The Wire: Season Five

I recently rewatched the entire series of The Wire, so I thought it was a good time to update my thoughts on the final season.  They haven't changed.  In fact it is "now more than ever" that Season Five was arguably a success and definitely in line with the preceding four seasons.  With new or newly edited text in red, I am trying to get on paper 

1. why the season was a success, 
2. how it aligned with the show to that date and 
3. what caused the (unjust) negative reaction.
   

I remember a lot of complaints about The Wire: Season Five when it was airing.  While I think at least some of that was typical "I watched it back when it was good" feeling of longtime fans, as the show was finally starting to pick up steam in the mainstream.

Personally, I liked it and disagree that the show sunk to an unwatchable quality reserved for lesser shows.  Here's why:

Season Five started with one hand behind it's back.  While Season One and Season Four* included thirteen episodes, and Season Two and Season Three included twelve, HBO renewed The Wire for only ten episodes in Season Five.  While "-30-", the season/series finale ran over 90 minutes, this is still provided only about 80 or 87 percent of the storytelling time previous seasons had, leading to some compressed plotting particularly noticeable as McNulty's serial killer takes shape.  For the show that perfected the contemporary novelistic season plotting, this is a major blow.

On the most recent watching, I think the finale needed 90 minutes regardless, in order to tell the stories of that episode as well as tie off the season and series.  Being down three whole episodes, or 180 minutes, or however many scenes that is, had a huge effect on the plotting, but also the character development, perhaps even more so.  A reasonable complaint about the Stanfield crew is that they are one dimensional and lack the shades of gray the Barkesdale organization had.  Marlo would never provide $15,000 to a boxing gym, let alone to a boxing gym run by someone who parted his employ.  The missing pieces from these episodes mostly occur on the front end, and then have the effect of weakening the payoffs and turning early items into caricatures when they try to make due with what they have. 

McNulty jumps to 11 in the second episode when he flies off the handle and starts messing with the crime scene to create his serial killer.  Such a drastic action would normally take place later in the season (Hamsterdam) with more set up.  McNulty is not the only guy at 11.  The police force is decimated by draconian budget cuts and Carcetti is more asshole-ish than ever both to his staff and in his policies.    The near riot in Carver's briefing comes off as cartoonish, but necessary to quickly establish the dire nature that the budget cuts have caused, necessitating McNulty's drunken stupor into serial killerdom.  Even McNulty's demeanor is exaggerated for effect, drinking in public more than ever and using a snarl as his regular speaking voice.  As bad as the police department has been in the preceeding four seasons, it is at it's absolute worst now.  And Simon has no time at all to show that.  

Think of the journey it takes to get to what the season is known as.  

1. Valchek is upset at a stain glass window donation by Sobotka, which results in a petty attempt to investigate him.  This ends with solving a dozen prostitute murders and major crimes zeroing in on an international drug conspiracy.
2. Hamsterdam isn't functioning until the season's sixth episode.
3. The boys spend the summer exploding pee balloons on themselves.  School doesn't even start until episode three. By Christmas the boys are all completely separated from their original homes and lives. 

In short, the cause > effect > effect > effect > unintended consequence > detour > uintended consequence, etc is not allowed to happen organically.

A few moments allow us to see what composes a true newspaperman.  Gus lives, eats and sleeps the paper so much he wakes up in a sweat worried about transposing numbers.  It tells us about his character.  If Simon made a mistake, it was to not include more of the "show don't tell" examples like this, rather than simply have some of the reporters wax nostalgic about their love for the old days.  There's a time and place for that (Frank Sobotka) but we have to see and learn more first so we're invested in those monologues.  But again, time is a factor and it may have simply been a calculation to hurry up and get the information at us.  

Some of those monologues took place in bars and it brings to mind the fact that a lot of this season is simply conversations taking place in bars.  It is jarring even after a three season McNulty bender.  You have the newspaper folks, you have the former Major Crimes crew plus Bunk, Gus meeting Lt. Mello, Lester meeting Clay multiples times.  

