David Simon’s modern classic, The Wire, is worthy of a multi-part series about the characters, codes and institutions that give the cult classic its definition. Our first entry explores the polarizing Jimmy McNulty.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
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David Simon’s modern classic The Wire — one of the best television shows ever made — plays
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on the meaning of walking that thin wire.
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[Don’t get it twisted, I do some dirt too but I ain’t never put my gun on anybody who wasn’t in the game.]
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[ A man must have a code ]
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[No doubt]
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Surviving in this system, the one thing that keeps a person’s soul intact
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and keeps them on the right side of that wire, is his code.
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Throughout the seasons, we see different subgroups and characters embody various codes —
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consisting of philosophies, values and rules to live by.
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So in this ScreenPrism series looking back at The Wire,
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we’re going to speak about individual characters and
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how the codes that they adopt interact with the game, for better or for worse.
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We’re going to start where the show starts — with Jimmy McNulty and the code
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of being Good Police.
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Beware, there will be spoilers for all five seasons of The Wire..
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Because brother when you were good, you were the best we had.
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The first character The Wire focuses on is Jimmy Mcnulty,
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who’s pretty much wrong in every way– he’s a drunk, a hound, he uses people, and he never
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says a polite word in his life. But he has one saving grace — and that’s that he’s good police.
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[The things that make me right for this job,
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maybe they’re the same things that make me wrong for everything else.]
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He’s not necessarily the best police we meet in terms of talent — Lester Freamon
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is far better than Jimmy when it comes to the brains of cracking a code and monitoring
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a wire.
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Kima and Bunk are more consistent, Daniels works more effectively in the system, and
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Bunny Colvin and his protege Ellis Carver -whom we’ll take about later in another video – show a stronger
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understanding of police as a community force and try to disrupt the system on a deeper
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level.
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Still, what makes Jimmy effective — and what makes him the first focus on the show — is
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his unstoppable will.
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[West Baltimore is dying, and you suits are running around trying to pin some politician’s pelt to the wall.]
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He’s the impetus behind the two major wiretaps that bookend the series — the first wire on
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Avon Barksdale’s operation, that shows the department what really good police work can accomplish and
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leads to the on-again off-again existence of a Major Crimes unit.
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And the wire of the fake serial killer that Jimmy invents in Season 5, in order to
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let Lester track the real serial killer that none of the bosses seem to care about, Marlo Stanfield.
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[We got Marlo Stanfield.]
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[What about the serial killer?]
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[Marlo is he.]
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In both cases Jimmy pushes and pushes until his case has the support it needs, undeterred
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by what might stop other more polite or considerate, or loyal people.
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[He learned no lessons. He acknowledged no mistakes.]
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[He was as stubborn a Mick as ever stumbled out of the Northeast Parishes to take a patrolman’s shield.]
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This devil-may-care drive that’s Jimmy’s superpower and his undoing is embodied in
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his catchphrases.
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The smirking embodies his choice to be gleefully oblivious to how much he’s inconveniencing
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others, messing up their careers, or hurting them personally.
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He takes painfully honest to a grotesque extreme.
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A good example of a scene that draws out our conflicting feelings about MCnulty is in season
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3 when he makes Deangelo’s mother, Avon’s sister, cry.
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[Honestly, I was looking for someone who cared about the kid.]
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[I mean, like I said, you were the one who made him take the years, right?]
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We’re torn because on one level what kind of person could say this to a mother, and
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on the other level, we’ve been thinking the exact same things. And so
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has she.
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The Beauty of MCnulty is that there’s nothing he won’t say, no feeling he won’t hurt, no
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person or rule he won’t turn on in chasing what he thinks is right for the case.
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[But I felt like we could critique the Drug War effectively, if we acknowledged that
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the police are supposed to matter. That they’re supposed to solve crimes.]
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[We thought we got that right, the idea of this matters. I signed on, I made it all the way to homicide
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and we’re supposed to win; we’re not supposed to lose.]
