Anyone want to posit why it’s called “Slapstick”?
Episode #34: “Slapstick”
“…while you’re waiting for moments that never come.” – Freamon
A Barksdale crew member violates the long-standing but unspoken Sunday morning truce when he tries to kill Omar. There is increasing discontent among the co-op over the Barksdale/Stanfield turf war. The deacon convinces Colvin to introduce public health programs in the tolerant zones and the Western District officers are dismayed at the apparent permanence of the endeavour. A murder takes place in the “Hamsterdam” tolerant zone and Carver moves the body out of loyalty to Colvin. Carver’s partner Thomas “Herc” Hauk reaches breaking point and calls the press about the tolerant zones. The Major Case Unit begin to build probable cause for their wiretaps but are worried that the dealers change phones too frequently. Roland “Prez” Pryzbylewski shoots another officer in a case of night time mistaken identity. Carcetti finds a potential ally in State Delegate Odell Watkins and organizes state funding for witness protection.
Deceased:
Officer Derrick Waggoner
Episode #35: “Reformation”
“Call it a crisis of leadership.” – Proposition Joe
The Barksdale/Stanfield war continues to intensify with deaths on both sides. Avon refuses to accept Stringer’s advice to follow the co-op’s proposal for a truce. Brother Mouzone returns to Baltimore on a mission of revenge and casts a wide net in his search for Omar. Omar has his own plan for vengeance against Avon. Carver gets some frank advice about his failings as an officer from Colvin. Colvin convinces the reporter that Herc has spoken with to hold his story on the tolerant zones. Colvin finally reveals his actions to his superiors. Burrell is incensed and takes the information straight to Mayor Royce. Royce is reluctant to shut the project down because of its success in reducing crime. When their first wiretaps go dead after just a few days the Major Case Unit are dismayed. Lester Freamon overcomes the problem by organizing to supply the Barksdale Organization with pre-wiretapped phones. Cutty opens a boxing gym for local children but finds his poor equipment and their behaviour difficult to deal with.
Deceased:
Devonne
Episode 34 is, as Jay Landsman articulates, “a clusterfuck” of mishaps: the failed attack on Omar and his grandmother on Sunday morning, Prez’s unfortunate shooting of Derrick Waggoner, McNulty’s failure to progress beyond sexual relations with Theresa D’Agostino and Carver’s dragging of the body dropped in Hamsterdam. All exhibit the slapstick qualities of “absurd situations, and vigorous, usually violent action” as defined by Encyclopedia Britannica, though any comedy to be derived from these events is either morbid, deeply ironic or entirely absent. Though in each situation the characters involved attempt to exert physical control, they fail miserably. I have rarely seen Omar so riled up or McNulty so emasculated. Moreover, there’s a sense that any moral sanctity – the gangster creed of the Sunday truce, the professional bond between police officers, the desire to transcend purely carnal relations in romance and the mutual agreement to move crime off the corners – is only a sham, being contradicted with exaggerated, physical conflict. It’s no coincidence that the episode features the subplot of Cutty opening a boxing gym: it is a space in which ex-lookouts and touts can released their repressed violence, a luxury which game-players cannot afford.
It was difficult to stomach some of the events that occured, especially Prez’s mistake and subsequent removal from the unit. Not only does his absence threaten the case’s success, but I’ve also grown fond character’s evolution into an enthusiastic techie and dedicated policeman.
In Episode 35, Brother Muzone’s return and Butchie’s warning to Omar that he would not likely survive an attack on the Barksdale compound coincide too well. I’m excited to see the inevitable partnership form and the character comparisons which we’ll inevitably be able to draw. I was wondering if Muzone, like Omar in Season 1, was originally meant only to be a guest character and penned in upon his popular reception.
