Spoilers abound for this episode of The Wire, premiering on HBO tonight and available now on Comcast OnDemand.
No big surprises on the street:
No big surprise in the cold open that Vondas is ok with Proposition Joe being dead and Marlo taking over as “The Greeks”‘ connection to the Baltimore street-drug trade. Marlo: “Meanwhile, we go on.” It’s a little ironic though how Vondas closes out his talk with Marlo by teaching the street-smart youngster how to communicate on a mobile device without alerting the police. Carries on Prop Joe’s own attempts to “civilize this motherfucker.” Marlo knows the street as well as, if not better than, anyone else in the game, but now that he wears the crown, he still needs help with how to manage having that crown. With Joe dead, Vondas is about the only person still around who can serve as adviser to Marlo.
The only threat to Marlo is now Omar, which Chris and Marlo acknowledge in the cold open. He was back last week, scoping out Monk’s place without moving on his target. In this episode he moves, leading to one of the more prolonged gun battles in the history of The Wire, leaving him battered, but, one can be sure, not deterred.
Clay Davis being grand-juried. Carcetti’s reaction to States’ Attorney Bond’s press conference regarding the Davis indictment. Dukie taking a beating from Spider and going to Cutty to learn to fight. Primarily this stuff is filler for Episode 5, but the very best kind of filler. These scenes, while they are not driving the main plot points of this season, do speake to the main themes of the show, and help fill out Baltimore as a whole city. Dukie wants to know what to do when against unsurmountable odds, and Clay Davis tries everything he can to stand up to the same via the grand jury. They’re not much different than McNulty, whose actions are against what he perceives to be the same long odds dealt to him by City Hall and the brass in the police department.
Simon never populates his show with throw-away characters, and even what seem like throw-away lines can be gold. When Dukie asks Cutty, “How do you get to the rest of the world from here?” it’s a sentiment that so many characters in The Wire could have asked, but it’s perfect that Dukie did. Here’s a kid who has not been back to school after seeming to gain momentum in the classroom last year. Dukie’s benefactor of last season, Prezbylewski, is no longer in his life, and for one small movement of a couple minutes in his life we get to seem him ask his benefactor-for-a-day just what the hell life is going to have in store for him. Dukie’s is a life that so far has had few positive adult influences and will probably have very few more–but promises many negative adult influences–until he himself is an adult. To see someone who was so closed off in Season 4–even when Prezbo tried to help him–open up just briefly, well it’s one of the best moments in a series full of great moments, and the sentiment in this scene, which could seem to be a throw-away moment, is solid gold.
There’s an argument between Bunk and McNulty in this episode that I loved. McNulty’s plan is moving along, and he’s received the front-page treatment he wanted from The Sun. This has given him and one other detective–Landsman assigns Griggs–unlimited overtime to pursue the phony serial killer. Bunk pulls McNulty into an interrogation room and tells him that he’s “half-lit every third night, dead drunk every second. Nut deep in raaaandom pussy. What time you do spend limp-dick and sober you’re working murders that don’t exist.” Even if McNulty catches Marlo, what good is this going to accomplish? Based on his process, I would have to assume that any evidence gathered will cost McNulty what’s left of his livelihood. It’s his play against what he considers long odds, but, unlike Dukie, McNulty won’t ask for advice. He has Freamon, but Freamon isn’t a mentor, he a fellow malcontent, and that’s quite different than asking for advice.
No surprises in the paper, Templeton is still a liar, the bosses are still aloof, and Gus still knows everything. Templeton’s fabrications, we see by the end, are going to have him in very hot water after he plays his hand to McNulty. I won’t spoil that anymore. I will say though that this story line continues to disappoint. Time will tell how far McNulty and Templeton can go with their lies. Reminds me of Bunk in the cold open of Episode 1 this year, “The bigger the lie, the more they believe.” Will the city believe as this lie grows?
Season 5 continues to grow on me. After the first couple episodes, and especially after McNulty started in with his plot and the newspaper’s characters were so highly defined as black and white, good and bad, the show was beginning to lose its luster for me. However, in the past three episodes, there have been some great moments–Johnny Fifty in the homeless town, Nicky Sobotka protesting the mayor’s ribbon cutting, Dukie and Cutty, Cheese selling out his uncle while Slim Charles stood tall, Carcetti letting Clay Davis know politely and silently that his time was up, Clay’s protests to Neresse and Burrell. Simon is doing a great job of capping the lives of some of the minor characters. Dukie’s plot line is probably now over, we might see him once or twice more, but his story is as complete as it needs to be for us to continue to imagine a life for him after the last scene blacks out. All that’s left now is for him to do the same for his major characters.
