The Wire: Season 5
I was tempted to call this one: In which we return to the Shire (book version, not movie version).
Given that this last season's institution under the spot light (along with everything else previously introduced) is a newspaper (no, I don't think we can say "the media" per se, because it's very specific the Baltimore Sun and the newspaper trade in decline, not tv or the internet as well), there was bound to be a lot of self reflective meta inherent about storytelling. Now because I listened to some s1 audio commentaries, I know David Simon was a reporter just as Ed Burns was a cop and teacher, and while the frustration about each institution and what it does to those in it is palpable, I thought there was still a notable difference in the presentation of the upper bureaucrats. What I mean is: even Rawles has his moment of humanity, the headmistress and the older teachers are resigned to the awfulness of the standardized test but probably started with the same ideals Prez has. Otoh, the Baltimore Sun characters are clearly divided into good reporters and bad journalists; Scott Templeton the fake quote creating phoney and his Pulitzer Price obsessed superiors being the later, whereas Gus, Alma Guiterrez (why not more of her, oh David Simon? She's another vibrant woman we could have seen more of!) and the reporter who ends up writing Bubbles' story (i.e. doing the very thing Simon mentioned he did in the s1 commentaries) are good ones. With the result that Scott and the superiors feel, forgive the inevitable pun, paper thin and the suspicion of our author having a personal ax to grind (and not just with the institution) is inevitable. Mind you, I have not the slightest problem believing there are reporters which make up quotes. I dimly recall there was actually a Pulitzer-winning journalist who was later discovered to have made up the subject of his story entirely. And weren't there a couple of books in recent years which were supposed to be autobiographical and turned out to be, to put a charitable phrasing on it, novelistic instead? So what Scott does was entirely believable to me; it's just that where with cops, drug dealers, politicians and teachers the show gave you the feeling that you understand why given the system they're in they are the way they are by the time they're on the top, Scott Templeton and his enabling boss were just jerks because. (With a nod to buyouts and economic pressure in the boss' case.)
To get back to the meta aspect: storytelling is of course also what McNulty and Lester do in order to finally trap a kingpin and his entire gang, and here the show is not giving an easy divide at all. Not least because Lester, as opposed to continuing as a moral authority and doing what Bunk espects him to do, talking some sense into McNulty, instead is finally frustrated enough at being foiled again and again in his patient attempts to bring big time criminals to justice, to not only jump on the wagon of serial killer inventing outrageousness but add even more to it. And note that Bunk, while being infuriated and disgusted by their actions and continuing to make this clear throughout the season, at no point even threatens to blow the whistle, let alone actually does it. Sorry, Bunk, but inaction is also action (and enabling). It's left to Kima, once she finally is told the truth, to do that. And while it's clear on both a Watsonian and Doylist level Kima is right to do so (both McNulty and Lester agree as well), the audience isn't left off the hook, either, because for all that McNulty's actions were wrong and were presented as wrong throughout, with the show not forgetting to include the damage such as the parents of one of the dead homeless now suddenly having to live with the nightmare that their son was tortured and murdered by a maniac, they are narratively rewarded with the originally intended by him result - Marlo & Co. do get arrested. Which makes for a satisfying moment despite the knowledge of how it was achieved (as well as the awareness it's not going to last, at least in Marlo's case).
There is a point early on - when Lester, hearing the 22 dead bodies from Marlo's rise to power last season are just going to get dismissed whereas a serial killer would get all the attention and means to catch him - say "he" (Marlo) "is a serial killer" - which I thought was also a good reminder of how the presentation of death and violence and the effect it has really has spectacular diffent standards. Gang warfare and drug overdoses are seen as almost normal; serial killers are gruesome celebrities. Of course, The Wire had its own sort of loophole into mythologized violence (i.e. violence where the one using it is solely presented in a heroic light) in the person of Omar, though Bunk watching the children "playing Omar" and in his conversation with Omar bring this up with disgust in seasons past was a hint this would not continue ad infinitum. Omar surviving the trap staged for him by Chris, Snoop and Michael and surviving a jump from a high window was, as Marlo later comments, "Spider-man stuff", but before one can throw up one's hands and say, okay, he's definitely a comics superhero now, we see him with broken legs shuffling (though still intimidating people by reputation), and then not dying in a big shootout, but shut in the head by a child - one of those children "playing Omar" in the past, Kenard. It's fitting that in this season about storytelling Omar the myth survives (through the rest of the season, we hear chatting people on the street coming up with different, ever grander stories about his death, all fitting the mythology of the lone avenger type), whereas the actual man ends up in a bodysack that's even mislabelled, with no one claiming him, his death only giving a momentary "huh" pause to the cops who find out about it and getting no attention at all by the press because it's one more shot body in a store, ho hum. I really liked Omar as a character, but I think by giving him this merciless ending the show made the right choice. (Speaking of choices, it was his choice: he could have stayed in rich and comfortable retirement as opposed to coming back to Baltimore on a revenge quest.)
