The prologue of this brilliant opener to my favourite season of 'The Wire' sums up what America has become: a corporatist state for the rich, in which working class Jimmy McNulty and his new boat buddy Claude Diggins carry the weight of wealthy Baltimore Yacht Club members through the dark waters of the Patapsco River as they laugh uproariously. Then the Tom Waits' theme kicks in...
This is the most tragic, unremittingly bleak season of 'The Wire'. It takes a canny few more episodes than usual for them to get a wire up on the baddies. If season one had studied race relations in the modern American city, with an almost entirely black drug element and what was then a fairly white police department, season two considers class relations regardless of skin colour as Burrell becomes the new Commissioner and the entirely white enclave of North Baltimore is explored to find the same culture of drugs and violence exists.
A war between two Polaks from the old neighbourhood is incited when Prez's father-in-law Major Stanislaus Valchek tries to have his stained glass window installed at the front of the church: a tribute to Polish-American police officers. But he's too late. Local stevedore union boss Frank Sobotka has snatched it up, but there's still a spot in the rectory. Only ol' Stash ain't takin' it. Instead, he gets a detail to investigate the reasons for Frank's unusually fat pockets.
This is the most tragic, unremittingly bleak season of 'The Wire'. It takes a canny few more episodes than usual for them to get a wire up on the baddies. If season one had studied race relations in the modern American city, with an almost entirely black drug element and what was then a fairly white police department, season two considers class relations regardless of skin colour as Burrell becomes the new Commissioner and the entirely white enclave of North Baltimore is explored to find the same culture of drugs and violence exists.
A war between two Polaks from the old neighbourhood is incited when Prez's father-in-law Major Stanislaus Valchek tries to have his stained glass window installed at the front of the church: a tribute to Polish-American police officers. But he's too late. Local stevedore union boss Frank Sobotka has snatched it up, but there's still a spot in the rectory. Only ol' Stash ain't takin' it. Instead, he gets a detail to investigate the reasons for Frank's unusually fat pockets.