The Wire: The Complete Series
I get why so many of you warned me that season two might be disappointing; some said it’s the worst season, or just not as good as the first, or just so different that I might not like it. I wouldn’t say any of that held true for me, though – it was just as good as the first, in large part because it was so different, and aside from one complaint about the plot I would be hard-pressed to offer any negative sentiments.
Again, for the handful of you who haven’t seen the series (I’m fairly certain I’m the last one on this particular ship), The Wire follows an ad hoc group of Baltimore police officers who, under the charge of Lieutenant Cedric Daniels, form a major case squad to pursue drug dealing operations. In season two, the squad has been spread to the winds after the end of the Barksdale case from the first season, but gradually Lt. Daniels puts the group back together to pursue a vendetta for a police commander, Stan Valchek, who is angry with the leader of the dockworkers’ union over the placement of a stained glass window in their local church. (Seriously.) That case mushrooms into a sprawling investigation that links the union to white slavery, black marketeering, and a source of drugs for Proposition Joe’s gang (which is a good thing, because we need more Proposition Joe).
The feel of the season is different because of the change in theme. The first season was very much about the inherent fallacy behind the war on drugs, and how ineffective and expensive that battle is likely to be. The second season revolves around the decline of blue-collar employment, which, like the drug war, is behind the economic and social decay of many older American cities. The dockworkers are struggling and their union head bets it all, in effect, on double-zero, putting illegally gained funds into lobbying efforts to dredge a nearby canal and increase port traffic. Those funds are the proceeds of payoffs from smugglers, who attract the attention of the police when one of the containers contains the bodies of thirteen dead women who were being smuggled into the U.S. to work as prostitutes, likely under duress.
The new storyline brought in a host of new characters, most strong, led by the union leader, Frank Sobotka, and the port officer who ends up joining the major case squad, Beadie Russell. Sobotka’s story plays out almost like a classical tragedy – he’s probably doomed from the start, and is so heavily invested in his work that he’s ignorant of the impending danger to members of his immediate family. (Ziggy, his son, was one character I could have done without, or simply done with less of; I almost felt sorry for him when he finally snapped, but then again, could anything we know of his history really excuse what he did?) And Sobotka is faced with some difficult choices, ones with nothing but gray area, because of his moral and political responsibility to his fellow dockworkers.
Russell was a little less well-formed than Sobotka, and her development from security guard to investigator wasn’t as well written as the development of Carver in season one from goofball to surveillance expert (although I suppose this season showed that was a fluke and he just regressed to the mean). The Russell character worked more because of how Amy Ryan played her, almost like she was trying to shed the stereotypical soft female cop image and develop some toughness, much of which falls apart in the final episode. People win Emmys for that sort of thing – that is, when the Emmys are aware that the series exists in the first place.
The expansion to the docks comes at the expense of the Barksdale storyline, although the writers did a solid job of keeping that thread alive throughout the season so they can pick it up again at a future point. Avon Barksdale remains in jail, so Stringer Bell – still the strongest central character in the show from my point of view – becomes more central, even ordering the murder of a potential turncoat and setting up a hit on someone Barksdale hired to work for the group. Bodie’s attempts to grow into some sort of leader within the Barksdale crew was one of the stronger points in the first half of the season, but was dropped for the second half as the focus shifted more and more to the docks. His scene in the flowershop, while insanely silly, was a highlight of the season for me.
That one complaint about the plot I mentioned earlier was pretty significant, even if it was probably realistic (and here comes a spoiler). The FBI agent who tips off the Greek about raids and eventually about Sobotka felt like a tacked-on element, as if the writers needed to ensure that this case wasn’t a total win for the cops, with very little on the agent’s true motivation for protecting a murderous mobster. Is he unaware of the Greek’s body count? Does he view that as an acceptable tradeoff for the information the Greek provides, especially on terrorism? Is this sanctioned by his bosses? Will he ever face any consequences? I get that a rout for the cops would seem too network-police-procedural, and absolutely not realistic, but to have them sunk because of a leak from outside their group, felt like a deus ex machina for the bad guys – a less compelling resolution than we saw in season one.
* I’m not sure what was funnier – Proposition Joe’s response to Sergei’s comments about family (“I got motherfuckin’ nephews and cousins fucking all my shit up…”) or McNulty’s one line when they finally move in on the white slavery operation (“You’re late”), but I remain continually impressed by the writers’ ability to weave in humor without interrupting the flow of the narrative. If you think about it, not only is that more like real life than the idea of separating humorous moments from everything else, but it’s the natural human response to stress, anxiety, or sometimes even grief or despair. It should appear everywhere, and should be seamless. That doesn’t make it easier to write, but it does mean it’s important to make the effort.