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[You do not make it easy Jimmy. I have to admit, I am deeply ambivalent.]
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Jimmy’s other catch phrase is
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[Fuck the bosses]
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In his mind, it’s good police versus the bosses, and it’s quickly established that
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one must choose in this system between climbing the ladder and doing real police work.
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There’s no character in the police department who doesn’t eventually have to make this
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choice.
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In police vocabulary, the choice comes down to whether or not to buy into the longstanding
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practice of “juking the stats” — which over time we learn is a common practice in
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the schools, politics and every other institution in Baltimore.
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[Juking the stats. Making robberies into larcenies; making rapes disappear.]
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[You juke the stats, and Majors become Colonels.
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It’s the easy out of not doing one’s job, but getting credit for it,
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which ultimately makes everything worse
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for the citizens of Baltimore.
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Despite his early ambition, Daniels comes to realize that he’d rather be good police
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than get the glory.
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[But the stacked games that lie? It’s what ruined this department.]
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[Shining up shit and calling it gold so Majors become Colonels and Mayors become Governors.]
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While we briefly hope during the supposed “new day” that the new mayor Carcetti falsely promises
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that these things can go hand-in-hand, in reality the ladder or juking the stats, and good police work
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are constantly
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in direct conflict with each other. This culminates in Daniels’ decision at the end of Season 5
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to turn down the job of police commissioner and retire from the force.
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[The tree that doesn’t bend breaks, Cedric.]
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[Bend too far, you’re already broken.]
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And some of our other favorite characters also offer more healthy versions of the “good
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police” code than Jimmy represents.
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Lester embodies patient intelligence and level-headedness.
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Lester is not only pretty much the best police ever, but he’s also the moral center of this code::
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[Did he do that thing where he stares at you over the top of his reading glasses?]
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[You know, that look that says ‘I’m the father you never had.]
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[And I don’t want to be disappointed in you ever again.]
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Always reminding others of the right thing to do for the case, no matter the political
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consequences.
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[And Rawls came to me , asked if I would take the homicides.]
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[You should. Those girls in the can really suffocated, Lieutenant. They really died in that fuc**ng box.]
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Kima and Bunk are two other strong examples of “good police” — Kima becomes more
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and more like McNulty over time finding her aptitude for police work also makes domesticity
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challenging — not unlike a classic western hero who prides himself on protecting society
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from danger but can’t himself live inside that society he protects.
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But as police she and Bunk are smart and steady.
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They recognize that progress, especially for a murder police
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comes through returning and returning to the problem, and being ready for insight to strike.
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All of these characters struggle and might need a taste now and then to diffuse the frustration
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of trying to be good police in a system that discourages it, but Jimmy’s passion for
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police work is presented as a true addiction — one that closely aligns with his much more
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obvious — at least at first — addictions to womanizing and alcohol.
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His police addiction is revealed more subtly — in moments when he takes a risk he shouldn’t,
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like teaching his young boys to follow a known drug dealer Stringer Bell.
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[Elana, why are we here?]
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[Because you can’t have Shawn and Michael around criminals. You can’t lose them in
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a Baltimore market. That’s why!]
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[He wasn’t a criminal.]
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Jimmy’s sense of purpose in being good police sometimes gives way to an arrogant self-importance.
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[There’s not many. We’re good at this Lester. In this town, we’re as good as it gets.]
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His driving need in Seasons 1 to 3 is to take down Stringer Bell — so his reaction
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to Stringer’s death is telling.
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[I caught him Bunk. On the wire. I caught him. And he doesn’t fucking knew it.]
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It’s not just about stopping the bad guy.
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It’s about making sure he knows that Jimmy beat him.
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[Nicely done.]
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[Tell me something, Jimmy. How exactly do you think it all ends?]
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[What do you mean?]
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[A parade? A gold watch?]
