The Dickensian Aspect (S05E06)
Airdate: February 10th 2008
Written by: Ed Burns
Directed by: Seith Mann
Running Time: 58 minutes
As The Wire approached its poignant conclusion, its trajectory irrevocably altered by HBO’s decision to reduce the final season from thirteen episodes to a mere ten, a palpable sense of narrative compression settled over the proceedings. Faced with the imperative to tie together the sprawling tapestry of Baltimore’s interconnected institutions within this truncated framework, the show’s creators, David Simon and Ed Burns, increasingly resorted to the strategic reinsertion of characters from earlier seasons. These appearances, while ostensibly serving the vital function of reaffirming the series’ profound commitment to continuity, often risked diminishing into little more than functional cameos – spectral reminders of what once was, summoned primarily as narrative mechanisms rather than fully realised returns. The Dickensian Aspect, the fifth episode of the fifth and final season, exemplifies this tendency with particular poignancy, deploying figures from Seasons Two and Four as fleeting, emotionally charged punctuation marks within the season’s accelerating descent.
First such manifestation of this spectral return belongs to Nick Sobotka, the proud but ultimately broken stevedore from the ravaged dockworker union of Season Two. His reappearance is jarringly specific: having seemingly vanished into the ether of the federal witness protection programme following the catastrophic collapse of his world, Nick materialises to stand as a solitary, bitter protestor. He heckles Mayor Tommy Carcetti’s hollow ceremony inaugurating a gleaming new waterfront development – a project whose very existence signifies the permanent erasure of the docking jobs his union fought so desperately, and ultimately futilely, to preserve. His target is the corrupt developer, Adam Krawczyk, the embodiment of the forces that devoured the working-class livelihoods of the docks. Accompanied by a mere three other protesters, Nick’s act of defiance is profoundly isolated, a futile gesture against the juggernaut of gentrification and political expediency. His subsequent arrest for disorderly conduct feels like a grim, inevitable footnote, a final, quiet extinguishing of the flame that once burned for the working waterfront. It serves primarily to underscore the absolute victory of the forces Nick battled – the docks are gone, the jobs are gone, and even the memory of the struggle is being paved over, leaving only this ghostly, ineffectual protest.
Even more devastating, and arguably the emotional core of the episode’s use of the past, is the return of Randy Wagstaff. Once the sweet, intelligent, and resourceful foster child whose potential seemed tragically bound for the streets, Randy is now a profoundly altered figure. Interviewed by Bunk Moreland in a bleak group home setting, he is ostensibly a potential witness regarding the murders in Marlo Stanfield’s vacant row houses. Yet, the intervening two years, steeped in the systemic neglect and abuse, have wrought a horrifying transformation. The vulnerable boy is gone, replaced by a hardened, cynical "gangsta" wannabe who reflexively rejects any cooperation with the police, spouting the street code with a chilling, performative bravado. The true horror lies not just in his refusal to help, but in the casual cruelty he exhibits towards younger boys within the home – a sickening replication of the abuse he himself endured. This brief, unflinching scene is arguably one of the most devastating in the entire series.
While these echoes from prior seasons resonate with melancholic weight, the present-day narrative hurtles forward with its own grim momentum. Marlo Stanfield, consolidating his dominion over the entire Baltimore drug trade, operates with chilling confidence. At the New Day Co-Op meeting, his arrogance is absolute; he openly confesses to the murder of Proposition Joe, the elder statesman whose wisdom and connections he so ruthlessly exploited. With the Greeks' supply now under his control, Marlo effectively dissolves the Co-Op itself. His offer of the Eastside territory to Slim Charles is met with the latter’s quiet, principled refusal – a refusal rooted in loyalty to Joe’s memory and a code Marlo has long since discarded. This vacuum is instantly, eagerly filled by Cheese, Joe’s treacherous nephew, whose glee at accepting this "payment" for his betrayal is palpable, cementing his status as a hollow, opportunistic figure utterly devoid of the honour his uncle possessed.
Yet Marlo’s empire, for all its apparent solidity, remains under siege. The near-mythical survival of Omar Little, and the failure of Chris Partlow, Snoop, and the rest of Marlo’s crew to eliminate him, has instilled a rare flicker of unease. Chris, acutely aware that Omar will retaliate, is visibly stressed; the hunt intensifies to the point where Monk, in a particularly brazen and desperate move, poses as a plainclothes officer to glean street intelligence. Omar, nursing a serious leg wound sustained during his miraculous escape, hides in the maintenance room of the very building where he was ambushed. His resilience, however, is undimmed. He ventures back onto the streets, robbing "Fatface" Rick of his gun, and swiftly uses it to wound one of Marlo’s soldiers and deliberately incinerate an SUV containing Marlo’s cash – a direct, symbolic challenge to the drug lord’s authority, proving Omar’s legend is far from extinguished.
