The first four seasons in four minutes. (Via.)
Season 5 really got underway last night, but I’m not saying anymore lest I spoil it for those who haven’t seen it. I’m still trying to decide if I buy the event that happened at the end. Thinking back to McNulty in the first season, I’m thinking yes. Instead of spoiling too much, I’m going to jot down some thoughts and predictions about the characters that really show why people want to reclassify “The Wire” as literature more than TV, even though it’s obviously TV. Omar and Bubbles.
Omar
Omar wouldn’t be out of place in a short story by Flannery O’Connor, though she tended to invest in her moral outlaws a little less morality. Movies and TV shows about gangsters usually have the fatal flaw of romanticizing the gangster figure, which is true even of movies that are admittedly classic films like “The Godfather”, but “The Wire” manages to keep the audience grounded, even at the heights of film noir-esque story-telling (like the Avon vs. Stringer ending). The show is doing something different with the gangster narrative, and Omar really shows how it’s different.
For one thing, he’s not a gangster. He’s a bottom-dweller in their eyes, a man who lives by robbing drug dealers. And he’s so awesome, so weirdly moral, so well-written, and so interesting that he takes his place in the annals of romanticized literary criminality with ease. But it’s not romanticizing immoral lawlessness, really, because Omar targets people who deserve it on one level or another. Which is why it was so critical that Bunk got him out when he was pinned for killing a civilian, because Omar doesn’t kill civilians. If you find yourself on the end of his gun, you’ve made some choices that got you there. Imagine an angel of death who killed from the sinners randomly, and you have Omar. If you sin, you may not die, but if you die, you have sinned.
Does this explain why everyone is so afraid of him? I think so; it’s a bit unrealistic to think that a man that doesn’t have any support besides his lover who is mostly inexperienced with violence, and the occasional borrowed crew would be able to make all these powerful gangsters shudder to see him. His marginality is his power on a symbolic level. He’s the worm that will turn for you that lurks under your feet, your mortality clinging to the shadows where you’ve banished it. The fear that he instills in people is symbolic as much as a result of his skills.
But he’s a real human being, which is why the show makes you reach for literary allusions. It’s hard to render a character that’s both rich with almost magical symbolism and deep with a real human character, and probably close to impossible when you’re facing the time constraints put on a writer from drama. Granted, we’re 37 hours into this story, so they have a bit more time to flesh out his character, but still, it’s hard. His attraction to lively, sparkling people—and his immense guilt when one of them gets killed—creates the counterpoint to the shadowy, marginal way he lives. Like many characters on the show, his life’s work comes across onscreen as that of an artist. And Omar’s art is comical mostly. His robberies are played for laughs, not just in the viewing audience, but for him and his friends. The angel of death is, it turns out, a comedian. Should have known, huh?
I predict that Omar is the character most likely to live out the season, at least that’s directly involved in The Game. It would be weird to kill him and not befitting a show where the major theme is the inevitability of certain unpleasantries, with death being at the top of that heap.
Bubbles
Bubbles is also a character that you see in literature, especially that informed by Christian themes. He’s the leper, the outcast, the meek, the least among us, and therefore the soul of the entire show, possibly the person with the purest soul in in his weird way. The show’s approach to Christianity is interesting and ambiguous, but I think that the relationship between Cutty and the Deacon epitomizes it for me—Cutty reaches out to the church for organizational support but dismisses the claims of salvation, which the Deacon tacitly accepts. (You get the feeling he believes that the only point of the church is to create community, too.) In that sense, the show completely inverts the standard Christian literary themes, where theology is central and the bake sales non-existent. What little morality the church offers is that of the here and now, the flesh and the earth, the community and finding good in each other, not some third party above—that’s my take, anyway, feel free to offer your own in comments.