I wonder if this was an intentional budget-related decision. 

Anyways, the other way to establish Gus' character was to line up validators.  Other editors and reports look to Gus and echo his concerns.  We don't get to learn much about the validators which weakens their effect unfortunately, but again this is a casualty of losing three whole episodes.  

That said, I did enjoy the copy editors who never moved from their ancient computers and sat there like Oracles, dispensing vocabulary and sentence structure lessons.  One dimensional characters can not only be entertaining but are also necessary.  If everyone on television was as fleshed out as Tony Soprano, then we'd never get anywhere, plotwise.

Not only did Season Five tell a compressed season five story, but it had the responsibility of wrapping up storylines from previous seasons.  Some were still able to be done with a single scene as with Namond's debate.  

But the serial killer storyline was completely unbelievable!

More unbelievable than a police commander effectively legalizing drugs?  I do not believe the point of the serial killer was to create a serial killer but to illustrate the state of journalism and comment on anonymous sourcing.  At least there are real life instances they can point to for that one (including reporting on a serial killer sniper in the DC area). 

For some reason, critics are able to suspend their disbelief in cases where Simon uses dramatic license, like in Season Two when the state attorney's office lets Frank Sobotka out of their sight and vulnerable to violence (because they aren't as familiar with procedures within the state's attorney's office) but scream bloody murder if the screen doesn't reflect every day of their life in journalism, exactly. 

It is a mistake to label this as the "Newspaper Season"

Focusing only on the newspaper aspect of Season Five sells it short.  In fact, the newspaper plays a smaller part in the season than any of the other seasonally added aspects of Balitmore (Port, City Hall, Public Schools).  The Sun is there almost as an extension of the police department in order to divert resources (and show the problems associated with that).  As a bonus, we see some of the dysfunction in the Sun that speaks to why we're all so ignorant of this sort of thing.  Specifically, it's shown through a "teach to the test" attitude that we saw with the public schools and a corruption that we see in City Hall and the Department.

However, the lack of volume paid to the Sun doesn't allow it to be the headliner.  It plays a part roughly equal to the part the Department played in Season Four, ancillary to several stories, but not the major story itself.  

Instead, the Marlo/Jimmy & Freamon show is the biggest story.  It throws back to Season One, but now armed with what we know from Season One it does not need to be as dense.  

Second is Carcetti's ascent to the statehouse which received due attention.

Bubble's road to recovery is the one positive thing to take away from the season, perhaps the series.  A seemingly small, but in reality huge, victory is gained when he ascends the stairs in the final montage.  I think many people believed Simon viewed himself as the Gus character, but it's my sense that he felt more in tune with Fletcher, the young reporter who spent time with Bubbles and learned his story.  Bubbles was in real life one of Simon's sources and when he passed, Simon wrote his obituary.

The story that receives the least attention but could have had miles more was the State's Attorney/Clay Davis trial.  If the Sun showed us why we don't hear about these things, the trial showed us why the bad guys don't go to jail.  The dysfunction is apparent immediately when Bond leaves the "headshot" on the field, prosecutes the case himself for the profile, and loses handily after Clay plays not just the race card but the "whole deck."  We saw a lot of the trial but could have been even more informed if we had seen Bond bungle the preparation.  Not only that but the prosecutor's office and courts have been a source of ire for McNulty-ilk, upset about how everyone wants a clean record so they can become a judge.  We only saw the state's attorney in conference rooms when a case was brought to them, or in the halls preparing to go into court, but seeing some inner turmoil from Bond's shop would have made for a good story, especially considering they already had Rhonnie established as a character. 

