The Wire: Ebb Tide (S2:E1)

“It’s all about self-preservation, Jimmy”

                Here we are. Season 2. Take a nice deep breath, everyone: you’re going to need it. I feel like, from what I’ve heard, this is probably the most polarizing season of the show, with some people considering it the worst and others finding it to be at least top 2 (Season 4, of course, is the prevailing choice for that honor). The docks plotline that is introduced here is really interesting, because I think it’s what makes “The Wire” such a fundamentally American show. The first season did a great job in fleshing out the patterns of the drug trade, absolutely, but that was sort of its own world. It was a show about cops and robbers, with hints of other stuff operating at the margins. This season, I hope, manages to make “The Wire” a tale about how the Drug War’s damage is widespread, affecting traditional American institutions like labor unions and trade.

                We meet, towards the beginning of the episode, the various members of the Sobotka clan that helps run the docks. Frank is shown, from the beginning, as concerned about saving the docks. Traditional American working-class jobs are disappearing (McNulty and his partner comment on this when they discuss when their relatives got fired from the steel factory at the docks). It’s an American problem, certainly, but also one specific to Baltimore. They haven’t had any good infrastructure (like, say, a deeper canal. Bad institutions beget bad institutions sort of thing. And, again, apologies for the overuse of that word, but its useful in tying the show together), so the Inner Harbor, the port of American myths like Babe Ruth, has gone to crap. Frank is going to do what he feels it takes to fix that problem, even if it means looking the other way when smuggling comes in.

                Nick and Ziggy, on the other hand, are of a different generation. Tony Soprano’s first therapy session begins with him observing that he is “feeling like he got in at the end,” and Nick and Ziggy are the embodiment of that feeling. Nick can’t get hours, even though he is in all probability an effective worker, because his Baltimore has always been one of decay. Nick manages to deal: literally. Ziggy, on the other hand, is, at the risk of being crass, a shithead. I’d venture to say he’s probably the most disliked character on “The Wire,” a drunken idiot who pulls out his penis in public so he can entertain others. He’s a whimpering embodiment of a child spoiled by the older generation, a guy who’s largely unbearable to be around. That’s the entire point, but that doesn’t make his scenes any more enjoyable to watch (although I think they strengthen the tragedy of the docks plotline, especially for Frank).

                The introduction of the docks does not mean, however, that we are abandoning what has come before. Bodie is tested by Stringer, spending the whole episode panicking that he’ll be blamed for the lost narcotics. Stringer is many things, among them willing to murder anyone who screws up minorly, but at this point he is also dreadfully efficient. It comes out he trailed Bodie and knows he did nothing wrong. However, the rest of the world doesn’t repay the favor. His NYC drug connection bails after Avon’s light sentence causes him to suspect that he may have been turned in return for information on the (Colombian?) drug dealer. Things are rough all over.

                I’ll often refer to the first few episodes of each season as “placesetting” for what comes next, and this episode is no different. We see where every cop is, who the new faces are, and even set the tensions for what will come (Stanislaus Valchek’s jealousy over Sobotka’s donation to the church is, while ridiculous, also a great indictment of how men in power’s seemingly benevolent acts are really just self-interest of a higher form). And then comes the big moment: Detective Beadie Russell (Amy Ryan’s work on the show is probably my favorite by a female, for reasons I’ll get into later) finds 13 dead bodies smuggled in a container Frank let through. Frank was a man willing to look the other way before this, but he realizes at the end of the episode what the show has shown us all too many times before. When it comes to The War on Drugs, nearly every action has a body count.

“Ain’t never gonna be what it was” – Little Big Roy          

Observations and What-Have-You’s

n  Every time a computer screen pops up on the show, I have to ask when they’re going to switch to make the switch to Windows XP. I know, a petty thought to start with, but goddamn do those computers look old.

n  The version of the theme song has switched, as it will every season. We get the original version of “Way Down in the Hole” by Cookie Monster Tom Waits, which is probably my favorite one as well. His voice is just so desperate-sounding, an always-appropriate theme for the show, but especially this season.

n  Seemingly everyone from the old unit, save Herc & Carver and Bunk & Freamon,             is pissed about their current situation. In no particular order

o   Greggs gets called, entertainingly, pussy-whipped, by Herc, and clearly isn’t all that happy about Cheryl’s attempts to get pregnant. It’s clear that she’s addicted to the adrenaline of police work, and probably loves it more than even her family (“The Hurt Locker” does probably the best job I can think of in entertainment of exploring this phenomenon).

o   McNulty is clearly hating every moment at the docks, and the most joy he gets is by screwing over his old colleagues at homicide by dumping a body on them.

o   Daniels gets shockingly shafted, being put down in the miserable basement that is the evidence department. Of course, he is pretty nonplussed about the whole thing.