The Wire, Season 2
In which the main plot moves to the waterfront and nobody could have been a contender.
Okay, enough with the On the Waterfront jokes. I think I can guess why this was the season many comments declared their least favourite compared to the others. For starters, of the three new characters through which we mainly get the union corruption/organized crime side of the tale, Ziggy is such an annoying character every time he's on screen (well, except perhaps for two scenes, but that's it) that one hopes for his untimely demise (but no such luck), Nick is somewhat bland, and while Frank Zabatko isn't, is in fact somewhat sympathetic, he's also very familiar (to me, at least): the union boss who fervently believes in the union and wants the best but has so often kidded himself about "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons" that he's become thoroughly corrupt, and everything starts to crash in around him. (Also, the various father-son constellations, Frank and Ziggy, Frank and nephew Nick who is also sort of a son, Nick and his actual father, and the havoc following the American Dream wrecks do feel incredibly Miller-esque, I wasn't kidding about that.) As for Spiro and "The Greek", they feel like a crossover to an early Scorsese or Coppola film every time they show up (only, you know, Greek not Italian, leaving the "I'm not even Greek" confession at the end aside). Meanwhile, the ongoing c-plot continuing last season's saga only makes the contrast more glaring, because D'Angelo (more in a second), Omar and Stringer are all much more vivid characters and less familiar feeling characters.
This being said, I also agree that it's still a compelling season, and it also starts to give you a sense of what David Simon is trying to accomplish, with the focus on various city institutions - in the first season the Westside drug gangs and the police, and the second on the union, the dying shipping industries and the entanglement in international crime. (And s3, the first episode of which I couldn't resist watching last night, seems to tackle city hall.) ( Oh, and Sergeji, you may be a professional thug, but I hear you on the "why is it always Boris?" complaint and pointing out that no, being an Ukrainian isn't the same as being a Russian.) I also really liked new character Beadie Russell, and her interplay with our established cops. Daniels finding a way to make his unit permanent avoids having do find a plot excuse for getting the band back together every season, but I do appreciate we get to see Rawles' threats from last season weren't in vain and at the start of s2 everyone is indeed scattered and working through the consequences. It's also the season of breaking down marriages - Daniels and Marla, Kima and Cheryl (not just over Kima going back to street duty; it seems obvious to me that she's not really ready to raise a child, and while McNulty manages to get on more civil terms with his divorce-intending wife than he was last season, he erronously believes that this is the same as resumption of marriage and immediately finds out otherwise, because, as she says, she may care about him but can't trust him (and who can blame her). On the other hand, the black humor is as vivid as ever (something I appreciate about the show), and so are the friendships; for example, when Bunk comes to the rescue because he can see McNulty is really falling apart without genuine policing to do, this is what feels right for their relationship as established.
The backseat taking c-plot about the fallout from last sason for the gangsters was very compelling - and tragic. What the show does with D'Angelo - letting him go through despair at the start to resolution and growing and finding his strength and peace, only to kill him and let him be framed as suicide - is positively Whedonian. It also continues to pile up a lot of bad karma for Stringer Bell. I must admit I wasn't entirely clear whether Avon's "I've been more than fair to him" re: Dee was in fact an indirect instruction until the next episode made it clear that Avon really had no idea and was horrified at Dee's death. Of course, it's exactly the kind of remorseless cold logic Stringer and Avon both showed when ordering the second witness' death and Wallace's last season: the idea that once D'Angelo has shown himself to be genuinenly willing to stand on his own and no longer benefit from his uncle's connections and thus had become independent, he could no longer be trusted to keep quiet. At this point, I started to wonder why it hadn't occured to Stringer yet to order Avon's assassination in prison the same way and officially take the top spot he already has in effect as long as Avon is in prison. By now, the remaining drug dealers working for the crumbling Barksdale empire probably never even saw Avon and have been reporting to Stringer all the time, so it's not like he needs to worry about various loyal underlings going for him if he does that, and Proposition Joe has already signalled he infinitely prefers dealing with Stringer. Presumably what keeps Avon alive for now is some leftover old friendship and loyalty, but I fully expect a lethal Stringer versus Avon confrontation next season, both about the business and now with the added incentive of the ticking time bomb that's the truth about Dee's death. Given that Stringer is the character the audience has spend the most time with (btw, those continuing evening business classes he takes are a great touch), I also expect him to win, but of course he now also has Omar on his case, and that's another question entirely.
The Omar scenes throughout the season were terrific, but they inadvertendly also illustrate something which has been pointed out to me in the s1 comments. I mean, it's great that Omar, after watching two women robbing drug dealers, recruits them into his mini gang, and that we see them working with him throughout the season, but at the end of s2 we still don't even know their names or anything about their personalities other than they're good at their job. And that's very different from how the male young criminals are treated by the narrative. Also, as the show's seasonal main plot includes white slave traffic, it might have been a good idea to make one of the women therein a point of view character (instead of, say, ZIGGY) , but no. (I get the symbolism of McNulty being unable to find out their names. My point still stands.) The two women we see enough of to get a sense of their personalities on the criminals' side are Brianna and Donette, and while I like Brianna (and the fact she's not presented as A Bad Mother for having persuaded Dee not to testify last season), Donette so far is a shallow stereotype.
(Sidenote: otoh I was delighted to see that Shardene, though only appearing once, is really building a good new life for herself. Excellent news!)
