Call me Myrtle. She/her, adult.
I'm rewatching the best television show of all time and need somewhere to dump thoughts and feelings.
My favorite characters are Omar, Stringer, Bodie, and Carver, but this will probably mostly be Bodieposting.
-I know I said I wasn't as invested in the shooting itself on a rewatch, but this aftermath episode is incredibly compelling. It's by far the most tense and serious episode so far, but it's also super engrossing to watch the BPD actually be effective for once - but, there's also the creeping sense of dread as you start to see what's going to happen to Bubbles and Wallace as a result of all this.
-And of course it's complicated, because you care about Kima but all this "a police has been shot!!!!!" stuff is. Well. It's quite literally valuing the lives of cops over anyone else, and even the most sympathetic of the cops are doing it with zero reflection. Which on the one hand is understandable: it's human to care more about people you're close to and people who are part of your "tribe." And to be fair, it's not like the Barksdales care about Kima's life. Anyway blah blah I don't need to explain the tragedy of the disparities in whose lives the cops value here, but it makes for quite a complex watching experience.
Under the cut, mostly lighter stuff, plus I have a lot to say about Levy.
-I gained a bunch of respect for Rawls when he shows up at the shooting site and just asks Landsman "What do you need?" I've been the Landsman in that situation (I mean chaotic work situations, not anything with lives at stake, to be clear) and when your boss shows up in the middle of a crisis, the best they can do is to trust that you know how to do your job, and use their power to get you the resources you need to do it.
-Excellent work from Dominic West throughout this episode. He looks so young here:
-Carver jumping into command mode over Herc and Sydnor! That's my boy!!
-Aww Poot's face when he's talking to Wallace, he's so fond:
And he tries multiple times to be like "I'll come there and hang out with you." I must reiterate that among the Pit boys it's Poot and Wallace who are close :(
-Why is Herc acting like he's doesn't know Bodie's name:
Herc, does your season-long storyline of interactions with him mean NOTHING?? You had a touching moment with his grandma! 😭
-Daniels being the best boss once again:
I love him forever and ever, I don't think there's any trait that endears a character to me more than telling a wallower, There's work to be done, get over yourself and do your fucking job.
-I love this Avon and Stringer debriefing scene, I can't even say exactly why. I guess there aren't many scenes where they are on the same page and making plans together, rather than arguing about strategy, so it's just so fun to watch.
Wait so Stringer knew that Orlando was snitching but believed he was buying $30k worth of drugs with his own money?? When the whole reason all this happened is because Orlando felt he was being underpaid?? Yeah I have no defense for Stringer here, this was straight-up stupid.
-The Bubbles stuff in this episode is just devastating. He tries a few times to tell McNulty that he's trying to get clean but can't quite work himself up to it, and McNulty sends him straight to the projects with cash in his hand. And Bubbles does it, because he cares more about helping Kima (or rather, helping the cops find her shooter) than protecting himself auuugggh.
-It ties back to when he tells Johnny that he's informing: I'm not working FOR 'em, I'm working WITH 'em! Working with Kima was really the only thing in his life besides getting high, so if he's trying to be clean and stay away from Johnny etc, what else does he have?
-OHHH BOY HERE WE GO! Ok, so, sorry if this is obvious to everyone (on the podcast Way Down in the Hole they did a deep dive on Levy in this episode and didn't even mention this aspect, so I guess it's not??), but "twisted little tribe" is 100% intended as an antisemitic insult. Jimmy just barely has plausible deniability where the "tribe" in question is Baltimore lawyers and the "language" is legalese, but let's be real, "Baltimore lawyer" is basically a euphemism for Jew lol. (Also, in case it wasn't clear, the "she" here is Rhonda, who is also Jewish (although it's far less obviously depicted than Levy's Jewishness, and that gap is a whole other can of worms))
Now to be clear, I don't really think that McNulty hates Levy for antisemitic reasons -- he's just trying to piss Levy off as much as he can here -- but he has no problem using that as ammo, and also insulting Rhonda along the way. (And BTW this is the second episode in a row where he's used Rhonda as a lawyer prop!)
