“Maybe it’s the company he keeps”
When I
look at why, exactly, the Barksdale organization functions so well (and I
believe it does), I keep coming back to one thing: the partnership of Avon
Barksdale and Stringer Bell. Don’t get me wrong: they have a great system set
up, intelligent street soldiers, etc. But in a show noticeably bereft of
functioning marriages and families, Avon and Stringer’s partnership sticks out
as perhaps the show’s strongest (not emotionally, but functionally: McNulty and
Bunk seem more like a real, if fucked-up, married couple). Avon needs Stringer
to take that pager from him in this episode. Avon wouldn’t do it himself, but
when he hears Stringer tell him to, he immediately knows it’s the right call.
In wartime, you need someone as cautious as Stringer (dude pretends to OMAR
that he doesn’t know Avon) to take control. Avon and Stringer get each other,
intuitively, and that’s what makes them so damn good.
Omar,
meanwhile, derives strength almost fully from within (he has significant others
throughout the show, but they’re not fleshed-out for a reason). It’s what makes
him such a great myth: he’s alone, a functional orphan, like all great American
heroes from Huck Finn to Bruce Wayne. Of course, even an orphan needs a little
bit of help every now and again, and Omar is no different. We seem him weakened,
for once, from a bullet wound Wee-Bay gave him (“If it bleeds, we can kill it”
should give the Barksdale Organization some predatorial hope going forward). He
recovers, of course, and meets with Stringer under Prop Joe’s supervision (the
best part of which is Prop Joe pretending they’ve never met, after giving Omar
the info he almost killed Avon with. There’s an equally great scene in Season 1
of “The Sopranos” where a maitre’d forgets Tony Soprano when he brings his wife
to dinner the night after Tony brought a goombah to the same place…but I
digress.) Omar realizes what Stringer is up to, and decides to leave Baltimore
for NYC.
The men
and women of the Baltimore PD, meanwhile, are having actual familial issues.
McNulty’s wife calls an emergency meeting demanding the removal of his
custodial rights, an issue which fizzles as soon as it starts. McNulty may be
enough of a screw-up to bring the woman who ruined his marriage as his damn
attorney, but he can also convince his wife that he’s a good father.
Kima is
a little more tactful, telling a noticeably awkward story about her first
arrest as a cop. At the calculated risk of being crass (I know, me? Never.),
Det. Greggs clearly gets off on the story, relishing the physicality and
adrenaline of policework, and Cheryl is equally clearly uncomfortable. Kima isn’t
a McNulty, though, and knows to end the story with a kiss.
Unfortunately,
we don’t get to write our own stories, and Kima’s is no different. The episode
ends with the attempted bust using Orlando’s (who had been arrested earlier)
information. Greggs is a good cop, and is mostly surrounded with pretty good
allies at the end of the episode. Alas, planning a buy-bust within a day strains
even the best policewoman, especially when combined with bad luck. Greggs loses
her gun, the street signs are all bent in the neighborhood, and the equipment
the crew has is pretty damn crappy.
The
crew loses her in the sound of gunfire. They spend excruciating minutes driving
around, without being able to locate her. And then, the inevitable: Orlando
lies dead on the ground, and Kima is shot in the neck, close to death if not
quite yet there. Casualties like Bubbles and Johnny in the War on Drugs are
rather obvious. Good, unlucky cops like Kima are the cost of shoddily executed
drug operations like the one ordered by Deputy Burrell. Another day, I guess.
“And then he dropped the bracelets…” – Greggs
Big Miss
n
McNulty’s scene with his wife is problematic. “The
Wire” seems, on this rewatch, to have problems not with women per se, but women
who don’t fit into its brutal world. Elena just comes off as petty and
illogical (who goes from demanding revocation of custody to longing looks in a
minute-long conversation) here.
Big Hit
n
Although this episode features an unusually
strong scene involving Shardene (her putting on glasses, while sweetly bonding
with Freamon), the closing scene of Greggs’ shooting is too crushing to put
elsewhere. The scene nails fully how the best laid plans of men go to waste, as
the bent street signs and slippery seats of Greggs’ car bring down one of the
city’s best cops. The absolute helplessness of Daniels, McNulty et al. is also
wonderfully done, with the transfer to the aircraft's perspective rendering the clearly personal tragedy of Greggs' shooting into a mere, technical police matter,
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