(Note: This is an early review of next week’s episode. If you have HBO On Demand, watch it now. Otherwise, wait until Sunday to avoid spoilers.)
It’s been two years since the last episode of “The Wire” and I can’t even begin to imagine the long wait that fans of the series had to endure. Luckily, I just recently got into the show when the season three DVD showed up in my mailbox begging to be reviewed. Never one to start watching a show mid-season (or mid-series), I opted to watch the entire first three seasons (courtesy of HBO On Demand) just in time for the season four premiere. The premium channel has rewarded their dedicated fans by announcing that those with the On Demand service can view the next episode an entire week before its air date, and while it took me four days to find a little free time, I finally got the chance to check out the season premiere.
I was surprised just as much as anybody to see that the opening segment featured Snoop (Marlo’s female muscle) shopping for a new nailgun at the local hardware store, but it certainly set the tone for what was to come. It seems that the police were right all along: Marlo has been dropping bodies in his ongoing takeover of Baltimore, but he’s been incredibly smart about. Instead of just shooting dealers in the street and leaving them for dead, Snoop and Chris (Marlo’s right-hand man) have been killing their competitors quietly, wrapping their bodies in plastic, stowing them away in abandoned houses and then nailing them shut with sheets of wooden. Hence nail gun.
Unfortunately, most of the episode was dedicated to four new characters – a group of friends spending their last days of summer trying to turn an extra buck on the street – and though I wasn’t entirely impressed by the show’s change in direction, it looks as if these four youngsters are going to be one of the main attractions of the new season, if not the main attraction. Most likely, they’ll all start to gravitate to Marlo’s camp, who has survived the drug war as the only major dealer left on the streets. Fresh meat for the butcher, right?
And with Avon and Stringer Bell out of the picture, Marlo will no doubt become the new target of the Detail this season – which currently only includes Kima, Lestor and Leander. They’ve also been assigned a new Lieutenant with Daniels taking the Major post in the Western District, and it doesn’t look like they’re keeping very busy. McNulty, meanwhile, is happy as can be with his new post as a 9-to-5 beat cop in the Western (despite the fact that he’s now under the command of Daniels), and apparently, him and Beattie are now dating. (Note: This isn’t exactly confirmed, but his chat with Bunk implied that they’re a happy couple. Also, it seemed like they both had that idea in their mind the last time we saw them together – i.e. the season three finale.)
The rest of the old Detail members are off doing their own thing as well. Herc is now working security for the Mayor, and Carver is still working as a Sergeant in the Western. Perhaps the biggest surprise, however, is the writers’ decision to keep Prez from returning as a detective; instead having him take a job as a teacher at one of the city’s middle schools. Personally, Prez is one of my favorite characters, and I’d much rather see him fuck up on the job as a cop than succeed in the school system, but at least he’ll be getting a little more screen time this go around. On that same note, I was a little upset to see that my two other favorite characters (Cutty and Omar) didn’t make appearances in the premiere, and we can only hope that they’ll be showing up sometime soon.
