baleanoptera | The Wire - season two, part 1 (Reply)

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
– Old, probably wise proverb.*

I have finished The Wire season 2. There will be analysis – and it will be split in two. Because somewhere along the way it grew, and became huge. The Wire masks itself as a cop-show. In truth it’s more like a novel told through audio-visual means.

queenofthorns said in a comment that The Wire isn’t just about a group of police officers working a case, it’s a story about a city, and the decay of this city. I wholeheartedly agree. I am also head over heals in love with this show. And when I love I overanalyze.

One thing that struck me in regards to season two was the undercurrent of history and change that defined the dockside. So this post is about that, and the general squeeing will follow in another post.

The presence of history : I owe my soul to the company store

In many ways it starts with a glass window. Frank Sobotka has paid for a stain glass window depicting life and work on the docks. But he hasn’t just paid for a window; he has paid for a monument. He has paid for something that will mark the stevedores place in history, and that will prevent a piece of their and his history to be forgotten. His only problem is that he has paid for it with dirty money.

History seeps through the docksides, it’s in their stories, it’s in the objects and houses and it’s in the names and places.

One of the first scenes with the stevedores shows them in the pub, telling stories about what was. The old guys tell the stories; the younger guys either finish the stories or make their own. This tradition of oral history is in many ways what gives the community of the stevedores a sense of fellowship. They have the same history, they know the same stories and this binds them together. These stories are also a great influence on the younger generation – as seen in Nick and Ziggy’s attempts at stealing. One of their justifications is that “this is the way it has always been done.” Ziggy’s earliest memories are of his father and friends telling stories, and Nick has already started to teach his daughter the same stories – the names of places, the types of boats.

Visually everything on the dockside is old. Nick’s parents has the same kitchen interior they had twenty five years ago. The clothes Nick is wearing in the first episodes look old, harkening back to the 1970’s. The same with his car. Frank’s office is old and beaten down. Ziggy’s car might be a classic (I know nothing of American cars), but it is still an old car. The band in the pub plays “Sixteen tons”, and even if this version of the song is new – the song in itself is old. The visual impression that is given is of a place that is stuck in the past.

A location is never just space – it’s a place defined by history and reminiscence. One scene that really illustrates this is Frank sitting by the waterside. For him this isn’t just any place, just like the Grain Pier isn’t just an old abandoned building. Instead it’s a monument to times past, and for Frank it’s a symbol of what has been lost, but what can be brought back again.

The house Nicky and his wife consider buying isn’t just a house, but aunt so and so’s old house (even if she hasn’t lived there for years). And a place is never just a place, but a place where this happened that time when.

Further more the names of the stevedores are never just names. There is always a story behind them. Why is Johnny Fifty called Johnny Fifty? Because he drank 53 beers. Why is Small George called Small George, and so forth. There are stories and meanings behind everything, and these stories are told and retold and told again – making history ever present, always important. The past is kept alive through reminiscence, and the places and the people are given their identity through history. History infuses, defines and gives meaning to everything. It’s inescapable.

Changes : “It’s a new world Frank” – the Greek

With history such a solid, ever present phenomenon change is never easy. And since the dockside has tied up its whole identity in history, the disruption of this history by changing the dockside is not just an economic issue – it threatens their identity as well. This collage of stories, places and communities that is the dockside define who the stevedores are, and if that is taken away from them – then who are they? By what means will they then define themselves?

But change is all around them. There are plans to turn the grain pier into apartments. When Nick and his girl look at houses, they discover that what used to be his aunt’s house has been fixed up. This means Nick can no longer afford it. But it also means that another part of what constitutes his history has been taken away from him. Another piece of the identity patchwork has been lost.

The way I see it the three main characters from the dockside show three different ways of dealing with this ever present history, and the threat of change.

