Tuesday, April 12, 2005
A worthy sequel
A worthy successor to the first season. The main plot with McNulty was spot on - his petty vindictiveness is something we can all identify with. He picks up a dead body & then spends 3 hours looking at tide tables & maps just to make sure that his old boss who screwed him over would be assigned an unsolved murder & experience a lowered clearance rate. Later when investigating the other 13 associated deaths, he can't let the case go - originally the deaths are classified accidental but he makes sure they get reclassified as homicide & so once again puts it too his old boss. That obsession with evening the score strikes a universal chord.
After the first disk (2 episodes) I thought it would be a bit weak because too much time was spent on the minor characters from season 1. Not sure if it was loyalty or a contract with the actors, but the show stopped in on the lessor characters for ~3 minutes per episode at the beginning. Now through a slight plot contrivance, the characters' story lines are all coming together again. Even the side plot with the drug godfather from the previous season is picking up steam.
Hats off to David Simon for putting together two good cops-and-robbers shows in Baltimore without feeling like he's just repeating himself.
