And thus ends the first season.
“All in the game.” – Traditional West Baltimore
Daniels and McNulty’s evidence of political corruption is rejected by the FBI. Daniels and McNulty face the ire of their superiors for flouting orders for a quick resolution to the case. D’Angelo is convinced to stand with his family by a visit from his mother. The detail has enough information to arrest Avon and many of his people but Stringer is left on the street. Business resumes in the pit with Bodie and Poot leading the way.
I think that one of the things that “The Wire” does very well is moral ambiguity, but I do believe that the show is not, nor should it be, completely neutral in that regard. Simon & Burns very clearly go to great lengths to show us the motivations behind Barksdale and his crew, but I don’t think that they make the argument that their difficult circumstances justify their actions. Although D’Angelo, Stringer, and others certainly are not without redeeming qualities, they are still ultimately on the wrong side of the game, and I think that while Simon & Burns are certainly criticizing the institutions that allow for this sort of social behavior to develop, they are also condemning the behavior.
We’ve talked at length about consequences and I think that that comes into play here, particularly as it regards D’Angelo. In this episode, we see D’Angelo almost take responsibility for his actions, only to be cowed back into his role as a dealer. The bottom line is that for me to feel sympathy for him, he either needs to shit or get off the pot – he needs to snitch or he needs to embrace his role in the crew. The fact that D’Angelo feels sorry for what he has done as a member of the crew doesn’t make what he did any better, nor does it absolve him of responsibility for his actions, because those actions have consequences, regardless of his feelings. I think that it’s actually that he feels bad that makes me dislike D’Angelo, because it’s almost as if he expects that for his regrets to count as atonement. At the very least, individuals like Stringer and Avon take moral responsibility for the crimes they’ve committed and accept their actions as their own. The fact that D’Angelo doesn’t makes it difficult for me to like him. People like to say that D’Angelo has a great soul, but I disagree. He’s got a rotten soul, because he knows the evil that he does and he does it anyway. Then he expects people to forgive him because he feels bad and because he thinks that he had no other options but to be what he is.
The characters that make the excuse of having “no other options” are, in my opinion, trying to escape responsibility for their actions, and I have much less sympathy for them than I do for characters like Stringer, who understand what they’re doing and accept that responsibility. If we take consequences as a critical theme of the show, then responsibility goes hand in hand with that. We see many characters on the program who are faced with tragic and often difficult circumstances, but it’s only the ones who claim that they had “no other options” that I resent. The ones who truly want out of the game find or make other options for themselves. We know McNaulty’s from the west side. He could have been an addict. He made himself become a cop. What stopped D’Angelo from doing the same? He made the choice to become a member of the crew and stay a member of the crew, and choices have consequences.
D’Angelo’s story is sad, yes. He is in many ways a morally ambiguous character. But given the nature of responsibility and consequences on this program, I think we can safely lump him in with “the bad guys.”
In continuing today’s discussion about the satisfaction – or lack thereof – of season one’s finale, I wanted to look at the episode within the larger context of the season’s arc. Overall, I felt a bit unsatisfied with “Sentencing.” I realized that it’s because it is an unconventional episode, but not simply because of its non-diegetic montage (and honestly, who doesn’t love a good montage every now and then?). In a more conventional series arc, “Cleaning Up” (and perhaps a bit of “The Hunt”) would constitute a more appropriate ending. That is, the goals established in the pilot, primarily the arrest of Avon Barksdale, are not resolved/achieved in the finale, but in the penultimate episode.
Consider season one of “Lost.” As it progressed, the plot became increasingly focused on opening the hatch and combating the Others. These goals gradually build to a climatic point at which point, in the finale, they are resolved. It may be a cliff-hanger, but they nevertheless succeeding in opening the hatch. This (for me) is more or less the narrative arc of a typical televised serial drama. As a result, I’ve been conditioned by countless shows to expect a season finale to deliver on such conventions. When a program like The Wire fails to perform, it’s unsatisfying. It seems to me that the season went on for one episode too long. People faulted the montage for tying up loose ends, but really that’s all “Sentencing” really does (with the notable exception of Wee-Bey’s arrest).