In conclusion: I won't miss the waterfront characters (except for Beadie), but found the season still worth watching, and now am on to season 3.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/866201.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Okay, enough with the On the Waterfront jokes. I think I can guess why this was the season many comments declared their least favourite compared to the others. For starters, of the three new characters through which we mainly get the union corruption/organized crime side of the tale, Ziggy is such an annoying character every time he's on screen (well, except perhaps for two scenes, but that's it) that one hopes for his untimely demise (but no such luck), Nick is somewhat bland, and while Frank Zabatko isn't, is in fact somewhat sympathetic, he's also very familiar (to me, at least): the union boss who fervently believes in the union and wants the best but has so often kidded himself about "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons" that he's become thoroughly corrupt, and everything starts to crash in around him. (Also, the various father-son constellations, Frank and Ziggy, Frank and nephew Nick who is also sort of a son, Nick and his actual father, and the havoc following the American Dream wrecks do feel incredibly Miller-esque, I wasn't kidding about that.) As for Spiro and "The Greek", they feel like a crossover to an early Scorsese or Coppola film every time they show up (only, you know, Greek not Italian, leaving the "I'm not even Greek" confession at the end aside). Meanwhile, the ongoing c-plot continuing last season's saga only makes the contrast more glaring, because D'Angelo (more in a second), Omar and Stringer are all much more vivid characters and less familiar feeling characters.
This being said, I also agree that it's still a compelling season, and it also starts to give you a sense of what David Simon is trying to accomplish, with the focus on various city institutions - in the first season the Westside drug gangs and the police, and the second on the union, the dying shipping industries and the entanglement in international crime. (And s3, the first episode of which I couldn't resist watching last night, seems to tackle city hall.) ( Oh, and Sergeji, you may be a professional thug, but I hear you on the "why is it always Boris?" complaint and pointing out that no, being an Ukrainian isn't the same as being a Russian.) I also really liked new character Beadie Russell, and her interplay with our established cops. Daniels finding a way to make his unit permanent avoids having do find a plot excuse for getting the band back together every season, but I do appreciate we get to see Rawles' threats from last season weren't in vain and at the start of s2 everyone is indeed scattered and working through the consequences. It's also the season of breaking down marriages - Daniels and Marla, Kima and Cheryl (not just over Kima going back to street duty; it seems obvious to me that she's not really ready to raise a child, and while McNulty manages to get on more civil terms with his divorce-intending wife than he was last season, he erronously believes that this is the same as resumption of marriage and immediately finds out otherwise, because, as she says, she may care about him but can't trust him (and who can blame her). On the other hand, the black humor is as vivid as ever (something I appreciate about the show), and so are the friendships; for example, when Bunk comes to the rescue because he can see McNulty is really falling apart without genuine policing to do, this is what feels right for their relationship as established.
The backseat taking c-plot about the fallout from last sason for the gangsters was very compelling - and tragic. What the show does with D'Angelo - letting him go through despair at the start to resolution and growing and finding his strength and peace, only to kill him and let him be framed as suicide - is positively Whedonian. It also continues to pile up a lot of bad karma for Stringer Bell. I must admit I wasn't entirely clear whether Avon's "I've been more than fair to him" re: Dee was in fact an indirect instruction until the next episode made it clear that Avon really had no idea and was horrified at Dee's death. Of course, it's exactly the kind of remorseless cold logic Stringer and Avon both showed when ordering the second witness' death and Wallace's last season: the idea that once D'Angelo has shown himself to be genuinenly willing to stand on his own and no longer benefit from his uncle's connections and thus had become independent, he could no longer be trusted to keep quiet. At this point, I started to wonder why it hadn't occured to Stringer yet to order Avon's assassination in prison the same way and officially take the top spot he already has in effect as long as Avon is in prison. By now, the remaining drug dealers working for the crumbling Barksdale empire probably never even saw Avon and have been reporting to Stringer all the time, so it's not like he needs to worry about various loyal underlings going for him if he does that, and Proposition Joe has already signalled he infinitely prefers dealing with Stringer. Presumably what keeps Avon alive for now is some leftover old friendship and loyalty, but I fully expect a lethal Stringer versus Avon confrontation next season, both about the business and now with the added incentive of the ticking time bomb that's the truth about Dee's death. Given that Stringer is the character the audience has spend the most time with (btw, those continuing evening business classes he takes are a great touch), I also expect him to win, but of course he now also has Omar on his case, and that's another question entirely.
The Omar scenes throughout the season were terrific, but they inadvertendly also illustrate something which has been pointed out to me in the s1 comments. I mean, it's great that Omar, after watching two women robbing drug dealers, recruits them into his mini gang, and that we see them working with him throughout the season, but at the end of s2 we still don't even know their names or anything about their personalities other than they're good at their job. And that's very different from how the male young criminals are treated by the narrative. Also, as the show's seasonal main plot includes white slave traffic, it might have been a good idea to make one of the women therein a point of view character (instead of, say, ZIGGY) , but no. (I get the symbolism of McNulty being unable to find out their names. My point still stands.) The two women we see enough of to get a sense of their personalities on the criminals' side are Brianna and Donette, and while I like Brianna (and the fact she's not presented as A Bad Mother for having persuaded Dee not to testify last season), Donette so far is a shallow stereotype.
(Sidenote: otoh I was delighted to see that Shardene, though only appearing once, is really building a good new life for herself. Excellent news!)
In conclusion: I won't miss the waterfront characters (except for Beadie), but found the season still worth watching, and now am on to season 3.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/866201.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.