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shadowkatWatched part of the commentary on episode 12 of Season 2, or that season's finale. Several things worth mentioning -1) the episode was directed by executive producer Robert Colesberry. The episode was 112 scenes and had to be cut down to 91 scenes, because you only have an hour to do it in. 2) Colesberry also directed the credit/titles sequence. 3) Bob and David Simon pushed for the Wire to be more like a film than shot like a tv show with talking heads, also to intercut it non-linearally. Keeping the thread of the case but intercutting amoungst various items. 4) Bob Colesberry died after the final episode of Season 2 was completed.
In the commentary they mention how much emphasis is placed on what not is said and on the eyes - the acting is done with the eyes and the story with the eyes. They even open scene with a focus shot on Nick Sobotke's eyes.
Anyhow...enough on that.
Season 2 of the Wire, specifically the last two episodes in review.
This is going to be more a list of impressions than an actual review, because my mind isn't really thinking in an organized linear fashion at the moment. [ETA - maybe I'm wrong, upon glancing back at it - it reads more like a detailed review, a very spoilery review. Although I think you'd be lost if you hadn't watched and since most of the people reading these are way ahead of me in watching the Wire, may not matter.]
1. Season 2 broadens the scope Wire's universe to the waterfront docs. We follow Jimmy McNulty to his new job on harbor detail. Where he basically counts seagulls and catches crabs. Except one day he pulls up a body of a dead girl. His sgt - guesses it is probably a jumper. But McNulty, an ex-homicide cop aching to get back to homicide, decides it may be more and immediately sees the signs. While at the outset it appears McNulty is the lead protagonist, the cover art of the DVD's even has his mug up front and center, he really isn't the lead - this is an ensemble cast with a multi-point of view, sort of like Game of Thrones or True Blood or Homicide Life on the Streets.
McNulty is a catalyst character - he makes things happen, or kick-starts the show. Most cop procedurals are basically cops sitting around until someone calls them and that's the case. In The Wire...we have a cop who hunts the case and then prods everyone else into following it. (which isn't quite the same thing as chaotic character, more catalyst.)
At the end of S2 - McNulty has already found the next detail - which he shows Daniels. I'm rather fond of pro-active characters - who make things happen and change their world.
2. The heart of S2 - which may be why a lot of people weren't crazy about this season, is the waterfront or the union of the dockworkers, stevedores, and longshoremen= Local # .
Unfortunately neither the union nor its members have adapted with the times. Much like the Industrial Revolution, the Information/Technological Revolution has marginalized those who cannot adapt. It's social darwinism at its most basic - the strong survive, the weak perish, or in this case those who can adapt survive while those who can't? Don't. Frank Sobotke and his brother are a case in point - both stick to the old ways in their own fashion. They don't develop new skills. They stubbornly stick to what they've always done and always knew. Frank was the son of a stevedore, and is a stevedore and wants his son, Ziggy, to be a stevedore. Just as his brother worked in steel company that has long since gone out of business. Their sons much like themselves are uneducated and unskilled in anything but dock work. Manual labor. They can't aspire to greater things and are stuck. Nick who needs money, needs a home for his girlfriend and child. Ziggy who is desperate to be something other than the punch line to everyone's joke. Much like their father's they can't adapt to this brave new world with such people in it. They are wedded to the old one - where people built stuff, you joined a union, it guaranteed you a job for life, and you worked the docks until you dropped or got that gold watch. Not safe work - people got crushed by cans all the time. And as a result not cheap either for the government or anyone else paying them.
The FBI jumps at the opportunity to shut the union down, to deregulate it and take away its status. No more union, no more problems. Also we show we are cracking down on corruption. This season was written in 2003/2004 - yet is all the more timely now - where increasingly strapped state and federal governments continue to struggle with collective bargaining powers of Unions. Wisconsin completely did away with the collective bargaining - a measure that is being fought as I write this. And Mayor Bloomberg is attempting to work around the Teacher's Union - in order to lay off teachers based on performance not seniority. I've seen it up close and personal in regards to my own workplace and union, recently in order to save the jobs of 17 Ticket Officers and Station Cleaners, the Union agreed to sacrifice two paid holidays - Columbus Day and Election Day - which would result in these workers working both those holidays without overtime pay, saving the agency the amount of money they needed to save by firing them. If there were no unions it would be easier of course - it would be like the private sector - fire at will, with small severance packages and unemployment to make us look good. Business is ruthless. It's dog eat dog and all that. But the public sector tends to be less so - McNulty doesn't get fired for insurbodination, he gets farmed out to a boat on a harbor where the higher ups believe he won't make their lives miserable or fuck things up. Yeah right, hope springs eternal.