Just to follow up on Michael’s comment on the corruption of moral sanctity…
A sense of religious affiliation is something I’ve been looking out for as we’ve progressed through the show. With the theme song and its message of “keeping the Devil down in the hole,” it’s interesting to note how some of the characters cope with the sinfulness of the game and the struggles of urban life in general. There are certainly moral “codes” that people follow, and the act of reform as an attempt to abide by a cleaner lifestyle, but the presence of God(s) has been mostly overlooked. Only deep into the second and third seasons have we seen active spirituality on the part of secondary figures like Brother Mouzone and the Deacon that isn’t directly connected to an ulterior motive in one way or another. But now with the violation of the long-recognized “Sunday truce” (which seems borne out of a respect for the institution of the church and its followers), there is a broader–if slight–context for religion in the show that naturally applies to a larger set of characters. Is there room for holiness in the corrupt world of “The Wire”? Can religious practices lend insight into the seemingly secular actions and beliefs of the people who live in it? For me, the epigraph to “Clockers” and the ensuing conversation between the Reverend and Rocco relating to it comes to mind as a relevant reference point…but I’m really curious to see what others have to say/think about this.
Our 11 day hiatus from the show affected me more than I thought it would. During these two episodes I often felt lost and distracted, in a way I hadn’t felt since the first few episodes of Season 1. I found the show’s pace and style hard to readjust to. It’s amazing how watching 5-6 episodes a week really puts you into a particular mindset, and being away from the show can quickly take that away.
I think a lot of my discomfort with these two episodes was also the fact that many of the characters were taken out way of their element by the “clusterfuck” of events that go on. We see the characters express emotions they haven’t really shown before– particularly the soft sides of McNulty and Omar. We also see Prez’s downfall after the shooting. Even Rawls’s character is turned upside down when we see him in the gay bar. These were interesting episodes to see after a long break– our hiatus seems to have emphasized how much has changed since the last episode.
One thing I found really interesting in the reformation episode was the conversation between Colvin and Carver. It surprised me when Colvin told Carver that he was not good police. He spoke about the connection that a cop should have to the community that he/she patrols. He talked about his nostalgia for the days when police patrolled by foot. This reminded me of Moskos discussion of foot patrol in Cop In the Hood. I think the social connect to between the community and the police has been a major theme throughout this season. The importance of the this connection is highlighted in all the characters from Carcetti’s strategy for becoming mayor, Colvin and the ministers moral battle over hamsterdam, and McNulty’s search for something more that what his is doing now.
Tahirah,
I really enjoyed the talk between Carver and Colvin. As much as Carver did not want to hear it, he is not a good enough police officer. Carver has the heart, but he cannot grasp the big picture of the futility of the way he polices the Western district. I believe though that Major Colvin told him this because he has a high respect for him. Someone like Herk and the other bowl-headed cop are pretty much lost causes, set in their bangin-heads and takin-names (which only lead to loitering charges) policing ways. I think that Carver is really going to learn from what Colvin said. I think we already see evidence of this when Carver is playing hoops with the kids in these episodes and looking out for their well-being.
In response to Matt’s comment, I also found the idea of a “Sunday Truce” very interesting. It is possible that the writers wanted to approach their street war allegorically, covertly referencing the Iraq War, about which we spoke today (3/30). Just as there are rules and restrictions in large-scale state warfare, perhaps they exist in street wars as well, in this case in the form of a long-standing “Sunday Truce.”
Another example of Sunday work occurs in episode eight of season three, “Moral Midgetry.” In the episode, Freamon, Prez, and McNulty find themselves in the Major Crimes office on a Sunday working on the case at hand. While Freamon and Prez are working together and have a specific reason for working on Sunday–because their operation will be more likely to succeed given an environment conducive to suspicious activity–McNulty has no real plan for heading to work on the Christian holy day. Perhaps there is nothing more to the cops activities than extra precaution in the cases of Freamon and Prez and strange life habits in the case of McNulty, but I seriously doubt that their discussion about working on Sunday is merely fodder. There is more to discuss here, but I have said my bit. I’d love to hear what you think about this early thought process.
I though these episodes did a good job of presenting the moral dilemma involving Presbo’s shooting. He obviously had no intention to kill that cop. What originally seemed a stupid, jerk cop only in the force because of his father-in-law quickly turned into one of the major crimes units greatest assets and an overall great guy. Presbo is also not a racist whatsoever. But what if that undercover cop had been white. Would Presbo have fired his weapon so quickly? Could he even possibly have thought to identify himself as an officer before firing? There is no way of knowing, and maybe it is not even a fair question to ask. But it certainly is thought provoking by the show to ask it, and it presents us with a harsh problem of race that seems extremely difficult to overcome.
