This is my
second time making it through “The Wire,” and rewatching a piece of
entertainment really changes how one thinks about it. It’s like the second time
watching “Fight Club,” when you’re looking for all the proof that Tyler Durden
is the Narrator. You know what’s coming, and you’re looking for the lead-up to
the developments. I forgot, however, that this was the episode where Prez
accidentally kills a fellow cop, up until the point when he and Jimmy go out to
get chinese food. It’s not a twist that is hinted at the whole time: it just
happens, randomly in the moment.
It’s a
crushing moment where just about everything goes wrong. He made a mistake,
indulged his violent instinct (we saw it before in Season One) and didn’t do
good policework. Prez is, I think, a fundamentally good person (and there is a
lot of evidence of that coming next season), but he has a dark side. That side
may or may not be racist, as he admits, but it’s there, and bad luck of the
worst kind hits him right here. The whole police department thinks of Prez as a
screw-up, when in fact he’s become damn good at his very behind-the-desk
investigations. That difference between what “is” and what ends up being
important in the bureaucracy is a constant theme of the show, with the real
horror coming from real issues being glossed over by political concerns.
A similar
event occurs in Hamsterdam. Carver finds a dead body in the free-zone, and
realizes that if homicide comes to the area the experiment will be over. He
decides, in the moment, to move the body out of the territory, tampering a
crime scene by the generally grotesque act of altering a corpse. It may be for
the greater good, but it’s still an inversion of the truth (a pretty solemn
one, a murder) for the sake of political concerns. Institutions, goals, rules:
they all matter. They matter when the federal government won’t concentrate on
drug crime, they matter when a potential do-gooder can’t get permits to build a
gym unless he knows someone (luckily, he does), and they matter in a
racially-charged Baltimore Police Department. Even the benign rules have
far-reaching impacts.
Of course,
sometimes a cover-up doesn’t require a big institutional rationale. In the case
of D’Angelo Barksdale’s murder, it’s all about saving face. Stringer had him
killed, Avon now knows, but both have to lie (although I think Avon might word
his responses to avoid out-and-out lying) to Brianna about her son’s fate. Avon
is clearly a mess about the thing, with his angry speech to Brianna about never
having anything to do with “whatever happened to D” also indirectly a response
to Stringer. But business is business, and they’re at war, so they get over
what’s happened and proceed with their lives.
“…while you’re waiting for moments that never come.” –Freamon
Observations and What-Have-You’s
n
“Ed Burns” is thrown out by McNulty as an
example of a good cop in the city. He is, of course, one of the show’s
executive producers/primary writers, as well as a former Baltimore Cop. I’m
sure the other names are references to things I don’t understand as well.
n
The cop is unfortunately the second victim of
friendly fire, Omar’s female associate being the first. “The Wire’s” a pretty
compelling narrative in that regard, in that its sprawling nature (Omar’s plot
is almost wholly detached from Prez’s) can show just how easily mistakes
happen. It provides a lot of political fodder (an argument for gun control?),
but I just think it’s interesting to see the whole picture connected in odd
ways.
n
Herc finally snaps and calls up the Baltimore
Sun (we’ll see more of them in Season Five) to inform them about Hamsterdam.
n
Carcetti is clearly torn about how much he can
betray Anthony Gray in his ambitions to run for mayor.
n
The Co-op is concerned about the violence
between Barksdale and Marlo, but without any effective incentives to make
Stringer stop (which only Prop Joe has, with his connection), they’re basically
impotent.
n
Clay Davis, still playing Stringer. Stringer,
still can’t build anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment