Baltimore. Detective Jimmy McNulty has been assigned to work on a boat as harbor patrol. One day, he finds a dead woman in the sea. At the same time, a dozen dead women are found in a container, shipped from Eastern Europe. McNulty and the others are brought on the case, led by lieutenant Cedric and aided by police officer Russell. The dead women were suppose to be prostitutes and were transported by the Greek, a local mobster, but one of his subordinates killed to hush up the murder of the first dead girl. The Greek thus has the man executed. Frank Sobotka, the leader of the dockers at the harbor, secretly smuggles illegal stuff for the Greek. He is thus put under surveillance by the police team. When his son Ziggy shoots Glekas, the aid of the Greek, Sobotka agrees to cooperate with the police, but is executed by the Greek. Several people are arrested, but the Greek escapes. Meanwhile, Stringer Bell starts cooperating with "Proposition" Joe in order to get quality heroin, contrary to the wishes of his boss, Avon Barksdale.
The second season of the critically recognized TV series "The Wire" transports the heroes into the world of ports and dockers, offering again an interesting case study about various interest groups who clash in order to get what they want. The first episode has a genius, delicious little detail—Stringer Bell orders a criminal to drive a car from a parking garage in Philadelphia to Baltimore, which allegedly has heroin hidden in it, and that he has to write down the original mileage of the car (4243) which will be later compared to make sure the thug did not make any de-tours, but drove straight to his goal—yet, the series again repeats the same mistake from the 1st season: it takes way too long to set up the story. The first five episodes are disappointgly routine, overlong, suffering from constant "exposition, exposition, exposition" treatment and "empty walk". Yet, luckily, the story improves dramatically from episode 2.6, presenting a much tighter writing which wastes no more time. The episode has an amusing scene in which McNulty visits the office of his ex-wife and jokingly hugs and disrobes a mannequin in front of him. Another comical moment, in episode 2.7, has police officers Herc and Carver who place a surveillance bug inside a tennis ball, and then place the ball under some paper on the street, in order to listen to criminal Frog, but then the criminal picks up the ball and throws it across the building, which lands on the street and is run over by a truck.
Other clever observations give this season spice as well: Frank Sobotka, the shady leader of the dockers, notices that he hasn't paid his phone bill for three months, but that the operator still hasn't disconnected his line, concluding that his phone must be secretly "flagged" by the police. Another great moment has the police officers placing surveillance bugs under the cars of the suspects, and then McNulty observes their driving routes on the city map, speeds them up, and extrapolates that the only place where all these cars meet at a certain point must be their secret base. There are again too many characters in the story, overstuffing it, since 30 added subplots do not automatically make a story better, yet some of these personalities "grow" on the viewer. It is difficult to pin-point which ones stand out the most, but Amy Ryan delivered a wonderful, genuine performance as the sweet police officer Russell who suddenly has to take on a big assignment for the first time; Chris Bauer is thoroughly believable as Sobotka, the head of the dockers who took on a Faust-like offer by the mafioso the Greek to smuggle stuff in order to pay for his workers who are barely surviving; whereas James Ransone is also remarkable as Ziggy Sobotka, who wants to earn money the illegal way, but is always ridiculed (which somewhat explains his sudden, unpredictable impulsive reaction in episode 2.10, which changes everything). Writers David Simon and Ed Burns again demonstrated a sixth sense for conjuring up a realistic, unglamorous world of crime, but again failed to truly overwhelm to the fullest, leaving the impression that "The Wire" is ultimately still a little bit overrated: they needed an editor who could have shortened all the overlong episodes by a half in order to make them more fluent.
Grade:+++
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