I think this is a very important distinction. I would not consider Pres to be a racist, but that does not mean he is devoid of prejudice. We all have prejudice. I have the habit of assuming that most people interested in hiking are middle class white people. That does not mean it is always true, but it’s something I am accustomed to assume.
I think it is an important discussion to understand the distinction—Pres has habitually been in an environment in which “Public Enemy #1” has been the African American drug dealer. His assumption that this man was the criminal led to a cop’s death. I don’t think this makes him a racist, as much as it makes him a poor police officer (at least in the on the street sense). He didn’t identify himself. Isn’t “race” more sociological than cultural? “Race” is an arbitrary thing labeled by a society on to an “other”. Culture, however, assumes ethnic background; and I would say that Pres is more “culturally conscious/sensitive” than most people in his department. Take Carver for example.
How can we reconcile appearance and intention?
Was Presbo’s act one of prejudice? I don’t think so at all. Throughout the entirety of season three, the drug dealers that Major Crimes pursues are black. The city has a majority of black citizens. Presbo’s mistake occurred in a ghetto with far more black inhabitants than white. Surely he forgot to identify himself as a policeman, but would the elimination of this minor oversight have guaranteed that the black policeman would have escaped his fate? I’d say probably not. The situation unfolded very quickly. Presbo sought to find a number one male. He did. He clearly messed up, but he did not make this mistake because of any prejudice. Finally, it is true that if the police officer in the alley had been white he probably would have lived. First of all, as Freamon points out and as I mentioned above, the description on the radio called for a number one male. Second, the likelihood that a white person would be cavorting around a primarily black ghetto with a gun at night is unlikely. Call it what you will, white people tend to stick together in white ghettos and black people tend to stick together in black ghettos. I don’t think I am offending anyone when I say that the only white people we see in Hamsterdam in season three are people who are buying drugs. In sum, Presbo made an egregious error. He is not, however, bad police nor does he appear to harbor any overwhelming prejudices.
I think the word “prejudice” has come to take on negative associations (not surprisingly)—what it means, literally, is “pre-judgement”. All I meant is that Pres “pre-judged” that the black man was the number one and it is something that anyone in his shoes and situation might have done. He is not on any moral shaky ground. His only mistake was self-identification.
The point I was getting at was not that Pres was “prejudiced”, but that we are all capable of “prejudice”/”pre-judgment” and this very human characteristic should NOT be confused with “racism”. It is not an insult to call him prejudiced. It is an insult to wrongfully assume prejudiced means racist.
That makes perfect sense. I agree, Prez did “pre-judge.” You are right.
Looking back on the episode Reformation, having just seen the first episode of the fourth season and been introduced to its focus on the education system and the future of the corners youth, it becomes clear that the end of the third season introduces a number of important points about teaching and learning generally to keep in mind while watching the fourth season. In particular the attitude that Dennis tries to impart to his young boxers that the risk in trying something new and potentially failing is a sign of strength rather than weakness. He tells his students “it ain’t weak, thats the starting point” when they begin by throwing weak punches and are initially discouraged. He gives them form and structure teaching them the rules to play by but it is their heart and desire to improve and learn despite initial setbacks that allows us to empathize with them.
In a number of of places in the season The Wire touches on the inherent difficulties and risks undertaken to manufacture new beginnings and I was struck by the parallel to the rhetoric of The Corner. Using Fran and Little Mike in particular the book juxtaposes the idealism of those who would like to think they can decide to reform and have it be so and the cruel coincidence and often randomness with which people actually escape. This makes Dennis’ goal to not only teach the kids boxing, but also provide a leaping off point for them to take that first step and have the structure to escape some of the nasty coincidence the book enumerates more satisfying.
As a last note, I enjoyed the moment with McNulty and Daniels where Daniels challenges McNulty’s egotism and manner of working (similar in some ways to the bunny carver scene) saying “were all pieces of shit, when were in your way” and holding up a red white and blue mug with the word teach emblazoned on it. Sometimes teaching is about telling something difficult to hear and walking away and hoping the message sinks in, sometimes there is no more you can do. This from Daniels and the heartless and manipulative treatment McNulty receives at the hands of Carcetti’s campaign manager bruises his ego and causes him to reexamine his priorities.