Now, I know better than to expect the mere conventional from The Wire. I understand the extra focus on the bureaucratic red-tape and legal headaches (that comprise most of “Sentencing”) IS the finale — a particularly strong way to cap off thirteen hours of critiquing the American Institution. And I can appreciate the message, sure, but I’m nevertheless unsatisfied. I suppose the bottom line to consider is the delicate interplay between getting the message across and entertaining the viewer.
I am excited for the upcoming seasons of the Wire because I look forward to other facets of the drug war being explored, especially the educational system and politics. I am interested in those topics as they relate to the drug war because I believe that the drug war is multifaceted and it isn’t enough to encarcerate, that will not solve the problem. I think it is close minded to not really realize that people who are trapped in the drug war in many instances really do not have any other options. Sure, there are people who escape their statistical fate but those are few and far between. A lot of people in the African American and also Hispanic community really do not have other options because they have traditionally suffered disadvantages in education, economics and family structure. Their prospects are dismal. Most of the drug dealers we have seen, maybe with the exception of Wallace haven’t really been struggling. Many Americans turn to drug dealing to get by, to just put food on the table. For those people isn’t about owning tons of property or driving a Benz, it is about survival and I don’t think that aspect has been explored fully.
When Wallace was talking to McNulty and Bunk he told them he began drug dealing as young as 12 years old, and I am certain there are plenty of kids in America who start as young or younger than Wallace because it is the only way they know to make a living. Not everyone has parents (one or both) to ensure they eat well, do their homework and are raised properly. Not everyone has the opportunity to go to school, some kids have to work to make enough to eat or pay rent. I just don’t think it is as easy to escape a life of drugs as some of us might be painting it, sometimes there are really no other options especially for African American and Hispanic communities where this kind of stuff has been going on for decades. It is also hard to escape the discrimination that these groups have historically faced. I am not saying that in the future those groups can’t recognize and pursue other options but as it stands the educational system and some “safety” programs of the government have failed those people who still can’t see past drugs to other opportunities that might be out there. The don’t get a quality enough education to make them realize they could finish high school, maybe even go to college and have a career. Our educational system has not given them enough inspiration and background to want to continue studying which is a failure on the system’s part.
Yes, we’ve made progress for traditionally disadvantaged groups but no where near to what it should be so that people don’t have to turn to drugs and violence just to get by. I’d encourage you all to read this New York Times piece by Stephen Carter a law professor about Yale called “Affrimative Distraction” written this past July. The article acknowledges that a lot has improvments have been made for the African American community but a lot has gotten worse, they still struggle and it deserves our attention.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/opinion/06carter.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=african%20americans%20crime%20rate&st=cse
If you don’t get a chance to read the whole article here is the best part:
“It’s true that, nowadays, some of the data on racial progress are rosy, and deserving of celebration. In the past decade alone, according to the Census Bureau, the number of black adults with advanced degrees has nearly doubled. More than half a million more black students are in college today than in the early 1990s. Since 1989, the median income of black families has increased more than 16 percent in constant dollars. In the years since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the black-white gap in test scores has narrowed, and is now smaller than it has ever been. The black middle class has never been larger.
For the first time, a major party is going to nominate an African-American candidate for president.
But it’s also true that income stratification among African-Americans has increased, and the gap between the well-off and the poor is growing. One in three black students fails to finish high school, and nearly all of those who don’t graduate are poor. Rates of violent crime are falling nationally, but the murder rate among young black men has risen sharply. America has two black communities, really, and one of them is falling further and further behind.”
Jared – this is a trend of The Wire, with the penultimate episode presenting a climax/resolution, and the finale of each season focusing more on denouement and repercussions. It is unconventional for a TV serial, but more typical of the arc of a novel or film.
