"The Wire," Year Four

Minor spoilers ahead.

It takes a few episodes for a season of "The Wire" to settle in, introduce its new characters, and establish what the new status quo is going to be. So the first part of Season Four is mostly scene setting. An election pitting Carcetti against Mayor Royce upends the Major Crime Unit, sending Greggs and Freamon to Homicide, and leaving Herc to deal with a hostile new commander without much backup. McNulty and Carver are still in the Western. With the Barksdale crew out of the picture, a younger, meaner operator named Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector) has moved in, with his enforcers Chris (Gbenga Akinnagbe) and Snoop (Felicia Pearson). As for the two police who found themselves disgraced and defeated at the end of Season Three, Pryzbylewski and Colvin, they both find their way through different channels to Edward J. Tilghman Middle School. Prez is starting a new career as a math teacher, and Colvin is recruited to help spearhead an alternative program for high-risk kids.

And that brings us to the real main characters of this season, eighth graders Dukie (Jermaine Crawford), Randy (Maestro Harrell), Mike (Tristan Wilds), and Namond (Julito McCullum). The four are friends, and assigned to Prez's homeroom and math class together. They're good kids more or less, but in danger of being lost to the street, and at a crucial age of transition. Namond is the son of Avon Barksdale's associate Wee-Bey (Hassan Johnson), and is expected to follow in his footsteps. Dukie and Mike have terrible home lives that push them toward bad choices. Randy might be too smart for his own good. There are well-meaning adults in their lives who try to keep an eye out for them, including Prez, Colvin, Cutty Wise, and even Carver. However, on the flip side, the boys have to contend with an overstressed, test-obsessed school system, failing social safety nets, and the inescapable drug culture. This season of "The Wire" is devoted to how the system perpetuates itself, showing us how a group of ordinary school kids could become the next Omar, Bubbles, and Avon Barksdale.

Having heard so much about how Season Four tackles the Baltimore school system, I was expecting the show would spend more time there. However, it's only one story out of many. Most of the early part of the season is dominated by the election and politics. The police stay busy hunting Marlo Stanfield, and this year's big case is really more of a non-case. The police suspect Marlo's takeover of the Western District has been violent, but nobody can find the bodies. This season more than any of the others feels sprawling and overstuffed. Characters like McNulty and Omar hardly seem to have a reason to appear at all, but they do. Some, like Daniels and Greggs, are perhaps being set up for bigger developments down the road, but don't see much of the action this year. And yet, this season contains some real gems, and builds and builds to the most powerful climax the show has had yet. We get to see characters like Herc, Carver, Prez, and Bubbles wrestling with failure and responsibility. We get to Carcetti discover the awful price of success. The show's writing has never been better, the social criticism never sharper, nor the drama more compelling.

Many have sung the praises of this season of "The Wire," pointing to the way it layers all these different narratives together, and the way that it shifted gears to address a system as complicated as education. What gets to me is that we are four seasons in, and the writers can pull out Dukie, Mike, Randy, and Namond, and make it feel like they were the main characters all along. Or take a former jerkass like Prez and make him one of the most sympathetic good guys on the show. Or seriously question the moral compass and competence of Herc. It's one thing to show the larger failings of the system, but "The Wire" never forgets that the system is made up of individuals, and it's the smaller, personal failings of characters we've gotten to know and trust, that hit so hard. And the little moments of heroism, undertaken in spite of their apparent futility, that hit even harder.

This is the darkest season of "The Wire" by far, but also the one that offers the most hope. In stepping off the street, looking at its boundaries and how the kids cross over, "The Wire" shows us there are ways out. It doesn't just portray the problems, but potential solutions, paths not taken, and hard choices not made. It's what makes the season such a potent tragedy, and gives it so much impact.

I can't wait to see how this all wraps up in Season Five. Onwards.
---