1.Reviving the past: Frank

It’s mentioned that Frank doesn’t seem to use the dirty money on himself. That’s not so strange, because what Frank seems to want is not material wealth – but for his own culture (the dockside) to survive and for its history to be remembered. So he pays lobbyists to revive the docks – to fix the grain tower, and to dredge the canals. And he buys a monument in the form of a stained glass window – so that people passing will look and remember the docks and its people. Frank is fighting against change and against being forgotten.

Frank’s obsession with history and with trying to revive history is largely responsible for him turning to crime. It also makes it hard for him to notice the present – like his son Ziggy. When Frank visits Ziggy in jail and asks: “Why? Why didn’t you come to me?” he get’s the reply: “You were to busy dredging up the canal.”

Similarly the one time we are shown that Frank and his son have a real family moment is when they are walking along the docks, and Ziggy starts reminiscing about the stories he heard when he was a kid. Stories told by his father and the other dockworkers. When hearing this Frank, who had been rather glum until then, lights up and for this brief moment father and son share something, and perhaps bond a little. (The sad thing is that I get the impression that Ziggy tells his father exactly what Frank wants to hear, more than what Ziggy actually wants to say.)

I don’t think its coincidence that when Spiros tries to persuade Frank he looks at an abandoned factory and says: “They used to make steel there, right?” Invoking history is a sure way of getting Frank’s attention.

When Nick’s father rebukes Frank for teaching Nick crime, he does it through history and memory. He reminds Frank how it used to be by quoting (probably himself or Nick): “Uncle Frank with the big shoulders. He can fix it.” The problem is that Frank cannot fix this. He tried to fix it, but somewhere along the way he became the wrecker instead of the fixer. Now the union and life on the docks are under a greater threat than ever – and its largely Frank’s fault. In his quest to revive the past of prosperous docks Frank has become untrue to his former self, the man he used to be. He has cheated his own history. When he afterwards goes down to the docks and begs a union card from one of the others, so that he can work – I felt that Frank was trying to go back. To reconnect with the old Frank Sobotka. Sadly – you can never go back.

2.History as a burden: Ziggy

I wonder if Ziggy has pondered the phrase: “living in his father’s shadow”. He would probably compliment it with “living in his cousin’s shadow” as well.

Ziggy tries to find his place in the dockside society. He doesn’t look the part, and he doesn’t act the part. He is a thin, almost feminine young man – and I suppose tacking out his dick in public is trying to compensate for that. Further more he has a popular and seemingly competent father and ditto cousin. Ziggy does so many stupid things, and in the beginning I had serious trouble understanding and even liking him (I’m still not sure I like him). He steals, but is never smart about it. Instead he is showy – wanting, begging and daring to be noticed. He spends his money on stupid things, and kills a duck because of one of his pranks. ( I have a hard time forgiving him the duck) But taken as a whole it seems he is just trying to carve out a place for himself. He wants to be part of the stories he has heard since he was a toddler, but these stories have no place for him. He doesn’t look like a stevedore, and when he tries to be one he is constantly compared to his father or cousin. And when he tries to emulate the stories he has grown up with, nobody thinks its fun anymore. Because things have changed, and stealing cans isn’t the way of it now. But they are in the stories, and the stories are in a way Ziggy’s cultural compass – and the stories tell of stealing. And it’s not as if his father isn’t still doing it, right?

The stories and the history of the dockside are what his father cares about, what he focuses on – and maybe Ziggy believes that if he becomes part of those stories his father will be proud of him, and even notice him?

But what Ziggy seems unable to comprehend is that history is not just something to emulate, it’s also something to learn from. When the paternity-prank is pulled on Ziggy, Nick asks Ziggy who the mother is, and when hearing who it is replies that everyone has slept with her once. Yes, in a way this is Nick trying to be comforting, but it is also Nick berating Ziggy for not remembering his history (respectively this girl’s history and reputation) and taking its lessons into consideration. It’s by remembering the girl’s history that Nick realizes that something is wrong, and calls the prank. And yes, Ziggy’s acceptance of the paternity could be seen as another attempt to state his masculinity – along side the dick photo on Maui’s computer etc. He has done something manly – he has gotten a girl pregnant! Only he hasn’t, and that must make the prank even worse and more emasculating.

