Comments on: The Wire Season 5 Episode 2

By: jumpinin

jumpinin — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 02:19:56 +0000

I think McNulty’s sense of morality has always been somewhat flexible, in particular how he treats his women. It seems to me like Bubbles and McNulty are to sides of addiction – Bubbles struggling with recovery and McNulty struggling with relapse. Returning to drinking after a period of abstinence can be a demoralizing experience and most alcoholics start with a sense of righteous indignation at the actions of others, only to mirror and later surpass those actions. The one positive thing that can be said of low-bottom dope fiends like Bubbles is they are so marginalized and isolated that they aren’t taking anyone down with them. I suspect McNulty is going to take a whole bunch of people down with before the season is through.

As for McNulty’s frustration, it’s typical alcoholic behaviour. Someone else shortcomings make it necessary for the alcoholic to deviate from his high moral standards. If the rest of the world would just fall in line, I’m sure McNulty would be a pillar of the community.

By: kinanice

kinanice — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:31:30 +0000

^it’s more than that. McNulty’s character had a sense of morality. Right from season 1 when he told Stringer “nicely done” to show his disgust at the justice system screwing itself over, we saw that this was a stand up guy.

So my bone is, so far, I have not seen one good REASON for McNulty to go off the deep end like he has. The cutbacks at work and the Get Marlo excuse is just a coverup to act an arse.
His poor judgement could cause his whole case to be thrown out of court.

McNulty is a loveable screw up, but a screw up nonetheless.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:37:52 +0000

Well, I thought the McNulty thing seemed out of character … but it’s implied that his personal life, particularly alcoholism, is starting to really spin out of control. Severe alcoholism can change someone’s character for the worse, quickly.

By: itzik basman

itzik basman — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:05:56 +0000

Nice synopsis, but I agree with the above 2 posters that the McNulty thing works for me, a measure of the frustration he feels with the 22 murders and Marlo left unattended. Only one thing is bugging me–and I hope it’s just me: some of the dialogue seems over-written to me, too pat, like Steve Earle talkin to Bubs about taking a “moral inventory”, some of the Carchetti and his advisors’ conversations, and some of the newspaper guys’ exchanges.

By: urbanfervor

urbanfervor — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:47:43 +0000

Maybe should have worded it differently. I think McNulty is a stubborn ass, but a brilliant cop. He has always been impatient to take the long road to getting what he wants out of the bosses. But when he has been forced to that long road, he has taken it. Yeah, I get that he’s frustrated and pushed to the edge, but I don’t think anything about the character up to now tells us that he’d do something like this.

By: Rhino

Rhino — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:45:13 +0000

I appreciate the concise well written summary of episode 2 and I agree with most of it except for Mcnulty character cutting corners. I do agree that he has always taken the high ground, nevertheless, with the cutbacks and being kicked to the curb again after a year of investigation McNulty is frustrated. He has been pushed to a point beyond his threshold. Additionally, you could argue that he is still acting morally bc he knows that getting Marlo will ultimately stop more murders from occuring. At anyrate, I do not feel that it was to cut corners at all.