White Power?
For arguably the first time, the city politics plotline really took center stage in last night's Wire with a continued focus on the way Carcetti's campaign is being aided by his friends in the Baltimore Police Department. Consistent with the spirit of season four so far, racial issues have been brought to the foreground in a way they weren't in earlier seasons, as I think we're pretty clearly supposed to see Major Valchek as motivated primarily by a desire to see one of his own in City Hall. From Valchek's perspective as, in essence, a dead-ender as commander of the Southeastern District, that seems to make sense. He's a pissy old man, entrenched in his position, but without hope of future advancement, so he can indulge his whims. Deputy Chief Rawls' pro-Carcetti sentiments, on the other hand, strike me as difficult to understand.
Rawls, presumably, would like to be commissioner. It seems to me that, logically, Carcetti is the last candidate who's going to be in a position to make that happen. As keeps being emphasized, his only hope of winning is for Tony Gray to split the black vote. Under the circumstances, to secure re-election, Carcetti's going to need to seriously bolster his support from African-Americans. Meanwhile, his law-and-order campaign is walking a knife's edge. On the one hand, the inner-city poor are the primary victims of crime so his emphasis on those issues gives him some access to that constituency. On the other hand, African-American voters tend (with reason) to be suspicious that efforts to mobilize concern about crime are, in practice, just part of the politics of white supremacy. Firing a black police commissioner to replace him with a white one would be a fiasco. Burrell, by contrast, has ample wiggle-room to reward supporters (see, e.g., Herc) irrespective of race.
Comments
You mean Royce, not Burrell, at the end, but yes, he can reward Herc easily. Of course, if Royce makes noises about a comeback, Mayor Carcetti or Gray can reward Herc for spilling his story onto page A1 [Valchek knows about the affair, so Carcetti would find out about it].
Also while Carcetti might not be able to promote Rawls, he might want to fire him, and a friendly tip might help him keep his current job. On the other side of the coin, Rawls obviously has lots of incentive to play both sides of the fence. And he can always dream that he'll become commissioner anyway.
The obvious conclusion to the campaign ... which the previews suggest won't happen ... is for Carcetti to be stuck in a situation where he can win the race by race-bating and have an hour's worth of moral quandry. Instead it looks like we're going to see Royce plant race-baiting flyers in poor black neighborhoods.
Or maybe Rawls thinks a white mayor is the only one who would appoint him commissioner. Hard to say, though you're probably right on the politics.
I'm curious about how having Tony Gray leak the information is going to play out. Since we don't know whether the leak did any good (Rawls's response seemed to blunt it pretty well), Tony Gray might be looking like an idiot, and might blame Carcetti.
I think you are underestimating Rawls. I think he is a pretty shrewd guy who is covering his bases. If Royce wins he'll never find out that Rawls sold him out. If Carcetti wins he may not become commisioner right away, but he strikes me as a patient guy.
What Eric K said. I don't see Rawls favoring Carcetti so much as hedging his bets by trying to get in with someone he now knows just might win (because of Odell Watkins' defection).
I also think there's a lot of resentment toward Royce within the police department; it seems like Royce has shorted them on a lot of things, of which the witness protection is just the most visible symbol (in Season 3, there was the whole thing about funding for the police academy--I forget the specifics, but it was another example of neglect by Royce).
Ogged--I think Rawls' move may have blunted the attack, but I don't think it completely countered it. Even if it's just 'confusion' accounting for the conflicting stories about who's running the investigation, that still reflects badly on the people running things.
any explanation as to why i don't get 'the wire' in HD?
and, what about rawl being seen in a gay bar one or two years ago. nothing ever came of that
I think Valchek is all about feeding his own ego. He’s way too cynical and self-interested to care about race. He helps Carcetti against Royce because he can, and because it increases his sense of importance. At the same time, he advises Herc on how to get ahead with Royce for the very same reasons. In previous seasons, we’ve seen him cooperating with Burrell when it suited his interests, and going after a predominantly white and Polish union with amazing viciousness just because he felt slighted.