The fate of Michael also has this paradox of myth and reality: he becomes the new Omar - robbing drug dealers, living by his own code - and that makes for a moment of "yes" before the memory of how Omar ended. Which is waiting for Michael, too. The scene which captures Michael's tragedy best, though, and broke my heart all over again was his last conversation with Dukie, when Dukie reminisced about the events of 4.1., when they still had been such children that "battle" had meant nothing worse than throwing urine on other children, and Michael replies to the rethorical "do you remember...?" after a long pause "I don't". And you can see it all in the face of the actor. He really doesn't. Even the memory of innocence is gone now.
Randy, who has only one scene this season, when Bunk tries to interrogate him about Lex' death, similarly is transformed, and Duquan's scene with Prez, where they both know Dukie is lying and won't be back in school, and Prez gives him the money anyway, is a killer as well. I suppose you could say Dukie just starting the life Bubbles finally managed to leave - metal scraping drug addict - leaves you the tiniest hope that, well, Bubs did leave it in this season (which btw was great to watch, as was his tentative reconciliaton with his sister and his finally having dinner with her and her child), so maybe Dukie will manage as well, but that's micro hope. Those boys were really gut wrenching till the end. (Well, except Namond in his one appearance confirming that Colvin did indeed manage to save him, and that he has a good life now.) I also pause for the irony of Poot as the sole survivor of the Barksdale crew (out of prison, that is), though I'm relieved he, too, has started a new un-drug related life.
Other endings: Snoop who with her cheerful disregard for human life (no need to tell Snoop a reason for anyone's death, ever) remained frightening to me till the end, when she gets this moment to remind us that she, too, is a human being, a young girl about to be executed. A small masterpiece of a scene. Chris hanging out with WeeBay in prison seems fitting. Herc and Valchek are examples of the stupid, they thrive, and btw, thinking of Herc reminds me of his new boss and this in turn reminds me that there is actually a precedent for the clear divide between good journalist and bad journalists this season: good layers (Rhonda) and bad lawyers (Levy). Rhonda Pearlman throughout the show was a delight, aways good at her profession, never punished for her ambition, her relationship with Daniels solidifying and being strong and drama free, and one of the few characters with an unqualified happy ending (after an awesome face down with Levy, no less).
Winner and reigning champion as an example of fuck-up cop going to splendid cop: Carver, take a bow. Really, it's amazing to see him grow through the show, and it affirms the show's claim to be cynical about institutions but not human beings. Season 1 Carver, far from objecting to Collichio's police brutality, would have probably joined in. That s5 Carver not only acts against it but we believe this entirely as in character is an example of great and believable character development, step by step. Daniels making him Lieutenant in his brief time as Commissioner at the end was beautiful to see, especially since Carver clearly modelled himself after Daniels ever since Daniels gave him that talk.
Sidenote: this does not mean he doesn't make horrible mistakes as well along the way. And let's not forget, Daniels isn't perfect, either. By which I don't mean his ominous and never quite spelled out (though presumably it was a case of corruption) deeds as a young cop that later provide fatal leverage, I mean the fact that we do see Daniels using senseless violence because he can in the present - I'm thinking of s1 where he and Kima beat up the guy in the interrogation cell, not because they expect to get anything out of him but to pay him back for all the homophobic slurs against Kima. Come to think of it, beating up a suspect is the one police sin which we don't see McNulty, who otherwise commits most of the lot of them, ever commit, which is interesting, because most shows would have that reversed - i.e. the more ethical cops like Daniels and Kima not use violence.
Speaking of McNulty, I note that the show uses a jump with him twice - from screwed up s3 McNulty to reformed s4 McNulty (only rarely appearing, but when doing so consistently together, not a jerk and happy) to even more screwed up s5 McNulty without bothering to show us the in between stages, but honestly, I didn't mind that. He was possibly at his worst in this season but at the same time he was an antidote to me for later seasons Dexter in Dexter. Specifically to the part where Dexter keeps making the same mistakes and for ego reasons falsifies evidence so he can get the serial killer antagonist of the season instead of the MYPD catching him, which inevitably leads to more dead. The first two times there was the hope he'd learn from this, especially since Rita is one of the people who die because Dexter wants to keep a serial killer alive and around for a while longer, but no, and the later seasons before I quit watching never gave me the impression that the narrative actually wants us to condemm Dexter for this. Whereas as mentioned above, in The Wire the show itself keeps pointing out when McNulty is being a jerk, both professionally and on a private level, and doesn't want to accept this just because his is the first time in the title credit sequence. Conversely, it doesn't present him as irredeemable, either. It's significant that his last action of the season and the show isn't a public one, and not one any of the other characters has urged him to do (not least because only McNulty himself knew about the circumstances in question), but it is him acting to right a wrong he'd committed.