I think the thing that threw me the most about the first season was my perception of its arc. There was a point, probably around episode 6 or 7, when I realized, “Holy shit, the season’s half over.” I just hadn’t felt like I’d seen that much of the story, and I think a big part of it is that I;m very much conditioned to a longer season. Most of my experience with TV series has been with longer seasons, usually 22 episodes. For a season that long, a half dozen episodes in is just a third of the way through, and I had been watching with that sort of mentality, thinking that what I was seeing was still in the setup phase, when the climax was actually just around the corner.
The biggest thing that I had to adjust in my viewing, once I realized how little of the season there was left, was how I perceived the developments I was seeing in the show. Take for example all of the evidence the team was gathering on Avon’s crew. Going into that with the misconception that this would be a standard length season, I expected that these sort of things would prove futile; in a normal TV show, there would be these sort of developments which would seem promising, but would turn out to be deadends, largely just to string along the season for another few episodes.
Realizing that I had been entirely misreading where the peaks and troughs of the arc were, I began to see the season in a very different way, and discovered that the stakes were much higher than I had initially suspected.
After considering our discussion in class, I feel like exploring some of the more self-referential aspects of season one’s plot. (Yes, I know that I am an insomniac!)
I should have expected to see String “casually” glance at McNulty in the courtroom during the sentencing. When I did witness that, I immediately considered the scene between Carver and Boatie at the basketball game. I don’t consider McNulty’s interaction with Stringer to be reminiscent of either displaying “humanity” (as I noted yesterday in reference to “The Game”) but I still consider these above scenes, as well as the one when McNulty follows String to the community college, to be related. All four take place outside of “the game’s” normal setting while adding depth, specifically through each scene’s strange air of civility, to the interaction between players and cops. This civility seems to imply that the war on/distribution of drugs can be put on pause by certain actors. It seems that each is an example of a “time out” being called on a game greater simply then that of the “drug game.”
Another scene from sentencing stood out to me. After witnessing Boatie and his crew jump some low-level hoppers who should know better then to sell within Barksdale real-estate, Carver makes an important point. Something along the lines of “The difference between us and them is that when we make a mistake, we get re-assigned, when they make one, they get their asses kicked or worse.” After hearing this, I was reminded of the scene when “Prezbo” cold-cocked that kid at 2 AM in front of the towers. While, Prezbo’s punishment for this, along with his other antics, echo Carver’s statement exactly, Carver seems to have forgotten that they all could have been killed that night, or that Kima is in the hospital.
In my opinion, this lapse is indicative of Carver’s knowledge and (possibly) acceptance of “the company’s” procedural logic as absurdly and unflinchingly flawed.
I think that one thing that “The Wire” and broader American culture is missing when addressing the issues we’re discussing is that despite the fact that they are racially tinged, these are not issues about race. The reason that young black men are being murdered more frequently than other race groups isn’t because they are young black men; it’s because larger percentages of young black men grow up poor in urban environments without effective deterrents to that destructive behavior.
Being set in Baltimore, “The Wire” does a good job of showing African Americans in positions of power within the community. I don’t know if we’ll continue to get information about Daniels’ and Burrell’s respective pasts, but it’s fairly obvious that neither of them came from affluence. Likewise, poor Johnny lives a life indistinguishable from those of the poor addicts, most of whom seem to be black.
I think that statistics about race are interesting, but rarely do they point out the actual issues at play. The challenge we face here isn’t closing the gap between black and white – it’s creating socio-economic conditions that allow for the urban poor to become upwardly mobile.
And as I mentioned earlier, I don’ think that the “no other options” excuse holds water, nor do I think that individuals have to turn to drugs to just “get by.” There are always other options – the question is whether the individual in question is willing to put in the effort and accept the sacrifice required to escape his or her situation. It’s incredibly difficult, but the options are there. The sad truth, though, is that because of the way that the social systems around poor urban areas are organized, most people don’t see them. They have it beaten into them since childhood that, as D’Aneglo’s mother said, they can’t do anything without their “people,” and that they can’t rise above the drug game. It’s incredibly sad, and that’s the challenge we have to overcome if we’re going to change the system.
