The Wire: Episode 54 "Transition"

That blog had so much promise, but it just fell flat, IMO. These real-life toughs gave me no real insight as to just how realistically these characters are portrayed. Maybe the little nugget about how Prop Joe did/did not handle Marlo's insubordination was nice, but other than that, I didn't really glean anything new or profound.

 

Thanks for the deconstruction guys. I think DD and MW made some great points.

I just watched it now and feel the need to make some knee-jerk, emotional observations:

- Cheese's days are indeed numbered. He was the week link in Joe's operation; Marlo won't allow him to be the weak link in his.

- Slim made it this far by switching allegiances from Avon to Prop Joe. It will be interesting to see whether he will switch allegiances again or stands up. His comment to Omar makes you think he's honorable, but then again he had a gun to his head.

- "It meant something" came up repeatedly in both the Herk/Carver and Prop/Cheese conversations. "We had something" says Beadie. Translation: It doesn't mean shit now.

- And, to state the obvious, Marlo killed Joe because he didn't need him anymore. Not for any other reason. Joe was smarter, more honorable. Marlo rises to the top because he's more ruthless.

And again, I still don't understand the fucking serial killer plot when you already have a sensational murder that's going unsolved. Why not blow the whistle on the vacant investigation getting scrapped.

 

And one more point: Am I the only one on here who thinks what Scott Templeton is doing is worse than what McNulty is doing? I bet not. Is it because we're in newspapers or we're biased to like McNulty?

 

It'll be interesting to see how the co-op unfolds once Marlo has control of the shipment. Will everyone work for him or does he have enough people to take over the entire city?

And how infuriating was it to watch Bonds snip Lester's federal case so he can keep the cases local ...

Funniest line of the night: "He was in the Glee Club."

 

I felt Gus' pain in the scene with the weasly m.e. I always had a rough time forgiving and forgetting the sins of my last paper. I'd point out their hypocrisy or how they shot themselves in the foot and in return I'd get a speech about my attitude or language. I was always sorry for giving a fuck.

 

MW

Long time no see.

I agree with your take on the co-op--it is capitalism at almost its purest form. It is a way for small businessmen to protect themselves as a group while maintaining their independence, and as is in other industries, afford them the opportunity for better pricing through purchasing power Of course, you can argue that exclusivity in assigning sales territories is anti-capitalist and probably the major contributing factor to the violence on the streets in the show.

I think you were being slightly facetious about if it were socialism they'd give the package away for free. No, if it were socialism, they'd price it according to the resources and economic well-being of each of the members.

However, the "small businessman" ideal that people refer to when talking about capitalism is only one side. The cut-throat, take no prisoners (hi,Walmart!) is the darker side.

 

Indeed. Marlo and Joe are both capitalists. They're just capitalists of a different breed.
Joe is the Chamber of Commerce. The go-along-to-get-along, keep everyone happy, grow-the-pie type of capitalist.
Marlo, as was mentioned, is Wal-Mart (or at least one popular image of Wal-Mart). The play-to-win, cut out inefficiencies (like Bodie), grab-as-big-a-slice-of-the-existing-pie as possible type of capitalist.
And I guess that would make the Greeks China, who don't give a shit what happens in Baltimore as long as they've got a market.

And someone above questioned where Slim falls in all of this. My bet is he still has a role to play, against Marlo. He's a soldier but always a stand-up guy, a guy with a code. Remember the "Sunday truce" speech in Season 3, or the respect he showed Cutty when Cutty wanted out? That's Joe's way, not Marlo's. No, I think we see him again, with a gun on Chris or Snoop, or at least Cheese.

 

And extending that analogy, Stringer Bell would be Chairman of the Board.

"The chair don't recognize your ass" That scene still cracks me up.

And the Wire continues with the death of another person we have grown to love and sympathize with.

Wallace

Frank Sobotka

Stringer Bell.

Bodie

Prop Joe.



In any other TV series, Marlo will not make it out alive but it's The Wire.

 

This is how I understand a co-op.

" A cooperative is a business owned and controlled by the people who use its services. They finance and operate the business or service for their mutual benefit. By working together, they can reach an objective that would be unattainable if acting alone.
The purpose of the cooperative is to provide greater benefits to the members such as increasing individual income or enhancing a member's way of living by providing important needed services. The cooperative, for instance, may be the vehicle to obtaining improved markets or providing sources of supplies or other services otherwise unavailable if members acted alone."

From http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/cir7/cir7rpt.htm

The co-op started by Prop Joe provided the individual members something they could never attain on their own. They had their money cleaned and political protection provided. It also provided market peace.

I am very familiar with electric cooperatives. They were founded by a large membership base that needed electric lines built to their country homes. By themselves, the owners could not afford bringing the service to their residences, but as a group they could. I feel Prop Joe's co-op works much in the same way.

Marlo is now strong enough to no longer need the co-op. Thus, he decides to kill off of a co-op member and the co-ops founder. Marlo, I'm guessing, will make a run at all of the co-op members and take their corners. Kind of like a guy named Mike who had two brothers, but both brothers are dead now.

Prop Joe was also leaving for out of town, so the other members probably will not notice his absence until the next meeting.

 

The difference between Marlo and the others is that Marlo is about power. The others, including Stringer Bell, were about making money and trying to go legit. Marlo is all about territory and is almost stunningly naive about money. He's Avon before Avon got involved with Stringer.

 

Actually, Avon and Stringer came up together. But, yeah, I see your point.
And it speaks to an interesting point that I think goes unremarked on in all the intergenerational tumult in The Wire at the moment: That, as much as we love Prop Joe and as practically-angelic as the Barksdales may seem at the moment, they helped create Marlo, and certainly helped create the conditions in which he thrives. The drugs they shipped in by the truckload devastated the neighborhood he grew up in - it was a much different place than the neighborhood Joe, or even Avon, came out of.
We don't know anything about Marlo's family life (unlike Avon), likely because he doesn't have one (also unlike Avon), and it isn't unreasonable to guess that drugs have a good bit to do with that.
He looks to be in his early 20s, about the right age to be just barely post-crack, while Avon and Joe knew something of life before crack. And while I don't enough about the specifics of drugs in Baltimore to say (and I realize that The Wire's drug of choice is heroin), I do know that, in a lot of inner city neighborhoods, a lot of community types can tell you exactly when crack arrived, to the month, even the week. Its impact was that devastating, and neighborhood-destroying.
So someone Marlo's age, who grew up post-crack, would come from a very different place than someone 8 or 10 years older, like Avon and Stringer. And, along with all the other social ills, he probably wouldn't know much beyond the street, or have any interest in influence in the straight world, or going legit. So, yeah, of course it's all about wearing the crown in the only world he knows.

 

As an aside, do you remember the scene a couple of episodes ago where McNulty is fucking the woman he picked up in the bar, from behind on the hood of a car? My veteran and well placed sources in the Baltimore Law Enforcement community tell me that it is from a real situation a number of years ago, except in the real case, a homicide detective was fucking an Assistant State's Attorney on a car in the parking garage or lot across from police HQ in Baltimore, and was witnessed by a few of his fellow detectives. Simon knew this from his time on the crime beat.