Major Valcheck equally goes after the union, but for Valcheck it's a petty school boy thing that he's never quite grown out of (some people never grow up). He sees the union as a perpetual thorn in his side - an embarrassment - because of Frank Sobotke - who has more sway at his church than he does, and apparently more money - which makes no sense. Daniels tells Valcheck that he was right about Sobotke. But one wonders about Valcheck's motives.
Valcheck is a piece of work. He ironically is the one who brings in the FBI which results in Frank Sobotke's death, although it may have happened anyway. We're not quite sure how corrupt he is, either. At first glance, he appears fairly harmless, humorous even. But..in the final scenes of S2, he speaks Greek, while looking at the latest in a series of embarrassing pictures of his lost surveillance van. The hijacked surveillance van which Sobotke steals and then ships around the US, with people sending in photos...is an on-going joke. Sobotke's pranks are rather harmless - just annoyances which most adults can shrug off. Valcheck doesn't and Valcheck's vengeance on Sobotke results in Sobotke's death. Valcheck gets what he wanted - yet he doesn't seem all that happy about it.
Frank Sobotke - sigh, he's a tragic character right out of a Greek play in some respects and while I do feel for him, and the inevitability of his plight of little infractions which lead over time to his and his entire family's downfall - he did bring it on himself. He made his own bed, as did his nephew, and to a degree his son. Although I felt the son, irritating as he was at times, was far more tragic. As the cops tell Nick - the Greek's couldn't have saved Ziggy, Ziggy signed his own death warrant - he had a signed confession, produced the gun, and the ownership license. They didn't need a witness. It wouldn't have mattered. The best they could do for Ziggy was to put him in a nicer facility - since no two prisons are alike. Ziggy's scene with Frank is alternately whiny and heart-breaking, as is most of this story arc - which does lend it an air of credibility. It's hard to feel too sorry for Ziggy, Frank or Nick for that matter - they had choices. They weren't forced down this road, they didn't group up in this world - they chose it. They pursued it. Their desperation for a better life, but more likely their pride led them down that road. They had to continue to fit the roles they defined for themselves.
As Ziggy tells Frank: "I did it because I was so tired. Tired of being the punch line to every joke."
Frank: "Why didn't you just come to me?"
Ziggy: "When? When you were buying everyone at the bar a drink? Or when you were at the union hall gathering votes? You were never there..."
Frank: "I was working for us, to make life better for us..."
Ziggy:" Did you even tell Mom about this? Or did you and she just took (some drug) to sleep it all away."
Women don't factor in their world. It's all about their pride. Even Nick - after Frank is killed, he wants vengeance, but the union guys and his own father stops him. Nick wants to feel pride...but all he has left is disgust. The last shot is literally Nick staring out the fence at the world that remains. The union gone.
Unlike Stringer, Avon, Omar, D'Angel and compnay - the Sobotkes actually do have options. Frank has a skill, he can change. They state at one point that he helped up date the computer system and install it. And he can find another way. Pushing for everything to stay as they are, isn't helping. He does not have to be stevedore. He's given up or stubbornly decided to pursue one path and one path only. I'll give the Wire credit for not romanticizing Frank's lot. The switching back and forth between Frank/Nick/Ziggy storyline and Stringer/D'Angelo/Avon/Omar and Prop Joe - provides a clear picture of the differences between the two groups. Both are advocating for their future, but it's clear that there are legal options open to Sobotkes group than for Stringer's.
3. The Detail. It's interesting how the case unfolds and how they all work the detail. I swear David Simon does the best procedurals on the planet. He's ruined me for all the other ones. I can't watch them anymore.
