maybe there's another way.
“And then, following a standard script, Doan pulls out the jigsaw puzzle, the courtroom metaphor used by nearly every American prosecutor to earn his pay. You see, Doan tells the jury, this case is like a jigsaw puzzle. And like a puzzle that’s been around the house for a while, some of the pieces might be missing. “But, ladies and gentlemen, even with the missing pieces, when you assemble that jigsaw puzzle, you can still determine what the puzzle is about and what it shows.”
David Simon, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
The second season of The Wire is a jigsaw puzzle, one which becomes more difficult to assemble after “All Prologue”. The relationship between Spiros Vondopoulos and Nick Sobotka is one part of the puzzle with more pieces missing than others. This analysis assembles the pieces we do have, and examines what they show us.
This post focuses on episodes 2.07 through 2.12. The post focusing on episodes 2.01 through 2.06 can be found here. A timeline of relevant scenes and dialogue can be found here.
2.07: backwash || stay close, nick. stay close.
“Backwash” has a lot of great police work: Beadie swings by the terminal in her MPA uniform to make Frank think the investigation is over, Kima and Prez locate the brothel; Lester sees in the port computer system that a Talco line ship (assigned to Horse) will be at the terminal the following day.
When we see Nick in 2.07, he’s turning a package around from the steps of a rowhouse (on the same East Baltimore block where Ziggy fucked up the package) (2.07.1). There are a few points worth noting in his conversation with Frog. Nick is a much better drug dealer than Ziggy was (2.05.a): he doesn’t let Frog play him. In true Locust Point, IBS Local 47 fashion, he doesn’t work without a contract—and his product gives him the leverage to set the terms.
I’m sayin’, this is the shit you had out here last week? The dimes that Moochie was slingin’? …Shit was good. Moochie sold out quick.
This is just first time we’re seeing Nick turning a package around. There’s a gap between 2.06.2 and 2.07.1 spanning more than a week. In that time, Nick started dealing drugs. Word apparently got around that stretch of Fayette that the product he’s selling is a cut above the rest.
There’s also a couple of interactions we didn’t see—at least one conversation to set up a meeting to pay Nick the half in dope, and then the meeting itself—with Spiros, Eton, and Sergei. Not much more can be reasonably inferred here, though. The gaps in 2.01-2.06 were small—even in Nick’s dealings with the Greeks, it was relatively simple to guess what we weren’t seeing. Now, the situation is inverted. Save for a few pieces clustered together here and there, a whole section of the puzzle sits empty.
We don't know much about where Nick has been, but when Nick goes by the bar, La-La remarks upon Nick's absence on the docks—so we know where he hasn’t been (2.07.2).
Ziggy gets his half of the money from the packages. He's more than a little resentful about it. Nick splitting the money with Ziggy only reminds him of how little he can do.
Packages were my thing, Nick. Fuck if you ain’t handle that business better, too. […] It’s your move, Nicky.
Prior to 2.07, Ziggy and Nick were two pawns moving together, one space at a time. Now, Nick is making all of the moves. He still sees himself as a pawn—he’s just a pawn with options, that’s all. But Ziggy sees how Nick’s role has changed. They’re no longer equals. Ziggy is stuck in one spot, all on his own.
The next time we see Nick, he’s stopping by to give Frog a re-up (2.07.b). This presents yet another gap, as difficult to fill in as the last. There’s some new information: Nick bought a new truck, so some time has passed since 2.07.1. It seems reasonable to assume he sold off the “half in dope” and has since bought more from Eton, wholesale.
Everything seems to be working out, except for one consideration. Herc and Carver see the re-up from a vacant rowhouse across the street. They peg Nick as a supplier and get pictures of him and his truck tags.
Earlier, the competent portion of the port detail laid out a surveillance strategy for a ship on the Talco line due in at Patapsco Terminal the following day (2.07.a). They know a container is going to disappear from the computer, even if they don’t know which one.
Frank doesn't know either, until Nick goes down to the docks later that day (2.07.3). Frank gets the note from him and gives it to Horse. It seems like Frank was waiting for him to come by. Presumably, he told Nick to go to the diner to get a number, which Nick did at some point after 2.07.b. It's a deviation from the standard procedure: another gap in an episode full of them.
As it turns out, Frank knows even less about where his nephew has been than we do. Nick hasn’t been easy to keep track of lately, but Frank knows where Nick hasn’t been.
You ain’t been workin’ much.
Much like in 2.04.1, Frank is asking for an explanation—this time, without actually asking. When Nick says nothing (because he doesn’t want to tell), Frank doesn't ask outright because he doesn't want to know. All he can offer is a bit of advice:
Stay close, Nick. Stay close. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
Nick looks away for a moment, looks back at Frank, and walks away. He isn't really doing anything Frank wouldn't do, because he's doing the same thing as Frank: he's working with the Greeks. They're serving the same institution, playing different—but interconnected—roles.
The dynamic isn't altogether different from what it would be if Nick were working down on the docks. Frank is a checker in Local 1514, Nick is a stevedore in Local 47—different jobs in one process, different locals in one union. And whether it's the union or the Greeks, Nick is the one doing the riskier job. (This episode illustrates the particular risks Local 47 members face on the job when New Charles's leg is crushed while working break-bulk.)
Clothing and uniforms weren't particularly important to the first half of this analysis, because much of what needed to be expressed was said outright. But now that the prologue is over, it's worth stopping to consider the meaning clothing conveys about institutions, information, and roles. Everyone has a role to play—and a uniform is nothing if not a visual expression of a role.
2.07.3 is useful because the visuals are so unambiguous. Frank is wearing an orange safety vest—the uniform of the IBS guys on the docks. Like the union itself, the vests represent a commitment to mutual protection built upon what they all share: work.
Frank's vest is significant in another way, too. It matches the red can behind him, a container just like the one the union's port office is in—and the one where the 13 dead women were found. Frank is trapped by what he does for the Greeks on the docks. Nick, matching the container behind him, is also trapped by what he does for (and with) the Greeks.
Under his vest, Frank is wearing the same two shades of blue as Nick. They’re both trapped by their service to the same institution—but Nick is working without the protection of the union. He's out on his own. But that protection won't help Frank, either: the police are looking beyond the union to see what's underneath.
The detail is ready when the container arrives (2.07.c). They follow the container as Sergei drives it from the terminal to the warehouse.
Herc and Carver's lead from 2.07.b brings them to Nick’s parents’ house, where the new truck is parked out front (2.07.d). Nick isn't Frank, but he’s a Sobotka, and that's enough to give them a drug connection to the target. Herc and Carver’s work is the shoddiest of the whole detail, but when the leads generated by good police work eventually hit a wall, their lead will be what gets them a wiretap.
Had Nick not taken Ziggy’s place on the corner (which technically speaking isn't a corner, but a side street off of Fayette), 2.07.b would not have unfolded as it did—it might not have happened at all. But because of Spiros's offer in 2.06.2, and because Nick is smart enough to hold his own as a street-level supplier, he was out there.
Two cops—hardly the best Baltimore has to offer—see a loose thread from the broken window of a vacant East Baltimore rowhouse and pull it. An intricately woven plan begins to unravel.
2.08: duck and cover || that’s a fair question, niko.