 "You have to listen to the notes she's not playing" **

I think Lisa Simpson sums up the season in that single sentence.  We've spent four seasons watching bureaucratic and institutional dysfunction, not to mention out and out corruption, in the police force, labor unions, political arenas and public schools.  Why is this the first we're hearing about it?  Why is this the first we are seeing the incompetence demonstrated and explained?  David Simon, the show's creator and executive producer, posits the answer by adding the newsroom storyline: the state of journalism is a mess and fails to focus on important aspects of real life because they are populated by journalists with little experience and led by those who prefer to focus on winning awards.  They go about winning awards by following a proven formula of reporting, not unlike Season Four showing the fundamental flaws of "teaching to the test" when the kids are preparing for their standardized testing.

 

The best novels and televisions shows "show and don't tell" but it's even more difficult to show the absence of a positive, which if I viewed the show correctly (and there is a correct way)*** was the goal.  While the systemic problems shown in the other storylines continue, the newspaper has other priorities than shed on a light on these, never more apparent when they decided to de-prioritize reporting Prop Joe's murder.  It is a subtle, quick moment which encapsulates the entire newsroom storyline.

The unreporting of Prop Joe and Omar are two examples of why the stories being told in The Wire are not being reported in real life.  A third example speaks about race more broadly when a story about race relations within the University of Maryland faculty starts to form.  However, the story is spiked before it's ever written based on the executive editor's relationship with the dean at UM.  Their association is obviously a conflict of interest which should result in the opposite effect (Whiting removing himself from the story) but instead shows the larger picture of how the Sun is being steered.  In mainstream media, race is discussed when Obama is elected president, or when a cop shoots another kid, but lacks any serious day to day examination of why inequality still exists at the level it does today, socially, economically and legally.  No one wants to discuss it, least of all Whiting, who is one of the gatekeepers that could change that.  

Speaking of things no one wants to talk about: heart disease is the biggest killer in America and we really don't care.  But one person gets Ebola and it's all day every channel.  A sensational story of a biting, sexual, serial killer of homeless people garners more attention and resources than anything else happening in the city.  This despite the fact that it is fake.  Meanwhile, someone is actually killing dozens of people (just by the murder, think of how many people are killed or having their lives ruined by the drugs themselves) and it registers a zero.  Heart disease is killing everyone and all we can care about is Ebola which is barely a thing.

This harkens back to something the show started with: there is no federal interest in drug crime and the city's ills because we are too busy fighting the Terror.  When McNulty visits Special Agent Fitz in Season One, he learns that Fitz has all these cool toys to fight drug dealers, but is being reassigned to the Terror as soon as he winds down his current case.  In fact, the whole Bureau is being reassigned to fight the Terror with counterTerror.  The FBI's shift in its mandate to become primarily about counterterrorism is as jarring as when J. Edgar first started introducing wire taps and such to catch the bad guys.  

* Season Four's finale "Final Grades" ran 78 minutes because they needed 18 more minutes in that season to finish stabbing us in the heart/crotch

** From "Lisa the Simpson" where Lisa comments on how to listen to jazz

*** Simon later clarified what he was saying.  It's pretty interesting no matter what you think about it.  Also his thoughts on blogging and oh my god I started a tv blog!

Angloshock

Angloshock
(n) The feeling upon learning an American character is played by an Australian or UK actor. 

Particularly potent when the character is from the American South.  Also known as Crowe's disease.

Examples:
Rick Grimes
Jimmy McNulty
Stringer Bell
Everyone on Nashville
House
Dewey Crowe (of Crowe's disease)

Antonym  - Knowing Peter Dinklage is American.

40 Degree Day

The recent weather in Washington, DC brings to mind this awesome scene from The Wire

Always Sunny made the best 'Wire' joke of all

In "The Gang Tries Desperately Win an Award", Always Sunny takes down the Emmys four days before they air.  Not bothering to conceal any frustration or veil the reference to the Academy of Television Arts & Science., they instead focus on the curious fascination ATAS has with set up/punchlines, rapport and lighting and do so in the disturbed and foul manner Always Sunny perfected over the last nine years.

More than the slights offered via the Middle America theme song, non-threatening pretty girl or the harsh lighting, one item stood out as commentary on the Emmy process.

