THE WIRE: SEASON TWO – david simon 8.6 / 10

The central theme of The Wire, the only one that remains consistent across all five seasons, is that of the dysfunction of institutions. No matter how big or small, legal or illegal, all institutions on The Wire are screwed up. The reasons for this are many and varied and are explored in great detail from many different angles. But in the end it almost always comes down to the simple fact that institutions are comprised of (often self-interested) individuals.

These people put themselves and their goals ahead of those of the institutions they ostensibly serve. Some do this because they think they know what’s best (e.g. Detective Jimmy McNulty who constantly goes outside the chain of command because it will serve his case, no matter the effect on the rest of the department). Some do it because they want to get theirs and they don’t care who that screws in the process (e.g. most everyone on The Wire but principally Bill Rawls who couldn’t care less what real world consequences come of his actions as long as his ass is covered). Some do it because they’re just plain incompetent or disinterested, having chosen to serve this particular institution out of necessity, circumstance or just plain boredom (e.g. any number of both dealers and police but particularly D’Angelo Barksdale and Roland Pryzbylewski). But whatever their motivations, the fact that these individuals do not have the interests of the institution foremost in their minds all but guarantees that the institution will be dysfunctional to one degree or another.

Much like the character flaws that make individuals more likeable, it is often these dysfunctions that make an institution appealing. There are countless scenes, for instance, where the dealers and their hangers on talk about ‘the game’ and its various rules. But the rules are constantly in flux because it’s a system defined by individuals and therefore always subject to change. Any system or institution is evolving from one day to the next, never staying the same. It exists in a dialectical relationship between the ideals of the institution, what it was meant to do when it was begun, and the needs and desires of the individuals that populate it.

Because the needs of the people and the goals of the institutions never completely align, it is impossible for anyone in the world of The Wire (and, from the show’s creators’ viewpoint, anyone in the real world as well) to achieve a complete victory. To get what he or she wants, that person will have to subvert to some degree the goals of the institution that they serve. And for the institution to achieve its goals, the desires of most of its members would have to be disregarded. As such, almost every ‘victory’ on The Wire is a hollow one and comes at a cost. This is even spelled out various times throughout the series. Freamon, for instance, tells McNulty near the end of season three that 'the job won’t fill [him] up, won’t make [him] whole' because the goals of the job and the goals of McNulty will never line up perfectly enough to leave them both fulfilled.

This, of course, can be frustrating for the audience. Television viewers have become accustomed to clean victories, especially on police shows. I watched nearly every one of NYPD Blue’s twelve seasons and despite being set in a city where the clearance rate for homicides hovers around fifty percent, I can only remember a handful of episodes in which the detectives didn’t get their man. Thus when, at the end of season two of The Wire, none of the various groups achieve what they had been seeking, it’s very easy for the viewer to be disappointed.

I mean, maybe it would be possible to live with the stevedores’ union being busted up and their dreams of a return to a living wage on the docks being dashed. Maybe it would be possible to live with the death of D’Angelo Barksdale and the disarray into which the Barksdale crew falls. Maybe it would even be possible to live with the detail letting The Greek slip through their fingers because he had made friends with Homeland Security. But all of those things together is hard to stomach. Especially considering the ways in which the various institutions snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, often through little more than incredibly bad luck and poor timing.

But if you look a little closer (which might as well be The Wire’s unwritten tagline), it becomes apparent that those who achieve success in the second season are those whose individual goals and desires line up almost exactly with those of the institution they serve.

The Greeks, for instance, have no lives outside of what they do for money. The two highest up in the organization, Spiros and The Greek, seem to spend every waking moment either at that rundown diner or at some sort of meeting. They have no personal lives to speak of, even laughing at the thought of having significant others. In short, their goals and the goals of the institution they run are almost identical. The only place that they do not line up exactly is in Spiros’s fondness for Nick Sobotka. And even this tiny display of human feeling very nearly results in the whole organization’s ruin.

An individual and an organization only ever have completely mutual goals when the individual gives up everything that makes his life worth living, everything that makes him human. Since there are very few individuals willing to give up that much of their lives in service to an organization (and certainly not enough to populate an organization of a decent size), we are left with a world full of corrupt and dysfunctional institutions. For David Simon and Co. it can be no other way. And denying it by having the protagonists of the show achieve victory would, to them, be a lie. And it certainly wouldn’t be the kind of show they want to make.

That said, none of this, no matter how clever, intricate or intellectually rewarding, changes the fact that having the season resolve itself in a not entirely satisfying manner leaves the viewer wanting. It may make the point better to have it all end this way; but the visceral charge of seeing Avon Barksdale’s crew in prison jumpsuits at the end of season one, for instance, is somewhat lacking here. The show is just a little too cerebral for it’s own good in season two. That’s a criticism that rarely gets leveled at a television show and in a perverted way that makes me love The Wire that much more. Plus, the writers manage to find ways, during the next three seasons, to satisfy both head and heart. So if it took them this tiny misstep to figure it out, who am I to complain?