I could ramble hear for pages and pages, but I’m just going to end it hear before I manage to offend the whole world. I’ll just say that I don’t think the issue is race. I think that there are historical reasons why certain racial groups are disadvantaged, but I also think that we’re past the point where we can honestly blame race for being the sole distinguishing factor between the successful and the “oppressed.” The issue is a socio-economic one: how do we overcome the established social structure, which is indisputably self-destructive, and convince the people trapped in these urban areas that there is a way out? That’s the question, and I hope that “The Wire” will address it.
Ideology has completely supplanted interpretation in your argument. I believe this is revealed when you say “nor should it be.” Clearly you have opinions about personal responsibility that you are reading into the show. Unfortunately, Simon and Burns disagree with you. I urge you to wait until season four, or listen to Simon’s DVD commentary. This is simply not the show you are looking for.
But regardless of authorial intent, the fact of the matter is that none of the things you cite as evidence. The show has never sought to “justify” or “condemn” anybody. It is, so far, an exposition of two worlds: law enforcement and a drug gang. You’re the one doing the justifying and condemning.
Furthermore, nobody in the show makes any argument about having “no other options.” You’ve simply set up a straw man here. The only mention about options is when Stringer says sarcastically about Wallace “what the fuck is he going to do, go to college?” That’s it. You’ve identified and refuted an argument that does not exist in this show. (Again, it does exist in the commentary, but you wouldn’t yet know that). So the question is: whom do you resent, and why? Resent seems like quite a strong and misplaced reaction.
Moreover, I find your phrase “shit or get off the pot” to be an extraordinarily insensitive reduction of a nearly impossible decision. D’Angelo has to decide between his family and his conscience. Usually, for children of responsible parents, these two are aligned. Sure, I can say that I would refrain from drug dealing if I were in D’Angelo’s position. But that is because of the values my parents instilled in me that were reinforced at every level of my education. Take those two factors out, and I’d be lost. Even if you believe your own inner morality to be superhumanly strong and independent, you’d have to grant that the decision would be somewhat difficult without proper guidance. Be a little patient and allow people to struggle.
Next: McNulty is an addict (read: alcohol). He is not from the West Side; he simply began his career there. He also had a father (we learn this later). He is also white (still an issue, although not necessarily sole or central). In short, there are many mitigating factors. You can’t simply pit one man’s morality against another and make a judgment without at least acknowledging the context, which the show takes great pains to reveal.
Furthermore, I don’t understand your argument about people taking responsibility in the show. When have Avon and Stringer taken responsibility for their actions? They are concerned with keeping the towers. That’s it. Yes, they are less self-conscious than D’Angelo in their crime, but they never acknowledge wrongdoing. They aren’t your poster children for responsibility. You’ll find that, in “The Wire,” no one is a poster child for anything.
Finally, “lumping” is the last thing you ought to do to these characters. Simon has consistently honored their humanity through careful and sensitive characterization. He has created a nuanced portrayal that demands deeper thought. Watch the show, don’t appropriate it for an ideological argument that it never supports and, in fact, it completely opposes.
I see that you’ve made your lengthy ideological argument below and abandoned the interpretation of the show. You’re entitled to your opinion, and I am not going to argue it, but you are most certainly wrong about the message of “The Wire” itself.
I wouldn’t have imagined that the murder of Wallace would have such a significant impact on D’Angelo, and I really liked how the writers treated this emotionally. Even if D’Angelo ended up changing his mind after the talk with his mother, the fact that he felt so remorseful and shaken by Wallace’s death helped develop his character immensely, and brought out a brighter side of him, I think. I know many people in our class really dislike D’Angelo, and I understand why that is possible, but I think it’s important to take into account that D’Angelo always wants to feel like he is doing the right thing. And yes, I’ll admit, he is extremely weak and easy to manipulate, but his conscience is growing with each episode, as is his ability to stand up for himself, and I love seeing that moral growth in him.
And by the way, what a performance from Larry Gilliard Jr., who plays D’Angelo! Amazing!