Which is why it’s kind of cool to have a character like Bubbles, who is a modern updating of characters like the prostitute in Crime and Punishment—there to illustrate the earth-inheriting meek—in the show. I like to think of Bubbles as a post-Christian character. No matter how much his suffering drifts off into Christian pathos, it’s always grounded again by the simple fact that things don’t have to be this way. From the beginning of the show, the possibility of kicking the junk has been dangled out for him, and now he’s actually doing it. There’s no reward in heaven. You have to live this life as if it’s the only one you’ve got.
I’ll admit that I was a bit concerned that Bubbles might get less interesting now that he’s clean and going to NA meetings. But the interesting turn of character—that hitting rock bottom meant that Bubbles would give up drugs, but also his cheeky demeanor in the face of living the unliveable life and his ability to love other people (which sounds corny as I write it, but works so well on the show)—means that he’s being set up for having the dark night of his soul. Could be very interesting.
As I write this, I realize that I’ve thought Bubbles was probably going to survive the series, too, but now I don’t think so anymore. The next step in his character arc is redemption and then probably death.
I’d like to offer other predictions, but already the show’s thrown me for a loop. My only thoughts are that Avon will get the better of Marlo and McNulty’s not long for the Baltimore PD. Michael will probably not live; ever since he sold his soul to Marlo to save his brother from a pedophile, he’s not been long for this world. Share your thoughts on the show in comments. Go ahead and call bullshit on my ponderous interpretations. If I cry, I just won’t run for President.
16 Responses to “Because thinking about the primary any more is giving me a headache, more “Wire” blogging”
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I, too, am shutting off from political coverage. I’ve just had it.
Now, I just need to watch The Wire all the way through rather than just the 5 or 6 episodes I’ve seen at my parents’ (and thoroughly enjoyed–good TV) so I’ll be able to take part in these conversations.
Omar is probably (hate to pin myself down) my favorite character on the show. If only for his “No killing on Sunday” rule. Mcnulty a close second.
God, I love this show. I will be so sad when it goes off the air.
I LOVE Omar and Bubs, too. I worry more about Bubs since Omar has chosen to play the game, “and it’s all in the game, yo”. Seeing the lost and forgotten of Baltimore through Bub’s eyes this season is a heart breaker. I hope you’re wrong about Bub’s future….but you ‘re probably on target.
I’ve only watched the first two seasons. Do any later later episodes go into why Omar decided to live in such high tension within his community? Was he just pushed to the sidelines because he’s gay, or what? I think he’s a wonderful character, but I don’t see how he got to be who he is.
On on demand there are three short prequels. One very interesting and telling one involves Omar as a child.
One complication for Bubs is that, even as a junkie, he had a purposeful and useful life — running his “store,” and working as a CI for Kima et al. He suffered a great deal, too, from his addiction, most significantly from his friends who were hurt or died because of their connections with him. But people relied on him and respected him. There was a reason to get up every day, even beyond getting his next high.
Now he’s clean, but he seems a little disconnected and drifting. He’s not doing the CI work that only he is capable of doing. He’s not out among all the folks he knows in the neighborhood with his store. And, of course, he’s not schooling any young junkies.
The trajectory from Season 4 to Season 5 has gotten Bubbles on the wagon, and McNulty off — and it’s screwing up both of their lives.
I think there’ll be a Snoop versus Omar showdown. Also, Michael versus Chris.
On on demand there are three short prequels. One very interesting and telling one involves Omar as a child.
They were available at Amazon as well, at least for a while, and are probably available at HBO or YouTube.
Other predictions–Kima will side with McNulty, and go down with him in the end. Proposition Joe will survive, if not thrive, even though he’ll also be skating the edge the whole time. Carcetti will start fucking around again, perhaps with Naresse. And sadly, Bubs won’t make it through the season.
Um. This is probably all true. But have you seen Death Note? (Wikipedia does not capture how juvenile the main characters seem — I can’t imagine why — and it leaves out the fact that Light’s father is a cop.) In some ways it seems much more realistic than, say, Dexter.
When Omar was a kid; it’s only a minute and a half long.
If it’s a help to anyone, all the prequels, along with the entire first episode of Season 5, are available through a free podcast called “The Wire (Season 5)” on iTunes.