The detail’s leads from 2.07 start to bear fruit in 2.08a. They’re on the way to having two wiretaps up. The PC for the first one, on the warehouse, comes from the DNR on the warehouse phone and pictures of Prop Joe visiting it. Herc and Carv’s lead solidifies the PC for the second wire: there weren’t any hits for Nick’s number on the warehouse phone, but they got a few on Sergei’s cell. For now, it suffices to say this: were Spiros being as cautious as he ought to be, the detail would only have PC for a wire on the warehouse phone. Meanwhile, 2.08.b lets us know that Nick is going to the diner to get the numbers for the containers coming in on the Caspia.
Nick is giving Ziggy his half of the money in 2.08.1, just like he did in 2.07.2, and Ziggy doesn’t seem to feel much better about it than he did before. Things really start to go south after Nick gets a call from Spiros. Their conversation is brief and fairly innocuous on its surface, but it merits closer inspection.
This is one of two times in the season where we see Spiros making a call: aside from this and 2.12.2, people call him. Here, Spiros is calling Nick to see how he’s doing. Nick isn’t surprised that he’s calling, either. This seems to be a regular occurrence. He tells Nick to talk to Sergei if he needs more—not that he needs to be told, since we know from 2.08.a that that’s what he’s been doing.
But Ziggy is there, so Nick cuts the conversation short.
Yeah, I gotta see you soon. Look, I’ll call you back in a few, alright?
We know that a second call happens, but not what it’s about. What would Nick have to call him back to discuss?
Since Nick calls Sergei about his re-ups and isn’t having any trouble turning the packages around, it’s not that. He has to get the slips Frank mentioned in 2.08.b, so that could be it, but how much scheduling do those meetings need? Spiros seems to be at the diner whenever a ship on the Talco line is due in on the following day. (Nick and Ziggy just drop by in 2.01.2, and in spite of his car troubles, Nick wasn’t in much of a hurry.) So while it could be that, it seems somewhat unlikely. But if the call isn’t about either of those things, what is it about? And if there were other calls before this—as Nick’s reaction seems to indicate—what were they about?
We don’t know: all we know is that Spiros calls Nick just to check in on him. The Greek’s second-in-command is reaching out because he wants to know if things are going okay for this one (fairly insignificant) street-level supplier. That’s not “just business”. That’s an exception.
But that exception has consequences. The detail is up on Sergei’s phone when Nick calls about a re-up (2.08.2). Prez remarks that Barksdale’s people were more careful, and Lester points out the difference:
This ain’t West Baltimore. They’re on their phones because they don’t expect us to be on ‘em.
Spiros is confident that the investigation is over, since he thinks it was only about the dead women in the container. Were he taking a more cautious approach, he might have have held off on the business with the chemicals—or at least reconsidered whether to offer to pay Nick for them in heroin—just for a little while, to make sure the case was actually over. But he didn’t take that approach.
There’s other developments to get through first (2.08.c, 2.08.3). We didn’t see Nick bring the slip to Frank, but we learn there’s two containers for the Greeks off of the Caspia. The detail follows the first one out, but Frank learns that Beadie is still with city homicide before the second can leaves the terminal (2.08.c). As a test, Frank has Horse disappear a clean can instead. Lo and behold: when Sergei picks it up, a port police officer pulls him over as he's leaving the terminal.
Frank suspects his cellphone is tapped (since it stayed in service after 90 days of nonpayment), so he calls Spiros from the port office phone to let him know about the clean can. Spiros chides Frank for talking about this on the phone, but the call from Double G on Sergei’s phone confirms what Frank said. Spiros briefly loses his cool, just a little. The Greek, sitting at the counter, overhears both calls. The detail only hears one, but they see the port office phone made a call to the same number.
When Frank tells Nick about his suspicions (2.08.4), Nick isn't sure whether or not his uncle is right.
I don’t know, Uncle Frank. Putting two and two together and comin’ up with six, maybe. […] You called Spiros though, right? Spiros’ll know what to do.
If Frank is right, Nick believes Spiros can figure out what to do about it. Spiros is someone he can turn to when he doesn't know what to do, someone with the answers, whom he can rely upon, whom he can trust. It's a lot of faith to put in one person, but from what we've seen, it's not entirely baseless. After all, that's who Spiros has been for him.
What Nick doesn't see is that Spiros has been making exceptions for him—that he's an exception.
The next day, Frank brings Nick with him to the diner to talk to the Greek (2.08.5). There’s a great deal going on in this scene, but it presents us with uniforms more obviously than in 2.07.3. This is a meeting between management (i.e. capital) and labor. Unsurprisingly, the Sobotkas are on the labor side of this operation. That much is clear without uniforms, but the visuals are especially unambiguous: they are literally blue-collar. Spiros and the Greek are in tan—not literally white-collar, but it's close enough.
Much like in 2.05, this is impact bargaining; this time, though, management has come to the table as management always does—reluctantly. Only when Frank refuses to talk with anyone but the Greek does he emerge from the back of the diner to negotiate with Frank directly. Both have their second-in-commands with them, but note that they’re blocked in. They aren't the ones in charge here.
Spiros shut down the warehouse after Frank’s call, but the Greek is thinking a step (or two) ahead of him.
That’s fine. But now we’re going to have to open the warehouse up again. Lose a few more clean cans, deliver them there. Someone’s watching, show them we have nothing to hide.
Nick isn't exactly out of step with Frank's thinking, but he's out of line when he asks whether they'll still get paid for the clean containers. It's a reflexive defense on Frank's behalf; the same impulse led him to talk before Sergei told him to in 2.06.a. (Nick looks at Frank, seemingly trying to confirm that he said what his uncle was thinking.) Spiros asks if he’s kidding—an intervention to keep this between second-in-commands. The Greek asks Nick who he is; Frank steps in to assert that he's a Sobotka. A protective move.
The Greek knows who Nick is, of course. He sees that Nick doesn't realize he's not in any position to negotiate. (Given how Spiros has treated Nick, why would he know his place?)
Oh. Well, that’s a fair question, Niko. But it has to be the same for everyone: no work, no pay.
Capital shifting the burden onto labor. What else is new?
The choice to refer to Nick as "Niko" is interesting. It seems to be something of a signal to Spiros—but what is he signalling? When Nick keeps trying to argue the point, Spiros steps in again:
We take gas, so do you.
Frank picks up the negotiation from there. He starts to say that the Greek doesn't understand, but the Greek interrupts him:
I understand completely. No one is in this for love.
But it's not just about the money, it's about the union. The legislative session is a deadline. The Greek thinks on it, then agrees to pay him for checking clean containers through, too. In exchange, the Greek gets a demand of his own met: he decides when Frank is done working with them.
Okay. We pay you still. I'm thinking of all the business we do in the future, and I want you should be happy.
Frank was planning on being done with the Greeks at the end of this year's session. At that point, Nick would've been done too, if he hadn't gotten involved on his own.
The Greek tells Frank that he ought to "spend some of the money on something [he] can touch: a new car, a new coat". Evidently, he knows how Ziggy and Nick spent some of their money. It seems plausible to assume one of two things here. Either the Greek was listening in on a conversation we didn't see where Nick mentioned one or both of those things, or someone else was listening in and passed the information on to him. The latter is plausible, since the Greek hasn't been in the diner for every meeting. But who would that person be?
