More With Less

“What kind of people stand around watching a fire?” – Haynes

And so, off we go…the much talked about “media season” – which was the subject of glowing write-ups in the LA Times and the NY Times Sunday – finally begins.

We know that this season is going to largely be about manipulation, particularly about how the media sets the public agenda by what they choose – and don’t choose - to cover.

The opening scene with Bunk (rewatching the Fourth Season, the opening scene usually does little to advance the plot, it’s all about setting the theme) was a harbinger of this: how do you manipulate the truth? How do you get the outcomes you want with the information that you have? As we’ve seen with how the institutions run on “The Wire, ”it’s not about truth, it’s about results. Everyone – from the cops, to the dealers to the journalists – has got to hit their numbers. You do what you have to, even magically turn a Xerox machine into a polygraph.

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Still, overall, I thought “More With Less” was one of the weakest of the five season premieres we’ve seen. The parallels between the police department and the Sun newsroom were too transparent. Unlike Season Four’s “Boys of Summer” which was mostly interested in the emergence of Carcetti and setting up Randy’s involvement in Lex’s murder, this episode had a bit of a didactic feel to it. There was a lot of repetitive, expositional dialogue in this episode, particularly about explaining the effects of budget cuts and demonstrating low morale.

We didn’t get a feel for too many of the characters at the Sun except the two cub reporters, the managing editor and Haynes. Rewatch “Boys of Summer” or “Ebb Tide:” we get a much stronger feel for the new characters of those respective seasons (four and two, respectively) than we got in this one.

It was difficult to tell the journalists apart, what their jobs were and what each character wanted. But of course, in a show as masterfully crafted as this one, I’m sure that patience will reward the viewer over the next few episodes. Haynes’ character was the exception: you get a good feel for what he’s about right away.

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The plot thread with Marlo appears to be promising. Despite his overwhelming brashness, his saving grace is that he is careful.

This quality has saved him from many traps that way with Barksdale and the police. But he is no team player. His petulant manners at the Co-op meeting and the look that Cheese gives him at the end suggest there will be blood between East and West Baltimore this season.

As Bunny tells Wee-bey in jail in last season’s finale, “there’s no code, no family, no trust” in the game today. Marlo is front and center on this. He’s the unfettered capitalist, ruthless and almost completely lacking in empathy. He has shown little in the way of hobbies (Dozerman’s remark), and is just interested with expanding territory and the bottom line. How it was before doesn’t matter.

Again, it’s all about results. He’ll short anybody and put someone in a vacant if they present only the slightest threat. It will be interesting to see if these qualities will give him more territory or if he will perish from overstretching himself too much. If this were a normal cop show, he'd of course fail and die a miserable death. But this is "The Wire" and it's nice to know that the ending won't be so predictable.

I’m not sure how Sergei, the Greek’s jailed henchman, will play into things but it’s good to see Season Two dragged back into the picture. This will be an interesting plot line.

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And yet, we still have the believers among us. “Promises were made and promises will be kept,” Carver says to the disgruntled men in the Western District. Daniels invokes Carcetti’s promises as evidence that things will change. Everyone keeps waiting for things to change, but political considerations and expediency always get in the way.

This theme, of the valiant underlings working their hearts out at the docks (take your pick), the corner (Bodie) and in the police (McNulty) while their superiors subvert them, gut their operations for political or financial considerations, has been present in every season. We can already see it on display in Season Five.

I just wonder, and hope, that there’s some expansion of this theme. I don’t think it’s merely enough to see it happening in the same way in a different sector of society. The theme has to be expanded or augmented somehow. We’ve seen plenty of superiors hijacking the hard work of good men on this show. What’s beyond this?

And some random points:

- Looks like Dookie has grown about 6 inches from last season! He towers over Michael and yet commands little respect. Michael doesn’t look any different though. Dookie still has that look of resigned sorrow on his face; the only difference now is that he looks man enough to do something about it.

- Carcetti looks doomed in a way. There’s not enough money and he’s unwilling to compromise with any element that could jeopardize his political future. And, all of a sudden, he’s worried about stats. He looks panicked in this episode. Norman is a great character, his political conscious.