Misgivings

“They’re not learning for our world, they’re learning for theirs.” – Colvin

If you could take a pull quote from this entire season so far to say what it has been about, I would undoubtedly select the exchange between Parenti, Colvin and the school superintendent in this episode. It addresses education, how institutions function – and most importantly – how they fail.

“It’s not about you or us, or the test or the system,” Colvin, the show’s Great Communicator, tells the naïve superintendent. “It’s about what they expect of themselves. We pretend to teach them, they pretend to learn.” Later, when he drops off Namond to his wretched mother he sees all the proof he needs. How can someone like Namond function and be expected to thrive and care about permutations and subject-verb agreements when you come from a home like that?

Bill Gates once called American high schools “irrelevant” and you see the irrelevance on display in “The Wire.” Donnelly and the administrators work hard and have good intentions, but the education fails the kids cause it just isn’t relevant to their world. The one-size-fits-all, “No Child Left Behind” logic towards education currently in vogue is well debunked on this show. Like Colvin’s Hamsterdam experiment last season, Colvin and Parenti are trying a much more practical approach to education that is based not on ideology but on the social reality they encounter. But unfortunately, they can’t get others onto their side.

For schools to be effective they have to be a tool of education and socialization. At Edward Tilghman, they unfortunately seem to be just socializing them. But you can hardly blame this on the teachers – these kids are damaged.

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Usually when I watch “The Wire,” I am mostly aware of the writing, but for “Misgivings,” I was really aware of the direction. Ernest Dickerson did a great job. He let the camera give pan on certain characters that flushed them out better.

Before this episode, Chris was just a thug – a calm, ruthless, articulate one – but still a thug. But that long shot on him as he’s gauging what Bug’s Dad did to Michael was great. He looks scary and frightening but also intelligent and understanding. He does seem to smart to be Marlo’s enforcer. “We’ll take care of it boss,” he tells Michael. The long shot of Michael as he’s watching TV as Chris mercilessly beats that man to death is also instructive.

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We’ve seen throughout this season how following through on noble intentions gets you in trouble. The security guard who stepped up to Marlo didn’t live to tell about it. Colvin putting the cuffs on the guy who beat up the prostitute and gets fired. And now Little Kevin pays the price. He thought he was being upfront, being “in front of it” and now he’s dead. Bubbles wanted protection from Herc for police work and betrays the knucklehead sergeant when he doesn’t keep up his end of the bargain.

“The Wire” is preoccupied with how institutions function but also with what fills the void when institutions fail. What steps in its place? We saw this last episode when Michael approached Marlo. And we saw it with Officer Edwards assault on Donut, and Herc’s bungling of Bubble’s predicament yet again.

It is all an absence of leadership. No one is taking responsibility. When Namond is sitting in jail you beg the question, “Where are all the adults?” There is no substitute for poor governance. And there are too many ill forces that are all too willing to step in should governance fail.

And, in no particular order:

- Never really understood Slim Charles. He was one of Barksdale’s boys and now he’s a major player. But you’ve never known what his role is exactly. He’s with Prop Joe and then he talks to Marlo. Not sure what his deal is. If he got killed off, it would save me a few headaches.
- What is Omar planning? His character’s motivation is a little unclear to me right now. He swore off dropping bodies to Bunk but he can’t seem to change his nature. He’s like Greggs – just an alleycat by nature.
- A great scene between Poot and Bodie. That “World going one way, people going another” line was just genius. I’ll remember that line for a long time.
- Carcetti and Daniels. Another scene with good dialogue. Eric Ovemyer did a fantastic job with this script.