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The Wire Final Season

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from: Jeffrey Goldberg
to: David Plotz

Week 7: David Simon's Traumatic Shopping Experience at Ikea

Posted Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008, at 4:17 PM ET

Jeffrey Goldberg and David Plotz were online on March 6 to chat about The Wire. Read the transcript.

Dear David,

It's uncanny the degree to which we think alike! As I was watching this most recent episode of The Wire, it suddenly occurred to me that not only is hakuna matata a wonderful phrase, it ain't no passing craze. Hakuna matata, David, is my problem-free philosophy.

You, on the other hand, think too much. What kind of job is it, exactly, being the deputy editor of Slate? Lots of wildlife documentaries, apparently.

I'm sorry to report that I've had nothing but superficial thoughts about this week's episode, including and especially this (recurring) one: Do not make David Simon mad, or he'll get his revenge on HBO. Obviously, he had some sort of traumatic shopping experience at Ikea. I hold no brief for Ikea, but The Wire does get its hate on rather obviously, doesn't it? After seven episodes, not only do I want to buy Bill Marimow a drink, I want to buy it at the Ikea cafeteria. Which I guess would limit us to Aquavit, but whatever.

I have to disagree with you—again—this week. I think Marlo made it abundantly clear what he desires, apart from lollipops. Do you remember the look on his face as he watched Chris shoot Prop Joe? It was orgasmic. Marlo craves power—specifically, the power to take away life. Remember that Chris and Snoop are merely his instruments, and remember that Chris actually seems frightened of him. I don't think that Marlo's type is so unusual, in literature or in real life (which is not to say that I know many people outside of journalism who remind me of him), and I don't find him as monochromatic as you do. He's not a machine; he is capable of deriving joy, just not the way you derive it (to the best of my knowledge). Also, he does have a nice car.

I like your McNamee-Randy analogy, by the way. I'm in the Middle East right now and haven't had the chance to watch those hearings (weirdly, al-Jazeera and Israel TV aren't covering the steroid scandal), and I didn't realize that the Republican Party had taken such a hard line against snitching. But here's the thing, in defense of Bunk, though not necessarily in defense of the Republicans who roughed up McNamee: You and I both know that we'd think less of Bunk if he ratted Jimmy out.

Ha det så bra!

Jeff

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from: Jeffrey Goldberg
to: David Plotz

Week 7: David Simon's Traumatic Shopping Experience at Ikea

Posted Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008, at 4:17 PM ET

DISCUSS

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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor. Andy Bowers is the editor of Slate V. Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for the Atlantic and the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror. Melinda Henneberger is a Slate contributor and the author of If They Only Listened to Us: What Women Voters Want Politicians To Hear. David Plotz is Slate's deputy editor. He is the author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank. You can e-mail him at . John Swansburg is a Slate associate editor. June Thomas is Slate's foreign editor. You can e-mail her at .

Entry 1: Photograph of Tristan Wilds by Paul Schiraldi © HBO. Entry 8: Photograph of Clark Johnson, Brandon Young, Michelle Paress, and Tom McCarthy by Paul Schiraldi © HBO. Entry 21: Photograph of Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, Jamie Hector, Method Man, and Robert F. Chew by Paul Schiraldi © HBO 2008. Entry 27: Photograph of Lance Reddick by Paul Schiraldi © 2008 HBO. Entry 42: Still of Wendell Pierce by Paul Schiraldi © 2008 HBO. Entry 52: Still of Tristan Wilds by Paul Schiraldi © 2008 HBO. Entry 57: Photograph of Sonja Sohn, Wendell Pierce, and Dominic West by Nicole Rivelli © 2008 HBO. Entry 61: Still of Lance Reddick by Paul Schiraldi © HBO 2008.

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Remarks from the Fray:

I hope Goldberg and Plotz move on to discussing the idea that the press is complicit in allowing the inner-city (especially black inner-city) to decay by not paying attention to the problems that caused its sharp decline. Maybe newsroom characters feel cliched, but shouldn't we discuss how they enter into the "War on Drugs"?

--tsell89

(To reply, click here.)

So far as we've seen most of the newspapermen are indeed stock characters, but that's nothing to worry about. Except for a few leads each season, very few characters have conflicting motives. Think Clay Davis, Mayor Royce, Herc, Horse, Burrell, Rawles, Weebay, Chris Partlow, Snoop, the school administrators, even Marlo.

The strength of the show isn't in the complexity of the characters; it's in the multi-layered coherent vision, the way these somewhat two-dimensional characters all affect one another. Granted, that's a formula for pedagogy, but what saves the show (and not only saves it but really does make it the best show ever) is the one thing that fools everyone into thinking that Snoop, with her paucity of lines and sole motivation of kill-everyone-Marlo-tells-me-to, is a great character -- namely, style.

All the characters have great style, great lines. It's what makes the show fun as well as edifying. And from what I can tell, the newspapermen are going to have as much style as anyone. "Stay hungry. Good things come... when they come." C'mon.

--jamessal

(To reply, click here.)

I don't doubt that the busyness of the first episode had a lot to do with the retards at HBO deciding to cut the Wire from 13 episodes to 10 for its final season but I know Simon will make it work in spite of his bosses stupidity.

As far as Jeffrey's weak defense of the Sopranos, give it up man. The show lost its way after 3 seasons, so the claim that the Sopranos was on longer is not much of an excuse. Of course it is probably true that the Sopranos was a victim of its own massive popularity, while the Wire has been able to stay on course precisely because nobody was watching. Maybe if David Simon had gotten all the money and all the ball licking from critics that David Chase received he would have turned into a hack writer as well.

--sir biff

(To reply, click here.)

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