Lots of people changing strategies this episode, for better and for worse.
The biggest strategic blunder was Marlo's, and he made it last week. As long as he took the high-discipline, low-tech approach he could keep the MCU at arm's reach. (Budget problems helped.) But as soon as he switches back to using phones, he's fucked. Tapping phones is what the MCU does, and no gimmick, no innovation will fool them for long. Marlo, your arms are too short to box with Lester Freamon. Too bad the fake case Freamon cooked up with McNulty is pulling away resources away right at the moment of his breakthrough. (On the other hand, without the serial killer he wouldn't have the wire. Call it a wash, on this case and this case only?)
Omar makes a much more effective strategy change this episode--since he can't get to Marlo personally, he'll go after his reputation and goad him into coming out of hiding. Maybe not the safest play to make when he's got no help and one bad leg, but it's the only one he's got. I also love the scene where he jacks up Fat Face Ricky with nothing but a beer bottle and his own reputation. Reputation is power, and he's crippling Marlo as best he can.
(Fat Face Ricky, by the way, is my new favorite drug dealer. Nice call on the connect. Will he and Slim Charles help take out Marlo and Cheese?)
Bunk falls back on a time-honored strategy, working the vacant murders like murders instead of waiting for misfiled lab work or a nonexistent wiretap case to hand him a lead. He's rapidly becoming this season's frustrated moral conscience, its Bunny Colvin figure. (Haynes has been a little too passive the last couple of weeks.) His claim on that position would be a lot more comfortable, of course, if he'd just stepped in and prevented McNulty from starting the serial killer story in the first place.
The writers reward Bunk for his dedication to old-school police investigation by giving him a couple of breakthroughs. Unfortunately, the homicide scenes have two of the more egregious examples of narrative compression this season--we never see Kima get the tip that puts the Junebug triple on Marlo, and Bunk comes up aces on his second random name search. I get the feeling both of those investigations would have been much more prolonged and the payoffs more satisfying if HBO had shelled out for twelve or thirteen episodes instead of ten. But apparently that money was better invested in another series about a psychiatrist. Next spring, a bold new drama about a suburban family--with a twist!
(It's hard to get too pissed off at the only network that would ever air this series, let alone keep it going for five seasons. But god damn it, people--ten episodes???)
Templeton makes a quiet, highly effective change of his own, finally shutting up and writing a decent story. (And he writes it by practicing the David Simon style of journalism, just standing around and listening--although he cuts a distinctly anti-Simonic figure with his notebook and his Kansas City Star t-shirt. Way to blend in.) Looks like Templeton could become a real journalist some day, in much the same way Carver finally became a real police, and it's nice to see Haynes encouraging this development--but I'm assuming Gus will discover his fabrications soon, maybe even next week. We need a good couple of weeks of Whiting and Klebanow rallying around their star pupil and Haynes struggling against the institutional cover if the fabulist plot is going to have a decent payoff. And Haynes needs the conflict--like I said, he's been too inactive the last couple of episodes.
The actor who played the Marine veteran was terrific. None of the jittery tics that most homeless or veteran characters get saddled with. Kind of like Templeton, he underplays the scene and lets the horrific story sell itself.
The actor who played Larry was good, too, although he went in the other direction--beyond "tics" into total psychotic dysfunctionality. Thanks to Larry, McNulty is finally starting to have some doubts even as he pulls off his most elegant deception yet. (And good on the writers for not sending McNulty down the obvious, unthinkable route of killing homeless himself. This is The Wire, not The Shield.) He's telling himself that he's helping Larry out, but he belatedly recognizes the humanity and the suffering of the people he's been exploiting. Maybe he'll make a strategic change of his own.
Or maybe not. After McNulty called Freamon a supervisor's nightmare, Christy turned to me and said, "I think Nixon just went to China."
Other Wire business:
- "That's some Spider-Man shit there." Indeed.
- Love the crime lab as the anti-CSI. I guess forensics isn't so sexy when you're on a budget.
- Putting former Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley's criticisms of The Wire into Tommy Carcetti's mouth--that's beautiful. That's the good meta.
- This episode was a great glimpse of both Carcetti the idealist and Carcetti the canny political strategist.
- Very effective use of the past-season cameos this week. The ribbon-cutting at the docks was poignant (though amusing to watch Carcetti claim responsibility for a project that began back in the Royce administration!) but the Randy scene was heartbreaking, especially that shove on the stairs. It doesn't get any easier to watch the second time around.
It makes no sense that HBO would only shell out for 10 episodes in its final season after reluctantly coughing up the cash every season prior. I think the compression is really hurting this season both in terms of plot and in terms of the show being forced to take shortcuts in both dialogue and exposition to convey something to the audience. Where in seasons past, we might eventually come around to "Ah, so this is what they mean.", this season they just come out and say "We mean THIS." That's not the Wire's style. Shame on HBO for tainting the television's best ever dramatic series on its way out. But, who knows how much begging and pleading David Simon had to do to even get ten episodes.... beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.
Posted by: Jim | February 11, 2008 at 01:53 PM
All the more frustrating since HBO was initially reported as signing up for thirteen episodes, and at some point the season got cut back to ten. I wonder if the compression resulted from trying to jam a story blocked for thirteen parts into ten slots.
Posted by: Marc | February 11, 2008 at 05:09 PM
amusing to watch Carcetti claim responsibility for a project that began back in the Royce administration
In retrospect, I think I blew that call. We saw Andy Krawczyk's ribbon-cutting (with Clay Davis) for the grain pier project at the end of season two. This new groundbreaking ceremony had something that looked a lot like a rusting granary in the background, but it's a new project called "Westport" and Nick says Carcetti's tearing down the Port of Baltimore.
Shit. No wonder Johnny Fifty is homeless.
Posted by: Marc | February 14, 2008 at 10:59 PM
Thank you for blogging about "The Wire", Marc. My wife and I recently began watching the first season on DVD, and I must confess if it hadn't been for the intelligent commentary you've been doing we would have never heard of it. Needless to say we're looking forward to all the seasons still ahead of us.
Posted by: Tom Russell | February 16, 2008 at 06:03 PM
Glad to hear it, Tom! I'm thrilled that this blog turned you on to the Wire.
Now for the love of god, stop reading it before I spoil everything. :)
Posted by: Marc | February 17, 2008 at 11:06 PM