The Greek's suggestion implies that if Frank is going to be doing business with them, he might as well use the money to buy something that can bring him some measure of happiness today.
When the Greek says "a new car, a new coat", there's a cut to Spiros. There's a straightforward interpretation available here. Neither the car nor the coat would have been possible without Spiros making deals with Nick and Ziggy, deals which Frank doesn't know about and doesn't want to acknowledge.
But there may be something else going on, too. Spiros remains seated in the booth even after everyone else gets up—an indication that he's got his own ideas, apart from the Greek's. Then there's that odd gesture seen in 2.05.4 and 2.06.2: Spiros is touching his lips and looking up at Nick while the Greek is saying, in effect, that business and pleasure need not be mutually exclusive.
2.09: stray rounds || you got friends in high places, nicky.
Let there be no doubt about it, though—business comes first.
Nick is at the diner with Spiros and Eton in 2.09.1. From the tone of their conversation and the way the scene is shot, one could be forgiven for thinking this conversation was only between Nick and Spiros.
It’s not initially obvious, but this whole scene shows us how the Greek is responding to the possibility that the police are still watching.
It’s worth taking note of what we’re seeing here: uniforms. Eton and Spiros are both in blue, much like Frank and Nick were in 2.08.5. But the body language is noteworthy, too: the way Nick and Spiros are sitting produces a mirror image across the table. They don’t have the same information, and they’re playing different roles, but they’re on the same page in a different—and more personal—way, institutions be damned. (Nick is wearing a brown shirt—a color with a more ambiguous meaning, but we’ll come back to that later on.)
One consequence of the organization’s newfound cautiousness is that Nick hasn’t been able to get re-ups. Spiros’s response to this information merits careful examination.
We’re not going to be doing that business for a few days. Your uncle, he is right to be careful. But, Niko. If you’re going to be doing this, you should not be talking to us about it.
Two things to note here: first, we don’t see the beginning of the conversation, but it’s clear that Spiros is talking about the clean containers when he says that Frank “is right to be careful”. While it was Frank’s idea to run the test container (2.08.3), the decision to send out more clean cans after was the Greek’s (2.08.5). But the way Spiros talks about it more or less implies that it’s Frank’s decision—the Greek isn’t mentioned at all.
Second, there’s a contradiction. If Nick shouldn’t be talking to them about his re-ups, why was Spiros calling him to check in and remind him to do just that (2.08.1)? Spiros’s explanation—“we are more what you call, ah, wholesalers”—would make sense were it not for his initial offer in 2.06.2:
“[…] Eton can pay, in heroin. Wholesale.”
Nick doesn’t question it, though. He knows that he’s not particularly significant in the context of the organization as a whole. His response is quiet, modest—still charming, but far more self-effacing than he was in 2.06.2:
I’m kind of small-time, huh?
Note: the links are to GIFs (unless otherwise specified) to provide a visual reference for particular lines.
Nick isn’t wrong—he’s a minor street-level supplier. That isn’t a new development, though, so why does it matter now? Nick doesn’t question this, but we should. We’ll have to get back to it later on. For now, back to the conversation.
Patting Nick on the arm, Spiros’s reply is gentle, if not downright affectionate:
είσαι καλό παιδί. [You’re a good kid.] You are not so big, but you’re among friends.
Translation courtesy of @rikainverse.
Such flattery! Nick looks away, still smiling.
The sentence itself demonstrates once again that Nick is an exception. Spiros wouldn’t have any obligation to talk to anyone as “small-time” as Nick, much less vouch for him. But exceptions can be made for a friend.
Eton pushes a slip of paper toward Nick with the number he should call for his re-ups. (Aside from Nick receiving the slip of paper, this deviates from the standard procedure in nearly every respect.) He identifies the “Mike” on the paper as White Mike. We saw him in 2.02, when Ziggy tried to get a package from him, but it turns out that Nick also went to high school with him. Small world.
Nick is ill at ease with the idea of being handed off to White Mike, but Spiros reassures Nick that he won’t take advantage of him:
You are with us now, so he will be fair.
That eases his mind somewhat.
Spiros passes Nick a slip of paper with the numbers for the clean containers they’ll be sending through—indicating that Nick is at the diner, in part, to get that slip for Frank. Spiros expects the police to stop the truck if there’s actually a problem. And if not?
If not, no more worries.
He wants Nick to think that everything is fine—or, at the very least, that everything will be fine. Nick believes him. But once he leaves, we can see that that's not entirely true.
We got a sense of how the Greeks are handling the possibility of ongoing police surveillance from the detail earlier in the episode (2.09.a, image in next section). They've paused operations at the warehouse, and have been turning away calls. Now, we see the same situation from the vantage point of the Greeks.
Eton confirms that he's been giving their associates the new number; Spiros makes his opinion of all these extra precautions known:
This is bullshit. If they were on to the trucks, they would’ve searched it.
Chain of command, pure and simple. He's following orders from the Greek. Changing the warehouse phone, suddenly handing Nick off to White Mike now—these are happening for the same reason: chain of command. Spiros may disagree with the Greek's assessment, but that doesn't matter because it's not up to him.
The Greek seems to be tightening up their phone communications. If Frank's cellphone is tapped, Nick's might be too. Handing him off to White Mike for his re-ups instead of having him go through Sergei ensures that his calls won't lead the police to anyone higher up in the organization. Following that logic, those aren't the only kind of (otherwise routine) calls the Greeks shouldn't be making or receiving now.
If Nick has to call White Mike about his re-ups instead of Sergei, calls like the one Spiros made in 2.08.1 are almost certainly off the table, too—which might explain his annoyance at the changes in their operating procedures. After all, changing the warehouse phone and giving out the new number is tedious, but that's Eton's responsibility. What difference would it make to him?
The Greek is correct in thinking that they could have a weak point in their phone network connected to Nick somehow, but he missed the target: their vulnerability is the tap on Sergei’s phone.
In other words, Nick caught a stray round.
Note: Although I’ve included it here, 2.09.a comes before 2.09.1. The subtitles for 2.09.b should read “Best bet is to get the new number off the Russian’s cellphone.”
The Greeks can change the warehouse phone as often as they’d like—it won’t matter so long as Sergei’s number stays the same. The detail’s phone strategy hinges on this in order to get back on the main stem, since the PC for the previous warehouse phone can get them a wiretap on a new one (2.09.b).
In 2.08.2, Eton is talking to Spiros about the chemicals Nick dropped off in 2.06. Eton is relaying information he’s gained to Spiros and asking him to make sense of it—but even without dialogue, we can see that Spiros is operating in a managerial capacity by looking at who's wearing what. Spiros is in grey, which is close enough to count him as white-collar. Eton is wearing a black patterned shirt, but he’s wearing it over a navy blue undershirt.
Eton wants to know why the Colombians are paying them less than half of what they agreed upon for the chemicals. It’s not that the chemicals are of poor quality or that they're worried about Customs—in fact, the Colombians are interested in buying more, and the Greeks can guarantee that Customs won't be a problem. What are they thinking? Spiros identifies the likely explanation:
That it is all profit for us. That we will settle for half of what we agreed, because 400,000 thollaria is still a lot of money.