Nice post.
Omar has this fantastic Donna Haraway, “power of the margins” thing going on. He’s certainly one of the characters furthest from a position of political power, broadly defined, and his sexuality codes him as marginal within the confines of the game, let alone the world at large. (Sidebar: Uhm, Rawls? We gonna return to that?) Even then, he’s in the game, not of the game. Yet he’s successful both in a material sense and in terms of how the community views him. It’s interesting that you dialed in on his symbolic power. One of my favorite Omar scenes is the one where he sorts out Ares and Mars for the cop while he awaits his court appearance. “Shit was deep,” indeed.
I’ve also been taken with the show’s handling of Christian themes. I don’t think that Bubs is “post-Christian” at all, but really embodies a lot of what being a Christian is all about. Yeah, he’s pulled his share of scams. He’s no saint. But the first real view of him we get is him trying to teach a kid how not to get himself killed on the corners. He’s constantly taking others under his wing, trying to improve their lot from his own position of disadvantage. There’s a lot of Henri Nouwen’s “The Wounded Healer” with Bubs, in that the only reason he can reach out as he does is because of where he’s been. Same with Cutty, ’scuse me, Dennis. Granted, I’m coming from a waaay lefty Christian perspective, but still…
Wow, my predictions are exactly opposite yours, Amanda. I think that Omar’s doomed for sure and that Bubbles will be one of the few characters who has a happy ending. Omar ended Season 4 at the top and has nowhere to go but down.
As for Bubs, Simon has often said that he believes in the possibility of individual redemption (Cutty) but not institutional redemption (the failures of Stringer and Colvin). That’s what gives me hope for Bubbles– plus, I think a lot of other characters are clearly headed for death or disgrace (McNulty, Daniels, Michael, Prop Joe) so the writers couldn’t be that heartless as to kill off poor old Bubbles too.
I just started this series because of what you have written thus far….I love it! Thanks!
I just started this series because of what you have written thus far…I love it thanks!
Wayyy late, but a couple of things I wanted to contribute:
- In talking about the Deacon, you say that “You get the feeling he believes that the only point of the church is to create community”. I’m quoting from memory, but I remember that last season the Deacon quips to Dennis “That’s what a Deacon’s job is, to stay up in people’s shit”. Clearly, the show’s stance is that this is an important way that the Church can help cohesion within the community, on the other hand, it seems kind of, well, Straussian. I can’t say I’ve thought about it fully, but it seems logically consistent that in order for an institution to act as a fulcrum within a community, the members of that community have to give up some autonomy and/or privacy. Personally, I’m very pro-autonomy/privacy, so I have a hard time seeing where sacrificing those things are necessary, or worse, that societies that hold them as paramount are doomed to obsolecesnce due to a lack of cohesion. Anyway, just something that occured to me in thinking about the Church’s role in the show.
- There’s a point in many series, as they reach the end of their life, where they get, for lack of a better word, shizophrenic. I’m not referring to the “Jump The Shark” phenomenon; it’s wierder than that. By way of example, there was a late episode of LA Law where something was going on with the mentally disabled clerk, and the camera followed him pushing his book cart in a tracking shot, as if someone was stalking him (which might have been the plot, I can’t remember). It was very surreal, as it was a striking change from the previous tone of the show. I think the actor had recently won an Emmy for his performance, so the actual reason for this “schizophrenia” was probably the writers/execs saying: “This guy is the best thing on the show, we’d better feature him more”.
In a similar vein, the McNulty arc and it’s continuation in Episode 3 have that same feeling of schizophrenia. I have the feeling that David Simon has taken over some of his characters and directly placed his words into their mouths, rather than allowing the characters to play themselves out naturally. I can’t fault him too much; for one thing, it’s his damn show, and for another, this is his last chance to get his message out, and there’s no knowing whether he’ll get as large an audience to listen to him again.
BTW, wouldn’t it be cool if, as a result of the WGA strike, The Wire won a ton of Emmy’s next year? I’m not holding my breath, but it seems much more likely.