(On the funnier side: the visit to Quantico sequence where I thought we were just set up for a cheap dig at FBI profiling and then instead it turned into the profiler giving a dead on profile of McNulty was hilarious.)
Kima belatedly developing an interest in Cheryl's kid (and getting an exact repeat of McNulty's struggle with Ikea furniture from s1) is something I have mixed feelings about because I thought Kima simply not being made to relate to children didn't have to be changed. But I was entirely on board on her being the one to refuse to go along with the Lester-McNulty con. In s1, even after her own shooting, Kima had refused to falsify evidence by identifying WeeBay as her shooter when she hadn't seen him; that's just beautifully consistent characterisation.
What else? Nerese, while not sympathetic, was one smart and tough player in the political arena; persuading Burrell to resign quietly and keeping the file on Daniels he gave her back until Daniels was in a high enough position to be of use to her instead of using it all at once was playing the long game. (Daniels not bending but quitting instead and becoming a lawyer at last was also a great resolution for his storyline.) That other long term player, Proposition Joe, at last meeting his end courtesy of Marlo made me realise that I had been actually rooting for Joe to remain the last kingpin standing, but alas, no. (Note to self: any kingpin is bad news for humanity by virtue of his profession, get a grip.) Marlo's ending - walking out of the business meeting (where he actually got what Stringer Bell had wanted for himself, a transition to "legitimate" life with other rich businessmen) - and going to the corner to kill and scare people and reestablish his rep (thus also destroying the condition under which he was released and opening the possibility of his renewed arrest) - felt plausible, too. Good to see Shardene again, albeit briefly, and know she's still together with Lester. The final montage with all the Baltimore pictures underlined that the show managed to make one deeply fond of the drug ridden city. In a masochistic way. Because the rigged game and the juking of stats in every profession destroying the people in it, they continue and are the moloch eating up (almost) everyone.
What a show. What a great, great show.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/870507.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Given that this last season's institution under the spot light (along with everything else previously introduced) is a newspaper (no, I don't think we can say "the media" per se, because it's very specific the Baltimore Sun and the newspaper trade in decline, not tv or the internet as well), there was bound to be a lot of self reflective meta inherent about storytelling. Now because I listened to some s1 audio commentaries, I know David Simon was a reporter just as Ed Burns was a cop and teacher, and while the frustration about each institution and what it does to those in it is palpable, I thought there was still a notable difference in the presentation of the upper bureaucrats. What I mean is: even Rawles has his moment of humanity, the headmistress and the older teachers are resigned to the awfulness of the standardized test but probably started with the same ideals Prez has. Otoh, the Baltimore Sun characters are clearly divided into good reporters and bad journalists; Scott Templeton the fake quote creating phoney and his Pulitzer Price obsessed superiors being the later, whereas Gus, Alma Guiterrez (why not more of her, oh David Simon? She's another vibrant woman we could have seen more of!) and the reporter who ends up writing Bubbles' story (i.e. doing the very thing Simon mentioned he did in the s1 commentaries) are good ones. With the result that Scott and the superiors feel, forgive the inevitable pun, paper thin and the suspicion of our author having a personal ax to grind (and not just with the institution) is inevitable. Mind you, I have not the slightest problem believing there are reporters which make up quotes. I dimly recall there was actually a Pulitzer-winning journalist who was later discovered to have made up the subject of his story entirely. And weren't there a couple of books in recent years which were supposed to be autobiographical and turned out to be, to put a charitable phrasing on it, novelistic instead? So what Scott does was entirely believable to me; it's just that where with cops, drug dealers, politicians and teachers the show gave you the feeling that you understand why given the system they're in they are the way they are by the time they're on the top, Scott Templeton and his enabling boss were just jerks because. (With a nod to buyouts and economic pressure in the boss' case.)
