Cleaning Up (The Wire)
"Cleaning Up" | |
---|---|
The Wire episode | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 12 |
Directed by | Clement Virgo |
Story by | David Simon Ed Burns |
Teleplay by | George Pelecanos |
Original air date | September 1, 2002 |
Running time | 56 minutes |
"Cleaning Up" is the twelfth and penultimate episode of the first season of the HBO original series The Wire. The episode was written by George Pelecanos from a story by David Simon and Ed Burns and was directed by Clement Virgo. It originally aired on September 1, 2002.
Plot summary
Stringer collects the pagers belonging to D'Angelo's crew and tells them that all business talk will be conducted face to face. Stringer and Avon meet with Levy, who tells them that they need to walk away from Orlando's club, as well as clean up any other 'loose ends' that might be sources of information for the police. Levy also suggests that Nakeesha Lyles, a female security guard who had planned to testify against D'Angelo, may be a problem. After Levy departs, Stringer convinces Avon to insulate himself from their crew by passing all communication through him. D'Angelo tells Stringer that Wallace has left "the game" and appeals to Avon to leave him alone. Back at the pit, Wallace returns and asks for his old position back. Bodie tells Wallace that he would have to accept a demotion, but D'Angelo overrules him. D'Angelo's mother Brianna arrives with a lunch for him.
Daniels meets with
Shardene attempts to infiltrate the office at Orlando's while wearing a wire but has little success in obtaining pertinent information. Later that night, beat officers find Nakeesha's body.
Stringer orders Bodie to kill Wallace, and Poot unsuccessfully tries to dissuade him from doing so. McNulty and Daniels visit Wallace's old squat but find it abandoned. McNulty finds an address for Wallace's mother, Darcia, and he takes Daniels there to see if she knows his whereabouts. She is little help and is more concerned about her next drink than her son being in danger. After bringing Chinese takeout to the young children whom he looks after, Wallace goes out for a meal with Bodie and Poot. When they return home, the children have all left. Bodie and Poot corner Wallace in his bedroom and Bodie draws his weapon. He steels himself to shoot Wallace as he pleads for his life but is unable to do so until prompted by Poot. After the first shot, Poot takes the weapon and finishes the task. Bunk investigates Wallace's murder the next day while Avon clears his office at Orlando's, frustrating the detail.
Avon asks D'Angelo to drive to New York to receive their next package. With this information, Daniels and McNulty borrow a tracking device from the FBI and install it on D'Angelo's car. D'Angelo is stopped by the New Jersey State Police and brought in by the detail, after which McNulty and Daniels interrogate him without a lawyer. D'Angelo refuses to believe McNulty when he says that Wallace is dead. However, he is enraged when Stringer does not answer his questions about Wallace, accepting McNulty's story and refusing to let Levy represent him. Meanwhile, Burrell pressures Daniels to close the case and ignore the political leads, threatening to release the FBI's report on his excess capital. Daniels counters by stating that he is willing to go down for the sake of the Barksdale case, noting that the bad publicity is what Burrell is most afraid of.
McNulty and Daniels watch a SWAT team prepare to arrest Avon. McNulty tells Daniels that they should make the arrest themselves, and they go in together. Daniels cuffs Avon but McNulty lets Stringer go, telling him that they will catch him later. At the office, Freamon, Prez, and Sydnor review the board. Freamon adds a newspaper article about a downtown business revitalization project being built in an area where the Barksdales have been amassing property. Sydnor tells them that the case is the best work that he has ever done, but he still feels that it is not finished. At the pit, the dealers' orange sofa stands unused.[1][2][3]
Production
Title reference
The title refers to the cleaning up of loose ends performed by the Barksdale crew, as recommended by their lawyer Maurice Levy, as well as that of the police, who are forced to bring in the case in the wake of the effects of "The Hunt" that interfered with their case due to the resulting changes made by the Barksdale organization.
Epigraph
This is me, yo, right here.
โ Wallace
The epigraph is spoken by Wallace as he discusses his return to "the pit" with D'Angelo, explaining why he cannot stay in the countryside, and why he can't move to another part of Baltimore. This is because everything that he is has been molded into his part of the drug dealing institution of "the pit", meaning that he is stuck in the life the institution forced him into.
Music
The song playing during the conversation between Bodie and Stringer Bell is "Hip Hop", from the album
Credits
Starring cast
Although credited, John Doman, Seth Gilliam, Andre Royo, and Sonja Sohn do not appear in this episode.
Guest stars
- Seth Gilliam as Detective Ellis Carver
- Domenick Lombardozzi as Detective Thomas "Herc" Hauk
- Clarke Peters as Detective Lester Freamon
- Jim True-Frost as Detective Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski
- Michael B. Jordan as Wallace
- Corey Parker Robinson as Detective Leander Sydnor
- Wendy Grantham as Shardene Innes
- J. D. Williams as Preston "Boadie" Broadus
- Malik "Poot" Carr
- Michael Hyatt as Brianna Barksdale
- Michael Kostroff as Maurice Levy
- Latonya Borsay as Orlando's Dancer
- Tony D. Head as Major Bobby Reed
- Michael Salconi as Detective Michael Santangelo
- Isiah Whitlock as Senator Clay Davis
- Ingrid Cornell as Nakeesha Lyles
- Jarvis George as Ronnie Mo
- Doug Roberts as State's Attorney Steven Demper
- Giselle Watts as Darcia Wallace
- Takara Collins as Deirdre Kresson
First appearances
Brianna Barksdale: D'Angelo's mother and Avon's sister who is fully aware of their business.
Reception
The Futon Critic named it the fifth best episode of 2002, saying "You'd be hard pressed to find a harder to watch sequence than this one in 2002 as Poot and Bodie have to step up and get rid of the gentle and kind-hearted Wallace. I get the shivers just thinking about it."[4] Alan Sepinwall wrote in The Star-Ledger in 2008 that the episode is considered by many "fans to be the series' best -- and most painful -- episode ever." Sepinwall wrote that Wallace's death was the first of the show's "many great tragedies...and still the one that probably cuts deepest."[5]
References
- ^ "Episode guide - episode 12 Cleaning Up". HBO. 2004. Retrieved July 31, 2006.
- The Wire. Season 1. Episode 12. HBO.
- ^ Alvarez, Rafael (2004). The Wire: Truth Be Told. New York: Pocket Books.
- ^ Brian Ford Sullivan (January 4, 2001). "The 50 Best Episodes of 2002 - #10-1". The Futon Critic. Retrieved June 25, 2011.
- ^ Sepinwall, Alan (August 22, 2008). "The Wire, Season 1, Episode 12, "Cleaning Up" (Newbies edition)". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved January 23, 2019.
External links
- "Cleaning Up" Archived June 26, 2012, at the Wayback Machine at HBO.com
- "Cleaning Up" at IMDb