Similarly, Rawls isn’t pro-Carcetti so much as he’s pro-Rawls. His tip-off to Carcetti is mostly just a way of hedging his bets, and maximizing his chance of becoming commissioner regardless of who wins.
Overall, the whole episode was a virtuosic and dizzying study of Machiavellian behavior. You’ve got Marlo scheming against Omar, but the Marlo-Omar feud is really just a by-product of Prop Joe’s scheme to force Marlo to join the co-op. Landsman is feeding Valcheck anti-Royce information while at the same time playing the loyal servant inside the homicide department. Valcheck feeds the information to Carcetti, who then gives it to Gray to give to the media. Royce pulls out every dirty trick in the book to try and win the election, while Rawls shrewdly plays both sides of the fence between Royce and Carcetti. Meanwhile Carcetti tries to get Watkins to support him with a canny mix of truthful political argument and fake poll numbers.
It’s pretty amazing how the writers can pull off this level of complexity, and still make it all seem realistic and character driven. It makes all of the double dealing in ‘The Departed’ seem primitive by comparison.
The Wire isn't filmed in HD, so you can't get it in HD.
It may be a cost-cutting choice of the producers.
Great summary, RC. Yeah, there is amazing complexity to the maneuvering...and what makes it realistic and convincing is that it's all subject to the law of unintended consequences. Things spiral out of control or fizzle without an explosion, just as they tend to do in the real world.
Episodes 7 through 10 of this season were just leaked to the Internet. After viewing them at a tech-savvy friend's house, occupied by a number of wire dope fiends, Matt is damn near prophetic about the dilemma of replacing a black police commissioner with a white one. That issue dominates the political arc for that chunk of the season. Burrell exploits to his fullest the tight rope of staying in the good graces with the black Baltimore political infrastructure and the desire to realistically reform the police department.
oh, a spoiler tease. thanks for not giving us too much on it though.
RC is definitely right about Valchek and Rawls; they don't give a shit about race, but rather it's all about them. Valchek is a petty and egotistical asshole, like when he helped destroy the union in season 2. much the same, Rawls however actually has a possible future, as he isn't dead-ended in Southeast, so it definitely is a hedging situation.
i think the omar-marlo-prop joe situation is utterly fascinating. seeing marlo set up omar by having chris shoot a working (wo)man in cold blood just shows how far marlo is from some of the dictates and "ethics" of the drug trade, much like stringer bell (who broke the sunday truce in season 3, had d'angelo killed, etc).
stringer and marlo both are (were) beholden to the dollar in a way that people like avon were not. now prop joe with the co-op and his double dealing is following a similar route. contrast the morals of omar with marlo, bell, and now, prop joe (who straight up lied to omar in apologizing for the brother mouzone shit), and it's going to be interesting. i feel like prop joe is going to learn about marlo and his street "ethics" the hard way; or possibly prop joe flips it and brings that to marlo. we'll see. the parallels with the political and police department developments are obvious, and much the point.
as far as rawls being gay as shown last season, i'm wondering where that will end up as well. simon isn't one to raise serious possible issues with his characters and then not play those issues out. he's said that all of the story arcs finalize at the end in season 5, so we might have to wait a while. partly obviouls rawls' repressed sexuality was a secondary explanation for his being a complete asshole, but there has to be more there. it might be that if carcetti tries to make him commissioner, burrell or someone uses this to damage rawls and creates some serious inter-departmental issues.
can't wait.
"Episodes 7 through 10 of this season were just leaked to the Internet."
For reasons utterly beyond my comprehension, HBO distributed reviewer copies of the entire season before airing episode this season, thus guaranteeing anyone curious would be able to find out how it all ends.
That's really fucking bizarre. They don't do that with the Sopranos.
