“Jesus, what the fuck did I do?”
One of
the irritating things about most television shows (for example, nearly every sitcom)
is that they will do almost anything to reinstate the status quo at the end of
each episode. It’s why we have will-they-or-won’t-they couples like Sam and
Diane, JD and Elliot, why Saved by the Bell stayed at High School for 8 years,
and why there was always one of the six “Friends” living in that comically nice
NYC apartment. “The Wire,” for all its innovation, doesn’t actually do anything
drastically different than these shows; it just makes an art of returning to
the status quo…at least for those who are still around.
The
episode begins, however, with a sense of hopeful change. D’Angelo seems willing
to flip after discovering Wallace’s death, and offers to give up Avon,
Stringer, etc. in return for a fresh start. These final two episodes are all
payoffs for the character beats we’ve seen the whole season, and D’Angelo’s
disillusionment with “the game” is one of the more powerful plots. We see his
whole backstory rewritten, with the anecdote he told to Bodie about murdering
one of Avon’s girls revealed to be a lie to cover up his being a mere witness
to Wee-Bay’s execution.
D’Angelo’s
information allows the cops to catch Bay in Philadelphia. Wee-Bay is
hilariously nonchalant about the whole thing, complaining about his broken car
window and offering up murder cases in return for pork sandwiches (extra
horseradish). The great thing about “The Wire” is that what happens is so
routinely terrible, so unexpectedly bad, that the decisions the characters must
make are at once impossible to predict and obvious in retrospect. Wee-Bay is
facing life without parole, and I guess in that situation the best thing to do
would actually be to confess to every murder out there. It’s highly logical,
but the logic only makes sense after we get to a point of no return.
Of
course, everything then falls apart. Of course. Daniels, McNulty get, in a
sense, greedy, and try to bring the case to the feds. The Feds want the case
only for its ties to corruption and are willing to go lenient on Stringer and
Avon to do so, which upsets the entire squad. As that collapses, D’Angelo is
reminded that his “whole family,” his child, his sister, etc. will bear the
cost of his confession. The next time Rhonda Pearlman gets a call from him,
Maurice Levy is on the other line. And with those two strokes, the case
vanishes, leaving D’Angelo to face the harshest amount of time for anyone
convicted for drug dealing (Wee-Bay is a different beast).
Watching
McNulty watch all of the convicted dealers leave the courtroom is a perfect
encapsulation of the futility of the war on drugs. The faceless soldiers in the
war are all taken off to prison, the morally innocent (D’Angelo) along with the
morally guilty. Even after what is one of the greatest pure successes in the
battle for Baltimore’s streets, nothing seems resolved. Stringer is running
drugs in Avon’s stead, and although there is a temporary cut in drug supply,
it’s clearly just that: temporary.
The
source of hope, and the real tragedy, of the War on Drugs is that there’s
always the future. The hope is that things will get better: the tragedy is that
things will almost always stay the same. Cops repeat the same stirring speeches
(Herc imitating Daniels), the dealers pass down the best strategies for slinging
(Bodie imitating D’Angelo) and junkies stay junkies (Bubbles). Even when people
get demoted, like McNulty, another good detective like Freamon rises to take
his place. There’s so much friction in the institutions of Baltimore, than
change, good, bad, or otherwise, is nearly impossible.
D’Angelo notes that he was “freer in jail than
he was at home,” and that’s not an exaggeration. The world of West Baltimore is
inescapable, and even for people who leave (Wallace), coming back seems to be
the only answer. We were reminded a few episodes earlier that “all the pieces
matter,” and that’s certainly true. It’s not the case that each person is
haunted by the same problems. The enemies are often callous bureaucracies,
which explains why Daniels and McNulty end up punished for their good
policework, but there are just as often internal demons preventing change.
There are a million problems, a million institutions (economic, governmental,
moral) failing, and solving one problem seems to simply cause another five.
“It’s all in the game” –traditional West Baltimore
Big Miss
n
This is the last time I’m going to use this
format (because “Big Miss” is saying increasingly less about the show), but
since it’s still here, I have to choose McNulty’s flipout at the Feds. They had
already made it clear they could only take the case if it involves corruption,
and the idea that he (or Daniels, or anyone) couldn’t figure out that they
would simply use Stringer and Avon for other ends seems foolish, to me.
Big Hit
n
The closing montage. I think that I actually
respond less to “The Wire’s” season-closing montages (I don’t know if they use
it every time) than most, but I still think this is a wonder of economic
storytelling. Tim Van Patten, who directed this episode in addition to some of
the best “Sopranos” episodes, gets a lot of credit in my book for it (the song “Step
by Step” is great), as we see hows guys like McNulty, Santangelo, and Daniels
got screwed in the exact way that was foreshadowed (in order, Marine Unit
detail that McNulty hated most, street beat Santangelo was supposed to avoid by
closing a case, passed over for the Major position he was almost rewarded)
earlier. It’s great.
No comments:
Post a Comment