Standing in solidarity with another Emmy perennial snubee*, the episode includes another appearance by Chad L. Coleman (Cutty from The Wire) and a comment about not wanting to be too black. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is how you make a joke about The Wire, by subtly incorporating your knowledge about the show (and their being slighted when it came award time... likely due in part to the East Coast, minority heavy cast) into the context of the plot in order to make a point.  Not by referencing The Wire ("This is just like The Wire!"  "blah blah blah, Omar!") and letting the reference itself stand as the joke.**  Simply mentioning The Wire to let other people know that you are smart and know it exists is not enough to be funny.

* They did receive two writing nominations for 3-11 "Middle Ground" ("Get on with it moth-") and "-30-" the series finale.


** Looking at you Happy Endings.  Or whatever other shows  exist as the physical manifestation of Stuff White People Like

In the end, the proprietors of Paddy's drive the demo out of the bar in a way that epitomizes the show and where it exists in relation to the mainstream...by spitting on them.

Matthew Weiner's End Game - Part 2

Read Part 1 of Matthew Weiner's End Game

Part 2 - Don's and Tony's Similar Trajectory and Similar Women

When Don Draper is introduced we see him living the city life with his artist girlfriend, struggling for ideas to pitch to a tobacco client.  It's not until the end of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" * that we discover Don has a wife, two kids and a house in the suburbs.  Don spends the next few seasons cycling through a load of (dark haired, independent, professional) women.  While surprising to see at the end of the first episode, we sort of accept this as the status quo and a sign of the times.

While his blonde wife somewhat complicity allows this behavior, Don's goes through a roster of dark haired mistresses including:

• Midge - owns her own artistry business
• Rachel Menken - department store owner
• Bobbie Barret - her husband's agent/manager
• Suzanne - teacher at Sally's school

Sound familiar?  Ton Soprano, another villain protagonist, philanders around in what viewers accept as "old ways" (but don't find acceptable).   Blonde, blind-eye turning Carmela Soprano also sat at home while her husband spent time with darker haired professional women**:

• Gloria Trillo - luxury car saleswoman
• Valentina - art curator
• Julianna Skiff - realtor **
• Sonya - high end Vegas stripper ***
• Dr. Melfi ** 
• And so on...****

While Tony and Carm separate at the end of season four (partially due to the unconsumated attraction between Carm and Furio) Don and Betty divorce at the end of season five (partially due to the unconsumated attraction between Betty and Henry).

After a season on their own where they live in their own versions of squalor and behave poorly, they both find themselves back in a home with a wife at the start of the season that follows (Don and Megan marry and Tony and Carm reconcile).  They then both spend a season keeping their vows, though tempted (Don's fever dreams, xxxx; Tony and Julianna Skiff).

Don seems to lose interest in Megan when she 1) leaves advertising which is is obviously good at and 2) helps her get a job.  Megan doing away with what Don views as a professional and independent life puts him back to his old ways.

Tony loses patience with behaving when he sees Christopher with Julianna in "Kaisha" immeiately regretting his decision.  He also catches hell from Carm following Christopher's movie premiere when she takes scenes in the movie for Christopher's mistaken impression that Tony and Adrianna slept together***.  Both serve to increase the riff between Tony and Christopher as well as create resentment within Tony.  As he sees it, even when he behaves, he is punished.  Shortly thereafter, Tony returns to his ways with a girl while he and Paulie are on the lamb in "Remember When."

The point is Don has followed a similar path as Tony and is about at the point where Tony was at the middle of Season Six: Part Two of The Sopranos. How he gets from the current point to the end point remains to be seen.  The biggest difference will be the role the 1960s plays in this shows.  The setting almost acts as character, like the Island on Lost.  A central tenet of the show has been to convey different characters reactions to both life events and current events.  The events provide the setting and conflict and the characters behavior so far will inform their reaction.  Which means we need to take all of Don's behavior thus far into account and predict how he will react to the upcoming era in the show's timeline, which is likely to be the setting at the conclusion of the series, the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

* Fun Fact - the episode title is also the episode title of an early Homicide: Life on the Street episode.  In the episode, from the early 90s, cops are still allowed to smoke in a government building, though they are considering a no-smoking section.  When I first watched this around 2005 it was jarring to see even then.  The episode also features cops fooling a suspect into thinking a copy machine is a lie detector, used again in the fifth season of The Wire, "More with Less."
 
