SEASON 1: EPISODE 1: The Target

Watching for a second time as this episode rolls out the key players in this epic game, it's like one of the first to turn up at a great party where old friends just keep arriving, full of news and stories to tell.

McNulty's opening episode at the scene of 'Snot's' miserable death is a true David Simon anecdote. The futility of Snot's situation and inevitability of his death - he compulsively steals the pot of a Craps game on a regular basis before ultimately his 'friends' can't abide it any longer and shoot him to death - evoke a key theme in the story. (I only realised this on a second viewing, and after David Simon points this out in one of the seminars on the Season 3 bonus DVD.)

Everything bursts open in the courtroom. A high-pressure situation is created when Judge Phelan, Jimmy McNulty and Stringer Bell bring the worlds of politics, police and the Barksdale crew to the same point in space-time for just a few tense moments, before the resulting explosion sets The Wire's universe in motion. The Big Bang metaphor is hard to avoid, and it's interesting to reflect on how such a simple scene can contain so much potential narrative. Having established Judge Phelan's air of resignation as yet another clear-cut case is defeated by Bell-Barskdale's machinations, Jimmy McNulty's savvy understanding of the significance of the situation and Stringer Bell's wordless authority at the back of the courtroom, the balance of power is laid bare. Are these three tensions the show's most fundamental themes?

We'll see. Some other key narrative themes exposed in this episode are:

 - McNulty's curiosity leads him to stir shit.
 - Apprenticeship / seniority and hierarchy (In the Barskdale crew this is clear as DiAngelo is clearly subservient to Avon and Stringer, ditto Jonny to Bubbles at the other end of the deal. In the police, hierarchy - 'chain of command'  - is much less clear cut.)
 - Vice and the discipline of the gang compared to the chaotic personal lives of the police (especially Bunk / McNulty)

Most characters are introduced at the correct time to meet the needs of the story. For example, we meet Rawls immediately after the (unseen) meeting where the Deputy embarrasses him after Judge Phelan followed up McNulty's info about Barksdale. Interesting exceptions are McNulty (introduced pre-titles for the 'Snot' anecdote), Herc, Carver and Keema (the bust happens before the main storyline has established itself. It's an interesting scene which briefly throws us off the scent. Herc appears initially as an impressive tough-guy cop, his weaknesses being exposed by Keema at the end of the scene.

Returning to McNulty's scene with Phelan after the trial. This must have taken some writing - since it sets off a key tension in the side story of Jimmy McNulty. Did McNulty press Phelan, or did Phelan press McNulty? "Why do you give a fuck?" vs. "Who said I did?"

I get the feeling that if you could write the courtroom and the McNulty / Phelan scene, the rest would follow. But could you write those scenes without knowing the rest of the story? Probably not. And that's the beauty of the narrative for me - it seems to write itself as events unfold according to fate's whim (as in Hardy), yet it would be quite impossible to write the first line of the first scene without having some kind of essential grasp of at least the first series in its entirety.

Anyway, that's it. The ball is rolling, inexorably down the hill.

I've got a diagram of how all the different groups of characters meet and relate to each other. It's interesting. I'll scan it in and post it another day.