The police procedures in this series are fascinating and realistic, unlike most shows. The Wire unlike NCIS, CSI, Bones etc is not brainless entertainment. With cases resolved in well a neat manner that only exists in a television writer's wet dreams. Hard and often dull work is involved. Poor Carver and Herc are left sitting in front of Nick Sobotke's house for two episodes. They raid it. Then they have to sit there until Nick returns. The Greek's who are also sitting out there with them - leave before they do. But the Greek's are also smarter and better at this sort of thing. They actually notice Carver and Herc out there...while Herc and Carver remain oblivious to the Greeks. It is in part Daniels fault - for leaving them without backup or relief. They fall asleep, they get bored. But they are out there for two reasons, one which appears to be lost on them - to protect the family from The Greeks - as long as they are stationed out there, the Greeks will do nothing. The other to bring in Nick. In a rather funny scene - Carver goes up to the house finally and demands that Nick turn himself in - to Nick's bewildered father who informs him that Nick already did and to Lester Freamon.
Communication remains a theme here. Carver's fury is nothing compared to Daniels - when he learns that Ziggy Sobotke killed George Cletkas (one of his targets) and Homicide didn't think to call him. As a result the entire shop got cleaned by the Greeks, with nothing left but Cletkas blood stain. They had to find out through the papers. "We're solving your 14 Jane Does and you can't think to call me with a relevant homicide that might have broken this case wide open??? Don't you want those 14 Jane Does solved?" Landsman sighs and apologizes. I understood why he didn't do it - he wasn't thinking. Left hand not talking to the right.
Same thing occurs with Frank Sobotke - McNulty's FBI friend who is still assigned to the detail, faxes information regarding Frank Sobotke to the San Diego Chief - Koutaris. He doesn't check first. Sobotke is killed. Koutaris calls the Greek, who orders Sobotke dead on the spot. It's not until Nick comes forward and the FBI guy is about to do the same thing, that he stops and decides not to fax it after-all and call instead. He finds out that the San Diego Chief isn't in San Diego but in DC on counter-terrorism and it's more than likely that he sees The Greek and Spiros as assets. He tells this to Daniels at the end - the leak was on my end, but don't tell anyone or I'm shipped out to Montana.
It's sad, because if Pearlmen hadn't pushed Sobotke to wait, to seek counsel first - he might have been okay. If Nick hadn't asked him to talk to the Greeks, he might have lived.
My heart went out to Beadie Russell - who liked Frank, who tried to save him and his family. And failed.
Another bit on the communication theme - or another hilarious scene. Beadie Russell and Bunk go to check out the port records, where the Atlantic Light docked. After twenty minutes of getting no where with the old man manning the station, they are about to leave when he offers the video surveillance tapes of the docks. The docks have video security everywhere. Who knew? Certainly not Sergei. As a result they get the killing of the Atlantic Light seaman responsible for the dead kills on camera and manage to get Sergei to confess to the killing and to tell them that the Atlantic Light seaman did it. Clearing all 14 Jane Does, as well as a John Doe as a bonus. (Which I was rather relieved about since this means Rawls is a happy man and will most likely not drive our heroes nuts next season. But one never knows.)
There are others as well - the attempt to find The Greek - but identifying the wrong guy, based on clothes. The Greek's in the hat not the suit. They tricked the cops. It's Nick who picks him out in the photo. Although I'm guessing Nick's more or less right - it's unlikely the Greek will kill him now as they state - there's no point. It's too late. Let's pull up shop and leave. Let our latest shipment rot.
4. Prop Joe and Stringer Bell. Prop Joe has been getting his drugs from The Greeks but that's all going to end now that the cops are sitting on it and Greeks have skipped town. (Note one isn't even really Greek, and the other isn't going by his real name). They don't have another source and are about to go dry.
But that's not their only problem. They've got another one. Their attempt to pit two hitmen against each other - did not pan out. Omar can't just kill Brother Mouzone, he has to tell him why. Omar isn't really a hitman, he's a force of nature all his own. I'd say a trickster character, but I don't think so - this character feels planned. I think the writers knew exactly what they were doing with him. The closest the Wire comes to a trickster character is McNulty and...well, already discussed that. [As an aside? A hitman with female henchwomen, cool. Omar unlike the Sobotkes and Greeks, actually sees women as more than sexual commodities, mothers or girlfriends, actually all of the guys in the projects do - which is another reason why they are more likable.)