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Lester — with his experiences getting shut away in the department for being real police
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[How long you been in the pawn shop unit?]
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[Thirteen years and four months.]
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[Thirteen years?]
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[And four months.]
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[Tell me about it Mr. Thirteen Years.]
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[And four months.]
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—knows better than anyone that there’s no glory at the end of the job — the job has
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to satisfy in itself.
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[And he is likely employed in a bureaucratic entity, possibly civil service or quasi-public service
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from which he feels alienated.]
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Jimmy comes to realize that his unhealthy behaviors are connected to his desire for winning a
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big case, combined with his frustration at the way the bosses and the police system continually
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thwart his ability to simply work a case as it should be done.
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He steps in and out of the major detective work over the seasons. First, because he’s been forced
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to work Coast Guard duty as punishment, and later because he’s trying to live a healthier life.
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Finally, at the end of Season 4, he thinks he can keep himself from himself while being on a case.
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[I think I can do this and keep myself away from myself. If that makes any sense.]
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His phrasing screams of the addict who thinks
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he can have a sip without getting hooked again, and we know it won’t go well.
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For McNulty everything becomes expendable in the name of Good Policework.
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He uses this to justify his own bad behaviors which really aren’t necessary for the job.
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His desire to win, and his willingness to destroy everything and everyone in his
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path, ultimately isn’t a stable, sustainable, productive way to live.
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[Jimmy.]
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In Season 5, we see the culmination of McNulty’s addiction, in his willingness to fake murders
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to finally get the bosses to fall in line and unknowingly fund important detective work.
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An ideological split emerges between Lester and McNulty on the one hand — willing to
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bend the truth and the details for a bigger purpose —
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and Greggs and Bunk on the other — who feel that violating the job in small ways becomes
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a slippery slope… A lesson McNulty eventually comes to learn first-hand.
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In the first season, the wire is the symbol of good police work, what it can do and why
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it matters– when it comes back twisted in Season 5 as an illegal wiretap on Marlo that’s
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supposed to be tapping the fake serial killer, the symbol of the wire now challenges the
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rightness of breaking the rules of process in the name of a higher good, and forces us to
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ask whether Jimmy has now slipped onto the wrong side of the wire, or his own personal
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code of being Good Police.
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Yet while Lester, McNulty, Greggs, Bunk and Daniels diverge over the degree to which one
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should bend the rules or “fuck the bosses,” they share this core belief in being “good
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police,” a refusal to juke the stats, and a deep respect for each other.
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just like Bubbles, the heroin addict who’s the heart of the series, McNulty manages to get
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clean in the end.
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On the night of his detective’s wake for his retirement,
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Jimmy walks away, choosing not to have one final night of drinking, and the series ends
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with him staring out at the people of Baltimore, leaving it all behind.
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And together Bubbles’ and McNulty’s outcomes convey the seed of hope in the series’ conclusion. It’s buried
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underneath the fact that the vast majority of the characters we’ve met and cared about
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are dead, in jail, or have completely sold out their ideals.
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But in Bubbles and McNulty we get the sense that personal change is possible, that we can become
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better and learn to live more productively with other people.
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For most who interact with the law and justice system of Baltimore, getting ahead
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means playing dirty, betraying one’s own, killing, robbing, selling drugs, or doing
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a less good job — not being good citizens or “good police.”
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While nothing is black and white here, this is a show about morality,
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about collective responsibility,
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and how to be an okay human being, in a world that gives us
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every incentive to stray from a moral path.
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According to David Simon, this show is really about the city as a true symbol of progress
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and how we might learn to live together.
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Simon’s intentions reveal another key meaning of the show’s title — the wire that runs through us all,
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because as much as we don’t like to take responsibility for people in our society
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who are different from us, the truth is that we are all connected.
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We’ll be talking about other Wire characters and codes in coming weeks, so please subscribe!
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This post was previously published on Youtube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
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