If you have not seen The Wire:
Step 1) Stop reading immediately (though you probably would do this anyway). There are spoilers below, and I will not be held responsible for ruining the greatest show of all time.
Step 2) Watch the entire series on HBO Go. If you do not get HBO, this is a fixable problem.
Step 3) Come back and read all of the character reviews I've completed so far.
Previous Installments
Characters #30 - #26
Characters #25 - #21
Characters #20 - #16
Characters #15 - #11
10) "Proposition Joe" Stewart
Proposition Joe is what you'd call a "screen presence". Though he's never really a central character (he has only 216 lines in the entire series, the 33rd-most), a Prop Joe appearance simply demands your attention. He first shows up at the East-West basketball game in Season 1 in a full suit on a hot day, and has a quick retort when Avon Barksdale gets on his case for it. He then manages to hustle the west-side kingpin by bringing in a ringer after the bet on the game is doubled.
Joe is one of the most devious, cunning characters on the series and typically finds a way to stay one step ahead. He's got great quotes, outstanding vocal range, and is likable for his businesslike way of running the east side drug trade. Similar to Stringer Bell, he'd prefer to avoid violence if at all possible and take advantage of his relationship with the Greeks that control the shipments of drugs into Baltimore.
Joe serves as a mentor to Marlo Stanfield during Seasons Four and Five. He teaches Marlo about how to avoid trouble with the law and how to launder money. Unfortunately, he becomes a victim of Marlo's quest for power, as Marlo usurps Joe's connection with the Greeks and does away with him midway through Season Five. It's sad to see Joe go, but chances are if you like a character that's mixed up in the drug trade, David Simon will eventually kill him off.
Greatest Character Moment: Joe's meeting with Sergei and Nick Sobotka in Season Two. Joe's comment about his relatives is probably his best line of the series.
9) Ellis Carver
For much of the first two seasons, Carver is largely in the background and practically indistinguishable from his partner-in-crime (meant fairly literally, and remember, they're police), Thomas "Herc" Hauk. The two are largely in the background of the Barksdale and Sobotka investigations, relegated to minor surveillance work. This convinces them that they're being undervalued in their positions, and that sort of attitude leads them to steal from crime scenes. For the most part, Herc and Carver are uninteresting, bumbling comic relief to the point that where one of my friends texted me in the middle of Season Two, saying that the pair "seriously needed some development".
Of course, The Wire had plans for Herc and Carver.
Herc continues down a path of incompetence, severely damaging the lives of Bubbles, Randy, and others in the process and then ultimately working for the devil himself, Maurice Levy. Carver, on the other hand, probably develops more than any other character over the course of The Wire's five seasons. He gets an excellent mentor in Bunny Colvin in Season Three, who tells him that better police work will get done if you establish relationships with people on the street than if you're a total hard-ass.
Carver takes that advice to heart and eventually becomes familiar with various street characters in the drug trade, most notably Bodie Broadus. He becomes a far more effective and righteous officer over the final three seasons, with probably the biggest break from his former self being shown in Season Five. Officer Colicchio, a friend of Herc and Carver's, is involved with assault on a teacher. The old Carver probably would have let him off the hook somehow. Instead, Carver doesn't stand for it and disciplines his friend, despite pleadings from Herc. He accepts his post as a leader and realizes that his duty rises above his friendships. In the series finale, Daniels oversees his promotion to lieutenant, saying "I'm glad I got to do this at least." It's a great moment for both characters.
Carver's best, and unfortunately, saddest storyline comes from his relationship with Randy Wagstaff in Season Four. Daniels, seeing the maturation of Carver, sees fit to entrust Randy to his care when it's clear Randy has information regarding a murder. When Randy's home is attacked and his foster mother is put in critical condition, Carver does absolutely everything he can to keep Randy out of a group home, even offering to become his guardian. Though Carver fails -- and even though it's absolutely gut-wrenching when he does -- his efforts show just how far he's come as an officer, and as a man.
Greatest Character Moment: I linked to this scene in my section on Randy, but seeing Carver's reaction at the end of the scene in which he drops off Randy at the group home is one of the most emotional events of the entire series.
8) Howard "Bunny" Colvin
Bunny is a veteran of the Baltimore Police Department and seems to be more in touch with the true purpose of police work -- public safety and community support -- than any other cop on the show. He's disgusted with the stat-juking and meaningless hits on minor drug dealers that's stressed relentlessly throughout the BPD. With a major's pension on the horizon and a wealth of experience, he feels he's ready to start implementing outside-the-box solutions to effect positive change, Commissioner Burrell's orders be damned.
Colvin's concept of free zones in the city ("Hamsterdam") where drug dealing and use are tolerated proves to be extremely successful in the western district. By concentrating non-violent drug activity in select places, violence in residential areas drops significantly. This pleases his superiors, but also arouses suspicion. When the idea is leaked to the press, it's not received all that well and political higher-ups can't support it. The mayor and Burrell both need a "fall guy" to spin the story right, and all the weight falls upon Colvin, whose pension is severely cut upon his retirement from the force.