Anyhow, Omar tells Brother Mouzone that he is getting made for killing Brandon, Omar's boy. In a horrible way. And asks Mouzone why he did it. Mouzone at first states the game stays the game (or its business bud), but then he realizes what and who Omar is talking about. Uh, no, I didn't kill any Brandon. That wasn't me. Omar says - interesting - Stringer told me it was you. The two hit man stare at each other and realize Stringer's been playing games. Not sure they've figured out Prop Joe is also involved. Possibly not. Omar surprises Mouzone by stating, a)you'll live the bullet passed clean through and its not critical, and b) calls 911. Making Mouzone realize that Omar wasn't going after "him" personally, he evening a score on another murder that someone told Omar that Mouzone had been responsible for. Which meant the person responsible for this isn't Omar but whomever sent him. Mouzone ain't dumb, gotta give him that. I actually sort of like Mouzone, he's interesting. See this was a problem with S2 - the projects criminals were more interesting than the dockhands/waterfront criminals who felt very one-dimensional and we ironically got more of. Guessing Burns didn't spend much time on the Waterfronts.
So in a rather good hospital sequence at the very beginning of episode 12 - Stringer visits Brother Mouzone in the hospital. Mouzone makes it clear with his eyes, that he doesn't trust Stringer as far as he can throw him and their business is done. He's going to go after the people responsible, himself. Stringer at first thinks - oh, cool, Omar! But then realizes, okay, maybe not, what's this "them" or "the people" responsible bit? Worried, Stringer goes off to talk to Avon - and mentions that Mouzone said their deal has been "absolved" and he's going after whoever tried to kill him, but wouldn't say who. Avon tells Stringer he shouldn't have asked Mouzone that question. You don't ask a hitman why or what he is going to do. This isn't your business class, this is the street - the street stays the street. The problem Stringer has - is he wants to turn this into a civilized organized crime deal a la the Sopranos, when everyone around him is more interested in keeping it an unorganized drug deal a la ...Mean Streets.
I'm beginning to feel sorry for Stringer. Prop Joe has his own problems. Because Omar's banker and friend has figured out Prop Joe most likely set up Omar. Omar has figured out Stringer did and wants to kill Stringer for sending him after the wrong guy. I don't know, Stringer isn't looking long for this world. He has not one but two extreemly capable and dangerous hitmen gunning for him. Also Avon is getting suspicious and a tad irritated with Stringer's business practices. Stringer's life expectancy is looking about as long as well D'Angelo's did at the beginning of this season.
To make matters worse, Bubbles has alerted McNulty and Kima to something interesting going down at the projects. That it appears Stringer and Prop Joe may be working together, but Avon doesn't like it and sent a man to stop it. This means the cops are alerted to what they are doing. So much for keeping a low profile. Thank you, Avon, way to screw up both Stringer and Prop Joe's worlds. Not only does he sic Brother Mouzone on them, Mouzone gets the cops interested. Again.
Through their deal - you see them trying, much as Nick and Frank did, to build a business, to keep a product flowing. To make money. To survive. The system has failed them, so they work outside of it, but parallel to it - or enough to not be obvious.
5. The resolution. The resolution much like last year's is up in the air. Sure some things worked out. The higher ups are happy. The system wasn't shaken up that badly. Daniels gets his CID unit - but he didn't get the case resolved in the manner he wanted, just enough to please the political big-wigs. Rawls got his 14-15 Jane Does, plus a bonus clearance. He's happy as a pig in shit. As is Landsman. Burrell - provided Valcheck with the closure he required. The FBI got to close down a pesky union. The Greeks got away. McNulty is back on the detail and another case has popped up - Prop Joe and Stringer Bell.
Yet the final scene belongs to the forlorn Nick Sobotke staring out at see, watching all his hopes and dreams floating out there beyond his reach. The union doors shut and closed. The FBI wandering about closing more. While Beadie Russell returns to her beat and drives alone, with head phones listening to the song I feel Free.
Which is how these things end in real life. You take two steps forward and two back, the Texas Two-Step. The Wire is hyper-realism at its best. No neat happy wrap-ups, so much as ironic ones. We don't have everyone laughing and patting each other on the back until next case comes along. It ends as it begins, with the steady rhythm and hum of real life, achingly dull in places, and hilarious in others. Reflecting the flaws in our governmental systems in the process. McNulty may muck it up, cause the gears to grind and rasp, but they don't stop and it doesn't entirely change.
Nick Sobotke is the D'Angel of S1, like D'Angelo staring bleakly into the life he can't escape and the life that remains out of his reach, through bars, perhaps not iron, and maybe just a fence, but bars all the same.