I’m very curious to see more of this Brianna Barksdale madam. She is intriguing, to say the least, and it feels good to have another strong female presence in the hyper-masculinized universe of the show. I would not have imagined that drug dealing in the projects is such a dynastic industry – I wonder how close this is to reality. Obviously, this dynastic feature that I’m referring to highly mirrors the structure of Mafia clans, and again draws nice parallels to other texts in the gangster/crime genre, but what is interesting here is that in The Wire, the women of the family obviously play a major part in the operation and know exactly what’s going on. I am also intrigued by Brianna’s selfishness and power of manipulation, and therefore I’m extremely curious to see how her character develops and hope that she will play a more central part in the upcoming season.
And on a rather different note, I noticed some very strange camerawork in this past couple of episodes. The one visual effect that really struck me was the extra-wide lens used for the close-ups of Stringer, Avon and Levy in the parking lot. A wide lens like that – almost fisheye – is a very unusual choice for a close-up, and I couldn’t understand what motivated such a choice.
In general though, I appreciated the increased use of close-ups in these last three episodes of the season – no doubt, these are performances that indeed need to be watched carefully and close up.
I’m sorry if you disagree with my perspective on the program, but I think it is an entirely valid one. I’m approaching “The Wire” from a certain ideological point of view, as are you, as is everyone in the class, and I don’t think that the fact that I disagree with you or with the dominant interpretation of the show makes my opinion any less valid. I do think that responsibility and consequences are powerful themes in this program, and I do think that the arguments that I made stand. Stringer and Avon may not take legal responsibility for their actions, but they do take moral responsibility. They accept what they’ve done. They understand that their action are theirs.
D’Angelo doesn’t. He clearly views himself as a victim of circumstances and of his family, and doesn’t see any other option for himself. I think you’re right in that it is easy to say as students with the opportunities that we have had that we would say no to drugs and that lifestyle. But I think it’s equally easy to say from that perspective that the urban poor have no other choice. We have the luxury of not having to live that life – we can just discuss it.
I think that it’s important to challenge that assumption that this program makes. I think it’s important to question the characters morality, to question their actions, and to judge them. I think D’Angelo is among the least sympathetic characters on the program, because he knows what he’s doing is wrong and he does it anyway. I think that that is a valid perspective on the character and on the program, and I’m sorry if you disagree.
I just want to weigh in to encourage heated disagreements on the blog and in-class. But, as always, keep it civil and professional, not personal, and be open-minded to what each of us brings to the text – and open-minded as to what the text brings to us. Carry on…
Personally, I think that the grace with which Bubbles has been handled has been magnificent. As someone with a recovering addict in the my extended family, I think that “The Wire” has done a magnificent job in showing all facets of the addiction, including the fragility of the resolve to recover. When Waylon told Bubbles that he needed to realize that he couldn’t recover alone, it was a true-to-life moment that generated great sympathy from me. That doesn’t make me less frustrated with Bubbles and the choices he’s made – I have trouble viewing him as a victim of anything but his own addiction, although future revelations about how he entered the drug game may change that – but it does make me understand his plight in a new way that is relevant to my own life. That’s what great art is supposed to do – if not change your mind, at least increase your understanding. To date, that is what the text has brought to me.
I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to Stefan in plain view of the entire class. My last couple of posts turned out to be way more polemical and personal than I had intended.
Sorry, Stefan.
Don’t sweat it. It’s all cool.
Stefan- I am not trying to attack you- this is a defense of D’Angelo as I take huge issue with your idea that D’Angelo is “a bad guy”. You find D’s moral ambiguity annoying (and quite a few people in class seemed to agree with this) but in my opinion it is this moral ambiguity that redeems him and shows his humanity. He is not like many of the cold blooded killers on the program that will do anything and kill anyone to hold the towers. To me it seems strange that these killers are the precise characters you praise for having reconciled themselves with their lot in life. How does this disregard for human life make them good guys?
You see D as a “bad guy” because he “knows its wrong” and is still doing it. They all know its wrong. How does his conscience make him worse than the others?
