2009-08-20 10:12:50 - On The Wire Season 2
This right here is awful. I'm not even sure why I'm posting it. I wrote it, god knows how long ago and believe me, it hasn't gotten better with age. It wasn't good when I started and it's certainly good now.
So....enjoy?
I've been reading along with Alan Sepinwall as he rewatches season 2 of The Wire, in my opinion, an underappreciated season. I've also gotten two coworkers to drink The Wire koolaid so I've been discussing the second season with them as well. As I don't want to plane (a new word I picked up reading Anathem) them and since all this has made think about the second season more. God rewrite this sentence.
Caveat Spoiler!
I don't recall whether when I first watched the second season whether I thought it started slowly. Many people feel this and I can understand why. As I rewatched it though, I appreciate this. As much as I'd like to take the idea as my own, Alan brings up the point that we have to think about this from the view of the characters not as we the viewers who have a much broader idea of what is going on. Sure, we know that the docks are rife with corruption, that Frank Sobotka knows more about the deaths of the girls in the can, etc etc. But Valcheck doesn't. He's just pissed off that the longshoremen got to put up their stained glass window in the church instead of the police union. Sure, the fact that Sobotka is flush is odd but if say Sobotka hadn't gotten the window in first, Valcheck would never have even started the investigation.
I bring this up because in contrast, McNulty in the first season knew that Avon Barksdale was dirty. Beyond dirty. Barksdale and crew were bad mutha fuckas and they represented a clear and present target. The trubadors on the other hand, may be considered guilty of stealing an occasional can once in awhile but given the amount of inspection they are under, the police don't expect as much corruption as they'll find.
So it's a testament to Simon et al that they didn't get up on a wire on Sobotka immediately much in the same way they didn't bring back the entire detail in one shot. How things ended in season one, it would be too Hollywood for things to just pick up in season two with the gang getting back together.
There is an interesting parallel in The Wire regarding the level of intelligence the criminals bring to their enterprise. I don't mean the corner boy who the police automatically think is stupid and who probably is. I mean the management. Stringer Bell tries to raise the level of intelligence in the projects, applying economic theories to the drug game with greater or lesser success. But they aren't in The Greek's\Vondas's league and that's what I find so intriguing and terrifying. It's all just business to the Greek. Drugs, women, guns, whatever. He doesn't lose sleep over any of it. It's a sharp intellect the Greek brings to crime which makes him infinitely more dangerous and interesting than Stringer. Once you begin to think about that, the second season comes into it's own.
And to jump to a future season, Stringer can't bring the projects to Greek level. As Avon says: "You know the difference between me and you? I bleed red and you bleed green. I look at you these days, String, you know what I see? I see a man without a country. Not hard enough for this right here and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there."
I guess you could say Stringer is trying to find a way out for himself as D'Angelo was trying to do, if in a greedier way.
The second season shows us criminals more fierce than anyone on the Baltimore corners. And if that's not compelling enough, I don't know what is.