Final Examinations

Politics.  Everybody can find something to like in The Wire. Liberals can nod ruefully with the show's lamentation of the collapse of civic institutions.  Libertarians can get behind its savage critique of the war on drugs, and of bureaucracies in general.

I didn't think conservatives would find much to root for until I started reading other Wire blogs and found commenters--usually anonymous ones--using the episodes as pretexts to rant about teachers' unions or pronounce "Our urban institutions are in decline" and other such coded, sanctimonious twaddle.  It's not the urban institutions that are in decline, it's all of them, after twenty-five years of conservative governments ripping the guts out of unions, schools, manufacturing jobs, and social services, while promoting a drug war that militarizes our police and treats all of us as potential enemy combatants.  You could find enough drug use, unemployment, political corruption, and educational failure in rural areas to do a season of The Wire set entirely in the country:  the only thing you'd be short on would be the major crimes unit.

And the cast.  Despite its admirable and unparalleled variety of black characters, The Wire still shows black people dropping out of school and taking drugs, and for some people that's enough to reinforce one of the central, race-baiting tenets of the conservative revolution.  It certainly reinforced the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Maryland's Republican governor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who ran so hard against Baltimore crime and Baltimore schools that he could have used selected clips from The Wire as a campaign ad.  No wonder he did that cameo.

The show's relationship with the victorious challenger, Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley, is more complicated.  It's been critical of his zero-tolerance approach to law enforcement and it gives parts to O'Malley critics like Ed Norris.  David Simon likes to intimate that O'Malley or someone underneath him in the commissioner's office was behind the firing of Northeastern District commander Gary D'Addario after a Wire appearance, but O'Malley aide Richard Burton, coordinator of the mayor's high-profile Believe campaign, played a recurring role as Stringer Bell's lieutenant Sean "Shamrock" McGinty (who has the best street name ever) with no repercussions.  Maybe Burton was too close or too high-profile or too effective to be canned. (This last, I doubt; if The Wire teaches us anything it is that the effective are the most likely to be canned.)  I can only imagine that most city officials are deeply ambivalent about The Wire.  As much as it might tarnish the city's image and their own, it also brings in the kind of media jobs and cultural capital that are one of the only strong sectors in our postmodern economy.

The Wire could only be a conservative indictment of O'Malley or of Baltimore's "urban institutions" under a very selective reading; when the show comes at O'Malley, it comes at him from the left.  Even criticisms specific to the mayor (like Carcetti's refusal of the governor's school bailout, almost a blow-by-blow recap of an O'Malley-Ehrlich struggle in 2005) only work when taken out of the larger political context.  For all that The Wire advertises Baltimore's problems, it also tells us they are really everybody's problems and its solutions are fundamentally libertarian or left-wing:  legalize drugs, burn all the standardized tests, stop focusing on statistics, abandon wars both figurative and literal, and reform the campaign finance system.  But the show is too jaded to pretend that any of this will be possible without a major shift in the nation's priorities and its political discourse.

Academics.  A couple of months ago Simon told the Baltimore Sun, "At the end of the 13 episodes, I think Ed [Burns, a former police detective and schoolteacher and the lead writer for the fourth season] was frustrated that we let the school system off too easily."  I agree.  The test-obsessed administrators of the Puzzle Palace didn't come off well, nor should they have, but almost everyone we saw at Tilghman Middle was a saint.  There had to be some bad teachers--incompetent, unqualified, spiteful, drunk, stoned, larcenous, resistant to change or simply all too willing to go along with whatever the Palace mandated--but except for one brief scene in week four we never got a look at them.

I can understand why the show would be reluctant to criticize the teachers.  Much like the patrol officers, they don't set the broken policies and they can often do the most good on the interpersonal level that The Wire prizes.  Yet The Wire has shown us bad police, even on patrol.  Anyone who's willing to teach middle school automatically earns my praise, but there have to be some failures at the classroom level to go with all the Prezes and Colvins and Grace Sampsons.  Without acknowledging that, the show's examination of the school system is incomplete.

I'm of two minds on Marcia Donnelly.  She knows her kids,  she cares about them, she backs Colvin's program all the way up to the top, and she runs her school with a well-oiled disciplinary machine.  The HBO character guide points out the similarity to good police work, though it's your choice as to whether that similarity is amusing or just sad.

But sometimes she's so focused on the big picture, protecting the school from state takeover, that individual kids fall through the gaping cracks.  She socially promotes Sherrod and her truant program, though cleverly funded, fabricates stats as baldly as any district DEU.  She tries to get Prez to follow the fixed curriculum when he's found another way to get his kids to learn math.  (Admittedly, there are probably some teachers at Tilghman who, left to their own devices, would teach badly or not at all, and that's why the curriculum is there--but we never see those teachers.)  Worst of all, her summary graduation of Dukie ends up sending him straight to the corner.  His parents' disappearance and Michael's fall contribute more, but she takes him out of his support system.