* And the wait for the payoff on the “Why always Boris?” joke – one of the longest I can remember in any TV series – was absolutely worth it. I wonder if that was planned from the start.
* So does anyone else think FedEx knew they’d get tremendous word of mouth by hiring the actor who played Bodie to appear in one of their new commercials, or was it just their own dumb luck?
I have to say that I initially thought Season 2 was the worst, and I recently went back and watched it again, and now it’s one of my favorites. I have no idea how that happened, but there must have been a bunch of small stuff that I missed.
Glad you enjoyed it. I’ve always thought Season 2 was really good and had plenty of arguments about it with my friends. I think it was a good break from the first season to where things pick up in Season 3.
There are few people I detest more than those who tell me they hated the second season of The Wire. It’s just another way of saying, “I don’t understand the show at all, but I like cops and robbers stuff.”
Great Article Keith and I totally agree. Actually to me, the first time watching this season I didn’t like it as much but going back a 2nd time I realized how fantastic a character Frank Sobotka really is. It’s probably one of the weakest seasons (with the 5th one as well) but it’s great. I think you’ll like 3/4 the best because it also switches the narrative but in a more fluid way.
* “Can’t pop a cap in they ass without hearing about it Thanksgiving time.”
“(although I suppose this season showed that was a fluke and he just regressed to the mean)”
Hahahahah, much appreciated from one of your baseball readers. I actually think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with Carver’s progression. Still has some peak WAR seasons ahead of him.
My understanding of the FBI agent who tips off The Greek was that The Greek was delivering high level intelligence to the FBI so he was “protected” from the lesser prosecution of local police.
I thought that it once again proved that big fish don’t get fried and are protected. Whereas the “soldiers” (or pawns if you want to use a Season 1 simile) are the ones who get chewed up and spit out.
season 2 is very good, but what wire season isn’t? No one asked but i’d probably rank the seasons 3,1,4,2,5. The top 4 all being very close in quality, and 5 clearly being the worst (yet still good) season.
KLaw, there are many more payoffs in seasons 3-5, including one that dates back to a previous season. I love the way they do this, having characters use ironic echos to repeat lines they were once on the receiving end of, etc.
I never understood why people didn’t like Season 2. I thought it was a brilliant move to take the show in a different direction. It would have been a little tiresome (and unrealistic) to have the same task force remain intact for another extended investigation into the same group of criminals after having a resolution (even if it was unsatisfying to Daniels’ group) at the end of the first season. That wouldn’t have been consistent with Simon’s portrayal of the Baltimore PD as an organization obsessed with “the numbers” and driven by political motivations and an overall lack of consistent, quality leadership.
One of my favorite aspects of the show is Simon’s ability to change the focus each season, adding new dimensions and great new characters without sacrificing the depth of the returning characters. The only season that isn’t on par with the others, in my opinion, is Season 5. It’s still enjoyable overall, but suffers from a plot that doesn’t live up to the high expectations set by Simon in the first four seasons.
If you haven’t seen seasons 3 or 4 yet, KLaw, just wait. The best 2 seasons of the show, IMO, by far.
Excellent review. Makes me want to re-watch the season.
The Wire and Breaking Bad rank as my favorite television series. Acting and writing are nearly flawless. As for The Wire, Season 2, I too was initially disappointed that the focus shifted away from The Barksdale crew, but after a few episodes I came to appreciate the plot. After seeing all five seasons, season 4 ranks as my favorite. If and when you see it, I know you’ll be blown away by the performances of the “corner boys” and “stoop boys.”
The problem with season 2 is probably that its extremely slow developing and for me the best characters such as Prop Joe, The Greek, Boris and Vondas don’t get enough screen time until later in the season or subsequent seasons. I felt they donated too much time to Ziggy and Nick Sobotka who weren’t all that interesting to me. I really think your gonna like season 3-4 Klaw, to me those were the best seasons as the two perspectives of Baltimore that we see in those seasons are much more interesting then the blue collar dock workers and they bring in some great new characters. Season 5 is probably the worst as it seemed more commercial and over the top and none of the new characters in that season are particularly deep or interesting.
KLaw,
How much of what happens later in the series do you know? Anything get spoiled for you or anything like that? I’m just curious. I knew a few key aspects of the plot, but it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the series at all.
