Took (S05E07)
Airdate: February 17th 2008
Written by: Richard Price
Directed by: Dominic West
Running Time: 58 minutes
As The Wire hurtled towards its finale, mere episodes from concluding its sprawling five-season autopsy of Baltimore’s institutions, it was not unreasonable to imagine creator David Simon wrestling with profound existential dread. Could his formidable talents and the show’s finite resources truly encompass the sheer, unwieldy epicness of his ambition? Was The Wire, in its relentless demand for verisimilitude and systemic critique, simply too vast, too overwhelming, too much even for a journalist of Simon’s calibre? Whether Simon actually harboured such private anxieties or not, their spectral presence permeates Took, the seventh episode of the final season. This instalment functions as a stark, almost meta-textual reflection of the creative tightrope the series itself walked – a moment where the intricate machinery Simon had constructed threatened to buckle under its own weight, revealing the terrifying fragility beneath the meticulously built facade.
The episode’s engine is McNulty’s escalating hubris within his own fabricated serial killer scheme. Utilising Lester Freamon’s technical acumen and a voice modulator, he orchestrates a masterstroke of deception: a direct call to Baltimore Sun reporter Scott Templeton, impersonating the killer, followed by the transmission of a photograph depicting Larry, a vulnerable homeless man sheltered in Richmond. This calculated act ignites an inferno of media frenzy, transforming the case into an even more politically radioactive "redball" circus. Mayor Carcetti, ever the opportunist, miraculously conjures budget for overtime, vehicles, and additional detectives, placing McNulty – for the first time in his chaotic career – nominally in charge. The title "boss," bestowed upon him by colleagues, lands with jarring dissonance. McNulty is visibly unmoored by this sudden, unearned authority; he is part impressed by the trappings of power, part baffled by its mechanics, and profoundly scared by the sheer precariousness of his position. This fear intensifies as fellow detectives, sensing opportunity, swarm him with requests for overtime and resources to bolster their stagnant cases. His initial, almost reflexive generosity – agreeing to these demands to maintain camaraderie and operational cover – swiftly curdles into a gnawing dread. He realises each granted favour is a potential thread threatening to unravel the entire charade, drawing unwanted scrutiny towards the hollow core of his operation.
This tension fractures McNulty’s crucial alliance with Lester Freamon. The elder detective, ever the pragmatic strategist, delivers a blunt ultimatum: whatever leverage they hope to gain against Marlo Stanfield’s impregnable organisation must be exploited quickly. The charade, Lester insists with weary certainty, is unsustainable; the house of cards will collapse. Adding profound frustration to the mix, Lester reveals he possesses cryptic image-based messages Marlo sends to his lieutenants via cellphone – a visual code he, the show’s most brilliant investigator, cannot decipher. This impotence underscores the widening gulf between their goals: Lester seeks tangible results against Marlo before the scheme implodes, while McNulty is increasingly consumed by the immediate, self-destructive mechanics of maintaining the lie.
Concurrently, the episode dissects the rot within the Baltimore Sun. Senior editors, intoxicated by the prestige of Templeton’s central role in the serial killer narrative, elevate him to star status, their journalistic rigour utterly subsumed by institutional vanity. Gus Haynes, however, remains a voice of dissent, his unease crystallising around Templeton’s "purple prose" – his tendency to depict Baltimore as a lurid, exotic "Third World locale" for outsider consumption. Haynes’s professional suspicion deepens into active investigation, culminating in a pivotal visit to a police bar. There, an encounter with the Dennis Mello provides chilling confirmation: Templeton’s earlier, lauded story about a grieving mother was likely a fabrication.
The episode’s thematic resonance deepens with State Senator Clay Davis’s courtroom resurrection. Facing seemingly certain conviction on corruption charges brought by the intellectually arrogant State’s Attorney Rupert Bond, Davis employs a devastatingly simple strategy. Retaining the formidable (and real-life) attorney Billy Murphy, Davis takes the stand not to deny the prosecution’s evidence, but to reframe it. He candidly admits accepting illicit funds, then pivots to explain how he funnelled that "ill-gotten money" directly back to his impoverished constituents – paying for funerals, medical bills, and groceries. This brazen appeal to populist loyalty, utilising race and class solidarity with outrageously crass effectiveness, secures a shocking acquittal. The verdict is a masterclass in systemic cynicism; Davis weaponises the very desperation his corruption exploited, turning Bond’s smug legalism against him. It’s darkly humorous, even perversely sympathetic, to witness the despicable Davis outmanoeuvre his more conventionally "moral" but utterly out-of-touch opponent.
Omar Little, the show’s most iconic moral anomaly, continues his one-man war against Marlo. Undeterred by a leg injury that forces a pronounced limp, he raids stashes not for profit, but to defiantly destroy Marlo’s drugs and cash – a symbolic rejection of the game’s rules. His campaign escalates into outright assassination as he targets Marlo’s lieutenants, beginning with Savino. This act constitutes a profound betrayal of the promise he made to Bunk years prior, marking a descent into vengeance that strips away his last vestige of self-imposed code. Omar’s trajectory mirrors McNulty’s: both cross irrevocable moral lines, McNulty through the abduction of Larry (whose parents’ anguish is heartbreakingly revealed), Omar through cold-blooded murder. Their transgressions highlight the episode’s pervasive moral corrosion.
Took is deeply, defiantly Baltimore. Its title itself is a nod to Sun journalistic slang, and Haynes’s central conflict – questioning whether an outsider like Templeton can ever truly grasp the city’s complex soul – underscores a fierce local patriotism woven into the narrative fabric. The irony is palpable that this quintessentially Baltimorean episode was written by Simon’s long-time New York collaborator, Richard Price. Price even indulges in a touch of self-plagiarism, lifting the tender, moonlit bedtime scene from his novel Clockers for Kima Greggs’ moment with Cheryl’s son Elijah during a sleepover – a rare, quiet beat of humanity amidst the surrounding chaos.
Crucially, Price draws a subtle but devastating parallel between McNulty and Davis. Both are corrupt, yet their corruption operates on different planes. Davis is the archetypal abuser of power, cynically manipulating the system for personal gain while masquerading as a benefactor. McNulty, however, represents corruption born of convenience and misplaced idealism; his scheme, intended to fund real police work, drags his colleagues and the entire department into complicity through their willing acceptance of his ill-gotten resources. The episode argues that corruption isn’t solely the domain of the overtly villainous; it’s a contagion spread by those who look the other way for personal or institutional advantage – the voters enabling Davis, the detectives accepting McNulty’s overtime.
For fans of Simon’s earlier Homicide: Life on the Street, a brief, joyous cameo provides respite: Richard Belzer’s John Munch, explicitly named, appears at the police bar. This fleeting moment cements The Wire’s place within Simon’s broader fictional universe, a quiet nod to television history. Furthermore, "Took" marked Dominic West’s sole opportunity to direct within the series. His handling of the material is assured and restrained, favouring the show’s signature naturalism over directorial flourish, proving a well-judged final contribution from McNulty’s portrayer.
Took stands as a pivotal, nerve-wracking chapter precisely because it embodies the very tension Simon might have feared. It is a precarious balancing act – the moment before the fall. Its dark humour, its moral ambiguities, and its unflinching gaze at institutional decay coalesce into a testament not to creative doubt, but to The Wire’s ultimate triumph: its ability to stare directly into the abyss of complexity it created, and not flinch.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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