Spiros is going to have to bring this matter to the Greek—who, as he assures Eton, will be smart. This is business, after all.
The detail now has Double G's name, because the clean can went to his warehouse, so McNulty goes to Fitz to see if the FBI has anything on him (2.09.c). They do, but his file is sealed and assigned to an Agent Koutris—ostensibly based out of San Diego, if the FedCom system is to be believed (it isn’t—he's in the DC office working counterterrorism, and has been for some time.) Koutris says he interviewed Glekas as part of a stolen goods case back in 1995, but that he wasn't charged with anything. Once the call with Fitz ends, Koutris calls the Greek from his cell. They need to talk.
Eton, Ilona, and Glekas join Spiros and the Greek for dinner to discuss their next steps (2.09.3). They’re talking shop, basically. The Greek has taken notice of the fact that the FBI was asking about Glekas, even though Spiros told him the police were local (2.05.2).
When the Greek asks Spiros about this, he stands by his earlier answer (which he based on what Nick said in 2.05.1). The police were local. And they still are—for now.
Spiros suggests that they ought to repay Koutris for notifying them about the fact that the police were asking about Glekas. The Greek decides that he’ll give up the Colombians who paid less than they agreed upon. They may not actually be narcoterrorists, but as far as the FBI is concerned, they might as well be.
While they're at dinner, Sergei calls Eton. The detail gets what they were waiting for: the new warehouse number (2.09.3.a). Before long, they'll be up on the main stem again.
Nick goes to get a re-up from White Mike in 2.09.4. Mike demonstrates how things would go for Nick were he not with the Greeks: he tries to charge his normal wholesale price for packages. Spiros said Mike would be fair to Nick, so he pushes back, at which point Mike calls Sergei to confirm that Nick is really with the Greeks. He also asks about a body dumped near a stash house he was using. Sergei asks whether the body had hands and a face, which it did. On that basis alone, then, Mike ought to know that it wasn’t them. Sergei says as much, then hangs up. The call confirms that the process seen in 2.02.a is the norm for how they dispose of bodies. That detail will be relevant later, so put a pin in it for now.
Mike tells Nick that he has "friends in high places”, so he’ll charge four a pack—the same rate Nick was paying for his re-ups before. Again, exceptions are being made for him.
Since the wire is up on Sergei’s phone, Lester heard the entire conversation with Sergei and makes a call to the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) unit to ask about bodies found in the mid-Atlantic region without hands and faces (2.09.4.a). One wiretap secured by way of shoddy police work continues to pay dividends in information, despite the Greeks' best efforts.
A significant deviation from the normal note-passing process occurs in 2.09.e. The Greek meets with Koutris, and although we don’t hear their conversation, it’s clear enough from 2.09.3 that the note he gives him relates to the Colombians. The note makes its way to Frank. and we learn that it lists the container number for a shipment of crack cocaine disguised as paint pigments.
The detail’s brothel raid goes off with no more than a hitch or two (2.09.g)—but the actual point of the raid is to see what’s said on the wire afterward. When Eton calls Spiros to tell him about the lack of police activity surrounding the clean cans they’ve been moving and the raid, the detail gets Spiros’s number. Prez suggests that they tap it, even if they don’t know to whom it belongs. Lester assumes it’s the number for the man in charge of the organization as a whole:
And this here is the little king of everything.
Not exactly, but it's something to keep in mind.
2.10: storm warnings || nicky boy, just in time.
The detail finally makes significant inroads on their surveillance of the Greeks: they place GPS trackers on (most of) the key players’ cars and get the car insurance records for Pyramid, Inc. to get their full names. For our purposes here, the most significant finding comes from the trackers: the cars they’ve placed trackers on all have stopped at one of two locations for extended periods of time (2.10.a). They don’t have a tap on Spiros’s phone yet, nor do they have his name, but the detail posts up at the diner and near Fort Howard in the hopes of getting something on him.
Meanwhile, Ziggy’s car heist goes awry at the last minute when Double G tries to pay him 10 percent, instead of their agreed-upon rate of 20 percent. It’s the same kind of move the Colombians pulled in 2.09 with the chemicals, but Ziggy isn't "smart" like the Greek. His retaliation is direct and swift: he kills Double G and shoots the young man working in the appliance store with him. Ziggy may be a pawn, but pawns can still move diagonally and take out another piece if they get close enough.
We don’t see Ziggy turning himself in, but when we see him again in 2.10.b, he’s initialing each page of his signed confession. Landsman asks if he wants to make a call before he goes to jail, but Ziggy declines to call anyone—not even a family member.
The next day, Nick finds out and goes to tell Frank (2.10.1). Frank was going to send him to get a number from the Greeks to get a number—note that they're both wearing blue shirts (we a get a better view of Nick's shirt in 2.11).
How did he find out?
[T]hey're sayin' he shot two of the Greeks. Last night, they're sayin'. […] He’s locked up. He’s fuckin’ charged with murder. […] Double G. And one of the kids that works down the store on the Avenue with him.
Based on the fact that the detail doesn't learn about the shooting until 2.11, neither Eton nor Sergei called him about it. We don't get a definitive answer, but it's possible that he either read it in the newspaper or heard about it from someone who did. That's how the detail finds out, at least. They're busy enough in 2.10 that they may not have seen the article until the day after it was published. Additionally, Frank sees the same article in 2.11.
From here, things really start to come undone. The detail agreed to let the FBI take on the case. The feds have been feeding the casework into their system, so Koutris finds out about the scope of the investigation and tells the Greek about the wiretaps (2.10.2).
The Greek sends Spiros a text. When the detail translates it later in the episode, we learn that it says “SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY” (2.10.3, 2.10.c). Spiros sends a message, and then gives Stefanos some instructions:
Have the boy go to Eton. Tell him to go right away to the other place.
There’s a few things to note here. First, upon receiving the Greek's message and sending out another, it's Nick he's thinking about. He expects that Nick is going to try to call him, and since the phones are dead (or will be by the time he calls) he'll go to the diner when Spiros doesn't pick up. He tells Stefanos to have Nick go to "the other place"—we know from 2.10.a that he's referring to the meeting spot at Fort Howard—to meet with Eton.
(There’s also an interesting detail here: Stefanos goes into the back of the diner after Spiros says goodbye. Based on the order of the scenes, the Greek is probably still with Koutris when he sends the text to Spiros—but we’ve seen the Greek going to and from the back of the diner before (2.02.1, 2.08.5). I may be reading too much into it, but it stood out to me given how he responds in 2.10.5.)
Second, this is the second scene where music playing in the diner. The song in question is “Ζηλιάρα” (Jealousy). As in 2.06.1, the lyrics merit consideration because of what they can tell us about the unspoken intentions behind what Spiros is saying.
Oh, you villain, how you hurt me How you enslave me with your jokes You made me go crazy I no longer define my heart. Ah, you villain, stop with this jealousy Kiss me with your sweet lips Ah, you know how you make me wither Jealous, why do you want to hurt me? As if I had just met you, my lady You burned me deep inside Jealous, you always want to make me angry. Why do you get angry at the slightest thing? Oh, you know how you make me languish Jealous because you want to hurt me.