Overall rating? B+/A- (Season 1 was definitely better in places, but S2 has its moments.)
In the commentary they mention how much emphasis is placed on what not is said and on the eyes - the acting is done with the eyes and the story with the eyes. They even open scene with a focus shot on Nick Sobotke's eyes.
Anyhow...enough on that.
Season 2 of the Wire, specifically the last two episodes in review.
This is going to be more a list of impressions than an actual review, because my mind isn't really thinking in an organized linear fashion at the moment. [ETA - maybe I'm wrong, upon glancing back at it - it reads more like a detailed review, a very spoilery review. Although I think you'd be lost if you hadn't watched and since most of the people reading these are way ahead of me in watching the Wire, may not matter.]
1. Season 2 broadens the scope Wire's universe to the waterfront docs. We follow Jimmy McNulty to his new job on harbor detail. Where he basically counts seagulls and catches crabs. Except one day he pulls up a body of a dead girl. His sgt - guesses it is probably a jumper. But McNulty, an ex-homicide cop aching to get back to homicide, decides it may be more and immediately sees the signs. While at the outset it appears McNulty is the lead protagonist, the cover art of the DVD's even has his mug up front and center, he really isn't the lead - this is an ensemble cast with a multi-point of view, sort of like Game of Thrones or True Blood or Homicide Life on the Streets.
McNulty is a catalyst character - he makes things happen, or kick-starts the show. Most cop procedurals are basically cops sitting around until someone calls them and that's the case. In The Wire...we have a cop who hunts the case and then prods everyone else into following it. (which isn't quite the same thing as chaotic character, more catalyst.)
At the end of S2 - McNulty has already found the next detail - which he shows Daniels. I'm rather fond of pro-active characters - who make things happen and change their world.
2. The heart of S2 - which may be why a lot of people weren't crazy about this season, is the waterfront or the union of the dockworkers, stevedores, and longshoremen= Local # .
Unfortunately neither the union nor its members have adapted with the times. Much like the Industrial Revolution, the Information/Technological Revolution has marginalized those who cannot adapt. It's social darwinism at its most basic - the strong survive, the weak perish, or in this case those who can adapt survive while those who can't? Don't. Frank Sobotke and his brother are a case in point - both stick to the old ways in their own fashion. They don't develop new skills. They stubbornly stick to what they've always done and always knew. Frank was the son of a stevedore, and is a stevedore and wants his son, Ziggy, to be a stevedore. Just as his brother worked in steel company that has long since gone out of business. Their sons much like themselves are uneducated and unskilled in anything but dock work. Manual labor. They can't aspire to greater things and are stuck. Nick who needs money, needs a home for his girlfriend and child. Ziggy who is desperate to be something other than the punch line to everyone's joke. Much like their father's they can't adapt to this brave new world with such people in it. They are wedded to the old one - where people built stuff, you joined a union, it guaranteed you a job for life, and you worked the docks until you dropped or got that gold watch. Not safe work - people got crushed by cans all the time. And as a result not cheap either for the government or anyone else paying them.
The FBI jumps at the opportunity to shut the union down, to deregulate it and take away its status. No more union, no more problems. Also we show we are cracking down on corruption. This season was written in 2003/2004 - yet is all the more timely now - where increasingly strapped state and federal governments continue to struggle with collective bargaining powers of Unions. Wisconsin completely did away with the collective bargaining - a measure that is being fought as I write this. And Mayor Bloomberg is attempting to work around the Teacher's Union - in order to lay off teachers based on performance not seniority. I've seen it up close and personal in regards to my own workplace and union, recently in order to save the jobs of 17 Ticket Officers and Station Cleaners, the Union agreed to sacrifice two paid holidays - Columbus Day and Election Day - which would result in these workers working both those holidays without overtime pay, saving the agency the amount of money they needed to save by firing them. If there were no unions it would be easier of course - it would be like the private sector - fire at will, with small severance packages and unemployment to make us look good. Business is ruthless. It's dog eat dog and all that. But the public sector tends to be less so - McNulty doesn't get fired for insurbodination, he gets farmed out to a boat on a harbor where the higher ups believe he won't make their lives miserable or fuck things up. Yeah right, hope springs eternal.
