“Thieving motherfuckers take everything, don’t they?”
Most
robbers in Baltimore are like Omar. They steal money, they steal drugs, and
they might even take lives, but they’re pretty straightforward about what
they’re taking. From the beginning of this week’s episode, however, we realize
that there is a much grander form of robbery going on around Baltimore: the
robbery of history. Nick Sobotka can’t afford his aunt’s old house, because the
area it’s in has gentrified. It’s no longer “Locust Point,” it’s now called
Federal Hill. The Sobotka’s Baltimore, of steel mills, of docks, is vanishing.
No one’s to blame, really, (do we really think Elena McNulty is some outsider)
and it’s an unavoidable situation. Heck, I’m pretty sure whoever inherited
Nicky’s aunt’s house profited from it. But, in the process, in the myriad
turnovers of the property, there’s a legacy lost.
What, then,
to put in its place? The episode gets a good bit of humorous mileage out of
white people imitating blacks (“wangsters,” or its slightly more offensive
variant). Herc relishes in interacting with these guys, mocking them even as he
tries to bust them for dealing. They use the “N-word,” as Ziggy does, and try
to act tough. They’re “stealing” from black legacies, as Carver points out, so it’s
almost a little too entertaining to see Cheese rough up and threaten Ziggy.
Almost.
The answer
to the whole process is simple: innovate, or die. Stringer and Bodie are both
keen observers of their world, and they realize that something has to be done
to prop up the Barksdale Organization. Stringer looks to his economics
professor for help, who offers up the example of WorldCom (it’s now part of
Verizon Wireless) rebranding and offering low prices to respond to a
competitive marketplace. Several recommendations come up, like new caps for
their drugs, but Bodie proves to be the most adept monopolist of all, setting
up fake competition amongst the towers whilst they will actually be colluding
to sell the same product. It’s damn good business, and a none-too-subtle
comparison between corporate fraud and actual criminal enterprises.
Unfortunately,
the government and union employees prove to be far less efficient (Yay, free
market!...kind of, I’ll try to flesh all the angry economics rantings in these
reviews at some point, probably at the end of the season. Until then, let the
contradictions just kinda hang, and just assume I’m bitter about everything).
Valchek is still clearly obsessed with his personal feud with Frank Sobotka,
and even Daniels is more concerned with his professional path than actually
doing good policework. We still have mostly “good police” this season,
especially on the beat, but they’re limited in what they can do. McNulty
travels to Jersey City (the Baltimore of the NY area) on his own time, and that
does little good. Safe to say, little progress on the BPD front this week.
Frank,
meanwhile, is being forced to make compromise after compromise this week. When
he yells at Beadie for saying he would never let women die on his docks (which
he did), he clearly means it, but has been forced into dealing with people he
wouldn’t otherwise. He tries to stop the deal, but he knows that he needs the
money to save the economic futures of his fellow stevedores. Looking out onto
the docks’ old factories, Spiros reminds him just how fragile his position is.
“They used to make steel there, no?” –Spiros Vondas
Observations and What-Have-You’s
n
Cheese is played by Method Man, and his scenes
prove what we’ve known for some time now: “The Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothing to
fuck with.” This also makes Method Man a major actor on what might be the best
show of all time (“The Wire”) and what might be the worst (“Method and Red”)
n
Ziggy is such a damn screwup, he gets conned by
Frog. God, he’s so bad at everything.
n
Beadie gets some information out of an old
boy-toy of hers, which is probably the only progress that police have in this
episode. I have said before I’m a fan of what Amy Ryan does this season, and I
think the tenderness she shows is a great combination of genuine concern and
regret over a lost relationship, and a pragmatic need to do her job. She’s a
really sweet character, but there’s a knowing fatigue underneath it all.
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