“Ζηλιάρα” is a love song shot through with the frustration of being unable to follow one’s better judgement in spite of the pain that that love is causing.
Third, note the clothes here: brown jacket over a tan shirt. The tan shirt is symbolically managerial, but the brown jacket seems to denote something else. The same color showed up in 2.09.1, but there's still no obvious signs as to what it means. This may be a situation where the meaning has to be inferred from the absence of information. It shows up again later, though, so we'll come back to it.
For now, we might try and infer something from the final point to note in this scene: there’s a sign on the soda fountain next to him that reads: “[i]t's nice to be important, but it's far more important to be nice”. To be sure, it's a small detail, but this is David "He's got the Burger sign above him" Simon we're dealing with here, so nothing can be taken for granted.
Spiros is important, and although Nick has some connection to business, that's not why he's doing this. He's doing it to be nice.
Spiros leaves the diner and meets with Eton at Fort Howard, so the text he sent in the previous scene may have been to him (2.10.4). Eton tells Spiros about Ziggy killing Double G. They both spend a moment in bemusement over why Ziggy would do such a thing. After all, it’s just business, isn’t it? Still, there’s work to be done, so they can only dwell on the matter for so long. Spiros is in his managerial tan shirt without the brown leather jacket he was wearing earlier; Eton is in a blue button-up—he’s the one that’s going to be doing the work. Spiros instructs him to clear out the appliance store and the warehouse. Oh, and one other thing: the phones are dead.
From a boat nearby, McNulty, Bunk, and Diggsy watch through binoculars as Eton and Spiros throw their phones into the harbor. Spiros pulls out his handheld and sends a message. McNulty makes a note of the time: 4:45pm. Bunk and Fitz get the records of texts sent from Spiros’s handheld over the past 24 hours later in the episode (2.10.c, image in next section). The message sent at 4:45pm reads “ΕΧΟΜΕ ΠΡΟΒΛΕΜΑ”—“WE HAVE A PROBLEM”.
Evidently, Spiros understands Nick well enough to be able to predict his next move, because Nick drives to the diner that night looking for him (2.10.5). But not everything goes according to plan. When Nick says he “need[s] to get with Vondas”, Stefanos asks him who that is. Nick looks over at the booth where Spiros usually sits, only to find it empty. He asks where Spiros is, to no avail: Stefanos acts like he doesn’t know who Nick is talking about. We know that he does, so what happened here?
We might find an answer by comparing this incident with the diner scenes in Season 5.
Comparing Stefanos with Andreas in Season 5 may give us an answer. When Marlo brings the first briefcase of cash to the diner, Andreas acts as though he doesn’t know who “Vondas” is and ignores Marlo (5.03.1). Once they leave, he looks in the briefcase with a slightly puzzled expression. When we see Marlo at the diner again, Spiros meets with him to tell him that they’re not interested in his dirty money and won’t be working with him.
But Marlo is persistent: he comes back with another briefcase, full of clean bills, Andreas is similarly unresponsive but less standoffish (5.04.a). When he opens this briefcase, he makes an expression indicating that he’s pleasantly surprised at the condition of its contents. When we next see Marlo at the diner, Spiros is meeting with him again—and the Greek is seated at the counter, listening in on their conversation (5.04.1). The Greek comes over to the booth midway through their conversation and agrees to do business with him as a form of “insurance”—effectively overriding Spiros, who wasn’t budging from his initial position.
From this, it seems to me that word about the clean bills got back to the Greek through Andreas, and the Greek decided to hear what Marlo had to say. Since Andreas is Stefanos’s replacement, it’s not unreasonable to assume Stefanos played the same role, reporting back about people who come to the diner for what we might call business purposes. Stefanos, then, serves as a kind of gatekeeper, and he acts on the Greek’s word—not Spiros’s. Despite what the detail might think, Spiros is not “the little king of everything”. In giving those instructions to Stefanos, he was attempting to circumvent the chain of command.
Nick leaves the diner. Evidently, he didn’t know about the Fort Reynolds meeting spot, because when we see him again, he’s in Latrobe Park—a block away from his parents’ house on Reynolds Street—sitting on a merry-go-round, finishing off a bottle of whiskey and crying over Ziggy. What else can he do? He went looking for Spiros—who always seems to know what to do—and couldn't find him.
Prissy Katlow, who expected to find Nick there, joins him.
As the detail rushes to type their search warrants, the Greeks are cleaning up all night and into the morning, if the lighting in the warehouse is any indication (2.10.e).
2.11: storm warnings || nothing is done, niko. nothing.
Nick slept with Prissy, so he’s not there when the raids kick off (2.11.a). The police and the FBI search Double G’s store, the warehouse, the IBS Local 1514 union hall, and Nick’s parents’ house. When Nick does come home, his father tells him there’s a warrant out for his arrest at the Southeastern. and that he needs to go in.
Frank goes to see Ziggy in jail in 2.11.b. For our purposes here, the thing to note is that they’re both wearing dark red shirts—they match. Frank has worn that color before in scenes not covered by this post (e.g. when the IBS guys are at New Charles’s house in 2.07), but it's associated with service to another institution: family. We see that color again later in this episode, so just keep it in mind for now.
After Frank is arrested and the FBI gets their perp walk moment, they more or less abandon the case, so the detail has to handle surveillance on their own. McNulty and Bunk are on surveillance duty for Spiros (2.11.1). Throughout the episode, they’re something of a literal Greek chorus, and they make some interesting comments. This is the first instance:
Bunk: Boy, them Greeks and those twisted-ass names. McNulty: Hey, lay off the Greeks. They invented civilization. Bunk: Yeah? Ass-fuckin', too.
Funny? Absolutely. And on its own, it might be that and nothing more. But when they’re posted outside of his house, we get another comment, this time from McNulty, when he and Bunk are talking about the suit Spiros is wearing (2.11.2).
You know what they call a guy who pays that much attention to his clothes, right?
It’s a joke about Bunk being able to identify the suit as a Joseph Abboud based on the buttons. Is that all it is? Or is this telling us something? It’s a subtle season, after all, and the nature of Spiros’s interest in Nick remains ambiguous—we still don’t really know why he’s been making all of these exceptions for him.
They follow Spiros from his house to an Inner Harbor hotel; Beadie picks up the surveillance from there (2.11.c). Three things to note here: first, that Spiros’s outfit still tracks with the “uniforms” we’ve encountered up to this point. The suit jacket is tan—denoting the managerial side of the Greek’s operation—but the blue shirt underneath signals that he’s doing the organization’s legwork. And, in fact, he is: he’s at the hotel to talk with a man later identified as Stephen Rados, a K Street lawyer from DC, which makes sense given that Eton, Sergei, and Ilona were all arrested during the raids (2.11.a). Presumably, they’re meeting to discuss the organization’s options for dealing with all the trouble they’ve now have on their hands.
Spiros leaves with him and ditches the Benz in the hotel parking garage, since he knows it’s being followed; despite Beadie’s best efforts, she tipped the detail’s hand. At this point, they lose track of Spiros.
When the detail is discussing the status of the interrogations, Beadie notices that they’ve given up on Frank to talk since the FBI’s attempt didn’t go anywhere (2.11.d). She suggests taking another shot at him. She’s looking for another way because she cares about him. Pearlman tells her that there’s limits on what she, personally, can tell him:
You can’t make any kind of specific offer yourself. Only I can do that, and only after I get an okay from my front office.
