It gets old, criticizing The Wire, either gently or not so gently, and always feeling the need to couch it in modifiers, or add the caveat that it's the best show on television, and even at its worst very little comes close. That's somewhat true, but as much because of how unique it is as any notions of quality of consistency. I do believe that plenty of shows (although not necessarily any currently on air) are as good or better than The Wire when it's not on its A game, but it's not like any other show is doing anywhere near the same thing, so those kinds of comparisons are a little empty. After a while, you start to feel like one of those fanclub members who'd rather listen to a shitty album by their favorite band than anyone else's best work.

But it bears mentioning a lot lately, because there's very little doubt at this point, as far as everyone I know of is concerned, that the 5th season has been by far the weakest to date. And watching seasons 2 and 3 on Netflix the last few weeks in between new episodes has just made more confident that isn't just a matter of looking at past seasons through rose-colored glasses, although I also kind of feel like the general outcry about this season is somewhat a backlash to the exaggerated praise that the 4th season (which was no my favorite) got. But with 2 episodes left in the series, there's still lingering hope that the series will go out on a high note, and episode 8 was great enough to encourage that optimism. And obviously, if you're not following the show online or OnDemand up to the point that you haven't seen the episode airing this Sunday, you're smart enough to avoid any possible SPOILERS and have stopped reading by now.

The big event of episode 8, of course, was the death of Omar. And it was handled perfectly, I think, largely because it wasn't treated as a big, climactic event. Omar was the closest thing to a folk hero or superhuman figure that the show had, and given his line of work and the show's history of deflating myths and dramatic tropes, and the fact that Omar was initially not conceived as a major character that would last through the whole run, it was more or less a sure thing that he'd go down this season. The way he survived a 7 story fall was a little hard to believe, but it didn't feel too much like a fake-out, and I liked the way things played out after that. There was something ominous (but not, I don't think, heavy handedly so) about his scenes in episode 8, that I was just waiting for it to happen any second. It was kind of chilling to see him limping around but still as ruthless as ever, although I think not quite as affecting as when he ended up in lockup in season 4, and he showed that serious fear in his eyes for the first time. But what really made the episode great was how the death of this legendary figure in the show's sphere was treated as a blip in the big picture, no shock to the people that knew him and buried in the metro section of The Sun with no mention by name (and, apparently, an inaccurate age, if the birthdate on his card in the morgue was accurate -- and if it is, Omar is apparently 6 years older than the actor who portrayed him, which is a little weird.

Of course, there were two other episodes before that that have run since the last time I posted about The Wire, and those were devoid of anything as exciting or as well executed (I never thought I'd say this, but I'm really sick of Clay Davis now). Thinking back, one of the scenes that struck me in the gut the most this season was way back in the fouth or fifth episode, where McNulty checked in with his sons. It's shocking how much older they are than the last time they appeared on camera, and it's very clearly the same actors as back in the first season, and it helps you really get a sense of how much he's missed and flaked out on as a father, even if he saw them (at least a little) more often than the audience has.

There were some fun, playful moments in these last few episodes, though: I liked the little bit in episode 7 with the cameo by Richard Belzer, at the bar 2 seats down from Dennis Mello, played by Jay Landsman, who Belzer's Homicide character John Munch was based on (and this was apparently the tenth series that Belzer has appeared on as Munch now). Personally, I think they should've gone all the way with the inside baseball and put The Wire's "Jay Landsman" character, played by Delaney Williams, in the scene, too, but that's just me. I was happy enough at another entertaining glance at the show's fictional cop bar, which is shot in The Sidebar, the downtown metal/punk rock club that my last band played at a few times.

Another scene that was rife with inside baseball references that highlighted the difference between the show and the real world was the one that opened episode 6. Carcetti's speech mentioned several real-life past Baltimore mayors, including both Martin O'Malley and Kurt Schmoke. I'm not sure if Schmoke's been mentioned on The Wire before, but this was definitely the first time O'Malley's been mentioned by name on the show. Besides being kind of an obvious jab at all the simplistic "Carcetti = O'Malley" speculation that plagues the character, much to David Simon's chagrin*, it's an interesting little confusion of chronology, since O'Malley's mayoral term in real life was basically the same period of time as Royce's term on the show (which maybe pushes the O'Malley era further back into the 90's in The Wire's canon, if you really wanted to think of it in those terms). Plus, the current governor in Wire world is still some (unnamed?) Republican, vaguely standing in for Bob Ehrlich, who was unseated a year ago by the election of O'Malley. For a show that's so painstakingly internally consistent, it was a weird little monkey wrench to throw in, but it's not like a huge bungle, which is what this whole fake serial killer thing is going to feel like if they don't really wrap it up well with a big payoff in the next couple episodes.

* One thing I will say in Simon's defense is that, as much as it frustrates people when storytellers of any kind deny any real-life basis for characters and events, I think it's an absolute necessity for artists. For the same reason that biopics are usually either terrible, or take too many liberties with the truth, but often both, trying to tell a true story in a creative medium completely cripples both creative freedom and the ability to be truthful. The storyteller is better off taking bits of the truth where they want to as a starting point, diverting whenever it suits them, and never being help responsible for how much the real life parallels line up. If all you want is a documentary, don't even bother with a work of fiction.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 7:54 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.