'The Wire': McNulty's bad deed

I suspect -- based on chatter I've read from those who've already watched episode two of The Wire, either on demand or through other means -- that you'll be wanting to discuss what McNulty did at the end of the hour.

Me too. And I think, and hope, that it may not be quite as bad as it looks.

(Spoilers coming, and I'll try not to be too Dickensian.)

McNulty's increasing exasperation -- which is turning into desperation, both professionally and personally -- has been building for the past two episodes (and, presumably, in the off-camera time between seasons too), and in that context, his actions on the homeless body he and Bunk catch are understandable.

Which doesn't mean said actions are not crazy. My reaction was similar to Bunk's -- "You sick f***" -- there's no way that what Jimmy's doing -- trying to create a serial killer case out of whole cloth -- could work, could it? But in his mind, he's doing whatever he can to get the higher-ups to pay attention and pry open their wallets once again, so the "good police" can do the right kind of work, and maybe bring it back around to Marlo once again.

What I don't think (partly because HBO was kind enough to send out multiple screeners) is that this is a jump-the-shark moment for the series. The serial-killer device isn't being used for any sort of lurid viewer appeal (and as a practical matter, in its fifth season The Wire has the audience it's going to have, and too bad you're missing greatness if you don't watch).

But after Lester tells McNulty about his off-the-clock surveillance of Marlo, and after the city-federal pissing match over Clay Davis means the two cops get stonewalled by the FBI, it probably seems to McNulty's desperate, boozed-up mind that creating this sensational element is the only way to get anyone to notice (as if having 22 bodies in sealed-up rowhouses weren't sensational enough). It's about as bitter an indictment of institutional blindness as the show has ever put forth.

Y'all can talk more about What Jimmy Did in the comments. But there was lots more going on in this episode:

Marlo. The ever-ambitious dealer tries to set up a meet with Sergei in prison, but instead of seeing the Russian, who should sit down but ... Avon! (I kind of wish HBO hadn't spoiled the return of Wood Harris in the coming attractions last week; it took away from the impact of seeing him again.) Avon explains that he's "an authority figure" in the joint, and whatever business Marlo has with the Russian -- namely, trying to circumvent the co-op and get his own product from the Greek -- needs to go through him first.

And, somewhat surprisingly, Avon says he's with the man who basically has taken over his business. It's a Westside thing, and oh yeah, Avon needs a little piece of the pie as well. Still, I wonder if Mr. Barksdale doesn't have something else on his mind. He and Marlo have never been on what you would call good terms, and it's easy to wonder if neighborhood ties would be that strong.

And if you were the Greeks, wouldn't you be wary if Sergei came to you as the middleman for a new business proposition? My memory of season two is a little fuzzy, but didn't he flip on Vondas and Co. to spare his life?

Meanwhile, with the Major Crimes unit disbanded, Marlo, Chris and Snoop are freed up to start settling a few scores. The almost giddy look on Snoop's face as Marlo gives the go-ahead to take people out was pretty chilling. Also, Sydnor's comment last week about how the surveillance on Marlo kept the bloodshed down turned out to be entirely accurate.

Amid all that, though, it's at least slightly encouraging to see that Michael hasn't bought into Marlo's way entirely. He questions the need to whack a guy who just talked smack (which, further, Snoop only heard about secondhand) about Marlo, and he lets a kid escape out the back door after Snoop enters the front. I so hope that he'll hold onto whatever piece of compassion he still has.

Bubs. After seeing just a little of his new living arrangement last week, Bubs takes a more central role this week. The episode opens with him at a 12-step meeting, where we learn he's been clean for some time but still isn't facing up to Sherrod's death (that was Steve Earle, singer of the theme song this season, as his sponsor).

There's a real sense of foreboding to all the scenes with Bubs, as if it's almost inevitable that he'll slip. And as with Michael, it's pretty depressing to contemplate watching a fundamentally good person get sucked into (or sucked back into) a situation where there's no good way out.

The paper. The scenes at the Sun felt like the least essential moments this week, with management bigfooting over Gus (who's pretty clearly a stand-in for David Simon) and his attempts to run his newsroom the way he thinks it should be. The boss wants a "Dickensian" narrative about how the Baltimore schools fail their students, but without all that contextual clutter about systemic poverty, the kids' parents and the drug culture. It's Pulitzer bait, sure, but it will be, at best, only a partial picture of what's failing.

Meanwhile, the ambitious reporter Scott pulls an Orioles opening day color assignment. We see him get increasingly frustrated as he can't find anyone to fit his die-hard fan profile, but he comes back with a tearjerker of a narrative about a wheelchair-bound kid who skipped school to catch the O's. Gus gets a little suspicious when a photographer can't find the kid and there's no record of anyone like him in the archives, but once again the executive editor steps in and takes the story out of Gus' hands. It looks an awful lot like this arc is building to a Jayson Blair-Stephen Glass sort of situation, so I'm hoping the line from here to there at least has a few turns in it.

A couple other thoughts from "Unconfirmed Reports":

• Though it wasn't at all central to this week's story, I really liked the scene with Lester and Sydnor sifting through the Davis case for the way it illustrates Lester's love of a good puzzle. It's not just a character quirk that the man loves miniatures -- the small details that make up the larger picture are everything to him.
• Although we didn't get a trademark, drawn-out S-word from Isiah Whitlock Jr. tonight, his scene with Commissioner Burrell was a marvel of barely contained desperation. You could practically smell the flop sweat on Clay Davis as he railed against Burrell and "all y'all ungrateful b****es."
• Snoop takes pride in her work: See her exasperation at the botched drive-by, and her exultation at capping a guy from long range. There are more than a few sociopaths on The Wire, but sometimes I think she's the scariest of the lot.

What did you think of this week's Wire? McNulty has clearly gone over the edge, but did he take the show with him?

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