Still, McNulty points out that “[t]here’s no better messenger”, and Pearlman lets her take a shot.
Both 2.11.c and 2.11.d involve discussions with lawyers, though that conversation is implied in the former. There’s a parallel taking shape on either side of the case.
That evening, Spiros and the Greek have a conversation at the restaurant (2.11.3). Their discussion, like the one the detail had in 2.11.d, is about the case and their next steps, but those next steps are why Spiros is too worried to order anything. He’s not worried about their associates, but Frank and Nick aren’t their associates and he knows as well as the Greek does what has to be done—what he’sll have to do—to “make certain” that “[t]here will be no more trouble”. We saw in 2.02.a precisely what that entails: no fingerprints, no face.
It turns out that Beadie Russell isn’t the only one looking for another way. She’s looking for a way to get Frank to talk; Spiros is looking for just the opposite.
If I could guarantee that Frank Sobotka and his nephew would be silent, wouldn’t you prefer that?
When the Greek points out that “[he] cannot guarantee this”, he lays out how he thinks he might be able to do just that.
Hear me out. Frank’s son, the idiot who shot George in his store. He is going to jail for a long time. Unless. […] There was a young clerk wounded that day in the store. The prosecutors want to use him as a witness. I know his family. Frank Sobotka will have his son back. If a man can have this, why would he talk to the police?
It’s a pretty ingenious plan, one he clearly didn’t come up with on the spot. It’s also doomed to failure from the start by the erroneous—though not unreasonable—assumption that Ziggy wouldn’t confess to killing Double G.
So that’s one of two Sobotkas covered. What about Frank’s nephew? Spiros has an answer here, too.
He is the idiot’s cousin. He wants the same thing as Frank. Anyway, I don’t worry about Niko. λεβέντης είναι αυτός.
The term λεβέντης doesn’t have a straightforward translation, but the meaning of what he’s saying is along the lines of “he’s a really brave, good guy, someone you can count on”. (Thanks to @anemovlogia for help with this translation.)
The Greek makes a comment that provides an explanation—perhaps the only logical explanation, at this point—for why Spiros has been making exceptions for Nick.
You are fond of him, Spiros. You should have had a son.
Stating the obvious, perhaps. But is it a paternal fondness? Consider Spiros's reply:
But then I would have had a wife.
On its face, this seems like a little misogynistic joke and nothing more. But there’s three things to note here. The first is Spiros’s expression immediately after. I don’t have much to say on that front, but it’s worth pointing out. The second point to note is that the Greek is greatly amused by his reply, as if the very idea of Spiros having a wife is absurd. The third and final thing to note is that we know that at least one of the Greeks have (or, more accurately, had) a wife—Double G made a reference to his in 2.03.2:
I want a woman with thin ankles. But I’m going to go home tonight, and there is going to be my wife.
Spiros occupies a much higher place in the organization than Double G did, but this tells us, if nothing else, that being a part of the organization and having a wife are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Taken together, all of these make McNulty and Bunk’s remarks (2.11.1, 2.11.2) start to feel like hints.
That same evening, Beadie takes a shot at getting Frank to come in (2.11.5). Frank’s initial response is far from receptive—she’s the police, after all, and the police are why everything is falling apart around him—but he hears her out. She may be a cop, but she’s there because she cares about him. She's trying to find some way to save him from the institution she serves with that institution.
Despite knowing what (or more accurately, who) Frank has gotten himself involved with, Beadie is sympathetic. She knows him well enough to know that it "didn't happen overnight", that he meant well and that things got out of hand—she understands that "there are different kinds of wrong". She tells him she can’t promise him anything but asks him to come in anyway:
I’d like you to come in—not in cuffs. ‘Cause you want to. I’m opening a door here, Frank. I can’t promise you anything. Just come in. We’ll start from there.
She slides her card toward him, tells him that “[he’s] better than them [he] got in bed with”, then leaves.
As for the rest of the detail, Herc and Carver are on surveillance duty waiting for Nick to come home (2.11.4).
The shitbird lives in his parent’s basement. Where’s a guy like that gonna run to?
Where, indeed.
McNulty and Bunk, for their part, spent the night posted outside of Spiros’s house, but he didn’t come home (2.11.6).
Our man Vondopoulos didn’t come home last night. Maybe he got lucky.
In a way, McNulty is right, though not in the way he means. In a more literal sense, Spiros's conversation with the Greek in 2.11.3 was nothing if not lucky.
Note: the captions are slightly wrong. For the image in the third row on the right, they should read “I shouldn’t have never gone down the road with you people."
When we see Spiros and Nick again, they’re meeting in Patterson Park (2.11.7). Before getting into their conversation, note the outfits. Spiros has his brown leather jacket on again, this time with a blue knit polo underneath; Nick is wearing a red (well, reddish) shirt over a brown t-shirt—they’re serving the Greek’s organization and family, respectively. But there’s also that same ambiguous (as far as service to institutions is concerned) personal element for both of them. Note, too, that this is the first time we’ve seen them sitting not across from one another, but next to each other.
Spiros greets Nick in the way he did in 2.01.2—“Nicky, from the docks”—but Nick doesn’t look at him. He isn’t in a friendly mood—and why would he be? His response tells us something about what we didn’t see.
If you hadn’t called last night, I’d have never found you.
We have a gap: at some point between 2.11.3 and 2.11.7, Spiros called him. This would seem to confirm that Nick didn’t go home—something that would otherwise still be on the table since Nick’s parents’ house has a rear entrance and Herc and Carver are not exactly natural po-lice. (As for where he went, it’s possible that he went back to Prissy’s, though this is pure guesswork on my part.) It also implies that he didn’t go home because of that call. Spiros tells Nick to relax, pats him on the back, and reminds him of what he said over the phone: that “[i]t is going to be alright”, that “[they] can make it alright”.
Nick doesn’t seem to believe him, but we’re getting a sense of the conversation that got him to show up in the first place. After all, he wouldn’t be here if he was completely certain that nothing could be done. Everything seems to be coming undone, and Nick doesn’t think anything can be done to help him, Frank, or, most importantly, Ziggy. But he’s apparently holding onto hope that what he told his uncle in 2.08.4—“Spiros’ll know what to do”—might still be true. When Nick laments ever getting involved with the Greeks to begin with, Spiros's reply reveals that this scene is, in a sense, a mirror image of 2.11.5:
Ah, come on. You tried to make something of yourself. There is no harm in that. And you still have friends.
This is not altogether different from telling Nick he was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Beadie was trying to reassure Frank that the institution she serves could solve the problems that institution created; Spiros is doing the same thing here with the institution he serves.
Nick doesn’t question that he “still has friends”, but he isn’t convinced that there’s anything they can do for him or his family. Still, there’s a crack in the wall: he looks at Spiros.
Note: the captions are slightly wrong. For the image in the third row on the right, they should read “We can do many things.”
As with Nick’s doubts in 2.01.2 about having Sergei as the driver every time, he’s right: there isn’t anything the Greeks can do for Ziggy. But he doesn't know about the signed confession, either, so he lets himself hope that he might be wrong. Then, as now, Spiros is confident—overconfident, as it turns out—that he has the situation under control.
