The Wire: Duck and Cover (S2:E8)

“It’s a new world, Frank.”

            Welcome back, Kotter Jimmy McNulty, it’s good to have you. After a season adrift at sea, we find everyone’s favorite British-actor-playing-a-Baltimoreite at his lowest. It’s in turns heartbreaking and hilarious. Drunk driving is played for laughs a few times, and its no funnier than when Jimmy nearly totals his car, backs it up, and does the same damn thing again. Of course, McNulty being McNulty, he goes to a diner and immediately picks up a reasonable-looking (but not stunning) girl for a one-night stand. I don’t always like McNulty’s roguish side, but this is its pinnacle, and I’m along for the horrifying ride.

            McNulty is, at his core, a wounded, likeable puppy, one that Bunk can’t help but take pity on. McNulty comes as close to saying he’s (depressed, suicidal, worthless. I’d say pick one, but the truth lies somewhere in the void between) to Bunk drunkenly at the tracks. From there, Bunk uses his own charming nature to convince Daniels, the hardass with a heart of gold, to get Rawls’ permission to detail McNulty. And, 8 episodes in, we have our man back on the job. Is it the most thematically exciting plot? No, but I loves me a good alcoholic cop story as much as the next guy, so I’m damn pleased about it.

            Meanwhile, the cops as a whole have a pretty successful week.  Not “Law and Order” done in 43 minutes successful, but “The Wire” successful nonetheless. They’re dealing with the Sobotkas, not Stringer Bell (who is absent for the first time ever this week), and manage to get and execute their wiretap. Frank isn’t that slow on the uptake: when he can’t afford his cellphone bill, he realizes that something is amiss when they refuse to cancel it. He realizes something is wrong just in time, and sends along a bogus package to see if the cops will follow it. Although the plan works, Lester Freamon catches both Frank and Sergei’s boss calling Spiros, leading them further down the trail. “The Wire” isn’t a procedural, per se, but it does find its own take on making policework exhilarating, Even if that exhilaration comes from, say, number-crunching and mountains of paperwork to get a wiretap.

            This episode also does a fantastic job fleshing out further who Frank Sobotka is, even as he’s already a wonderfully fleshed-out character. We see, first, his frustration at his brother for denying the cushy job he’s gotten for him. This could be a simple scene, of Frank’s brother calling him out for his sins, but it’s played a bit differently. Both of these men are hardheaded and stuck in their ways, and can’t see why their family member would want anything different from what they have. It goes both ways, but for Frank it explains why the only future he sees for Ziggy is on the docks, even if that’s as piss-poor a plan as any.

            That’s Frank’s fatal flaw: not seeing any other angles. In his quest to save the docks for his son, he barely pays attention to what Ziggy is actually up to. Ziggy tries to take on Maui, and fails miserably with a sucker punch so terrible I for once thought “yeah, I could hit harder than that.” Ziggy isn’t cut out for a world of strict masculinity; he’s too easily manipulated into humiliation for the other worker’s entertainment. He’s not the most beautiful or most talented creature, but he needs to get out of there. Unfortunately, Ziggy Sobotka wasn’t raised to think that way.

“How come they don’t fly away?” –Ziggy

Observations and What-Have-You’s

n  I didn’t mention it in the review proper, but I’m a huge fan of the scene of McNulty going back to Beadie’s place (it’s an all-around Dominic West showcase week). McNulty is not irredeemable, nor is he addicted to self-destruction in the way that, say, Bubbles is. He realizes he would probably just damage Beadie in the way he usually does, and that now is a terrible time to engage in anything like a relationship with a single mother. Beadie, meanwhile, plays the disappointment as he leaves just perfectly, with only the slightest hint of sadness covered with a smiled chagrin. She closes the door on him, walks away, and goes onto the next thing, not even looking out the window or the camera. It’s great work by both actors.

n  Herc and Carver are at it again! They hatch an unsurprisingly eggheaded attempt to recoup some of their losses, and it works, even though Daniels clearly knows what the shake is.

n  Ziggy buys a duck, since apparently his other fowl source of entertainment, his cock, is no longer appreciated by the bar. 

n  No Avon, no Stringer this week. I think the lack of the drug game proper this season really makes it a divisive one, and an episode like this goes to show how difficult a commercial sell “The Wire” is. Most shows wouldn’t drop one of their biggest plots for a full episode that still has about 8 other threads running through it.

n  Bodie and Poot, however, do show up, fretting over territory and trying to make money with their crap drugs. Both guys are good at what they do, and realize that something has gotta give. They have their corner back for now, but it might not be for long, especially if they can’t sell anything of good quality.