Major Valcheck equally goes after the union, but for Valcheck it's a petty school boy thing that he's never quite grown out of (some people never grow up). He sees the union as a perpetual thorn in his side - an embarrassment - because of Frank Sobotke - who has more sway at his church than he does, and apparently more money - which makes no sense. Daniels tells Valcheck that he was right about Sobotke. But one wonders about Valcheck's motives.
Valcheck is a piece of work. He ironically is the one who brings in the FBI which results in Frank Sobotke's death, although it may have happened anyway. We're not quite sure how corrupt he is, either. At first glance, he appears fairly harmless, humorous even. But..in the final scenes of S2, he speaks Greek, while looking at the latest in a series of embarrassing pictures of his lost surveillance van. The hijacked surveillance van which Sobotke steals and then ships around the US, with people sending in photos...is an on-going joke. Sobotke's pranks are rather harmless - just annoyances which most adults can shrug off. Valcheck doesn't and Valcheck's vengeance on Sobotke results in Sobotke's death. Valcheck gets what he wanted - yet he doesn't seem all that happy about it.
Frank Sobotke - sigh, he's a tragic character right out of a Greek play in some respects and while I do feel for him, and the inevitability of his plight of little infractions which lead over time to his and his entire family's downfall - he did bring it on himself. He made his own bed, as did his nephew, and to a degree his son. Although I felt the son, irritating as he was at times, was far more tragic. As the cops tell Nick - the Greek's couldn't have saved Ziggy, Ziggy signed his own death warrant - he had a signed confession, produced the gun, and the ownership license. They didn't need a witness. It wouldn't have mattered. The best they could do for Ziggy was to put him in a nicer facility - since no two prisons are alike. Ziggy's scene with Frank is alternately whiny and heart-breaking, as is most of this story arc - which does lend it an air of credibility. It's hard to feel too sorry for Ziggy, Frank or Nick for that matter - they had choices. They weren't forced down this road, they didn't group up in this world - they chose it. They pursued it. Their desperation for a better life, but more likely their pride led them down that road. They had to continue to fit the roles they defined for themselves.
As Ziggy tells Frank: "I did it because I was so tired. Tired of being the punch line to every joke."
Frank: "Why didn't you just come to me?"
Ziggy: "When? When you were buying everyone at the bar a drink? Or when you were at the union hall gathering votes? You were never there..."
Frank: "I was working for us, to make life better for us..."
Ziggy:" Did you even tell Mom about this? Or did you and she just took (some drug) to sleep it all away."
Women don't factor in their world. It's all about their pride. Even Nick - after Frank is killed, he wants vengeance, but the union guys and his own father stops him. Nick wants to feel pride...but all he has left is disgust. The last shot is literally Nick staring out the fence at the world that remains. The union gone.
Unlike Stringer, Avon, Omar, D'Angel and compnay - the Sobotkes actually do have options. Frank has a skill, he can change. They state at one point that he helped up date the computer system and install it. And he can find another way. Pushing for everything to stay as they are, isn't helping. He does not have to be stevedore. He's given up or stubbornly decided to pursue one path and one path only. I'll give the Wire credit for not romanticizing Frank's lot. The switching back and forth between Frank/Nick/Ziggy storyline and Stringer/D'Angelo/Avon/Omar and Prop Joe - provides a clear picture of the differences between the two groups. Both are advocating for their future, but it's clear that there are legal options open to Sobotkes group than for Stringer's.
3. The Detail. It's interesting how the case unfolds and how they all work the detail. I swear David Simon does the best procedurals on the planet. He's ruined me for all the other ones. I can't watch them anymore.
The police procedures in this series are fascinating and realistic, unlike most shows. The Wire unlike NCIS, CSI, Bones etc is not brainless entertainment. With cases resolved in well a neat manner that only exists in a television writer's wet dreams. Hard and often dull work is involved. Poor Carver and Herc are left sitting in front of Nick Sobotke's house for two episodes. They raid it. Then they have to sit there until Nick returns. The Greek's who are also sitting out there with them - leave before they do. But the Greek's are also smarter and better at this sort of thing. They actually notice Carver and Herc out there...while Herc and Carver remain oblivious to the Greeks. It is in part Daniels fault - for leaving them without backup or relief. They fall asleep, they get bored. But they are out there for two reasons, one which appears to be lost on them - to protect the family from The Greeks - as long as they are stationed out there, the Greeks will do nothing. The other to bring in Nick. In a rather funny scene - Carver goes up to the house finally and demands that Nick turn himself in - to Nick's bewildered father who informs him that Nick already did and to Lester Freamon.