It totally backfires, though. Look at Levy's face after Jimmy's speech and after he handily wins the proffer:
That is a look that says, "Oh, you want to go there? Fuck you, I'll come back twice as hard because of it." And he does! Jimmy has this issue where he divides the world into Good Guys and Assholes, and when he's up against an Asshole, he seems to think that if he just points out how much of an Asshole they are, they'll roll over and do what he wants. Nope, Jimmy, the Assholes got where they are because they have an ego and will hit back when insulted, and Levy is no exception.
-Speaking of assholes, Burrell acknowledges that he was partly responsible for Kima getting shot (and IMO he's more responsible than any of the other cops -- the whole setup with Orlando was incredibly stupid, like obviously the Barksdales were going to know something was up, it was honestly irresponsible to put Kima in that car and they only did it because Burrell insisted on an immediate buy-bust). But unlike McNulty he doesn't actually feel guilty, he's just concerned about how it makes him look, thus insisting on the dope-on-the-table response.
-I must admit I'm rooting for Levy and Savino in this proffer scene, and it's not just because of Jimmy's overstep earlier. The cops are all pissed Savino is getting off so easy. But Savino's not the one who shot Kima, and he's not the one who put her and Little Man in that situation! And these are the good cops (at least McNulty and Bunk) who are supposed to be interested in bringing down the kingpins, not going after these low-level guys! Obviously they're upset and just want someone associated to be punished, but I think their anger is getting the better of their judgment here.
-I like Herc's smug little look at catching the location of the Tower stash:
I mean this is not exactly rocket science, but hey, at least he's come around on the value of stakeout work!
-Sooo funny to me that Bodie doesn’t even know who Orlando was. Orlando truly the definition of small name, big ego.
-Of course I have to shout out Bodie's babushka look. I also just love the arrangement of this shot:
-Ok I'm a freak but I really want to know what pill Stringer is taking here:
It's just such an odd bit of business to include. Like why?
-Ahh, who could the rat in the detail be...
The setup here is clever. We can see Herc, Sydnor, and Santangelo's faces (and a second before, Prez walked by the window), but not Carver's. But you don't suspect Carver because he's been portrayed positively this episode, with stepping up in the wake of the shooting and being the one to point out someone needs to talk to Cheryl (well, he does skim money from the stash, but that's in league with Herc, and anyway it happens after this scene).
Wow SO much happens in this episode, I feel like I don't even have all that much serious to say about it because it's just PLOT PLOT PLOT.
-Ok but overall I'll say that it feels like it's almost building toward a season finale, until the end. The detail gets a bunch of big breaks, the case is really coming together, it's the last chance to get off the ride before shit goes down. Everyone's snitching, everyone's getting the hell out: Wallace and Omar are leaving town, Bubbles is getting clean, D'Angelo is seriously done (and trying to get Shardene to leave with him?)
-But of course it's not a season finale, we've still got 3 episodes of the torture nexus coming, and getting out is not as simple as all that!
Under the cut, mostly miscellany and silliness, Prop Joe king shit, and some Carver speculation.
-Avon and Stringer are sooo married in this bar scene:
Avon reassuring String that his advice was good, the barber shop banter, the flirty eye contact, Stringer "we're gonna build a wall around you, B" uh huh I'm sure
-Oh D'Angelo interacting with his child, what a concept!
-Ah I spoke too soon, he does not in fact interact with his child, he just briefly stands in the same room as him.
-And then walks out because Donette is talking about how she wants their child to have a bedroom and a toy truck and furniture, god forbid.
-I guess if I'm being generous, the idea here is that Dee is so stressed about his general situation and guilty over Shardene, and just can't tolerate Donette because he knows she has no desire to leave the game (and to be fair, she has no exposure to the ugly side). But to me it really comes off like he just doesn't give a single shit about his kid. Bleh.
-Sorry I'm such a D'Angelo hater, let's move on
-Orlando continues to have quite possibly the worst judgment of anyone in the whole damn show, but he does have great taste in cars and music:
-This state police guy who nabs Orlando is awesome:
Just a really funny and memorable bit part. I wish we got more of him but sadly the wiki says no.
-Bunk and McNulty's faces upon Bunk finding him passed out in the office in the morning dear god GET A ROOM:
-Smart choice that we don't see McNulty's initial interrogation of Wallace. As McNulty says, the kid was ready. There was no struggle to get him to snitch, so it wouldn't be interesting to watch.