And, of course, anyone with HBO on Demand can already watch next week's episode and find out who won the primary. (Spoiler alert: Mark Foley got into the race late and pulled a surprising upset.)
Mr. P getting semi-control of his class and introducing a star chart was ridiculous. Wouldn't happen while he was alone with the class--it's what liberals want to believe, but in this case, fantacy. He hasn't earned their respect or their fear, so why would they sit nicely in their seats? The part where Mr. P gives away his lunch and the gift clothes being sold by "his people" was consistant with my experiences in the South Bronx.
"That's really fucking bizarre. They don't do that with the Sopranos."
Actually, this exact same thing happened with "The Sopranos" two seasons ago. The first 5 episodes were available *before the first episode aired!!*. With this season's "The Wire", only 4 of the review copies were converted and then published on torrent sites. What I'm waiting for, and what I think will spell the end of "on demand", is for someone to just post an On demand "Wire" episode using a machine with a good vid capture card the day it's available to cable provider's on demand service.
For anyone curious to see for yourself how ridiculously available wire episodes are (or any show for that matter), go to:
http://isohunt.com/
and put in the name of show you want to search for in quotes. e.g. "the wire"
"Actually, this exact same thing happened with "The Sopranos" two seasons ago. The first 5 episodes were available *before the first episode aired!!*."
I understand giving out review copies of the first few episodes of the season, but distributing review copies of the entire season the way The Wire did this year strikes me as beyond odd.
------
"What I'm waiting for, and what I think will spell the end of "on demand", is for someone to just post an On demand "Wire" episode using a machine with a good vid capture card the day it's available to cable provider's on demand service."
Why would that spell the end of "on demand"? There are lots and lots more folks willing to shell out a few bucks for cable than there are folks willing to get obsessive about the torrent hunt.
People pay for convenience.
My read on Rawls--he changed his tune from "take no prisoners hard ass" to "scratch mine, scratch yours" with all the people he expects to have bad dirt on the mayor and/or Burrell--major crimes and homicide. When the subpoenas hit and the witness leaked, he either a) made a connection that wasn't there and inned it all on Major Crimes, or b) decided that, in general, Burrell was facing an insurrection. He knew it came out of Homicide--his old detail--and that homicide had the chops to go toe to toe, particularly if they got a hold of everything major crimes had already found. Maybe they were already working together (with McNulty able to serve as a go-between). So what does Rawls do? He teams them all up together to make sure they share their info. He is hedging his bets and playing both sides against the middle. He doesn't dissent from Burrell's call to sabotage the investigation into the witness murder, but talks shit behind Burrell's back (and may be secretly pleased that the dirt is in the hands of the major crimes transfers b/c there's a connection still to be made). Another possibility is that he has some territorial or practical feeling about Homicide being sacred ground. Versus fucking with the upstarts and flunkies in Major Crimes, now Burrell is undermining the wise old sage detectives in the most prestigious branch of the department. It's a move that could meet with dissent from Rawls for any number of different self-interested reasons. Those guys all earned their way and do the hard work to catch killers--they're the last people that City Hall should antagonize with a murder rate this out of control, right? Or, my favorite theory, maybe Lester saw him at the gay bar (remember how uninterested he was in Bunk's attempts to embarass himself at the bar) and now Rawls is treating Lester like Royce is treating Herc.
I think giving out the entire season probably has a lot to do with the hugely positive critical response to this season. I mean, the critics don't have to hedge their reviews by saying 'I don't know where they go after the first four episodes...'; they can just say 'this is a fantastic season'. It fits in with the OnDemand pre-release of episodes. HBO seems determined to make this show the hit it deserves to be...and I'm all for it.
"critics don't have to hedge their reviews by saying 'I don't know where they go after the first four episodes...'; they can just say 'this is a fantastic season"
No doubt it's a promotional stratagem, but I still don't like it.