D hasn’t killed anyone in cold blood so far as we know- the murder in episode one was him “getting too emotional” (according to Avon) and being scared when he thought his life was in danger. I’m not saying this murder is ok, but in this messy amateur murder and in Avon’s response it is clear that D is not built for this game. One the other hand Stringer or Wee Bay kill people (involved in the game or not) at the drop of a hat. What makes it worse in Stringer or Avon’s case is that they don’t even get their hands dirty- they order/coerce others to do the killing- making their rise in the organization dependent on murder. Look at the way this affects Strike in Clockers.
While D’s tortured moral ambiguity annoys you it is precisely what attracts a lot of viewers to his character- myself included. Even if you are annoyed by this I do not understand how his unease with his violence circumstances make him a “bad guy”. But then again I don’t agree with your conception of responsibility/consequences either- so I guess we will never agree on this.
You talk about responsibility a lot in your post and I would just say that responsibility is multidimensional, particularly in D’s case. You want him to take responsibility for his actions and either get over his uneasiness with drugs and violence or get out, but in a strange way it is D’s sense of responsibility to his family that keeps D from taking the deal- he chooses his family over his freedom.
D’s case is difficult because he was born into this life, this family- but even if he wasn’t what would the options be? In Clockers we see the other options. You can keep it clean, work fast food or security but in the end you are still trapped (Victor) OR if you are lucky you can escape through the military and sports/with the help of Andre- thus Strike’s obsession with this idea of “quick wrists”. The argument made in class that there are “no other options” is made because even in the best of circumstances extreme poverty limits options. The structural and cultural barriers that poverty erects should not be trivialized.
By “good guy”/”bad guy,” I’m speaking strictly of the paradigm that the show has set up. Obviously, I’ve got no sympathy for the real-life Avon Barksdale’s of the world. I just find D’Angelo to be an annoying character because I think he’s A) incredibly passive, B) incredibly indecisive, and C) incapable of accepting his station in life but refusing to do anything to change it. I find those to be unappealing character traits, and I’d like to see him do something. Of all the characters on the show, he’s really one of the few that I don’t think has grown. More than that, I don’t think that his moral ambiguity redeems him for his actions. I think that he needs to do more than just feel bad to redeem himself. That’s just my opinion. D’Angelo isn’t what I look for in a compelling character.
It is interesting to note that the real-life Avon Barksdale has a cameo role in the show. His name is Melvin Williams and he plays “The Deacon” in seasons to come. Apparently, after Ed Burns arrested Williams, the two became good friends. (David Simon covered the arrest for The Baltimore Sun). This speaks to the sympathy/forgiveness that the creators felt for their former nemesis. An extraordinary story.
Many more characters in the show are played by real life street kids, some of whom have more extensive rap sheets than acting resumes (remember the name “Snoop”). I really admire this; Simon and Burns expose problems in the system, but also try to affect change on an individual level.
I understand you not liking D’Angelo’s function as a character or his character traits- though I disagree- but think this is completely separate from D fitting into the bad guy side of a good/bad guy paradigm set up by the show. First, I think the show goes to lengths to avoid this kind of duality by making most of its characters multifaceted. Second, if you are going to try and lump characters D most definitely does not fit with the other “bad guy” characters- Levy and Rawls thus far. Finding him annoying is a far cry from saying “we can safely lump him in with ‘the bad guys'”.
Super interesting about Melvin Williams appearing on the show- can’t wait to see the real Avon.
Oh, and I forgot to mention my other point, which is about the use of the musical montage at the end of the final episode. I must say I really enjoyed that montage, and I think it worked well within the context of the season and served its narrative purpose in an appealing and efficient way. I would even go as far as saying that the montage was quite poetic without being heavy, and I particularly liked its more metaphorical tone, which felt refreshing after the gritty realism of the series so far.
Really now, why has the musical montage been relegated to such a cheap narrative device, a big “no-no” in screenwriting class? If done well – and the one on The Wire was definitely done well – a montage can be extremely powerful and thought-provoking, and I just feel it’s being demonized in recent times like it’s the plague of narrative devices.
