S02.E11: Bad Dreams

[Rinaldo]

Written by David Simon & George Pelecanos. Teleplay by George Pelecanos. Directed by Ernest Dickerson.

 

Warrants are served and deals are made.

[ToxicUnicorn]

I thought the season was over the last episode, so finding this one was like finding candy.  All the scrambling and deals between Frank and the police, Nicky and the Greek guy with the brown leather jacket, Omar and Stringer and Brother Mouzon ... pretty riveting episode.  I'm bracing myself for the imminent murder of Frank next time.  I'll be sorry to see him go.

 

A shout out to the guy who plays the most powerful man in the Greek organization (white hair, mustache).  He's a pretty solid character in an understated way.

 

You just want to scream at the corrupt officer who keeps getting notified of  the detail's work.  I can't remember - do we know who his informant is?

[Rinaldo]

Yes, there's more to come. (I also want to manage a comment on Episode 8 at some point.)

 

The Homeland Security guy with the informant... the thing is, he's not corrupt, though we may not like that what he does is approved. But he needs informants, just as police officers do, and part of the trade of having ears within criminal organizations is that you let your informants slide on other infractions. He figures that staying on top of terrorism justifies insuring his informant's safety.

[ToxicUnicorn]

I did not put the pieces together about how the desk guy was cultivating a potential informant.  Thanks again, Rinaldo.

[Rinaldo]

Nick talking to Prissy last night and spending the night with her — means that he escaped getting arrested in the morning because he wasn’t home when the heroin and money were found in his family’s house.

 

Man, Chris Bauer (Frank) is just a magnificent actor, isn’t he? His interview with Ziggy in jail, where you can see him watching and listening and understanding all the things he didn’t do, might have done differently -- wow. And then he and we see Ziggy stand up, put on his chipper class-clown bravado one more time, and then shuffle back into the holding area, alone and defeated.

 

This episode has a couple of “cheats” in storytelling, of the sort that any drama series is bound to need. One, car surveillance from way too close, the creators admit to using throughout the series, and it doesn’t bother me at all; you can’t really film intelligibly any other way. Another, in this episode, I can shrug off readily: sending Beadie to tail Vondopoulos with zero advance training (the “use the city” pep talk 2 seconds before she sets off only emphasizes that she’s no more qualified to do this than you or I). But in the end I don’t care, because it’s so damn satisfying to see her pull it off, and to hear Bunk brag about what a long way she’s come.

 

But the real kicker is Ronnie, at the crucial moment, telling Frank to go away and come back when he has a lawyer. No. One doesn’t need to be a lawyer to yell at the screen that in that situation, you keep the guy there and have him make a few phone calls. (We already know he knows a criminal attorney.) For me, this is the biggest suspend-your-disbelief moment in the entire series. Ah well.

 

After two seasons, it’s no secret that the structure of each season is to put the big culminating action sequence, the one toward which we’ve been building, in the second-to-last episode, and that it be written by George Pelecanos. His dialogue has a special shine, like the running bit about buttons, or Frank’s classic “We used to make shit” speech (Which I always forget comes this late). Anyway, the whole hour just tingles.

[ToxicUnicorn]

Man, Chris Bauer (Frank) is just a magnificent actor, isn’t he? His interview with Ziggy in jail, where you can see him watching and listening and understanding all the things he didn’t do, might have done differently -- wow. And then he and we see Ziggy stand up, put on his chipper class-clown bravado one more time, and then shuffle back into the holding area, alone and defeated.

Frank acquired a lot of layers toward the end of the season.  In the beginning, he didn't seem like a complicated guy at all, and maybe he wasn't.  In the last couple of episodes, though, his inner turmoil became so intense that it was painful to see.  The writers did a good job of slowly and methodically upending his simple, black and white, us versus them world until it no longer had any resemblance to the image he had in his head of where he stood in it. When Brucie broke the news that the grain pier was gone, you could see that, despite Ziggy's scandal and his own arrest, Frank had been holding onto hope that his people would still be able to eke out a win.  Watching him process that unequivocal rebuttal was heartbreaking.

 

Then, when Nick and Frank met and Frank had to think about whether or not to go to the bridge, you could see he was still trying to work out the ethics of what would be right and what would be wrong, while simultaneously trying to force himself to think strategically.  It is tragic how none of those things lined up for him at the fence : the situation was too complicated, he was thoroughly ensnared, and he knew it.  We've talked earlier in the episode threads about the parallel lives these characters could have led.  In a different world, Frank could have been an extremely powerful man.  He had the smarts and he had the determination.  If only he had had some levers to pull, or a little bit of leeway in the system in his favor, he could have gotten himself out of a lot of sticky, more commonplace situations.  It just didn't work for him here.

 

As I watched him march off to the meeting, I felt he still had hope that he might scrabble his way to some kind of win for Ziggy, plus buy himself a little more time to figure it all out.  Just moments before, as he was driving to the bridge, I thought, surely he must be entertaining the idea of killing himself - what kind of man can endure so many devastating setbacks in such a compressed time and not wonder?  But then, as he started walking, I rejected the idea, because the Frank that was being portrayed was someone who was, to his very core, an optimist and a fighter and a guy who believed he could and should go up against any adversity, no matter how tough.  That Frank would always take the chance that there might be another option.

 

The actor certainly was outstanding in this episode.  The other performances that shine in my memory are the time at the sink (after the dead girls are discovered) and the way Frank puts together the pieces that the dock is being watched.  

 

After two seasons, it’s no secret that the structure of each season is to put the big culminating action sequence, the one toward which we’ve been building, in the second-to-last episode, and that it be written by George Pelecanos. His dialogue has a special shine, like the running bit about buttons, or Frank’s classic “We used to make shit” speech (Which I always forget comes this late). Anyway, the whole hour just tingles.

I will watch for this.  The bit about the buttons was very funny.  I really enjoy the camaraderie between McNulty and Bunk.

[Jordan Baker]

It's been a few weeks since I watched this episode, but I remember how tense it made me feel (for example, when Beadie tails the bad guys through the hotel). I also remember yelling at my TV more than once--when the car was missed in the parking garage, for example--but especially when I realized that the grand plan, which seemed to hold out hope for Frank and Ziggy, was never going to materialize. And I felt this way even though I was spoiled and knew Frank's fate. (I looked up the actor's name while writing a different post and saw the description. I'm trying to avoid reading any more spoilers!)

 

Truly a great episode.