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December 11, 2006

Comments

Jen

Amen.

This is the first full season I've seen. Now I'm going to have to go back and watch from the beginning. I didn't even know that backstory for Bodie. Even then, his death, to me, was disturbing but not surprising. I called it several episodes ago when I realized this kid showed some real heart. "That's not gonna work out," I figured. Sigh.

phil

Excellent post, Marc.

It's been awhile, but I seem to remember Bodie freezing up and being unable to shoot Wallace. I thought Poot took the gun and killed Wallace (or maybe it was that Poot had to yell at Bodie to finish Wallace). I'm unsure of the details, but I do remember hesitation on Bodie's part. This hesitation caught up with him in Season 4: Unable to stomach Marlo's methods, Bodie questions the rules of the game and, snap, he's gone.

Amazing that a detail like that from Season 1 could have such repercussions. I'm chomping on the bit for the DVD of Season 4.

Marc

I think you're right about Bodie, Poot, and Wallace--I'm in the middle of rewatching season one on Netflix so I guess I'll find out.

Season three was where I started warming up to Bodie, with his confusion at Colvin's respectful treatment and his "contrapment" defense, but the blunt wit and the insistence that the street follow its rules were always there. I'm not so sure if Bodie questions the rules of the game so much as he questions the lack of rules, or the fact that the kings no longer have to play by them as they drop their own pawns.

Me, I'm chomping at the bit for season five already...

phil

I hear you on Season Five.

I think if Season Four could be summed up in one scene, it's the scene in Colvin's class with Namond and the others discussing life on the corners: The importance of never giving an inch in your public dealings; the necessity of being perceived as someone not to be trifled with.

Of course, we discovered that Namond isn't really part of that world. Luckily for him, Major Colvin came into his life (I'm eagerly awaiting how that relationship plays out).

Bodie, I think, was also never really part of that world. His hesitation with Wallace in Season One and his inability to keep it together when the bodies were revealed demonstrate the extent of how out of place he was. However, he didn't have anyone like Colvin and, by the time we were introduced to him, was too far into the game to see a way out.

Marc

Interesting to remember that at the start of season four Bodie was playing the incredibly unsympathetic role of drug trade recruiter, trying to talk Michael into working his corners (the job Namond was ditching).

Why did he fail where Marlo succeeded? Partly because Michael didn't need him at the time, and what Michael did need later Bodie couldn't provide, but that speaks to Bodie's precarious situation in season four.

Bodie's been part of this world for as long as we've seen him--almost the only constant part from season one until now. He started at thirteen, just around the age Michael and Namond are when he tries to pull them in behind him. He was one of Bell's most trusted and resourceful soldiers. But in season four he was a soldier without an army above or beneath him. What condemns Bodie is not any hesitation or softness, but his loyalty to absent bosses who can no longer protect him and a street code that only he seems to follow. And we've all seen just how far loyalty gets you in The Wire.

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