Simultaneously, Jimmy McNulty’s increasingly elaborate and dangerous charade – fabricating a serial killer targeting the homeless to secure resources for a meaningful investigation – achieves unintended, far-reaching consequences. While it fails to secure him the manpower and budget he craved, the story explodes into national news, inadvertently overshadowing Carcetti’s waterfront ceremony. Carcetti, ever the astute politician, seizes the moment the same day, holding a press conference passionately decrying the victimisation of the homeless, blaming it squarely on Republican governor's welfare cuts. Norman Wilson immediately recognises the speech’s potent utility for Carcetti’s looming gubernatorial campaign, demonstrating how tragedy is effortlessly co-opted for political gain, a dynamic McNulty’s scheme has inadvertently amplified.
McNulty’s initial optimism, however, quickly curdles into operational frustration. The intense publicity makes planting new "victims" impossible without alerting regular patrol units. Lester Freamon, frustrated by the wiretap’s limitations, reluctantly brings in Detective Sydnor, and crucially, identifies Marlo’s innovative use of cellphones solely as image-based signalling devices for his crews. This sparks McNulty’s next, even more ethically abhorrent escalation: his fictional killer will now "abduct" the homeless. The charade involves McNulty forcibly relocating a mentally incapacitated man, Larry, from the streets of Baltimore to a shelter in Richmond, using Larry’s photo and documents to fabricate "messages" from the non-existent kidnapper – a grotesque exploitation of the city’s most invisible citizens.
In stark, morally clarifying contrast, Bunk Moreland doggedly pursues the actual murders – Marlo’s victims in the vacant houses – through traditional, evidence-based police work. Despite the near-catastrophic contamination of evidence in the crime lab (rendering much of it legally unusable), Bunk’s meticulous approach begins yielding results. He methodically connects the dots, inching towards linking the vacant house killings to the earlier murder of Devar Manigault. This connection is fuelled by the anguish of Raylene Lee (Shamika Cotton), Devar’s former girlfriend, who blames her estranged son, Michael Lee, convinced he had prior knowledge of Devar’s fate. Bunk’s progress, achieved through old-fashioned legwork and respect for procedure, stands in stark, ironic counterpoint to McNulty’s self-destructive fraud, suggesting the show’s core belief in the value of doing the job right, even when the system is broken.
Written by Ed Burns and directed by Seith Mann, The Dickensian Aspect encapsulates the fifth season’s potent duality. Its undeniable strength lies in its unflinching commitment to a consistently dark, gritty tone, punctuated by the series’ signature ironic twists. The episode masterfully demonstrates how McNulty’s desperate scheme backfires spectacularly: the fake serial killer narrative, intended to fund police work, instead becomes Carcetti’s political springboard and inadvertently aids Bunk’s legitimate investigation through the sheer volume of attention it generates. The profound irony that Bunk, working diligently within the system’s constraints, appears closer to cracking Marlo’s operation than McNulty, who has shattered ethical and legal boundaries, is the episode’s most potent thematic statement – a reminder that systemic rot often corrupts the very solutions meant to fix it.
Yet, the season’s persistent weaknesses remain evident. The Baltimore Sun subplot, despite its thematic relevance to the erosion of truth and institutional decay, still feels frustratingly disconnected from the central police and political narratives. The character of Scott Templeton, the ambitious, morally flexible reporter, remains perplexingly inconsistent. His interaction with a homeless Iraq War veteran suffering from PTSD, resulting in a powerful article, creates a jarring dissonance. It momentarily suggests a capacity for authentic journalism and compassion, muddying the otherwise clear critique of the Sun’s decline and Templeton’s role as a symbol of its failings. This ambiguity, while perhaps reflecting real-world complexity, weakens the subplot’s narrative thrust within the season’s tightly wound crisis.
Furthermore, the scene where a drunken, despairing McNulty rants at the statue of Revolutionary War hero General Samuel Smith feels unnecessarily theatrical. While intended to symbolise McNulty’s fractured connection to Baltimore’s history and his own sense of failed purpose, its staginess stands out against the episode’s otherwise grounded realism. It risks melodrama, momentarily pulling the audience out of the meticulously constructed world to deliver a message that might have resonated more powerfully through subtler character beats.
The Dickensian Aspect is ultimately a powerful, if flawed, piece of The Wire’s concluding symphony. It utilises its spectral cameos not merely as fan service, but as devastating shorthand for the city’s cyclical tragedies – Nick Sobotka embodying the death of the working class, Randy Wagstaff the crushing of childhood innocence by systemic neglect. While the narrative compression necessitated by HBO’s budget cuts occasionally exposes the mechanics of storytelling, the episode’s core strengths – its unflinching gaze at institutional failure, its masterful irony, and its profound character moments, particularly Randy’s transformation and Bunk’s quiet dedication – ensure it resonates with the series’ enduring power.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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