This is a criticism of the character, not the acting or the writing.  Even when Donnelly does something that seems callous or misguided, she does it in service of her larger mission to the school.  She doesn't always make good decisions but she has clear reasons for doing so.  She's far from perfect but that only makes her more plausible and, in most cases, more admirable.

With one exception. What was she thinking, sending Dukie and the other top students to high school before the state standardized tests?!  Introduce this woman to Jay Landsman pronto--clearly Donnelly could still learn a thing or two about juking the stats.

Akademiks.  Every day, my train rolls past an ad for Akademiks Jeanius Level Clothing featuring Bodie, Marlo, Chris, and Omar.  I don't know whether to be pleased that The Wire has finally gotten its carefully targeted promotional push (I see more ads on and under Georgia Avenue than I do on HBO) or sad that we'll never get to see those four meet in-character.

Language.  The slang of The Wire is infectious; after thirteen weeks I'm talking like the characters without quite realizing what I'm doing.  When I'm working a suspected plagiarism case I "get up on" Google or Turnitin.com.  "Juking" has become part of my professional lexicon.

The other side of the law is equally seductive.  Today, in the produce section, I decided I needed a re-up on some broccoli.

Analogies.  My finest pearl of wisdom from a holiday party last night:  "Rudy is like the Namond of the Cosby Kids."  Discuss.

Class.  There's your big hint for the Rudy question.

Who was saved this season?  I like to think Randy might make it out of that group home, but he's going to have a rough go of it.  I like to think Prez might put those MCU skills to work and surveil that corner in some attempt to save Dukie, but I don't see it happening.  And even my most quixotic fancies can't think of a way to pull Michael back.  Michael and Dukie are both well on their way to becoming another Wallace, another Bodie.  Maybe Bug is, too.

Who was saved?  The kid with the best surrogate father?  Maybe.  Colvin knows how to game the systems, finding a way to come straight to Wee Bey while Carver keeps taking "no" for an answer from social services.  But the other kids, especially Dukie, have competent surrogates on their sides.  Why is Dukie, who seemed so confident in the next to last episode, out slinging at season's end while Namond is getting ready for school?

Because Namond has one parent who's looking out for him--I think you can guess which one I mean--and Dukie and Michael have nothing.  And because Namond grew up with the Nikes and the throwbacks and never wanted for anything, never developed that hard survivor's instinct that all three of his friends have.  Because he is, from birth, lower middle class and they are crushingly poor.

Class is one of the few forces so powerful even The Wire can only approach it indirectly, by example.  Colvin created the circumstances to save one kid and he went far above and beyond the call of duty to do it--emerging, once again, as the season's moral conscience and one of its few signs of hope--but it only worked because Namond, and Namond alone, was born to a station that would allow him to be saved.

Comments

[phil]

Who was saved in Season 4? Maybe McNulty...although, following Bodie's death, this season's respite appears to be coming to a close.

You seem to be forgetting Namond's nod to the SUV as he stands on the Colvins' porch near the end of the final episode. I have a hard time believing Namond's left the game for good.

[Isaac]

I'm going to have to buy or at least rent the Wire DVDs now...is it accessible from the beginning of season 4?

[Phil]

Isaac,

Watching Season 4 without having watched at least Season 3 would be a little disorientating, but my advice would be to start from the beginning. You'll be glad you did.

[Marc]

I second Phil's recommendation to start at the beginning (although if you have to skip one season, make it season two). Seasons one through three are out on DVD, and if you're lucky enough to have HBO on-demand you can watch season four up through the end of the year.

Phil, it would be naive in the extreme to think Namond's old habits and friends won't continue to have a pull on him--thank god The Wire isn't that naive. But I like his chances living with the Colvins a lot better than with Season Four Asshole of the Year Delonda Brice.

[Isaac]

Phil, Marc, thanks for the help.

[drinkof]

Don't skip Season 2. Watch them all, in a row, you'll be glad you did.

[Keith]

I'm not sure any of the characters survives intact, and I especially think that Randy is done. This is what made the ending of season 4 so bleak and harrowing, at how utterly the system failed Randy. Oh, yeah, Omar might be headed for a good life. Whoduh thunk it?

[Marc]

Omar is the character most in need of a takedown, to counteract the romanticization of his character (so uncommon for this series). Considering he just made an enemy of every drug organization in the city, including the Greek's, I'd say the good life won't last for long...

Also, we could do with a reminder of how Omar, the noble criminal who prays only on evil drug dealers, makes his money. Somewhere, sooner or later, one piece at a time, that package he stole is ending up back on the streets.