Communication remains a theme here. Carver's fury is nothing compared to Daniels - when he learns that Ziggy Sobotke killed George Cletkas (one of his targets) and Homicide didn't think to call him. As a result the entire shop got cleaned by the Greeks, with nothing left but Cletkas blood stain. They had to find out through the papers. "We're solving your 14 Jane Does and you can't think to call me with a relevant homicide that might have broken this case wide open??? Don't you want those 14 Jane Does solved?" Landsman sighs and apologizes. I understood why he didn't do it - he wasn't thinking. Left hand not talking to the right.
Same thing occurs with Frank Sobotke - McNulty's FBI friend who is still assigned to the detail, faxes information regarding Frank Sobotke to the San Diego Chief - Koutaris. He doesn't check first. Sobotke is killed. Koutaris calls the Greek, who orders Sobotke dead on the spot. It's not until Nick comes forward and the FBI guy is about to do the same thing, that he stops and decides not to fax it after-all and call instead. He finds out that the San Diego Chief isn't in San Diego but in DC on counter-terrorism and it's more than likely that he sees The Greek and Spiros as assets. He tells this to Daniels at the end - the leak was on my end, but don't tell anyone or I'm shipped out to Montana.
It's sad, because if Pearlmen hadn't pushed Sobotke to wait, to seek counsel first - he might have been okay. If Nick hadn't asked him to talk to the Greeks, he might have lived.
My heart went out to Beadie Russell - who liked Frank, who tried to save him and his family. And failed.
Another bit on the communication theme - or another hilarious scene. Beadie Russell and Bunk go to check out the port records, where the Atlantic Light docked. After twenty minutes of getting no where with the old man manning the station, they are about to leave when he offers the video surveillance tapes of the docks. The docks have video security everywhere. Who knew? Certainly not Sergei. As a result they get the killing of the Atlantic Light seaman responsible for the dead kills on camera and manage to get Sergei to confess to the killing and to tell them that the Atlantic Light seaman did it. Clearing all 14 Jane Does, as well as a John Doe as a bonus. (Which I was rather relieved about since this means Rawls is a happy man and will most likely not drive our heroes nuts next season. But one never knows.)
There are others as well - the attempt to find The Greek - but identifying the wrong guy, based on clothes. The Greek's in the hat not the suit. They tricked the cops. It's Nick who picks him out in the photo. Although I'm guessing Nick's more or less right - it's unlikely the Greek will kill him now as they state - there's no point. It's too late. Let's pull up shop and leave. Let our latest shipment rot.
4. Prop Joe and Stringer Bell. Prop Joe has been getting his drugs from The Greeks but that's all going to end now that the cops are sitting on it and Greeks have skipped town. (Note one isn't even really Greek, and the other isn't going by his real name). They don't have another source and are about to go dry.
But that's not their only problem. They've got another one. Their attempt to pit two hitmen against each other - did not pan out. Omar can't just kill Brother Mouzone, he has to tell him why. Omar isn't really a hitman, he's a force of nature all his own. I'd say a trickster character, but I don't think so - this character feels planned. I think the writers knew exactly what they were doing with him. The closest the Wire comes to a trickster character is McNulty and...well, already discussed that. [As an aside? A hitman with female henchwomen, cool. Omar unlike the Sobotkes and Greeks, actually sees women as more than sexual commodities, mothers or girlfriends, actually all of the guys in the projects do - which is another reason why they are more likable.)
Anyhow, Omar tells Brother Mouzone that he is getting made for killing Brandon, Omar's boy. In a horrible way. And asks Mouzone why he did it. Mouzone at first states the game stays the game (or its business bud), but then he realizes what and who Omar is talking about. Uh, no, I didn't kill any Brandon. That wasn't me. Omar says - interesting - Stringer told me it was you. The two hit man stare at each other and realize Stringer's been playing games. Not sure they've figured out Prop Joe is also involved. Possibly not. Omar surprises Mouzone by stating, a)you'll live the bullet passed clean through and its not critical, and b) calls 911. Making Mouzone realize that Omar wasn't going after "him" personally, he evening a score on another murder that someone told Omar that Mouzone had been responsible for. Which meant the person responsible for this isn't Omar but whomever sent him. Mouzone ain't dumb, gotta give him that. I actually sort of like Mouzone, he's interesting. See this was a problem with S2 - the projects criminals were more interesting than the dockhands/waterfront criminals who felt very one-dimensional and we ironically got more of. Guessing Burns didn't spend much time on the Waterfronts.
