The creators of The Wire have, with each new season, expanded the size and scope of their fictional Baltimore. And in each new sphere of interest on which they turn their lens, they find people who behave very much like those they've shown in earlier seasons. In season two, for example, they showed how similar the poor and despondent white people of the docks were to the poor and despondent black people of the projects (whom they had already shown in season one to be operating on the same basic, flawed principles as the police who hunt them). Now, in season three, we find the city council, mayoral staff and police commissioner operating in the same underhanded way as all those we've seen in earlier seasons. Further, and this is where the scope of The Wire really begins to pay dividends, the people in each of these supposedly separate and insulated areas turn out to be much more tightly linked than we might suspect. Money, it seems, is the great uniter. And, as Lester Freamon says, when you start following the money, you never know who'll get caught up in the net.
In the first season, the Deputy for Operations (commissioner in the third season) Ervin Burrell, when told that Lt. Daniels's unit was looking into the Barksdales' money, advised strongly against it, going so far as to order the return of $20,000 discovered in the possession of a state senator's driver. Daniels and his unit are shut down early enough in their investigation that they never get to see where that money would have taken them. But in its third season, The Wire shows us the interlocking web of political payouts and backdoor deals that makes the city of Baltimore go 'round. And, as a result, we also see why it's all but impossible for any individual (or even an individual unit like Daniels's MCU) to do anything about it. The corruption is systemic, flowing back and forth between all levels of the city. When corruption is the status quo, reform is all but impossible.
Season three of The Wire directly addresses the futility of reform from its opening scene wherein Mayor Royce detonates the project towers (the location of the worst drug dealing in the city) and announces that sweeping changes will be made in the area. The rest of the season charts the occasionally horrific unintended consequences of this sweeping reform. Before the high-rises came down, the Barksdale crew and Prop Joe's crew were splitting the drug trade in the six towers. Everyone in town knew who owned the towers and no one messed with them. After the towers came down, it was open season on Baltimore's drug corners. Everyone had to fight for new real estate, re-establish themselves in a new part of town. As a result, crews began to war and bodies began to fall. The mayor had promised sweeping changes that would make everyone safer. What he got instead was more murders and an increased visibility for the drug trade.
The demolition of the housing project towers deliberately echoes the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. That event, as horrific and traumatic as it was, was also the perfect opportunity to call for radical change and sweeping reform. But serious reform is an almost impossible task to manage and, perhaps more relevantly, one that is also politically dangerous. Better to make stirring speeches about reform and then go about living life as we always had. As a result almost nothing about the way most Americans live their lives was changed because of 9/11. So too in The Wire's Baltimore. Change, despite Mayor Royce's declarations to the contrary, is just a watchword.
Although nothing much changed for most Americans after 9/11, the leaders of this country used that event to start a couple of wars. One of them was probably justified and maybe even overdue. The other had a tenuous connection at best and can probably be attributed mostly to pride and a false belief in the power and indomitable strength of our more perfect union. Similarly, in the streets of Baltimore, where Barksdale's crew is now forced to compete with all the 'off brand niggas', a war is brewing. And like George W. Bush, who used turbulent times as an excuse for a vainglorious military enterprise, Avon Barksdale chooses to fight for territory rather than take the more prudent course of action suggested by some in his organization (namely Stringer Bell). Rather than appear weak, Barksdale chooses a preemptive strike that is initially successful but soon reveals an opposition much more deeply entrenched than ever imagined (sound familiar?). And it becomes the downfall of the Barksdales' reign much as Bush's Iraq fiasco is proving to be the downfall of his Presidency.
The entire third season of The Wire is, in essence, an extended metaphor for America's misadventures in the Middle East. Take, for instance, the way the Barksdale crew attempts to use the death of Stringer Bell at the hands of Omar and Brother Mouzone to their advantage by blaming the hit on Marlo's crew. Avon and his war time consiglieri Slim Charles know Marlo had nothing to do with Stringer's death in the same way that Bush and Cheney knew that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11. But because it's an idea they could use to further their goals, both Avon and Bush allow their supporters to believe the lie. As Slim Charles says, 'We fight on the lie.'
The irony and maybe the genius of this metaphor is that for the characters in The Wire, events on the world stage are more or less irrelevant. In episode ten, when asked by his political consultant paramour whom he voted for in the 2004 Presidential election, Detective Jimmy McNulty says he didn't see much point in choosing between them. On the streets he polices, he doesn't see much interest one way or the other from the federal government and he sees no indication that this might be changing any time soon. To him, and indeed to most of the characters on this show, which well-bred white man becomes the leader of the nation is more or less irrelevant. Of course, had the characters of The Wire been paying attention to the drama and intrigue surrounding the White House the last five years, they would have seen an exact reflection of the same drama that has engulfed their lives.
Each season of The Wire extends the show's reach into different areas of Baltimore. And by the end of each new season, the audience is shown that not only are the people who inhabit each of these areas more or less the same regardless of their financial or political worth, but they are also much more closely connected than even they realize. Their problems are human problems and they don't change just because you wear a badge or hold elected office. The hubris that leads a President to choose preemptive war over sanctions is the same pride that leads the head of a drug dealing crew to choose to fight for corners rather than make the best of what he has. And because of the growing body count and seeming intractability of the war he created needlessly, George W. Bush finds himself politically isolated and exposed. And thus, for Barksdale, the bodies that fall in his war bring the unwelcome attentions of the police that eventually leads to his downfall at their hands. The story's the same no matter whom it's about or what color their skin is. I suppose it's a variation on that old standby there's more that unites us then separates us but damned if it isn't the most genius iteration of that theme that I've ever seen.