Spiros hands Nick a passport. The act is equivalent to Beadie sliding her card to Frank, in that he’s opening a door, giving Nick a way out of this. He’s not making any promises, but he implies that he can promise something:
Many names, many passports... we can do many things.
Hearing that is enough to bring the wall down, but Nick isn’t just looking for a way out for himself: he asks what can be done for Ziggy. Spiros doesn’t give him an answer—he turns to Nick and tells him what they’ll need from him and his uncle.
We ask only loyalty.
They stare at each other for a moment, and Nick smiles in unspoken agreement as Spiros rubs his shoulders, then strokes his hair. The gesture is as affectionate as it is brief.
Watching the game of field hockey being played at the bottom of the hill, Spiros asks:
Why do they need sticks? Can’t they kick it with their feet?
What matters is the unspoken answer: that’s not how the game is played. Try as he might, there's no separating business from the street—that is to say, from The Game— because when push comes to shove, the rules are the same.
But for now, he's certain that there's another way.
Frank goes in to talk to the police (2.11.e). Pearlman lays out what they can offer Nick and Ziggy in exchange for his cooperation: they can move Ziggy to a county facility, and provided that Nick cooperates as well, they’ll give him straight probation, no jail time. For this, Frank is ready to give up everyone outside of the union, up to and including the Greek. Pearlman cuts the proffer session short. Beadie opened the door and Frank tried to go through it, but he can’t—not yet, anyway. Not without a lawyer present in the room with him.
The Greeks have their lawyer with them, though, and the mood is downright celebratory as far as they’re concerned—and they have good reason to celebrate: at this point, it appears that Spiros’s way is working (2.11.f). There’s still one more piece that needs to fall into place, but there seems to be no doubt in Spiros’s mind that Nick can guarantee Frank’s loyalty. (This isn’t an unreasonable assumption, given that the same strategy worked in 2.05.) He tears the passport he showed Nick into pieces; the Greek hands him another.
Nick is less certain that he’ll be able to convince his uncle. He’s right to be worried, but that’s not what he needs to be worried about. Unbeknownst to anyone but the detail, Fitz faxes a sheet detailing Frank’s (incomplete) proffer session to the DC office, oblivious to the consequences that will come from this routine act of documentation.
We also have a rare instance of non-diegetic music (the only other instance being during Avon’s visit to the pit in 1.06). The song here is Έφυγε (She's gone); as in 2.06.1 and 2.10.3, the lyrics merit consideration because they set the tone for what we're seeing—and point to how this will end.
I have burning iron in my heart It's your love that tortures me I'll have for my whole life A burden in my consciousness For my numerous mistakes That drove you away from me She's gone, she's gone, she's gone, I've lost her And I walk around and ask And I've taken to the streets I wake up from my sleep and seek you non-stop Now I've realized how much I love you.
It’s another love song, shot through not with frustration, but with regret. One doesn’t need to understand the lyrics to pick up on the mood: it sounds frenetic and mournful.
We aren’t really meant to understand the meaning—nor do we really need to. Knowing that the lyrics are describing regret for mistakes that can never be corrected from the outset changes absolutely nothing about the outcome: all attempts to find another way were doomed to failure from the beginning.
Still, the lyrics give us some insight into one person's unspoken feelings about the (inevitable) failure of their effort.
Nick meets with his uncle on Fort Ave (2.11.8). The music fades out; Spiros's plan ultimately hinges upon Frank’s decision here.
Nick passes Frank a note we didn’t see him receive. This detail—along with the rest of the scene—reveals that his conversation with Spiros continued after the end of 2.11.7. It's another gap, another part of the puzzle with pieces missing.
Frank tells Nick that he isn’t going to talk to the Greek and that he’s going to talk to the police; Nick says “[he] can’t do that”. Perhaps he suspects what will happen if Frank talks to the police. Given what Spiros and Sergei told him in 2.05.1 about the man on the ship, it wouldn’t be difficult to guess.
They wanna meet with us on Ziggy. They can lean on that witness—that kid he shot, the one who was in the store. The kid’s gonna say that Double G had the gun, that it was, like, self-defense or some shit. Ziggy could walk, Uncle Frank. He could.
Only Spiros could have given Nick that information, and based on his initial attitude in 2.11.7, Spiros didn’t tell him prior to their meeting in the park.
Now comes the difficult part. Frank asks what they want in exchange, and Nick answers: loyalty. The music returns. Frank lashes out uselessly against the chain-link fence, but ultimately agrees to “hear ‘em out”. This outcome was inevitable—it was obvious from 2.11.e, indicated by the color of Frank's shirt. Had he known sooner that there was any chance he could have Ziggy back, would he have gone in and talked to the police? It seems unlikely. If he had had a lawyer with him, he would have learned about the signed confession and how much could realistically be done for his son. But that isn't how it happened. He still believes there's a way out of this, a way to make things right. If he has to do the "wrong" thing, so be it—this end justifies any and all means, whatever they may be.
When Nick says he'll drive, Frank turns him down This isn’t Nick’s fault, nor is it his problem to solve. Nick tries to argue:
Uncle Frank, me and Spiros—
It’s hard not to wonder what Nick was going to say, but Frank doesn’t let him elaborate. Instead, he tells him to go home, unaware that the police are waiting to arrest him. Frank leaves Nick there and goes down to meet the Greek under the bridge alone. Fitz’s documentation of the proffer session makes its way through the bureaucracy to Agent Koutris. The information reaches Koutris first, who calls the Greek just as Frank is approaching. The Greek gives Spiros the news.
Your way… it won’t work.
Regardless of how it might have looked, there was never another way. It was never going to work.
2.12: port in a storm || what’s gonna happen, nicky?
Time and again, Spiros has made exceptions for Nick—which might explain why, when he goes looking for his uncle the next morning, he doesn’t seem to suspect anything is wrong until he sees that Frank’s truck still parked under the bridge (2.12.a). He rushes to the terminal, looking in the can office just as the Marine Unit is pulling a floater out of the Patapsco. When he finally makes his way through the crowd of checkers and longshoremen, he sees Frank’s lifeless body, his throat slit.
Recall what Sergei told White Mike in 2.09.4: “Did he have hands? Did he have a face? No? Then it wasn’t us.” The Greeks don’t dump bodies with hands and faces, and we know they killed Frank—in fact, we know from 2.02.a that Spiros was more than likely the one who slit his throat—but his body still has a face. Something isn’t adding up here. For now, note that it’s an exception.
Co-producer Karen Thorson describes 2.12.1 so well in the commentary for this episode that I feel I would be doing the scene a disservice if I didn’t quote her:
This is the moment when Nick’s going to be vengeful, decides he wants revenge, and within 2 minutes of this scene, he turns over and becomes like the little boy who needs his father to tell him what to do.
Nick doesn’t know about Frank’s proffer session. From his perspective, Spiros tricked him into sending Frank to his death. Who could blame him for wanting revenge for that kind of betrayal? There’s nothing he can actually do about it, of course. The only thing left for him to do is to turn himself in; by a stroke of dumb luck, Lester is at the Southeastern when he does (2.12.b).
