The Wire: Back Burners (S3:E7)

“Where do we go / where do we go now”

            This might be because I’m writing this the morning that I witness my last move-in of freshmen into my lovely university, but isn’t change brutal? It can be great, exciting, don’t get me wrong (e.g. when I moved in), but it seems so random, yet obviously inescapable. You might be able to adapt, as the unit does to the burners. Alternately, something random might pop up to ruin your day, like when they realize that Avon Barksdale is back on the street. Change is going to come: the only thing that remains unknown is what it brings.

            Hamsterdam, of course, is messing with a lot of things right now. We hear the statistics about the reduced crime in most of the district, and we’ve previously seen people out watering their lawn (because that’s what counts as progress in Baltimore), but there are huge costs. “Known Unknowns” and “Unknown Unknowns,” to borrow a War on Terror description. Major Colvin knew that eventually another cop would come upon Hamsterdam, he just didn’t know when. He was lucky enough here for it to be McNulty et al., cops who will probably keep mum on the experiment. I doubt, however, he could have anticipated the anarchy that would descend upon the children of the Drug War.

            Carver’s solution remains one of the more interesting parts of the season. “The Wire” is not a documentary, even if it does aim for realism, and I think there’s cause to doubt the plausibility of the whole welfare system arising in West Baltimore. But the Hamsterdam experience is as much thought-experiment as anything else. “Deadwood’s” true genius was in how it explored, through the Western genre, the way societies come to be, how the governments, economies etc. organize themselves in new communities. In many ways, that’s what Hamsterdam is (“West” Baltimore, after all), an assortment of cops and criminals tentatively cooperating to improve everyone’s lot. On both shows, and as it is in life, there are a ton of setbacks.

            The kids themselves, of course, are the main issue arising out of Hamsterdam. All laws create the demand for bureaucrats to deal with them, and for citizens to try and get around them, and the runners and lookouts of the drug game are no different than, say, lawyers and “political consultants” (borrowing Clay Davis’ title for a second). If the law vanishes, their job does too, and West Baltimore doesn’t have the type of community that could support them. Carver, the socialist pig, realizes that Hamsterdam’s value is great enough that he can tax the dealers with little threat of them leaving (ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY), and so decides to set up a welfare system of quasi-afterschool programs for the kids…only the kids are already not going to school. It’s a start, but the broken basketball hoop shows that there’s a ton more work to be done.

            Meanwhile, Marlo fires his first shot in the war with the Barksdale Organization, enlisting Snoop to take out Poot’s corner. Among the many drive-by shootings in “The Wire,” this one sticks out for two reasons. One, Snoop looks so absurdly childish on the motorcycle before she shoots at Poot. It’s why she’s so effective as a character, a stone-cold murderer at age 12. Two, the way Poot plays possum is a great fake-out, and also a logical one. He’s clearly reeling from shock at the shooting, and gets up with his associate’s blood covering his shirt. It all happens so fast, no one knows how to react.

            One final thought: it’s no secret that David Simon, Ed Burns and the staff of “The Wire” are largely anti-War on Drugs, but credit to them for showing the horrors of drug legalization in Hamsterdam throughout the episode. Bubbles’ walk through Hamsterdam is beyond nightmarish. The audio mix is slightly off, with only Bubbles being fully intelligible, and the dope fiends are horrible. It makes even non-sober Bubbles seem downright responsible by comparison, but it also shows a ring of hell the show could very well have ignored. Keeping drugs concentrated in one area may allow for “regular” people to have a safer home, yet that of course has a cost. As does everything.

           

“Conscience do cost” – Butchie

Observations and What-Have-You’s

n  THIS IS 2004 ALERT: Remember how big Confessions was as an album? If not, “The Wire” is there to help, as this is the second straight episode with an Usher song, “Burn.” And I’m sure “Yeah” is going to show up soon.

n  It’s interesting how Colvin’s tactical deployment argument is similar to how Obama functionally legalized the Dream Act by declining to deport qualifying illegal immigrants. Both men are certainly in the right, but the argument does ring kind of hollow.

n  A nice little fade-to-black off of Kima throwing the file-holder thing at the camera.  Also, does anyone do better angry eyes than Lance Reddick?

n  I really thought that Dozerman would have a breakdown on stage judging from how nervous he was.

n  Yes, I overuse Caps Lock for mock humorous effect. I’m aware, and I have no intention of changing it.

n  Omar, meanwhile, gets a relatively dry subplot intended to wrap up a few loose ends. He’s still in shock from Bunk’s dressing down, and decides to do a favor for the man by finding Dozerman’s gun. It frees up Bunk and Omar to do more interesting things, but is itself relatively dry (although Butchie gets, as always, a good monologue out of the thing, about the futility of focusing on sorrow).

n  How many times does the show dip into the “Butchie’s blind, but he sees more than everyone” well? It’d be irritating if it weren’t such a well-written role.

n  As always, props to the writing staff for the will to make McNulty so unlikeable. Making you feel for the bosses, Daniels in this case, is difficult, but McNulty is so clearly a selfish ass about the policework, and the show resists any temptation to make him the loveable rogue here. His pursuit of Theresa seems more like delusional stalking than flirting, and everyone’s face when he shows up to work demonstrates what little respect the unit has for him.

n  I think the reason I like Cutty so much as a character is how well he portrays a sort of inability to express himself. Writers tend to write eloquent characters because they (hopefully) are, but it takes real skill to write some who actually can’t say how he’s feeling.