To get back to the meta aspect: storytelling is of course also what McNulty and Lester do in order to finally trap a kingpin and his entire gang, and here the show is not giving an easy divide at all. Not least because Lester, as opposed to continuing as a moral authority and doing what Bunk espects him to do, talking some sense into McNulty, instead is finally frustrated enough at being foiled again and again in his patient attempts to bring big time criminals to justice, to not only jump on the wagon of serial killer inventing outrageousness but add even more to it. And note that Bunk, while being infuriated and disgusted by their actions and continuing to make this clear throughout the season, at no point even threatens to blow the whistle, let alone actually does it. Sorry, Bunk, but inaction is also action (and enabling). It's left to Kima, once she finally is told the truth, to do that. And while it's clear on both a Watsonian and Doylist level Kima is right to do so (both McNulty and Lester agree as well), the audience isn't left off the hook, either, because for all that McNulty's actions were wrong and were presented as wrong throughout, with the show not forgetting to include the damage such as the parents of one of the dead homeless now suddenly having to live with the nightmare that their son was tortured and murdered by a maniac, they are narratively rewarded with the originally intended by him result - Marlo & Co. do get arrested. Which makes for a satisfying moment despite the knowledge of how it was achieved (as well as the awareness it's not going to last, at least in Marlo's case).
There is a point early on - when Lester, hearing the 22 dead bodies from Marlo's rise to power last season are just going to get dismissed whereas a serial killer would get all the attention and means to catch him - say "he" (Marlo) "is a serial killer" - which I thought was also a good reminder of how the presentation of death and violence and the effect it has really has spectacular diffent standards. Gang warfare and drug overdoses are seen as almost normal; serial killers are gruesome celebrities. Of course, The Wire had its own sort of loophole into mythologized violence (i.e. violence where the one using it is solely presented in a heroic light) in the person of Omar, though Bunk watching the children "playing Omar" and in his conversation with Omar bring this up with disgust in seasons past was a hint this would not continue ad infinitum. Omar surviving the trap staged for him by Chris, Snoop and Michael and surviving a jump from a high window was, as Marlo later comments, "Spider-man stuff", but before one can throw up one's hands and say, okay, he's definitely a comics superhero now, we see him with broken legs shuffling (though still intimidating people by reputation), and then not dying in a big shootout, but shut in the head by a child - one of those children "playing Omar" in the past, Kenard. It's fitting that in this season about storytelling Omar the myth survives (through the rest of the season, we hear chatting people on the street coming up with different, ever grander stories about his death, all fitting the mythology of the lone avenger type), whereas the actual man ends up in a bodysack that's even mislabelled, with no one claiming him, his death only giving a momentary "huh" pause to the cops who find out about it and getting no attention at all by the press because it's one more shot body in a store, ho hum. I really liked Omar as a character, but I think by giving him this merciless ending the show made the right choice. (Speaking of choices, it was his choice: he could have stayed in rich and comfortable retirement as opposed to coming back to Baltimore on a revenge quest.)
The fate of Michael also has this paradox of myth and reality: he becomes the new Omar - robbing drug dealers, living by his own code - and that makes for a moment of "yes" before the memory of how Omar ended. Which is waiting for Michael, too. The scene which captures Michael's tragedy best, though, and broke my heart all over again was his last conversation with Dukie, when Dukie reminisced about the events of 4.1., when they still had been such children that "battle" had meant nothing worse than throwing urine on other children, and Michael replies to the rethorical "do you remember...?" after a long pause "I don't". And you can see it all in the face of the actor. He really doesn't. Even the memory of innocence is gone now.
Randy, who has only one scene this season, when Bunk tries to interrogate him about Lex' death, similarly is transformed, and Duquan's scene with Prez, where they both know Dukie is lying and won't be back in school, and Prez gives him the money anyway, is a killer as well. I suppose you could say Dukie just starting the life Bubbles finally managed to leave - metal scraping drug addict - leaves you the tiniest hope that, well, Bubs did leave it in this season (which btw was great to watch, as was his tentative reconciliaton with his sister and his finally having dinner with her and her child), so maybe Dukie will manage as well, but that's micro hope. Those boys were really gut wrenching till the end. (Well, except Namond in his one appearance confirming that Colvin did indeed manage to save him, and that he has a good life now.) I also pause for the irony of Poot as the sole survivor of the Barksdale crew (out of prison, that is), though I'm relieved he, too, has started a new un-drug related life.
Other endings: Snoop who with her cheerful disregard for human life (no need to tell Snoop a reason for anyone's death, ever) remained frightening to me till the end, when she gets this moment to remind us that she, too, is a human being, a young girl about to be executed. A small masterpiece of a scene. Chris hanging out with WeeBay in prison seems fitting. Herc and Valchek are examples of the stupid, they thrive, and btw, thinking of Herc reminds me of his new boss and this in turn reminds me that there is actually a precedent for the clear divide between good journalist and bad journalists this season: good layers (Rhonda) and bad lawyers (Levy). Rhonda Pearlman throughout the show was a delight, aways good at her profession, never punished for her ambition, her relationship with Daniels solidifying and being strong and drama free, and one of the few characters with an unqualified happy ending (after an awesome face down with Levy, no less).
