The Wire – Undertow
Season 2, Episode 5
Directed By: Steve Shill
Written By: Ed Burns, from a story by David Simon and Burns
Read out “The Wire” Project here. Read about the previous episode here, or click here to see the total coverage. Assume spoilers for the episode
After
a long break from The Wire
(non-cinema issues: moving apartments, overload of work, some other stuff) I
was afraid if I could jump back into the show without it losing its magic. It
had been over a month, and while I had not forgotten about lonely fighter
McNulty, the cautious and adaptive Stringer Bell, and the moral conundrums of
Frank Sobotka, I wondered if the show would start to show fatigue, just from
being more of the same. But The Wire
always finds new ways to not just put its characters in new places, but make us see
these characters differently. Not a complete 180 or anything, but to really
understand their true convictions.
But
“Undertow” is one of the most plot
heavy episodes of The Wire. Ed Burns
and director Steve Shill have no rush of plot, and nothing revelatory or
shocking happens. But small nudges reveal these characters as the police
attempt to break into the port culture, a self-contained world where everyone
protects themselves. When Freamon, Bunk, and Russell present Grand Jury summons
to a number of workers, Frank laughs in their face almost manically. He knows
these guys are loyal to the end, as long as he’s loyal to them.
But
how long can he provide for them? His son, Ziggy, has already moved into the
drug game, poorly of course, as he has his car stolen and torched by the thugs
who lent him a cocaine. When Nick unsuccessfully tries to haggle it back, while
simultaneously searching to find a house for his girlfriend and daughter (“we
can rent” after seeing the price of one), he decides that heading into the drug
business may be his only way off the ports. This becomes especially essential
when he knows Frank, in an effort to keep police off him, keeps the “shipping
business” to a low. But Frank knows he can’t protect them through good honest
work. When Spiros attempts to convince him to allow three boxes to go by
unnoticed, he tells Frank, “They used to make steel there, no?” Port life is
dying, and Frank refuses to face the fact that he may be the last of his
generation.
If
Frank won’t evolve his union, it may still die because of the outside pressure.
While the “gang back together plot” has lost the edge from its first season
freshness, it is nice to see Carver and Freamon in the detail again, even if
everyone knows the play. In Season One, there was a sense of discovery from
these characters, each hiding their own little secrets. This episode, all we
get is Herc playing “white trash” and acting smug about it the entire time.
However, McNulty continues to fight
for saving the one girl and finding her family. An immigration officer (Mr.
Shill lets us see the “Department of Immigration” logo being replaced with a
Homeland Security logo) asks McNulty why he’s using his spare time to solve
this case. I don’t think McNulty really knows, which only leads to a dead-end
in New Jersey, but he’s fighting for something to hold on for. When we see him
at his port job, we get the feeling that he knows nothing else, and thus must
continue to fight.
But
this episode is packed beyond that! Donette finally visits D’Angelo in prison,
attempting to bring him back into the “family business.” Stringer takes lessons
from his economics class in order to fix the bad product problem (“Has anyone
here ever heard of Worldcom?” he asks the soldiers). Omar preps for the Bird
trial and goes suit shopping. And Russell meets with an old fling in the hopes
of turning him into a CI. It’s the accumulation of plots that makes “Undertow”
one of the less interesting episodes, but also shows what David Simon and Ed
Burns can do. We constantly cut between story after story, without any sense
that we need of a main plot, or resolution to any of these. Instead, life
happens.
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