One more thing, though. I didn’t understand where the opening quote for this last episode came from. “Traditional West Baltimore”? What? And did this phrase appear in the episode at any point? Just like the nondiegetic music, it seems like a departure from their regular rules and patterns.
The decisions of Deangelo in the final episode brought up a lot of discussion in our analysis of the final episode. Some people offered support and compassion for Deangelo, while others felt let down by his flip-floping nature and indecisiveness. Much like a lot of the class, I am torn on Deangelo. Like Ben mentioned in class, when you see his mother, it explains a lot as to why the game is almost impossible for him to avoid. The woman who raised him, Brianna, seems to put as much pressure on him as anyone to maintain his status in the game. Her self-motivated intentions and superficial desires are revolting to witness. It is clear Deangelo seems trapped in a shell that is impossible to break. As he says, he can’t breath anymore in the game. My opinion regarding Deangelo sides on the symptathetic end. After all, he ended up giving himself up for the good of the family and his fellow gang members. He could have easily given up Avon and let himself go free. Instead, he chose loyalty over personal advantages. There is no denying that the game got the best of him at times, and some of the decisions he made could have been different. It is clear that a lot of the reason the game got the best of him, however, was the responsibility that was instilled in him at a young age to be a future king on the streets. The money was a draw that it seemed D couldn’t resist. Even though he displayed humanity and a compassionate nature, the streets ate him up, and the trust he had in his family couldn’t save him.
Omar says “It’s all in the game” in the last scene. I think the “traditional West Baltimore” cite is both to avoid spoiling Omar’s return, and to highlight that the the game is native to the city, not the perspective of any individual.
I would like to weigh in here and argue that D’Angelo is the one who is actually forced to be MOST accountable for his actions. It’s easy to critique his ambiguity from an outside perspective, but put yourself in his shoes for a second. Yes, he realizes that he’s playing a part in the game on the side of the “bad guys” AND he has a conscience. He is morally opposed to what he has been doing leading up to this point in his life, and he gets his own lawyer and makes a statement that would have incriminated many of his colleagues. Had D’Angelo had any sort of encouragement to go through with this plan, he might have done it. Unfortunately his mother and everyone he knows are involved in the game. She came and encouraged him to keep his mouth shut for the sake of familial loyalty. As Ben argued, a moral upbringing usually goes hand in hand with parenting, but in this case, it is D’Angelo’s own mother who encourages him to stay in the game. What it comes down to, and the point I’m trying to make, is that D’Angelo DOES make a choice. He chooses to take the twenty years and accept responsibility for his actions. Unlike Avon, he isn’t trying to shorten his sentence once he gets to jail. He simply accepts the consequences of his choice – twenty years in prison. True, his heart still isn’t completely in the game, but I think that it is each viewer’s choice as to whether or not we want to love him or judge him for this. But the fact remains, he COULD have turned the rest of his family in and gotten off the hook himself, but he took the twenty years instead – more time than Avon, the head of the drug gang, or Stringer, his number two man, have to spend in jail.
In retrospect, I should have just let David Simon himself do the talking.
In an interview in the August 2007 edition of “The Believer” magazine:
“Instead of the usual good guys chasing bad guys framework, questions would be raised about the very labels of good and bad, and, indeed, whether such distinctly moral notions were really the point.”
I really, really don’t believe it can be said, then, that the show in any way sets up a paradigm of “good guy/bad guy.” Simon’s quote sums up the message of the show, in my estimation. Obviously it is fair to challenge this message, as long as we acknowledge authorial intent that is so clearly documented (commentary, interviews, etc.). Simon might be wrong about his world view, but he’s not wrong about his own show’s construction.
All opinions of D’Angelo’s character are unquestionably valid, but I maintain that the interpretation of his function within the narrative is clear: he represents confused morality and serves to complicate the notion of irredeemable condemnation. Agreeing with this is up to each individual viewer, but this is what the show is doing.