Thursday, August 2, 2012

The Wire: Storm Warnings (S2:E10)


“He’s your son.”

            The docks have been, in some odd way, a respite from the normal world of East Baltimore. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there still is crushing poverty, violence, crime, etc. But it hasn’t seemed, so far, like death and prison are the only two routes out of there. Even for a schmuck like Ziggy, it seemed like the stakes were lower, although it’s not exactly like he’s God’s favorite child. That couldn’t remain the case for long. In an instant, Ziggy throws away his life, his father’s dream, not to mention the life of an (admittedly scummy) businessman. All for a second of power, of dominance over another. Ziggy was always going to lose something in his quest to be respected, a marriage, a family bond, but he loses everything here.
            Frank is coming down off the minor triumph of getting funding for the grain pier when Nicky tells him the news. Both Sobotkas are in shock over the news, but respond in different ways. Nick’s breakdown is crushing, more for his disbelief that this could be his family, staying in prison for life. Frank is so single-track minded that he can’t see that his son, while he was busy doing everything else, went off the deep-end. Out of all the legs in Frank Sobotka’s deck of cards, that it’s his son who gives out for no real reasonable…well, it just makes the collapse all the more brutal.
            What we owe, and what we leave, for the next generation is a question that runs through the entire episode. Kima’s isn’t exactly the idea supportive wife during Cheryl’s pregnancy, and seeing her clear apathy at Cheryl’s pregnancy is one of the more numbingly horrifying scenes of the episode. We know Kima, we like Kima, but that she could be so fundamentally unconcerned with her soon-to-be-born child is a flaw that we rarely have the guts to depict in any medium. Good people don’t always make good parents, which often means the continue the cycle of damage onwards and onwards.
            It’s a concept Prez is intimately familiar with. Although he isn’t his father per se, merely his father-in-law, Valchek often acts as though he is, ordering the young detective around like a child at a playground. Valchek is clearly a shit among shits in the command, caring less than zero about anything but his own personal grudges (this whole season wouldn’t have happened if Valcheck didn’t have church-donation penis envy). When he starts shoving Prez around, that’s about all the young guy can take. Like Ziggy, there’s a limit, although Prez’s retaliation merely ends with him punching his superior officer who controls his entire career.
            On the streets, it’s the new same-old. Prop Joe’s drugs are clearly working, as Bodie sees an explosion in profits after the new stuff. Of course, everything comes at a cost, so Cheese takes over three of the towers in return for the drugs, an idea which at first makes Bodie furious. Bodie, however, is a rather smart bloke (he grew up on the crime side, the new york times side, staying alive was no jive), and when he realizes that the cost of the good drugs is the towers, becomes a hard-nosed businessman more concerned with beating Cheese “fair and square,” such as it is, than with violence.
            Unfortunately, Cheese isn’t surrounded by just upstanding gents like Bodie. Brother Mouzone makes his first real appaearance, standing down and shooting Cheese for taking over Avon’s territory (as Avon and String can’t come to an agreement). I have to admit, I think the Brother is one of the worst characters the show came up with: he’s just a little over-the-top, too mannered and just an inferior version of Mr. Little. Nonetheless, the game’s the game, and Cheese and Prop Joe know there is only one man for the job. It’s safe (dangerous?) to say: Omar comin’.

“It always pays to go with the union card.” – Ziggy

Observations and What-Have-You’s

n  Highlight of the episode: Daniels showing more emotion than I can remember, laughing and horrified at Prez knocking out Valchek. It’s nice to see the hardass smile once in a while.
n  Kima’s conversation with Beadie shows just how much the latter is out of place in the unit. Everyone else (McNulty, but also Daniels, Bunk, Freamon and Prez) is addicted to policework, and can barely see a life without it. Beadie, meanwhile, couldn’t imagine sacrificing her kids for the job.
n  Landsman is wonderfully sympathetic in his scene with Ziggy. Gotta feel for the guy: he’s a politician, yeah, but he’s also a concerned policeman too.
Sorry if I concentrated a little too much on the recap portion instead of the analysis this time

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