Monday, February 11, 2008

A TALE OF TWO SHITTIES: Of all the loose ends that The Wire left last year -- and there were many -- the one that bugged me the most was what happened to Randy "Not Cheese" Wagstaff. I suppose that I knew exactly what had happened to him, but Maestro Harrell's performance last night, in Randy's coda, was chilling. And it wasn't just a tacked-on goodbye, either. It set up the parallel between Carver settling Randy into an institution where he didn't belong and McNulty doing the same for "Donald"/Larry. Carver's dashboard-beating rage at the way that he had both betrayed and failed Randy was the emotional high (or low) point of Season Four, and it was a nice contrast to McNulty's slight pause -- a moment's hesitation quickly overcome by the idiotic belief that it's all for the greater good -- leaving the homeless shelter after dropping Larry off. As Bunny reminded us in Season 2 or 3, Carver was a lousy cop. Since then, though, he's taken Bunny's advice to heart, and the show's moral center has drifted toward him as old stalwarts like Daniels and Freamon have compromised themselves with politics, cynicism, and Oceanic Air black-ops money. Meanwhile, McNulty, whose ends always seemed to justify his command-confounding means, is starting to look like just a crooked cop. The parallel between Randy and Larry was a nice way of throwing that into high relief.

Another nice blast from the past: Nicky Sobotka coming out of witness protection to shout down the Mayor.

But: I am so bored with the Baltimore Sun and the Stephen Glass subplot.

ETA: From a commenter at Sepinwall, Columbia sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh -- whose work observing as something like an embedded reporter among Chicago street gangs is chronicled in Gang Leader for a Day -- watches The Wire every week with a bunch of gang members and reports their thoughts. Pretty engaging -- the consensus reaction to two of Marlo's acts of violence was surprising, for example.

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