It’s interesting to notice that when Ziggy spends his money on new things – the things he gets still has that “old” feel. His new coat looks like it came out of a 70’s cop-show, and he doesn’t buy a new car – just parts for the old one. The vintage one named “Princess”. This in contrast to Nick – who buys stuff that actually looks new.

In a way Ziggy get’s his place in the dockside history. When he is in jail, Nick and the girl Ziggy thought he had gotten pregnant sit in the playground – and they reminisce and tell stories about Ziggy. But because of the tragedy of the present they are not happy stories, and Nick is crying when he tells them – for the story of Ziggy has become this heavy, burdensome narrative.

3.Adapting to change: Nick

Nick is shown living with his parents, lacking money and with a desire to live with his girl and their daughter. Nick might be a stevedore, but he is also someone who desires change. His current situation isn’t that great, and in the beginning he seems stuck with it – but then he get’s these small chances of change. Changing this, changing that. Helping Ziggy to steal cameras, getting money. Slowly he sees chances to become unstuck - and he takes them

There is also the aspect that when dealing with the Greeks Nick feels valued. He handles his tasks, and he does them well. When Nick starts dealing independently with the Greeks his clothes becomes more modern, a little less 70’s feel. He even gets a new flashy car. He also stops spending as much time with the stevedores, and strikes out on his own. So when Nick starts adapting to change, he changes as well. Not much, but just these small alterations - symbolized perhaps in that the Greeks calls him Niko, not Nick, Nicky or Nicholas.

Nick adapts well and almost looses his place in the community. It’s interesting that he goes back to the docks in the last episode with the reasoning: “What else can I do?” Since I get the feeling that for Nick it’s more “that’s what I want to do.” Because through the season he has shown again and again that he handles change and adapts well. Chances are that he would adapt just as well to the witness protection program. But this would mean loosing his history and literary loosing his identity and become someone else. Not just Niko who deals drugs for the Greeks, but someone completely different. After loosing both and uncle and a cousin
And he doesn’t want that, and rather like Frank, he goes back to the docks and tries to work again. He even repeats the well known phrases from the earliest episodes like “Seniority sucks.” Will it work? It might - but I doubt it.

It’s interesting that in the last episode the last scene is with Nick looking through a fence, and this is followed by fast cutted scenes showing what will happen now. The union office is closed, the stevedores are roaring drunk – one of them is pissing on can. Then it’s back to Nick again, and the impression given is that a glimpse of the future has been given – and it’s nearly bleaker than what has preceded it. This makes me sad, so I will indulge and end on another note:

In the last episode there is a scene with Major Valchek opening another envelope, containing another picture of the stolen surveillance van. It’s now in New Zealand. This little sub-plot is so great, for it shows that the stevedores are in all ports, this isn’t just a singular problem. There probably are Frank Sobotkas the world over. But when the Major sits there and looks at the photo, I got the feeling that this van will never return. It will travel the globe, and pictures will keep coming. And in many ways this will be the visual legacy of Frank Sobotka, and so in some ways his story will not be forgotten.

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These are aspects, and in large parts generalizations. The characters are much too complex to fit into clear categories. That being said – one last thing should be mentioned. The aspects I have mentioned here are mirrored in other characters in the series. The desire to revive the past is echoed in the way McNultey tries to get back to his wife, even if she makes it clear that she doesn’t want him. The burden of history can be seen in D’Angelo’s story – who has both his own history and his family’s history weighing down on him. Then there is Stringer who wants to change, who goes to classes and tries to introduce new terminologies and ways of thinking to the drug dealing. But the more Stringer wants change, the more he allows change to happen – the more severed he becomes from his community and from Avon.

Ponderings on season one are here.
ETA: Part two of season two are here..

* The original quotation is apparently from Virgil: “Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts.” (Spoken by Laocoon, “Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”)
And that fits too.