The Wire: The Target (S1:E1)

“Got to. It’s America, man.”

            Here it begins. And, by “it,” I am of course referring to “The Wire,” the show widely hailed as the greatest piece of fiction the medium of television has ever created (A sentiment, which, I must note, I disagree with: I’ll always go with “The Sopranos.” I still think it’s inarguable that “The Wire” is near the top of the pantheon, though).  I aim, at what is going to be a pretty brisk pace, to try and review each episode of The Wire. I have an ulterior motive: I’m writing my senior thesis on this and “The Sopranos,” and although I’ve already made it through both shows, I hope blogging will get some of them creative juices done flowing. The format is simple: I’m going to spend 30 minutes recapping each episode (time constrains me, unfortunately, so forgive typos. And my blogging style makes heavy usage of parenthesis, so if that’s going to be an issue, get out), and try and get at the themes of the show.

The pilot episode begins, appropriately enough, with a dead body. “Snot Boogie” is his (its?) name, shot over a game of craps. As we find out in the opening conversation between McNulty and a random friend of Snot Boogie, Snot would, reliably, steal from every craps game he participated once the pot got big enough. Normally, he’d just get his ass beat: this time, he ends up on the pavement. But the question that comes to McNulty isn’t the pointlessness of the violence (he seems used to it by now), but why on earth people would let him play craps if they knew he was going to rob the game. And therein comes the epigraph. McNulty is portrayed by the British Dominic West, giving his bemusement at the American situation a little more of a punch.

The conversation is a little on the nose, but this is a show that does take a few episodes to get going (Unlike, say, The Sopranos, Mad Men, or, especially, Arrested Development). And this is clear from how the show treats its POV: it seems, initially, like this is a show about Jimmy McNulty, our protagonist, with a little bit of help from D’Angelo Barksdale’s on-the-street perspective. Of course, this isn’t the case (The Wire’s ensemble reaches Homerian proportions as it goes on), but it’s easy to see why people would traditionally diagnose McNulty as the lead on what, at this point, seems to be little more than the most intelligent crime procedural of all time (and it is much, much more than that).

But we see the series setting down a few fundamental ideas here, and the show doing a damn good job at keeping track of all the moving pieces (we know, for example, who is in Homicide, Narcotics, etc., and get a feel to the bureaucracies of both the Barksdale crew). Multiple cops draw a parallel between the War on Drugs and the War on Terror (“we don’t have enough love in our hearts for 2 wars” quips McNulty), and remark on how the War on Drugs is never ending. Again, on point, but it’s the show’s pilot, and it is important to set up the template for the future.

The better stuff, however, comes from seeing how the show portrays the inner workings of the gang and the police department. It’s funny just how much better Stringer Bell is as a manager than the overlords of the police department. In the police department, you are rewarded for not stepping on toes (on Lieutenant Daniels’s promotion chances, Bunk: “he’s black, he’s young, he hasn’t pissed anyone off. Shit, he even has a law degree.” A law degree from the University of Baltimore, but a law degree nonetheless). The Barksdale crew, on the other end, is worried about one thing: C.R.E.A.M. Avon takes note of how the D’Angelo’s case carried substantial transaction costs for the firm, Stringer demotes D’Angelo with the promise of promotion if he brings in more money. Although Stringer will be the one who talks more about economics as the show progresses, Avon correctly notes that the costs were not just money, but “time and effort,” keeping in mind the opportunity cost inflicted by D’Angelo’s murder.

Of course, “efficiency” is a problematic word, because the show’s pilot ends on another dead body. “Efficiency” also refers to the collapse of the moral institutions that once protected everyone (why, for example, Snot Boogie was never shot before this time). You advance by innovating, or by getting around the rules, and the mutually agreed upon moral order is collapsing here. And then there is the second body: the witness who testified against D’Angelo, an innocent and nervous man, speaking out of turn at his trial. That’s the cost of doing the right thing in Baltimore.

“When it’s not your turn…” – McNulty

Big Miss:

n  The scene with the major chewing out McNulty is the obvious call. You might as well have the major saying “Dammit, McNulty, your non-textbook approach to law enforcement might have flown on the streets, but this is Homicide!” while wearing a “no-nonsense superior” T-Shirt. I have problems with the opening scene, but I also want to clarify that its of the "brilliantly flawed" qualms.

Big Hit:

n  The Greggs scene (where the audience nonchalantly discovers she is a lesbian) is great, making use of anticlimax as well as anything else on the show. I would argue that The Wire sometimes struggles with the interior life of a lot of the side characters, with only the best (Bunk, McNulty, Greggs and, of course, Omar Little) feeling fully realized, and the Greggs scene is a good rebuttal to that viewpoint. But my vote goes to Bubbles’s introduction. The Wire, fundamentally, tries to take all the disparate threads of harm that occur in the War of Drugs, and Bubbles makes us aware that there are, indeed, harms to taking drugs as well. And it’s a show where the realism of the cinematography (the blood in the needle) makes the point as clearly as possible (contrasted to the oddly fake-looking beating of Bubbles’s pal Johnny).