Huh? Wallace what are you talking about, that was clearly still winter time, everyone was wearing jackets. Dammit I want to know this timeline!
Oh look, McNulty and D'Angelo are our two protagonists of the season, and in this episode they're being paralleled as shitty fathers! ❤️
HAHAHA YES RHONDA GET HIS ASS
-This Orlando-Levy scene is one minute of perfection. Orlando all pissed off the Barksdales won't pay his bail when he's literally in the middle of snitching on them, absolutely astonishing levels of entitlement. And Levy is so funny, he's just so done with this guy:
-The show goes beyond the "classic snitch" boogeyman of anti-snitching attitudes (where someone is arrested and snitches on their fellow criminals in exchange for a reduced sentence) in that its snitches usually have some motive beyond pure selfishness, but not Orlando! He's one of the few examples of a classic snitch, through and through!
-McNulty being normal about Stringer, per usual:
Huh, so Daniels is familiar with withdrawal symptoms:
A little surprising to me, in my mind he hasn't really read as being from the same world as the people he polices unlike say Carver and Bunk. But I don't remember if we ever hear something more specific about his background. Anyway it's lovely to see him connecting with Wallace here.
-Ok we've got Prop Joe's marriage counseling bit, one of my favorite throwaway speeches in the show, so now's a good time to talk about Robert Chew. I think he's my favorite deliverer of dialogue in the series. When people talk about The Wire's Shakespearean dialogue, he is who I think of. I don't know if Chew ad libbed some of his phrasing or the writers just did an incredible job writing Joe with a unique voice, but there's just always such a cadence to his speech, not to mention a top-tier Baltimore accent. It's the kind of performance that I always want more of, where a show just takes a charismatic, talented person with a distinctive face and a great command of language and lets them do their thing. (Out of shows I've watched, Boardwalk Empire is the absolute master of this.)
-There's a really funny sequence of interactions between Joe, Stringer, and Omar which were not worth trying to cap, but in the space of 20 seconds we've got:
Joe calls Omar a cocksucker
then drops a very unsubtle "don't believe we've met" and fake threat to Omar
which gets a contemptuous headshake from Omar
then Joe tells Omar and Stringer to "say what you feel" while they're staring daggers at each other
then Stringer gives his own contemptuous headshake at either Joe or Omar, probably both
Just king-on-king-on-king violence from start to finish, god bless
-A really rare bit of straight-up clunky setup dialogue here (and frankly the delivery doesn't help at all):
-I love that when Omar's literally getting put on a bus, McNulty mentions that they'll need him back for the Gant trial, like to reassure the audience that he won't be gone long
-Ok and then obviously a massively important scene with Kima getting shot. I'm gonna make this all about Carver, SORRY!!! The shooting just doesn't hit quite as hard for me when you know Kima recovers fine (and also frankly when you know the repercussions of the cops dropping everything else in the wake of the shooting). I do like how they capture the fog-of-war aspect of it all, where after the shooting we transition to the other cops just driving around trying to figure out what alley she's in.
-I gotta comment on how much Carver is freaking out here. The only other time we see him anywhere close to losing it like this is after he drops off Randy at the group home, right? Both are about people he cares about getting hurt. In Randy's case obviously he feels responsible, and here I guess there's also some aspect of that since he was one of the people following her.
But it feels like it goes beyond just that, idk. This is probably the first time a cop he's worked with has been seriously hurt. We know he came up hard and at some point chose to join "the other side," and he fully buys into the us vs. them mentality. I wonder if his sense of invincibility is being shaken here - like, even if all the people you care about are police, you/they are not protected from the dangers of this world.
When did I realise I love The Wire is that, when Bodie constantly showed he's harder and Poot was the calm one, but when they had to deal with the Wallace thing their attitude completely reversed you just realised. Bodie was just playing a soldier 🥶 the words he told to Wallace to be a "man" constantly rings in my ears. They're boys, not grown men. It's just so painful.
we find out in s3 he had an older brother who died (presumably as a victim of The Game). when bodie says “I feel old” in s4 and the implication is he’s older than his brother ever lived to be. COOL
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