I agree: I think Season 2 is really strong. Frank Sobotka is one of the most interesting, morally-gray criminals ever. Ziggy can get annoying, although I loved the thing with the duck, and I agree that the corrupt FBI agent thing comes out of nowhere. Not my favorite season (that would be Season 4), but not my least favorite either: that would be season 5, which is ironic since it deals with the news industry which David Simon knew best.
Season 5 is the only season that isn’t incredible. Season 2 can be slow at times and Ziggy is horribly annoying, but the season lays an important groundwork for the rest of the series.
As far as wondering if the Boris joke was planned from the start, I’d say it’s 99%. There are plot points in Season 1 that re-surface in later seasons that would have had to be planned ahead of time, so I am sure that an in-season joke is well within the writers’ means.
Lastly, I can’t believe there was no mention of Omar’s court scene. Probably the funniest scene in the series to me.
I about crapped when I saw Bodie walk into that office.
While I liked season 2, it still remains 4th in my rankings of the seasons. (3-1-4-2-5 in case anyone’s interested)
I think this season fairs much better when discussing the seasons individually. The docks story line, in terms of quality, is right up there with ‘Hamsterdam’ and the ‘School system.’ As part of the bigger picture is where it suffers a bit. One because most of the characters introduced this season – outside of Spiros and the greek clan – are never/rarely shown again. Two because it took a long time to properly intercept with the Drugs story line and even then it felt a bit forced.
With that being said, I look forward to your season 3 review. My personal favorite in the series by far.
Keith, I hope you don’t actually read these comments — must be impossible to dodge the spoilers.
I’m with the people who enjoyed but didn’t love Season 2 at the time but then grew to like it more and more. When I started thinking about rewatching the season a year or so after finishing it, that was the season I most wanted to see again. The docks plotline is as good as any of the others, and frankly feels more organic and coherent than any of the other main plotlines except Season 1 (informant issue notwithstanding). And I say this as a huge fan of the first four seasons — no clue which is my favorite. The new characters’ acting is mostly spot-on, with the exception of Nicky in the last couple episodes and Ziggy in the first, oh, 10 episodes. I agree that there are characters who I would have liked to see more of, though Frank is up there with the best on the show.
*spoiler alert for people who haven’t seen season 2*
And Keith didn’t much mention the resolution of the D’Angelo plotline, but that’s one of my favorites — Stringer’s mixed motives, Avon’s feelings about D’s death, D’s drug-induced decline and brief redemption and the hints of the possible new personalities that might have emerged. It’s as rich as anything else the show did, in my opinion. I know people who refused to believe it — kept thinking it was going to be like Kima’s near-death, they’d reveal that he was still alive after a few episodes.
Brother Mouzone alone makes Season 2 worthwhile. Everything else after him is just a bonus in my book.
Wasn’t Whitey Bulger an FBI informant? I’d say he had a fairly large body count to his resume. Is it really that unrealistic?
Brother Mouzone … I’m torn on that character, so I omitted him, assuming I’ll see a lot more of him in the future. (Although really, I can’t assume too much with any character, because almost anyone is likely to end up dead before the series ends.) I feel like Mouzone capitalizes too much on anti-stereotypes, and it makes him feel a little like a joke character. But I acknowledge he’s only been in a few scenes through the end of S2, so I am probably judging him prematurely.
I agree. As much as I love the Wire as a whole, it did occasionally dwell a little too heavily on the deus ex machina or incredibly unlucky coincidence that had incredibly significant influence on the plot. While I might buy a FBI agent shielding an informant from prosecution on an official level, the way it was done in season 2 of the Wire felt a little too direct, almost like the agent was on the Greek’s payroll(that was actually my initial take way back when). Revealing the identity of confidential informants the local police had, for instance, is essentially signing their death warrants. Maybe I’m being naive but I don’t think any law enforcement agency would willingly play that kind of a role in a murder.
Also, Season 2 has Omar’s testimony, right? Easily one of the great comedic moments of the series.
Season 2 was my favorite. I’m in the minority, but it struck a chord. I have lived in Balto, its a very special place. The creators and their staff put an amazing amount of detail and love into making it authentic. Previous poster Tim – Whitey Bulger is a great example for the FBI informant – and there is a continual theme throughout the show – Its Baltimore, the Gods will fuck you. Some things are beyond your control.
