![]() He tells them that the crew members will speak English again but not in the police's presence. He shows them the cabin and possessions of two crew members who jumped ship. He believed that they may have been gambling, but Bunk thinks that they may have been spending it on the girls. The first mate is more forthcoming and admits that many of the crew asked for pay advances during the trip. ![]() Frustrated, Bunk and Freamon lose their temper with the ship's lone black seaman (whom Bunk calls Kunta Kinte). The dwindling efficacy of The International Brotherhood of Stevedores makes this an example of verbal irony.ĭetectives Bunk Moreland and Lester Freamon interview the crew of the Atlantic Light, but they all refuse to speak English responding in French, Arabic, Hindi, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Vietnamese amongst other languages. Oh, and for the record: season three > season four > season one > season two > season five.Officer Russell makes this dry observation about prostitutes. But for someone with Snowden's beliefs about the war on terror and the security state that was built to prosecute it, season two has a lot to like. (For why this argument may not hold up, see Conor Friedersdorf.) So he probably doesn't buy into this reading of his work. I'd think that's a critique that would resonate with Snowden.įor what it's worth, Simon appears to think terrorism is a more significant threat than Snowden does, and has been critical of Snowden and other critics of NSA surveillance, noting that metadata collection has been a staple of police departments for decades. "Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism," Snowden once noted, "yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it." You can view season two of The Wire as making a closely related point: we've sacrificed our ability to pursue the people responsible for the deaths of 14 women because our federal government is overly focused on preventing terrorism. Maybe the tips the Greek provided the FBI prevented terrorist attacks with a greater death toll than that he himself has amassed. It's about getting justice for those 14 women. ![]() While Simon makes clear in the show (and his writings elsewhere) that he views the war on drugs as a horrible and destructive waste of time and resources, the investigation into the Greek's operations isn't about drugs, ultimately. FBI agent Terry Fitzhugh (Doug Olear), who's working on the docks case with the Baltimore PD, calls Koutris one of the "9/11 boys in DC…I'm guessing Vondopoulos or The Greek was an asset to them." When critic Alan Sepinwall asked show creator David Simon about Koutris, Simon told him the agent "genuinely thought The Greek was helping him nab terrorists, and if that meant looking the other way on other crimes, even warning him about impending arrest, then that was a trade-off he was willing to make to fight The War on Terror." Of course, there are legal limits to what one can do to help informants, but an inspector general's report in 2005 found that violations of those rules are very common. Rather, the Greek himself is an informant who's helping the FBI combat terrorism, and Koutris helps him out in exchange for that assistance. The show implies that Koutris' tip-off isn't due to corruption, necessarily. ![]() The Greek and Vondas kill Sobotka and the case unravels from there. Just when union head Frank Sobotka (Chris Bauer) is convinced to help the police take down the Greek and Vondas, the group receives a tip-off from FBI agent Kristos Koutris (Tom Mardirosian) that Sobotka has become an informant. A police detail is formed after 13 women are found suffocated to death in one of the Greek's shipping containers, and the body of another woman from the same boat is found tossed overboard. It's run by a shadowy figure known only as "the Greek" (Bill Raymond) and his lieutenant Spiros Vondas (Paul Ben-Victor) and works with the Baltimore dockworkers' union to smuggle drugs, stolen goods, and women into the US. But the end of the season can be read as a critique of the war on terror - a critique that closely resembles ones Snowden himself has made.Īs fans will recall (lots of spoilers to come for people who haven't seen the series yet, obviously), the main investigation in season two centered on a Greek criminal syndicate. Edward Snowden's diss of season two of The Wire (while he's "really enjoying" the show overall, he thinks season two is "not so great") isn't by any reasonable standard one of the more important things to come out of his interview with Brian Williams.
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