The Wire: Homecoming (S3:E6)

“War, children. It’s just a shot away.”

            What’s a little police brutality between old acquaintances? The opening montage demonstrates a really uncomfortable point about why cops are so often accused of harming criminals: they do it because it’s joyful. You have the full ability to abuse your enemy, and because you’re on the right side of the law and criminals can’t go to anyone else (complaining to cops about cops?), so you can normally get away with it, even if it isn’t in pursuit of a grandiose drug legalization program. But, more importantly, they just seem to enjoy doing it. Look at Detective Santangelo when he drops off the drug dealers somewhere in the middle of nowhere of North Maryland. Part of its revenge, surely, but part of it’s a sad fact: humans generally love exerting dominion over others, cops and criminals alike. Violence is, all too often, as potent an intoxicant as any drug being slung on the streets of Baltimore.

            However, the cops are nothing compared to Marlo and Avon. They’re brutal, and normally efficient, and both are looking for war. Unfortunately, in the “Who ya got” category, Avon is suffering. His underlings are woefully incompetent, as they ruin literally every part of Slim Charles and Cutty’s plan (approaching from the driver’s side, being only two blocks away, not waiting for a phone call) and, subsequently, lose two people in what was supposed to be a simple ambush. Marlo is, for now, a presence on the sideline, not acting against Avon quite yet, but we can see he’s confident, he’s ruthless, and he’s got the better muscle on his side because, well, how could he have worse?

            Stringer has always been averse to violence, businessman that he is, and it’s starting to bite him on both sides. Seeing him rendered impotent by the random suits in the construction business feels so wrong, yet simultaneously, it’s the only way it could be. The drug world has implicit agreements, fucked as they may be, and they don’t translate to the highly codified, semi-legitimate world of condo-building. He’s thinking like an academic version of a businessman, not like an actual one, and his pie-in-the-sky dreaming (because academia must always be pie-in-the-sky) has disconnected him from both the streets and the real world.

            This is, at its core, Cutty’s episode. We see both sides of the man: who he once was, and who he is now. He’s brutally efficient with his first plan, even if it isn’t executed, and looks all the part of a hitman riding around in black with Slim Charles. But once he sees Fruit, a man he has every reason to shoot, he can’t pull the trigger. He’s, borrowing from Butchie, seen too much, and simply can’t do this anymore. He’s not a murderer, even though he’s certainly murdered before.

            His scene with Avon works wonderfully for that very reason. We have, in the room, three different people trying to “be a man” and own up to their own flaws (It’s probably why we respect all three so much, even though they have a net body count that’s best left unmeasured). Slim Charles covers for Cutty, understanding the solemnity of what happened in Cutty’s mind, but Cutty refuses to let that happen. He confronts Avon, saying “The game ain’t in me no more,” and says it with a conviction we rarely see from the relatively aloof parolee. It’s Avon, however, who realizes the inherent, um, let’s say “Truth” of what Cutty is saying. He’s not casting judgment, he’s not afraid. Cutty is, to Avon, an inspiration, a “man” who gets out of the game. It’s odd that the show makes us love guys like Avon, Omar, Cutty, but there’s more to men than their job, even more than their worst sins. They’ve all done unspeakable ill, but there’s more to the human comedy than that.

“Just a gangster, I suppose” – Avon Barksdale

Observation and What-Have-You’s

n  SHIIIIIIIIIT! Oh, Larry Whitlock Jr. and your oddly elongated pronunciation of that word. It’s great to see you in your full-on glory.

n  How the Emmys couldn’t nominate Wendell Peirce for his scene dressing down Omar is beyond me. Then again, they only nominated the show twice, because they’re terrible.

n  The hardest part of being a cop, according to McNulty: “explaining to your wife why she needs to take antibiotics for your kidney infection.”

n  McNulty’s other killer one-liner: “What kind of detective would I be if I couldn’t track a white woman in Baltimore?”

n  THIS IS 2004 ALERT: Confessions Part II (because who ever listened to Part I) plays out on the streets of Baltimore

n  Confusing meta-television: Omar is shown watching “Law And Order: SVU.” On that show, Detective Richard Munch is a main character, as he also was on David Simon’s other show “Homicide.” Confusingly, he also makes a cameo appearance on “The Wire,” meaning that Omar is watching a show that has a fictional character who is also a real person in his own universe.

n  War on Terror Reference: Bubbles, wearing an oddly turban-like towel on his head, says its “about to be all Baghdad” in West Baltimore.

n  Thomas Carcetti, politician, watches videos of himself at home. Remember, he’s a politician, and he’s a politician…politician.

n  We get the first glimpse of Snoop in this episode, perhaps the show’s most horrifying character. She’s the little girl standing with Chris Partlow.

n  Fun fact, that probably has no business in this specific recap: Glynn Turman, who plays Mayor Royce, once was married to ARETHA FRANKLIN. Respect, indeed. Even more impressively, he was quite, quite nearly cast as Han Solo, but wasn’t due to the concerns of the interracial relationship he’d have with Princess Leia (which is, obviously, terrible, but such was America at that time). The more you know.