“You got money, you
get to be whatever you say you are”
One of
my favorite sports stories is about a team I don’t particularly like: The
New York Mets. In 1973, the Mets were down an ungodly amount of games below
.500 (I think 10 ½, but I don’t remember) going into mid-August. They were
sunk, finished. At the time, a reporter asked relief pitcher Tug McGraw (father
of country singer/TSwift song title Tim McGraw), with a hint of tremendous
sarcasm, something to the effect of “What do you think your chances of making
the playoffs are. Equally sarcastically, Tug McGraw said “Well, ya gotta
believe.”
Believing
in the NY Mets is a provably foolish proposition even when the Mets have every
reason to win. Believing that they could make one of the largest comebacks in
MLB history is folly of the highest order. And the great thing about that team
was that they knew how ridiculous it
was. They weren’t fools. As a reader, you know where this is going even if you
don’t: the Mets overcome the odds, and win the pennant. Not the World Series,
but the pennant.
I think
of “The Wire” on similar terms. It’s a show that demonstrates every good reason
to feel pessimistic about the world. Cynicism, even, is almost certainly the
right answer. And, like the pennant, even the best victories are never
complete. What is missing from that equation, however, is the recurring theme
that fatalism is an even more ridiculous proposition than idealism. Take
Bubbles’ junkie friend: Johnny. He receives the news that he is HIV-positive,
and he responds that it’s “all part of the game.” That line sounds wise coming
from Omar, but from Johnny it’s patently ridiculous. That attitude makes Johnny
a sadsack, a recurring joke that is dark even for a show about the death of an
American city.
The
problems “The Wire” is discussing are almost unsolvable, but the emphasis lies
on the almost. It doesn’t have to be this
way. D’Angelo looks kindly on Wallace’s playing with a toy, until Bodie uses
the glass of a bottle to make the young dealer put away childish things. Bodie
and Wallace aren’t really these tough kids, and D’Angelo knows it. They’re
performing the roles they grew up seeing, children pretending to be something
else (except the stakes of their pretend games are very real).
Lester
Freamon is busy telling Lieutenant Daniels that the way they’re running the investigation
is not the way it has to (or should) be. It’s entertaining: Avon (more on him
in a minute) is clearly paranoid about the wiretap, because he correctly things
it’s what the police should do. Yet the cops are so unable/unwilling to work in
a timely manner, that they miss the Barksdale crew executing not one, but two
murders, both relating to Omar’s crew.
Although
a lot else goes on in this episode (Prez, of all people, cracks the Barksdale
code, Bodie bonds with Herc and Carver), the best parts come from the kings of
their respective worlds: Omar Little and Avon Barksdale. This is the episode
with the famous “Omar coming!” scene, which is done for the sole purpose of
pointing out just how badass Omar is. He’s whistling goddamn “Farmer in the
Dell,” and yet it’s more intimidating than anything death metal has ever
produced. He’s so good, he doesn’t always need to be violent to succeed;
usually, the threat is enough.
Avon,
meanwhile, gets a little bit more of a backstory in this one. We see him waking
up with his (a?) girlfriend. The set design here is perfect: the house is
noticeably nicer on the inside than the out, hinting at Avon’s large amounts of
cash and his inability to flaunt it. This little catch comes up again later,
when he goes to visit his comatose brother in a shoddy facility. He,
theoretically, could pay for better, treatment, but since his brother has no
insurance, such a display would be incredibly worthy of suspicion. Avon is an
incredibly intuitive kingpin, not as cerebral as Stringer, but with a
fundamental understanding of how to get people to work. He thinks that, with
patience, he might be able to improve his lot in life, help out his brother.
That time just hasn’t come yet, and whether it even could is a question for
another day.
“...a little slow, a
little late. - Avon Barksdale”
Big Miss
n
I don’t like the
running thread of D’Angelo asking out Shardene, the dancer, and it just got to
me in this episode. Yeah, we get it, he’s sensitive, and he wants to help out
this prostitute with a heart of gold. If memory serves correct it’s a somewhat
important point later, but I take issue with how it’s set up.
Big Hit
With Avon’s discussing about his brother coming in a
close second, Omar’s east-side robbery pulls out the victory. The beauty of the
scene is not just that Omar is a terrifying presence, which he is, but also
that he can outsmart dealers just with that presence. The later scene, where
Omar covers up his shock at Bailey’s death, is also great. I suspect this
category is going to see a lot more of my man Little as time goes on.
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