From Wire to Wire / EPISODE 2: The Detail

The Detail
Season 1, Episode 2
Directed by: Clark Johnson
Story by: David Simon & Ed Burns
Teleplay by: David Simon

"You cannot lose if you do not play." - Marla Daniels

This W2W will be unavoidably brief because I've got to leave for a business trip tomorrow morning at 5:00 AM.

So just a brief addendum, then, to my first post. As I remarked, so much of "The Target" is about when it is or isn't acceptable to speak. So I shouldn't have been surprised when "The Detail"'s most moving scene, where Detectives McNulty and Moreland try to make D'Angelo Barksdale feel guilty over the death of the witness in his recent case, hinged on D'Angelo making a single statement: "I ain't got nothing to say."

But then of course he does. Laying the lies on thick (a picture of the dead man's children is, in fact, of Moreland's kids), the cops break D'Angelo down. Though he played no direct role in the man's death and has no knowledge of any details about his murder, he knows he is, in some way, culpable. Hearing about his kids especially hurts (this is a few scenes before we discover that D'Angelo, like the witness, and Moreland, and McNulty, has a child of his own). So he writes a letter to the children of the dead man. This action has more repercussions.

Also I forgot another important instance of this from "The Target." When Wee-Bey picks up D'Angelo from jail, D'Angelo, giddy from his unexpected release, begins gushing to Wee-Bay about the Barksdale gang's intimidation tactics in Wee-Bay's truck. Wee-Bay pulls the vehicle over, makes D'Angelo get out and recite their rules "Don't talk in the car, or on the phone, or in any place that isn't ours." It's really quite remarkable just how restricted speech is so far on The Wire.

And of course the gang will eventually get brought down by a wiretap, so they're right to be so paranoid. More next time.