Winner and reigning champion as an example of fuck-up cop going to splendid cop: Carver, take a bow. Really, it's amazing to see him grow through the show, and it affirms the show's claim to be cynical about institutions but not human beings. Season 1 Carver, far from objecting to Collichio's police brutality, would have probably joined in. That s5 Carver not only acts against it but we believe this entirely as in character is an example of great and believable character development, step by step. Daniels making him Lieutenant in his brief time as Commissioner at the end was beautiful to see, especially since Carver clearly modelled himself after Daniels ever since Daniels gave him that talk.
Sidenote: this does not mean he doesn't make horrible mistakes as well along the way. And let's not forget, Daniels isn't perfect, either. By which I don't mean his ominous and never quite spelled out (though presumably it was a case of corruption) deeds as a young cop that later provide fatal leverage, I mean the fact that we do see Daniels using senseless violence because he can in the present - I'm thinking of s1 where he and Kima beat up the guy in the interrogation cell, not because they expect to get anything out of him but to pay him back for all the homophobic slurs against Kima. Come to think of it, beating up a suspect is the one police sin which we don't see McNulty, who otherwise commits most of the lot of them, ever commit, which is interesting, because most shows would have that reversed - i.e. the more ethical cops like Daniels and Kima not use violence.
Speaking of McNulty, I note that the show uses a jump with him twice - from screwed up s3 McNulty to reformed s4 McNulty (only rarely appearing, but when doing so consistently together, not a jerk and happy) to even more screwed up s5 McNulty without bothering to show us the in between stages, but honestly, I didn't mind that. He was possibly at his worst in this season but at the same time he was an antidote to me for later seasons Dexter in Dexter. Specifically to the part where Dexter keeps making the same mistakes and for ego reasons falsifies evidence so he can get the serial killer antagonist of the season instead of the MYPD catching him, which inevitably leads to more dead. The first two times there was the hope he'd learn from this, especially since Rita is one of the people who die because Dexter wants to keep a serial killer alive and around for a while longer, but no, and the later seasons before I quit watching never gave me the impression that the narrative actually wants us to condemm Dexter for this. Whereas as mentioned above, in The Wire the show itself keeps pointing out when McNulty is being a jerk, both professionally and on a private level, and doesn't want to accept this just because his is the first time in the title credit sequence. Conversely, it doesn't present him as irredeemable, either. It's significant that his last action of the season and the show isn't a public one, and not one any of the other characters has urged him to do (not least because only McNulty himself knew about the circumstances in question), but it is him acting to right a wrong he'd committed.
(On the funnier side: the visit to Quantico sequence where I thought we were just set up for a cheap dig at FBI profiling and then instead it turned into the profiler giving a dead on profile of McNulty was hilarious.)
Kima belatedly developing an interest in Cheryl's kid (and getting an exact repeat of McNulty's struggle with Ikea furniture from s1) is something I have mixed feelings about because I thought Kima simply not being made to relate to children didn't have to be changed. But I was entirely on board on her being the one to refuse to go along with the Lester-McNulty con. In s1, even after her own shooting, Kima had refused to falsify evidence by identifying WeeBay as her shooter when she hadn't seen him; that's just beautifully consistent characterisation.
What else? Nerese, while not sympathetic, was one smart and tough player in the political arena; persuading Burrell to resign quietly and keeping the file on Daniels he gave her back until Daniels was in a high enough position to be of use to her instead of using it all at once was playing the long game. (Daniels not bending but quitting instead and becoming a lawyer at last was also a great resolution for his storyline.) That other long term player, Proposition Joe, at last meeting his end courtesy of Marlo made me realise that I had been actually rooting for Joe to remain the last kingpin standing, but alas, no. (Note to self: any kingpin is bad news for humanity by virtue of his profession, get a grip.) Marlo's ending - walking out of the business meeting (where he actually got what Stringer Bell had wanted for himself, a transition to "legitimate" life with other rich businessmen) - and going to the corner to kill and scare people and reestablish his rep (thus also destroying the condition under which he was released and opening the possibility of his renewed arrest) - felt plausible, too. Good to see Shardene again, albeit briefly, and know she's still together with Lester. The final montage with all the Baltimore pictures underlined that the show managed to make one deeply fond of the drug ridden city. In a masochistic way. Because the rigged game and the juking of stats in every profession destroying the people in it, they continue and are the moloch eating up (almost) everyone.
What a show. What a great, great show.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/870507.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.