As an aside, 2.12.1 seems to indicate that Nick hasn’t gone home since 2.11.a, as his father likely would have made him turn himself in—but again, this is more guesswork on my part.
Spiros goes to tell the Greek what he already knows: the body came up (2.12.2). It seems like it ought to trouble Spiros more that the disposal went wrong on two fronts, but he’s oddly unconcerned—almost as though he expected this.
Upon closer inspection, it appears that he did.
Not only did Frank’s body come up, but it came up with hands and face intact. The Greek could be right that the former is nothing more than “bad luck”, but Spiros knows perfectly well what their standard procedures are for making bodies unidentifiable; we can see that no attempt was made to do so. The Greek’s sidelong glance at Spiros seems to imply that he knows this was not bad luck at all—it was a deliberate act insubordination by a second-in-command who didn’t get his way.
Again, Spiros tells the Greek something he already knows:
Sergei would’ve done better, I admit. …Niko, the nephew. By now he knows.
From this, we know that he’s responsible—not that it was ever really in doubt—and what his intention was. Sergei would indeed have done better, because he wouldn’t have tried to find another way to begin with. He had no reason to make exceptions. Spiros meant for Nick to find out—not to be cruel, but in order to render the Greek’s plan to deal with him pointless. This much is illustrated by the Greek’s response:
Our people wait for him, but so do the police. I am thinking… there’s nothing to be done, at this point. What he says, he says.
The Greek might have preferred to deal with Nick (as they dealt with the man on the ship in 2.02.a) before he had the chance to go to the police, but there’s no use trying to stop him now. In any case, Nick was never as important to their business as Frank. Nothing he says can pose a real threat to either of them. They’ll just have to move on.
Spiros doesn’t seem ready to move on just yet, for reasons that become clear later. They have a shipment on the docks worth $15 million. They can’t disappear the can without Frank, but he suggests sending someone to pick it up, “legitimate”. The Greek, unlike Spiros, recognizes the danger:
Everywhere we go these days, we seem to be walking into police. This is telling us something. […] Lambs go to slaughter. A man, he learns when to walk away. No, we go. Call the others in. Let them know there is no longer any point.
This isn’t Spiros’s decision to make. The Greek could shrug off the handling of Frank’s body because Nick talking to the police ultimately doesn’t matter to him—but when it comes to business, he has the final say.
Nick’s proffer session confirms that the Greek was right: nothing Nick says brings the detail any closer to him or Spiros (2.12.3). Nick identifies the Greek in a photograph and gives the detail the lead necessary to clear the 14 homicides. Beyond that, they know more than he does. They assume, as does he, that the Greeks probably still want to kill him to shut him up—a rational assumption, even if it’s no longer true. (There's no accounting for fondness, I suppose.) They’re the ones who tell him about Ziggy’s signed confession. Lester, helpfully, explains why Spiros’s plan was never going to work in plain English:
You see, it wouldn’t have mattered if the second victim backed up on his story. Your cousin was locked in.
So Nick accepts the deal originally meant for Frank and tells them what he knows. For our purposes, there’s two points to note about his understanding of how the organization as a whole operates. First, his description of Sergei’s role:
He drove for them. Anything that had to come off the docks, he was their guy. But I also got the feeling that if somebody needed to get hurt, he was probably gonna be around for that part of it, too. […] Sergei, he just carried it like that. And also, after them girls died in the can, they told me that whoever fucked that up, they had already got to in Philly. They said that whoever did that to them girls was dead. […] They just said… I don’t know, that uh… that the guy that you all was looking for, he was a dead end.
Nick seems to be alluding to the confrontation with Cheese in 2.06.a when he says Sergei “just carried it like that”. He assumes that Sergei was the one who killed the man on the ship—or that he was involved, at the very least. Only after the detail interrogates Sergei about the security footage do they learn that Spiros was the one responsible—a possibility not to have even occurred to Nick, even though Spiros was the one who told him about it.
The second point to note: initially, Nick doesn’t think to mention the Greek at all.
Spiros was the main guy. He told me and Frank which cans to disappear, and then when it came to me and the drugs, he was the one that hooked that up, too.
When Bunk tells him the detail “[knows] that someone is above [his] man Spiros, someone he was in communication with”, Nick knows he’s talking about the Greek. He didn’t think Spiros was the head of the organization, but as far as he was concerned, the Greek was never much of a factor. This contrasts sharply with Frank, who insisted on talking to the Greek rather than Spiros because he knew that Spiros wasn’t the one in charge. I mention this only to point out that, although he doesn’t seem to know it, Nick’s impression of the organization’s structure is colored by his unusual relationship with Spiros—that is to say, by Spiros’s fondness for him.
2.12.4 occurs after the feds have placed Nick, Aimee, and Ashley in witness protection. The scene is brief, but one detail in particular seems to provide some insight into how Nick sees his own situation. He’s watching (well, “watching” may be too strong of a word) a 1947 cartoon, “Naughty but Mice”, with Ashley.
The portion playing during 2.12.4 is one in which the big bad cat has caught Herman, the “city mouse”, and is preparing to eat him. Herman’s relatives look on and wail as the cat (literally) butters him up, lamenting his demise even before it occurs; we can hear them saying “Poor cousin Herman!” “Yeah, he was a nice guy!” as the shot zooms in on Nick’s blank, glassy-eyed expression. The events of Season 2, from his point of view, are not too different: his family watched, helpless, as forces much larger and more powerful than them prepared to eat him alive. They saw what was happening, but no effort was made to save him—and to make matters worse, he didn’t recognize what was happening until it was too late.
(I may be overanalyzing things, but there’s a moment in the cartoon audible in the background of 2.12.4 where the cat says “gesundheit” after his gratuitous use of the pepper shaker makes Herman sneeze—a small detail to be sure, but “city mouse being buttered up by a cat speaking another language” fits Nick’s situation so well that I like to think of it as a deliberate choice.)
In reality, of course, that isn’t quite what happened, but Nick doesn’t know that. He has no way of knowing that Spiros never knew about the signed confession. From his point of view, Spiros deceived and betrayed him.
We see the reason for Spiros’s suggestion to send someone to pick up the shipment in his conversation with Prop Joe (2.12.c). There’s two things to note here. First, this is a far more… businesslike seating arrangement, let’s say, than in 2.11.7. Second, Spiros isn’t convinced that the police are sitting on the shipment:
The last shipment is lost. […] The police may be sitting on it.
Seasons 4 and 5 provides clear confirmation that Spiros likes Joe, that he likes doing business with him. Joe isn’t the only one the Greeks work with, but here, Spiros is meeting with him in particular as a bit of a favor for a friend—just as bringing the last shipment off of the docks would have been. It’s another example of Spiros’s inclination to ignore obvious risks when it comes to dealing with those he personally likes. He believes his way can always be made to work, so he sees things how he wants them to be—rather than how they really are. But at the end of the day, he’s not the one in charge.
When the airline employee asks the Greek whether he’s traveling for business or pleasure (2.12.d), the Greek replies:
Business. Always business.
This statement is both descriptive and prescriptive. The organization’s decisions are all ultimately governed by the logic of capital. If a choice has to be made between business and pleasure, business will prevail; when individuals' desires come into irreconcilable conflict with the imperatives of the institutions they serve, institutions win every time.