This whole season being available OnDemand is really ****ing up the weekly discussion. Because by the time us regular mopes can talk about the most recent episode, the folks with On Demand have already seen the next one. We almost need two different threads.
(Crap. I wrote so much I had to break into two posts.)
I feel like the whole key to this episode (47, Misgivings) was in Poot's line about global warming.
"So why is it so cold?" Bodie says.
"Yo, we ... just getting old." Poot answers.
Seems like that's the running theme through this episode. As you age, you see things differently. (Unless you're Herc.) Bodie and Poot, they're not just young hoppers on the corner anymore. They're hardened players, with Bodie asking himself (in a very Tony Soprano-esq way) what exactly are the rules of the game? Michael, after killing off his stepfather, suddenly has a taste of what power feels like. He's getting older, hinting at who he'll become. Then you've got the scene with McNulty and his ex-wife, where she says, "If I'd have known you were going to turn into a grown up..." He's grown up too, as has Carver. Namond is growing older too, but in a different way.
The scene with Bunk and McNulty and their kids at the restaurant tells you everything you need to know about the message behind the season, especially when you combine it with Colvin's speech about trying to educate these kids the same way the system tried, and failed, to educate their parents, cousins, brothers and sisters. McNulty's kids want to be a video game designer and a rock star. Bunk's kids want to be the chief of police and a neurosurgeon (though obviously Bunk was kind of joking about that one). Bunk's youngest son looked so much like the little kid with the foul mouth who is always hanging around Namond and Donut (car thief) it tells you exactly why the corner kids can't choose a different life. Because, as Bunny said, they all know what we expect them to be. And at the same time, to prove the point one last time, we've got McNulty schooling the young officer on police work, teaching him how to be good police, and Bunk saying, "It's got to come from somewhere."
As Boobie pointed out, amazing work by the writers in making us feel, if only for a second, like we understood Chris a bit more as he was beating Michael's stepfather to death. The beauty of this show, so often, reveals itself in what's not said. We don't need Chris to tell Snoop, "I was molested too!" because we get it, just by the way he looked at Michael. Chris KNEW. Nothing else had to be said. We knew what was going on in Michael's head when he looked at his mother (though I disagree that she has any clue he had anything to do with it; I think he was just gloating to her that Bug's dad wasn't coming back, just like he said).
I say this having, obviously, not seen episode 48, but I don't think Randy dies. I think what would be even more interesting, and in a way more tragic than Michael killing Randy, would be if Randy felt he had to do something to prove himself to his friends again since word is out that he's a snitch. Instead of his death, I feel like it would be almost more awful if Randy had to kill someone himself, and get into the Game, to show the neighborhood that he's not some little snitch. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe Marlo rethinks his decision that "he can't hurt us" once Lester and Bunk start opening up the vacants, but I still think, sadly, Dukie is going to be killed somehow, because he's the most innocent. Simon has preached for years that drugs destroy people's lives, but the war on drugs destroys communities, and innocent kids like Duquan are the ones who suffer.
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