marty could have a son who challenged him with his eyes every now and then, but they both benefited from being away from the hustle, the noise, the anonymous existences, a selfish social mentality.
In this family crisis they discovered a value similar to that of the family, sometimes complementary or even substitute, as was that of the community. Treat Williams contributed to that confidence, to forging the idea of ??Everwood as a place to take refuge in and full of peculiarities. He did it with an old-school charisma, a masculinity in plaid shirts, with the bearing of a lumberjack, with a conservative voter’s smile but extreme kindness, from which he disarms any argument.
Broadcast in the United States on a youth channel, The WB, it tried to be an example of television that could bring parents and children together in front of the same television series and that everyone could have encouragement, elements of discussion and a calm look at dramatic conflicts. . It served to talk about mourning, anger, adolescent rebellion and some parental mistakes that make understanding difficult, respect for the elderly, even terminal illnesses.
The fights, yelling, and silence between Andy and Ephram reminded audiences that as much as anger and misunderstanding can dominate a father-son relationship, some love remains. Neither the reluctance nor that anger could ignore the fact that, when it came to the Browns, there were feelings hurt by their circumstances. And, if I’m being honest with you, Everwood often got on my nerves. The drama never unfolded fast enough, the episodic plots were always too kind, and his look at non-urban life was so essentialist it was almost reactionary.
But, Treat Williams dies, and the head takes you to that Everwood thought by Greg Berlanti, who after the family drama would write Five Brothers, then Arrow and finally become the highest paid producer on television with a contract of over 400 million with Warner Bros.
As I mentally locate myself in that Everwood, I can feel the harmonious cadence of that television that accompanied you, of an annoyingly adorable community like the inhabitants of Cicely from Alaska Doctor and those of Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls, even the Bluebell from Hart of Dixie . The scripts, which must each contribute to a choral mosaic and the omnipresent of the community, made the antidote to loneliness.
American television has semi-abandoned this mold. Sweet Magnolias or A Place to Dream are poor examples of this kind of fiction. Now the best examples are possibly found on Korean television with productions like Love is like cha-cha-cha or even Crash landing on you that portrayed the comrades of a North Korean town with extraordinary affection.
May Treat Williams rest in peace. His demeanor, for those who have seen Everwood, will always be exactly that: peace.
