THE WIRE season 3 (ongoing thread) (SPOILERS!) (1 Viewer)

[Michael Reuben]

Hard to believe there are only three more episodes in season 3 (Nov. 28, Dec. 12 and Dec. 19).

M.

 

[James St]

With the camera rolling the whole time he was talking I wonder if that will come back to bite him in the ass. Or was that setup video only?



Avon and Stringer are really heading down a dark road to some serious trouble. Marlo is holding is own already, the coalition looks to be collapsing against them, Omar is now more determined then ever, Brother Mouzone may be looking for some payback and I wouldn't rule out Brianna as a possible enemy as well.

The last three episodes should be top notch.

 

[Michael Reuben]

I don't see how it could. McNulty's reputation on the force is already so bad that only Daniels' intervention got him off the boat where Rawls stuck him at the end of season 1. And Daniels has already told McNulty that he's gone as soon as the Stringer investigation is concluded. Without some major twist, I'd say that McNulty's career as a cop is about to hit its expiration date.

Maybe Bunny Colvin can find him a job at Johns Hopkins, which is not so far-fetched an idea -- assuming, of course that Colvin still has the Hopkins job after the Hamsterdam story hits the papers.

M.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

McNulty, although very flawed, is good police and I have a feeling he will get bailed out the same way he got bailed out before: for a case on life support that he can save.

I don't find him a failed human being. He has a fire for the job and for trying to complete something that most of the others lack, even Freamon. McNulty knows every time he screws someone that he's going to pay for it but at least he's willing to put himself on the line for the job. In that way, he and Colvin are in the same situation. Colvin at least has made arrangements for a quick getaway (if he decides to use it).

 

[Michael Reuben]

Freamon understands something that McNulty doesn't: that the job isn't the most important thing in life. That's how he survived a 13-year exile in the pawn-shop detail, and that's why he has the patience for a methodical long-term operation with all its reversals and frustrations. Personally, I'd rather have a police department staffed with Freamons; in the long run, they're more likely to do some good than the McNulties of the world.

M.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

I disagree that McNulty isn't effective. He's been effective on the cases that they've been on. It is the system he operates in that is woefully ineffective.

I think you need both the Freamons and the McNulty's in a good police force. Freamon is patient but he is an office police while McNulty will scrap it out in the street.

Maybe in the LONG run, all Freamons would do better but then again, they'll wait a LONG time, maybe forever, to do something. Had Freamon not been pulled randomly out of that division, he would probably still be there, patiently working his craftsmanship.

I also don't consider McNulty a lone wolf of sorts - he has shown a great ability to work with partners (Bunk, Kima). It is his inability to work within the system that gets him in trouble. He's willing to do anything for his case but I disagree with Freamon's statements to the effect that he doesn't finish anything. McNulty's whole existence is wrapped around finishing something: The B&B drug operation. That was no longer the cause du jour didn't matter to him.

I guess the bottom line is that we each see different things in him. One of the things I enjoy so much about the show is how everyone's flaws are laid bare. Being the central character, we see most of McNulty. We don't know what Freamon does. Let's not forget, when McNulty rolled in Sunday, Freamon and Prys were already there. So how much outside life does either of them really have?

 

[Michael Reuben]

They were there for a very specific purpose, because Sunday was the best time to install the video surveillance without being noticed. McNulty was there because he had nothing better to do. Big difference.

M.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

Michael,

I see McNulty as a component of the unit. So I see his accomplishments being what the unit accomplishes (except for most of the docks case).

I think we can go around and around on this. Obviously, you have your viewpoint on him and I have mine. I don't think we're going anywhere with this. I'm not learning anything and I don't feel like arguing about it.

 

[Michael Reuben]

That's unfortunate. I'm finding this very interesting. These are exactly the kinds of questions that I think the show is asking the viewer.

M.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

Michael,

The unit is a part of the system. The system as a whole is ineffective but that does not mean that every bit of it is. The unit did its part, the other arms of the Baltimore justice system dropped the ball.

I think it is part of the brilliance of the show that it presents a situation so fundamentally bleak about the nature of the police and justice systems.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Agreed, and that's why I continue to be intrigued by Colvin's storyline. Season 3 is very directly asking the question: What can the police accomplish? What is the best way to work this ineffective system where the leadership agendas are so often at odds with what we typically think the agenda of a police force should be? (Those CompStat sessions are brutal.)

When the season gets replayed, I want to go back over Colvin's long speech about the paper bag and the open bottle law. When I first heard it, I got lost in the sheer poetry, but there's a lot of substance there.

M.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

So far, it seems only the police who give up any ambition or hopes for their own careers can make any sort of headway: Colvin, Daniels, McNulty, Kima, even Prys - they all have given things up in their lives, either their careers, personal lives, or both, to do what they think is right. The bosses, however, give everyone else up to save their own careers.

