The Dickensian Aspect

“Homelessness huh? I’ll be damned.” – Carcetti


A good Carcetti episode. He has been one of my favorite characters on the show, simply because he’s changed so vividly and convincingly through every season. He may come across as a conniving politician interested in advancing his own career of late, but that homeless speech was fun to listen to. It did have a lot of pep. With his short height up on the podium, he seems like Paul Wellstone with a Baltimore accent.

But of course, in the back room, he transforms a social problem into one that could lead him to the Governor’s mansion. And then he doesn’t back up his words with more police surveillance. But still, to his defense, what can he do without the money? (“He just don’t want the cost,” Rawls says.) I think that he’s always been largely a sympathetic character. He does good with what he has. He could go the extra mile on things, like taking the Governor’s money for the schools.

The irony is, if he did that, he would not have had to cut police funding which might have lead to Marlo’s arrest which would have averted the fictitious “homeless serial killer” which is giving him his signature campaign issue! So, in a twisted, circuitous route, he helped himself in his gubernatorial run by not taking the money from the Governor, though not of course how he saw it happening.

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One thing I scratch my head about over at the Sun is the disappearance of Alma as a character. She got “a lot of play” (as she would say) over the first few episodes but now is relegated to Scott’s shadow. Much like we see Bunk serving as McNulty’s moral foil on good police work, I think it would be effective to see her pounding the pavement generating honest journalism to serve as Scott’s foil. But she’s barely been there.

Still, I gotta give credit where it’s due. The scene where Scott interviews the vet seemed a little superfluous at first but it came together when Haynes was commending it back at the Sun. He is capable of doing the grunt work, of making it happen. But then, he creates – what one would presume – to be another lie about the woman’s sister from a previous article who died did not gambling away the charity money but making up another story. It seems so insignificant now but I’m thinking this will be the small little crack that will unravel the whole homeless murder bullshit. And then heads will role.

There were a lot of really long scenes in this episode. Scott interviewing the Iraq vet, the press conference about the homeless murders, McNulty taking the homeless man to the shelter. If this were a network show, these would have been edited way down.

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Above all, “The Dickensian Aspect” saw the emergence of Bunk as a moral force. He’s always been one of the most likeable characters on the show but he never seemed as dedicated as McNulty nor as intelligent as Lester. But here he comes into his own. He’s not going to rat out McNulty so he’s going to lead by example. “I don’t fuck with no make believe. Work it like I’m supposed to,” he tells a non-plussed McNulty.

And he makes headway. “The Wire” likes to have good and bad examples in every section of society. It’s a little predictable now that you watch every episode. Towards the end of every season, the police make headway after initial frustration, and it seems like Bunk will lead the way this season on this.

Loved the scene of McNulty talking to the statue. Shows how truly, the man is just plain lonely. He can’t talk the way he wants to with anybody it seems save Lester. And that look on his face when Landsman rejects his call for surveillance: he’s more hurt by anything Landsman says than anything Beadie or his ex-wife ever says to him.

Lester's speech to Sidnor was great. How he saw the decision to abandon the Marlo investigation as "illegitimate." He and McNulty both seem emotionally pained by what happened, their dedication to their work is so great. He is so much more thoughtful than McNulty. And yet he's linked his fate to his. I'd hate to see him fall in this show, but when your partner is as much of a loose cannon as he is, it seems all but probable.

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A few of you wrote about how Omar seemed a little rusty. He got it back in this episode. His tactics are curious however. He keeps trying to appeal to Marlo’s sense of masculinity – one could say, an old-fashioned masculinity – by telling people “he ain’t man enough to come at me.”

Now, it’s ironic that a gay stick-up boy would accuse the drug lord of Baltimore of not being masculine – one could say he’s talking a page out of Bush’s book when he attacked Kerry for not being an authentic war hero – but I have my doubts that it will work.

Besides the time when he shot that girl who Barksdale set him up to have sex to arrange his murder in S3, Marlo’s never done anything so menacing as wave a golf club around. He has no incentive to meet Omar’s threats. His credibility as a man in this community comes from his ability to have his muscle make people disappear and take over drug real estate. That’s what real power is, when you don’t to raise your voice to re-alter the landscape. It looks more and more like Omar’s sentiments don’t fit in with the new landscape of the Baltimore drug trade. And we’ve seen what happens to characters on this show who don’t fit in as old-school codes are abandoned in favor of the zero-sum game of self-advancement and results.

Meanwhile, Marlo thinks that the best way to lead is through fear. “Bring it to me, or sit on that shit,” he tell the co-op. He rules like a king. I see a revolt brewing.

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- Randy got big. That sweet, wily boy with the great smile seems long gone. He’s been socialized to learn that tough makes right, that you only gain credibility through intimating violence. Watching this scene, you can see why the police can’t make inroads in this community, and why people like Marlo and Chris turn out the way they do.

- Loved how they got Nancy Grace up there acting like Nancy Grace.

- The boys of the dock live on! Good to see them. At least they haven't changed.