WHILE THE ACTORS complete the last few hours of the shoot, Milch gathers Hawk and five other writers in another trailer, one with a microphone and a computer screen set up on the floor. Milch sprawls out, his head resting on one hand, and launches into a sweeping monologue meant to explain the deeper meaning of a scene they've already shot—maybe, one writer jokes later, he's trying to explain it to himself.

"There is compassion in the universe, but we don't understand it," Milch says. Trusting in John will require viewers to make a leap of faith, he explains, to embrace the "benignity of the universe." Milch paraphrases Gandhi: "Find a Muslim, bring him into your home, and raise him as a Muslim."

"You can put yourself in the energy of the universe without understanding its purpose," he continues. "That's why I try not to think about what I'm writing and let it happen.

" Milch then lets it happen and starts working on a new scene. He "writes" out loud, a typist keying in his every utterance. As he speaks the words and describes the actions of different characters, he repeatedly taps a forearm, tilts his head, makes faces, and closes his eyes, looking for all the world like a jazz pianist in the throes of an improvisation. Except for helping out with a few words when solicited, the writers sit silently, some keying into their laptops, some fidgeting with their cell phones. Surfing doesn't come up once the entire time.

When Milch stops talking, the spell is broken. It's as though the spirit has left and the séance is over. The transcendent music has given way to the sound of a bartender cleaning glasses. The wind has turned onshore and brought a magical surf session to an end.

In a sense, what happens there in the trailer mimics the whole John from Cincinnati experience: It's a mesmerizing journey to an odd place that just happens to be set in the surfing world of Imperial Beach. Will audiences connect with it? As John Monad says, repeatedly, "Some things I know, and some things I don't."