In Season Four, we again see Colvin putting his creative ideas to use with school children. He separates the troublemakers ("corner kids") from the rest of the class and attempts to teach them in a different way, in hopes that some can be reached. By removing the disruptive kids, the strategy pays dividends on the normal classes and a few corner kids respond well to the special classes, particularly Namond Brice. Colvin ultimately adopts Namond, convincing his father Wee Bey that it's for the best. However, the school system shuts down his program, citing that they are under too much scrutiny from budget constraints.
Both of Colvin's ideas would be revolutionary in their respective spheres, and through him The Wire showcases the potential benefits of programs that aim towards real results, rather than numbers that can be spun to please a person's superiors or electorate. Bunny is an extremely selfless character who just wants to see things change for the better. The system prevents him from making a long-term difference, but at least he was able to save Namond.
Greatest Character Moment: The first time we realize Colvin is a visionary, his paper bag speech in the wake of Officer Dozerman's shooting.
7) Jimmy McNulty
David Simon insists that there is no "main character" on The Wire and that the city of Baltimore is the central character. However, if there was a central character, it would be McNulty, who has more than double the amount of lines of any other character on the series. He's the first person we meet, and it's been suggested that in a show as difficult to follow as The Wire, it was necessary to have a relatable character, someone we've seen before. McNulty is a womanizing, alcoholic cop with contempt for authority and the brilliance and determination to get the job done. Does this sound unique? Of course not. It sounds like the main character of a shitty crime show on USA or something. It's someone we've all seen before on TV.
Yet, despite being a tired archetype of the lead TV cop, McNulty is developed with such care and nuance that it's hard to consider him anything other than an amazing character. He's sometimes the beating heart of the show and sometimes he's a source of much-needed humor. Though he wants to crack tough cases and do whatever he can to get the job done, it's often questionable whether McNulty is even a good guy or what he even cares about. Is he trying to feed his ego, or does he actually want to make the city a better place?
The answer definitely lies somewhere in between. Stringer Bell is something of a white whale for McNulty (with the odd twist that Bell is the one who gets killed), and you get the sense that McNulty wants the trophy more than he wants Bell off the streets. On the other side of the coin, he takes genuine interest in Bodie Broadus and D'Angelo Barksdale, with the former's death affecting him to the point of abandoning his way of life at his happiest.
McNulty's job always gets in the way of his personal life and it's not hard to see how it dismantled his previous marriage and made him a less-than-ideal father (we're being generous here!). When he took a less-stressful patrol post in the western district, he was able to relax and enjoy a relationship with Beadie Russell, but McNulty had a hard time saving himself from himself after Bodie's death, and he went right back to his old habits in Season Five. Beadie tries to convince McNulty near the end of the series that his career pursuits won't bring him the happiness that a family would. It's open-ended whether McNulty takes that to heart once he's banned from real police work, but the implication is that things work out.
Greatest Character Moment: McNulty had no shortage of outstanding scenes, but if I had to pick just one, it would be the moment when the characteristics of the serial killer he invented were read to him near the end of Season Five.
6) D'Angelo Barksdale
D'Angelo is one of the first characters we meet in the series. We first see him being acquitted at a murder trial; upon his release, he takes over the Barksdale operations at 'The Pit', working closely with Wallace, Bodie Broadus, and Poot Carr. He proves to not only be an effective manager, but also a person well in-tune with how the world works. His discussion with his subordinates about chicken nuggets and the scene in which he teaches Bodie and Wallace how to play chess are two of the best in the first season, with the latter serving as an effective analogy of the drug trade that Bodie in particular takes to heart.
D'Angelo's dissatisfaction with the level of violence in the drug trade builds gradually over the course of Season One. He's sickened by the murder of the witness from his trial and wants nothing to do with issuing beat-downs to thieves, both inside and outside his organization. Oddly, his philosophy is perfectly aligned with that of Stringer Bell. Both understand that keeping the violence down will keep the police away. Though Bell's motivation is purely business, D'Angelo is truly hurt by the plight of others and it's clear he's a decent person at heart. Stringer sees this as a weakness in D'Angelo and a rift develops between the two due to the former's constant fear that D'Angelo will flip on the organization.
That ultimately culminates in Stringer having D'Angelo murdered in prison during Season Two, just after D'Angelo fittingly provides an interpretation of The Great Gatsby that boils down to a man not being able to escape his past. Even though D'Angelo splits from his uncle Avon and wants nothing more to do with their organization, "It don't matter that some fool say he different".
This review would not be complete without a nod to Larry Gilliard Jr.'s outstanding performance. D'Angelo rarely needs to speak to get you to feel anything, he can say it all with those big, often sad eyes. Disgust, anger, fear, -- hell, I bet he could have sold "joy" to you pretty damn well if his character ever experienced it -- are all conveyed perfectly with a simple facial expression. His death was one of the saddest of the series, and D'Angelo was certainly missed for the last three-plus seasons of the show.
Greatest Character Moment: Arguably the best scene of Season One, D'Angelo slowly comes to realize that McNulty was telling the truth about what happened to Wallace in this conversation with Stringer Bell.
No comments:
Post a Comment