The Wire: Cleaning Up
Season One, Episode
Twelve
Directed By: Clement
Virgo
Written By:
George Pelecanos, from a story by David Simon and Ed Burns
David
Simon’s The Wire is not really a show
that comments on itself or the genre of cop shows, but there is one particularly fine meta moment in “Cleaning Up.” The pieces aren't set up, but the order is made
to arrest Avon Barksdale without the needed evidence to convict him. McNulty and Daniels drive up to the club with SWAT,
and we see inside that Avon and Stringer are sitting in an empty office, calmly watching
the take down on security televisions. “I didn’t expect this to be so
anticlimactic,” McNulty mutters to himself.
It’s very
on the nose, but for this heartbreaking and devastating episode before the
season finale, it couldn’t be more perfect notice. This isn’t a show where the
heroes are going to walk away feeling good about themselves, and the bad guys will receive justice. This isn't even a show where "good" or "bad" make much sense. This is a show where everything comes at a balance, and
things goes on in temperament. “Cleaning Up” is the first Wire script written by George
Pelecanos, who before writing his first of many episodes, was a DC boiled
fiction writer. This episode feels very indebted to film noir, especially a
shot after McNulty and Daniels take Avon. McNulty stands in a doorway, covered
half in shadow. He is like Dave Bannion of The
Big Heat or the Phillip Marlowe of the Raymond Chandler novels, a detective
who must persevere, even when the possibilities for real change are impossible.