Re: Brother Mouzone. I agree that he is “anti-stereotypical.” However, I think that omitting a character like his entirely from the story would be detrimental. It is easy to fall into “our” (meaning society in general) preconceived notions about black crime figures. When we do that, we can easily forget about members of the Philly Black Mafia or the less than upstanding members of the Nation of Islam.
These figures characterized to some degree the culture of the 1960s and 1970s in America, especially the Mid-Atlantic region, in my opinion. For instance, it is rumored that Sonny Liston took a dive against Muhammad Ali due to fear of violent reprisal from the Nation of Islam; a more famous example is the N.O.I.’s links to the assassination of Malcolm X. Therefore, Brother Mouzone while not fleshed out enough to be a standalone character (serving more as an amalgamation of the aforementioned N.O.I and Philly Mafia) is a reminder that not all criminals fall into the same class.
Also, from a strictly entertainment standpoint, his scene where he told Lamar to buy him Harper’s cracked me up.
Keith: In regard to the AmaIzon link you tweeted today, is that the version you’re watching? If so, have you had any of the quality issues raised by the Amazon commenters? Thanks.
Kevin: I’ve been buying and watching episodes on my iPad. I don’t own The Wire on DVD. Sorry.
Jibraun: Yet I find myself wanting to not laugh at scenes like where he chastises Lamar for forgetting Harper’s (like he always does, apparently), because on some level, the hyperarticulate black man shouldn’t be a humorous character in and of himself. Except for the bowtie, because that looks ridiculous on pretty much anyone.
That is an interesting point. I never really viewed it from that perspective. I wonder if the audience (and myself) would have found that as funny if it were a white criminal telling a subordinate to get him Harper’s. Would it be as funny if Tony Soprano told Silvio to get him a copy of Harper’s? I don’t know.
Personally, I found the scene funny because of the inherent contradiction present in the scene. Namely, a person who strikes fear into the heart of apparently all Baltimore gangstas is holding down a project high rise during the middle of the night while reading relatively intellectual periodicals. In my opinion, the humor doesn’t come from him reading intellectual periodicals. The humor comes from him reading intellectual periodicals while holding a project high rise during the middle of the night.
I don’t believe the fact that he is a black man really has much impact on the scene. Regardless, your point has merit. If some viewers found the scene funny (either knowingly or subconsciously) due to the fact that Brother Mouzone is a black man, then a problem does exist. I’m just not sure there is enough to conclude that a problem does exist.
S2 is the season that benefits the most from re-watching. Liked it less than S1 the first time through, now I’d rank the seasons:4..2..1.3……..5.
Keith,
I could see why you might think the FBI thing was tacked on. It was one of the more confusing plot developments in a show that wasn’t always easy to follow. Even so, I disagree with your characterization of it as a deus ex machina. The Greek helped him to the biggest drug bust in FBI history– something he and the agency could market as a huge blow to Colombian narcoterrorism. It isn’t like he was diming on street-level dealers. At the end of the day, the agent wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and separation of powers meant that if he was going to ensure the protection of his informant, he had to do so clandestinely.
More importantly, that development, however incompletely developed it was, is completely consistent with the overriding theme of the series: the failure of institutions. The FBI, focused entirely on its own discrete goals, stepped on the BPD’s investigation. The loser is the city of Baltimore.
I just finished Season 3 not that long ago. For anyone that is enjoying the wire, you should check out Alan Sepinwall’s episode reviews. Here’s a link to Season 2, Episode 1. http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2009/05/wire-season-2-episode-1-ebb-tide_29.html He actually does two posts, one for those that have seen the entire series and one for those watching it for the first time. Highly recommended.
In case you’re polling, I’ve still never seen The Wire…
Keith – Happy Thanksgiving!
I’m really looking forward to your comments on Bunny in Season 3.
Also, I think the FBI character, while handled a little ham-fistedly, is another example of there always being someone with juice and an agenda who can screw with what you’re trying to do.
Keith, do you have a HBO subscription at home? If so, you could save yourself some scratch using the HBO to Go app to watch on your iPad.
Will: No, I don’t, and that app wouldn’t help me on flights, which is where I probably watched 1/3 of the episodes I’ve seen so far.
I envy you. I wish I could take a pill that would make me forget all about The Wire so I could experience it again. I am a teacher, so I believe the fourth season is the best. Brace yourself because each season is expontially better then the prior one. In fact, the fourth season is the best TV I have ever seen and I watch a lot.
Question? Do you watch The Walkind Dead?
Been a big fan of yours for a long time, keep up the great work