In the world of the internet, the zeitgeist is highly permeable to inside info. Critics who already know the resolution of the series are likely to convey vibes of that resolution, even if they're trying to observe 'spoiler alert' rules.
(And, of course, there are always going to be assholes who aren't even trying to observe 'spoiler alert' rules.)
I don't read movie reviews before I go to the theater so I'll maintain the surprise. And for popular movies, there's a real advantage in seeing them the day they get released to avoid getting spoiled.
One of the joys of the popular HBO weeklies is being able to read what folks are saying on Monday without getting accidental reveals. Not closely holding the season's resolution jeopardizes that.
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"It fits in with the OnDemand pre-release of episodes. ... I'm all for it."
I've got no quarrel with HBO about OnDemand, but what I dislike is the blogospheric convention (also adopted by our host) of not blogging when the pre-release happens.
Since I watch the pre-release, the blogospheric discussion is always a week behind where I am, and thus isn't that interesting to me.
Petey,
You're probably right that having onDemand shows leaked onto torrent sites isn't enough of a loss of subscriber revenue to shut the service down. But I say that is right now, with the average person's technical awareness being below what's required to be even aware of bit torrent, let alone knowing how to actually use a given client to get a desired file. If the torrent technology becomes even slightly more "user-friendly", and gains the buzz and name-recognition of Napster, then the onDemand service emerges as a large liability to cable content providers. In the near future, it might not be that one has to be "obsessive" about torrents to be able to get any show one desires whenever one desires, a phenomenon that is even more appealing and convenient than onDemand.
There are of course people in this world without OnDemand ... notably, people with DirecTV subscriptions.
"There are of course people in this world without OnDemand ... notably, people with DirecTV subscriptions."
This is only true if one can really call such sub-humans "people".
"If the torrent technology becomes even slightly more "user-friendly", and gains the buzz and name-recognition of Napster..."
A rather unlikely scenario, IMHO. Unlike Napster, there is no profit motive in torrents. And the lack of profit motive, along with with the content industries' shock and awe lawsuits, are likely to prevent torrents from ever going mainstream in a Napster kind of way.
Petey,
To add to what Tom Hilton alluded to, I think they also were motivated by the fact that the show had not been renewed for a 5th season when Season 4 began. Allowing critics to watch all the episodes without waiting increases the chance people will watch them (I've heard TV on DVD is the new crack. and HBO already does this with partial seasons of Sopranos, Deadwood, etc). And they were confident the show would be critically hailed. (Which it was.)
So I think they figured it would help build buzz, maybe increase viewership, and then the positive press would make it more feasible to bring the show back for a 5th season. Basically, they pulled out all the stops to get recognized and publicized. In the sense that we're getting a 5th season, it seems to have worked.
apparently, HBO told Simon that renewal for Season 5 would be based on the critical reviews. Given some of the long story arcs, and how this show always gets better as a season progresses (this season is a perfect example), he certainly had a strong motivation to get the whole season into the hands of critics.
and seriously, ben is correct, TV on DVD is the new crack. just try and watch Season 1 of The Wire on DVD in one hour chunks. I dare you.
Petey, I avoid spoilers as well. The closest I've come to being spoiled on The Wire is in this comment thread. I haven't found them all that difficult to avoid. Then again, I haven't been as obsessive about this as I was about Serenity--in that case, I was hanging out on message boards, and did get horribly spoiled (asshole had the spoiler in the fucking subject line).
As for the season end, I think we all know it's going to end badly. It always does.
Since I watch the pre-release, the blogospheric discussion is always a week behind where I am, and thus isn't that interesting to me.
I have the same problem. I'm dying to talk about how the mayoral race came out, which I watched last night...but Matt isn't there yet.
I realize that most people do not have HBO on demand and are an episode ahead of everyone on this site. I suggest you check out http://heavenandhere.wordpress.com/ then. It is a great site dedicated to the Wire that is on the schedule with the OnDEMAND releases.
Good comment.Thanks admin.
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