** Tony makes this observation aloud in "Kaisha"

** He literally just "spent time" with her in this case, following Tony's new lease on life, and Melfi's rebuffs.

*** Possibly a real 'pro' in old profession

**** Two others meet the requirement halfway, Irina's dark haired but dependent on Tony and Svetlana is blonde but owns her own home care business...Tony's attraction to her starts when he sees her building a website herself

In Support of The Wire: Season Five

Includes several mentions, blacked out, of The Wire: Season Five

I remember a lot of complaints about The Wire: Season Five when it was airing.  While I think at least some of that was typical "I watched it back when it was good" feeling of longtime fans, as the show was finally starting to pick up steam in the mainstream.

Personally, I liked it and disagree that the show sunk to an unwatchable quality reserved for lesser shows.  Here's why:

Season Five started with one hand behind it's back.  While Season One and Season Four* included thirteen episodes, and Season Two and Season Three included twelve, HBO renewed The Wire for only ten episodes in Season Five.  While "-30-", the season/series finale ran over 90 minutes, this is still provided only about 80 or 87 percent of the storytelling time previous seasons had, leading to some compressed plotting particularly noticeable as McNulty's serial killer takes shape.  For the show that perfected the contemporary novelistic season plotting, this is a major blow.

Not only did Season Five tell a compressed season five story, but it had the responsibility of wrapping up storylines from previous seasons.  Some were still able to be done with a single scene as with Namond's Geography Bee.

But the serial killer storyline was completely unbelievable!

More unbelievable than a police commander effectively legalizing drugs?  I do not believe the point of the serial killer was to create a serial killer but to illustrate the state of journalism and comment on anonymous sourcing.  At least there are real life instances they can point to for that one (including reporting on a serial killer sniper in the DC area). 

For some reason, critics are able to suspend their disbelief in cases where Simon uses dramatic license, like in Season Two when the state attorney's office lets Frank Sobotka out of their sight and vulnerable to violence (because they aren't as familiar with procedures within the state's attorney's office) but scream bloody murder if the screen doesn't reflect every day of their life in journalism, exactly.

 "You have to listen to the notes she's not playing" **

I think Lisa Simpson sums up the season in that single sentence.  We've spent four seasons watching bureaucratic and institutional dysfunction, not to mention out and out corruption, in the police force, labor unions, political arenas and public schools.  Why is this the first we're hearing about it?  Why is this the first we are seeing the incompetence demonstrated and explained?  David Simon, the show's creator and executive producer, posits the answer by adding the newsroom storyline: the state of journalism is a mess and fails to focus on important aspects of real life because they are populated by journalists with little experience and led by those who prefer to focus on winning awards.  They go about winning awards by following a proven formula of reporting, not unlike Season Four showing the fundamental flaws of "teaching to the test" when the kids are preparing for their standardized testing.

 

The best novels and televisions shows "show and don't tell" but it's even more difficult to show the absence of a positive, which if I viewed the show correctly (and there is a correct way)*** was the goal.  While the systemic problems shown in the other storylines continue, the newspaper has other priorities than shed on a light on these, never more apparent when they decided to de-prioritize reporting Prop Joe's murder.  It is a subtle, quick moment which encapsulates the entire newsroom storyline.

* Season Four's finale "Final Grades" ran 78 minutes because they needed 18 more minutes in that season to finish stabbing us in the heart/crotch

** From "Lisa the Simpson" where Lisa comments on how to listen to jazz

*** Simon later clarified what he was saying.  It's pretty interesting no matter what you think about it.  Also his thoughts on blogging and oh my god I started a tv blog!