So in a rather good hospital sequence at the very beginning of episode 12 - Stringer visits Brother Mouzone in the hospital. Mouzone makes it clear with his eyes, that he doesn't trust Stringer as far as he can throw him and their business is done. He's going to go after the people responsible, himself. Stringer at first thinks - oh, cool, Omar! But then realizes, okay, maybe not, what's this "them" or "the people" responsible bit? Worried, Stringer goes off to talk to Avon - and mentions that Mouzone said their deal has been "absolved" and he's going after whoever tried to kill him, but wouldn't say who. Avon tells Stringer he shouldn't have asked Mouzone that question. You don't ask a hitman why or what he is going to do. This isn't your business class, this is the street - the street stays the street. The problem Stringer has - is he wants to turn this into a civilized organized crime deal a la the Sopranos, when everyone around him is more interested in keeping it an unorganized drug deal a la ...Mean Streets.
I'm beginning to feel sorry for Stringer. Prop Joe has his own problems. Because Omar's banker and friend has figured out Prop Joe most likely set up Omar. Omar has figured out Stringer did and wants to kill Stringer for sending him after the wrong guy. I don't know, Stringer isn't looking long for this world. He has not one but two extreemly capable and dangerous hitmen gunning for him. Also Avon is getting suspicious and a tad irritated with Stringer's business practices. Stringer's life expectancy is looking about as long as well D'Angelo's did at the beginning of this season.
To make matters worse, Bubbles has alerted McNulty and Kima to something interesting going down at the projects. That it appears Stringer and Prop Joe may be working together, but Avon doesn't like it and sent a man to stop it. This means the cops are alerted to what they are doing. So much for keeping a low profile. Thank you, Avon, way to screw up both Stringer and Prop Joe's worlds. Not only does he sic Brother Mouzone on them, Mouzone gets the cops interested. Again.
Through their deal - you see them trying, much as Nick and Frank did, to build a business, to keep a product flowing. To make money. To survive. The system has failed them, so they work outside of it, but parallel to it - or enough to not be obvious.
5. The resolution. The resolution much like last year's is up in the air. Sure some things worked out. The higher ups are happy. The system wasn't shaken up that badly. Daniels gets his CID unit - but he didn't get the case resolved in the manner he wanted, just enough to please the political big-wigs. Rawls got his 14-15 Jane Does, plus a bonus clearance. He's happy as a pig in shit. As is Landsman. Burrell - provided Valcheck with the closure he required. The FBI got to close down a pesky union. The Greeks got away. McNulty is back on the detail and another case has popped up - Prop Joe and Stringer Bell.
Yet the final scene belongs to the forlorn Nick Sobotke staring out at see, watching all his hopes and dreams floating out there beyond his reach. The union doors shut and closed. The FBI wandering about closing more. While Beadie Russell returns to her beat and drives alone, with head phones listening to the song I feel Free.
Which is how these things end in real life. You take two steps forward and two back, the Texas Two-Step. The Wire is hyper-realism at its best. No neat happy wrap-ups, so much as ironic ones. We don't have everyone laughing and patting each other on the back until next case comes along. It ends as it begins, with the steady rhythm and hum of real life, achingly dull in places, and hilarious in others. Reflecting the flaws in our governmental systems in the process. McNulty may muck it up, cause the gears to grind and rasp, but they don't stop and it doesn't entirely change.
Nick Sobotke is the D'Angel of S1, like D'Angelo staring bleakly into the life he can't escape and the life that remains out of his reach, through bars, perhaps not iron, and maybe just a fence, but bars all the same.
Overall rating? B+/A- (Season 1 was definitely better in places, but S2 has its moments.)
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Date: 2011-07-11 09:42 am (UTC)The same way federal decisions affect Baltimore, the same way global phenomenons affect the town: globalized crime as I already said, and global economic and technologic changes as seen through deindustrialization and concurrence with other ports like Rotterdam. Baltimore is not an isolate and its port, as an interface, is an excellent post of observation from where to catch these phenomenons.