There is a definite dichotomy between the working police and the bosses. Those CompStat meetings are indeed brutal. I was floored last season by how the department was much less concerning with getting things done than with manipulating its numbers.

 

[Michael Reuben]

But not all of them. In season 2, Major Valchek called in every favor he had to get the docks investigated. Of course, he did it for a less than admirable reason (a dispute with Frank Sbotka over a stained glass window -- a plot point so strange that you just know it had to come from real life).

It's interesting how the motive for doing good on The Wire is almost never pure. Probably McNulty's most impressive feat of police work to date was getting the 13 murders in season 2 assigned to the homicide division, and at the time he wasn't even in the unit. He just did it to stick it to Rawls. And he didn't seem to care that, in the process, he majorly screwed his friend and former partner Bunk with 13 open cases.

I should say something that probably isn't clear from my recent posts: I genuinely like McNulty as a character. Of course I also like MacBeth, Richard III and Tony Soprano. But as much as I might enjoy watching McNulty on The Wire, I'd never want someone like him assigned to the case if I were a crime victim.

M.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

In McNulty's defense, he had no way of knowing Bunk was going to pick up the murders. Of course, he knew someone would and he did it anyway. And he did start helping with the case well before it was assigned with him, either on his own time or by ditching a shift on the boat.

If I were a victim, I would actually want McNulty on the case because I know he will work it until it's finished or until they drag him away kicking and screaming. He's good at it - in fact, it's the only thing he's really good at.

 

[Garrett Adams]

I believe McNulty was chosen for unit because of the characteristics being discussed.

 

[Michael Reuben]

From what we've seen, I'd say the "kicking and screaming" option is the more likely. Except that it would probably be "staggering and puking".

There's been an interesting evolution from season 1. When McNulty got into trouble with Rawls, it wasn't really his fault. His only offense was attending D'Angelo's trial as an interested spectator, which got him called into Judge Phelan's chambers for a conversation. It was the judge who pressured Rawls to make the Barksdale gang a priority, and McNulty ended up a kind of innocent victim of the conflict between Rawls and Judge Phelan.

In season 2 we see McNulty become more active in the institutional infighting, when he steers the dock murders back to homicide. But his main motive is to get back at Rawls.

Now in season 3 we see him go behind Daniels' back to keep the Barksdale gang a priority. It's a brazen move that will probably have major career consequences; the argument he has with Freamon about it was one of the ugliest personal confrontations in the series to date. But as I think about it, the motives are very different this time. There's no judge urging him on, no personal score to settle (if anything, he owes Daniels, and his treatment of a guy who did him a big favor has been pretty shabby). In fact, the smartest thing that McNulty could do right now, career-wise, would be to take any opportunity to distance himself from the Barksdale investigation and establish himself as a guy who's seen the light and knows how to get along/go along.

But in a very real sense, the Barksdale case has become McNulty's career, even if he fell into it by accident (or, rather, by judicial "activism"). He's put years into it, he's sacrificed his position in homicide for it, and in the process he's become so attached that he just can't let it go. And there's a strong personal rivalry with Stringer, something I was reminded of while watching the pilot again, where Stringer flashes McNulty a drawing with "fuck you" in the courtroom at D'Angelo's trial, just after a prosecution witness has recanted.

McNulty may be The Wire's most extreme example of someone who does "the right thing" for motives that are . . . complicated.

M.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

There are definitely some motives involved. At the end of the day, regardless of what Daniels did for McNulty, McNulty sees him as a boss and as such as a roadblock in the way of getting things done.

Kima and McNulty presented Daniels with bodies and Daniels pulled rank on them and shut them down. This leads McNulty to go around him.

When Freaon and McNulty sparred, Freamon turned to Prys as soon as McNulty and Kima left, and had him go after Stringer's records. And in turn, McNulty agreed to the stipulations: spend 2 days digging up dirt on Stringer and if nothing shows, go to the case at hand.

There's a fundamental difference here between how Daniels and Freamon handled basically the identical situation. Freamon, even though enraged at McNulty, was able to look beyond. Daniels was not willing to look beyond.

 

[Michael Reuben]

That was nice moment. Freamon has no disagreement with McNulty about pursuing the Barksdale gang. Where they disagree is in how McNulty treated Daniels.

M.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

Michael,

Didn't the Freamon v. McNulty thing happen before McNulty went to (and around) Daniels?

 

[Michael Reuben]

Yes, but McNulty was already openly challenging Daniels about pursuing the Barksdale crew, and that's what the argument with Freamon was about. One of the reasons why McNulty goes to Colvin is that he can't even get the people in his own unit to support him.

You know, it just occurred to me: When Freamon turns to Prys and tells him to pull Stringer's records, part of the reason may be that he knows McNulty will probably find a way to force the unit back onto Barksdale. Freamon reads people pretty well. And McNulty's line about "that chain-of-command horseshit" is a reminder of how much he loves to find ways to get around bosses.

M.