Getting the band back together…
Episode #17: “Hard Cases”
“If I hear the music, I’m gonna dance.” – Greggs
D’Angelo confronts Avon about the bad package and washes his hands of the business. Avon brokers a deal to give up the prison officer for a reduction in his sentence. Valchek specifically requests Lieutenant Daniels for the Sobotka investigation. Daniels negotiates with Burrell and secures the promise of his own major crimes unit after the Sobotka investigation ends. Sobotka chastises his son and nephew about their unauthorized smuggling deal with the Greeks; he defends his own illicit deals as a means toward regenerating the ailing dockyard. Ziggy continues to enjoy his new-found wealth. McNulty takes a personal interest in the murdered women and is pressured to find Omar for Bunk Moreland.
New Characters:
Louis Sobatka
Maul (Ziggy’s enemy)
Episode #18: “Undertow”
“They used to make steel there, no?” – Spiros Vondas
Ziggy’s inability to move a package of drugs costs him his Camaro and nearly his life as he falls foul of East side dealers. Seeing his cousin in danger, Nick attempts to parlay with one of the dealers but discovers that they have torched Ziggy’s car. Daniels sends his detail out for some hand-to-hands as they half-heartedly step up their investigation of the docks. Officer Russell gets information from an old boyfriend who indicates that the union computer may be useful in tracking containers. Sobotka’s frustration with the Greeks begins to grow as he is once again denied a meeting with their boss. He puts his umbrage aside once his payment for smuggling their containers is tripled. Donette visits D’Angelo and tells him that he is being supported; D’Angelo remains cynical. The Barksdale family’s drug trade continues to falter because of supply problems.
New Characters:
Frog (Ziggy’s drug dealer)
Cheese Wagstaff
I think that many of the connections (confusions) that “The Wire” has created to this point in the second season have begun to make a little more sense after this episode. In order for me to think most clearly about the relevance of the goings-on of last season to this season, I have found it helpful to consider McNulty as a member of the BPD Homicide unit. During one scene in “Undertow,” McNulty docks a boat and Bubbles helps him tie the cleats. Watching this scene, I realized that McNulty, his aim to find out more about the “dead girls in the can,” his desire to find Omar in order to help Bunk, his involvement with Bubbles, and his occupation as a maritime officer make him the center of the second season despite his greatly-reduced visibility and role. This, to me, is an interesting tactic that the writers of “The Wire” have employed. When McNulty was clearly a main focal point–not only in his own eyes–of the police operation in season one, we discussed his egotistic, self-centered character with relish. Now that he is no longer an obvious character to play a major role in the storyline’s main case, it will be important to discuss how the writers have changed their tack, assuming that they have done so at all.
I really liked it toward the end of the second episode when Stringer was giving a pseudo-lesson to the dealers. What is interesting is the fact that we normally don’t think of these dealers like Bodie and Poot as having much of an education, since most of them left high school in order to take part in the game. Still, a lot of the economics that Stringer is learning in his classes comes as common sense to them because they have been around the game so long that many things are logical to them.
The subject of names is also brought up in this scene and in the classroom. Stringer’s professor says that if you have inferior product and don’t do anything about it, you lose consumer credibility. In order not to lose consumer credibility, some companies change their name in order to avert attention away from themselves and start anew. This shows the importance of the name, something which was have been discussing in class, such as the fear brought about by even the mention of Omar. Just like the credibility of one’s name can make or break a person’s future, it can do the same for that of an institution.
At the start of the season there were some comments on the blog about how they believe that The Wire is losing some of its “unconventionality” with the way they are treating this new group of Greek bad guys. I agree with some of the comments: I did not like the scene where they chased the guy on the docks with the car. However, the scene where they torture the man seems more appropriate after this episode. We are no longer dealing with West Baltimore drug dealers and murderers.
We learned in this episode that to go along with importing prostitutes from Eastern Europe, the Greeks are also the wholesalers of cocaine that probably makes it way to Baltimore and other East Coast U.S. cities. They are much more serious an organization than a group of Greek guys hanging around a restaurant. And although they are not as cool or exciting as Avon Barksdale’s gang, they are a ruthless international mafia. The Wire is raising the stakes this season with The Greeks. Neither us nor Frank Sbotka really realized what we were getting into at first. I think Sbotka is beginning to realize this now and is caught in between his feelings of guilt/fear of the police and his complete dependency on the Greek money for his Union’s survival.