Television Review: Transitions (The Wire, S5X04, 2008)

Transitions (S05E04)

Airdate: January 27th 2008

Written by: Ed Burns
Directed by: Dan Attias

Running Time: 58 minutes

The fifth and final season of The Wire, compressed into a mere ten episodes, represented an unprecedented narrative gamble. Stripped of the expansive canvas that defined its earlier seasons, it necessitated a brutal acceleration of plotlines, forcing significant character arcs to conclude with jarring speed and others to vanish abruptly from the stage. This structural constraint, a phenomenon not entirely alien to the concluding season of The Sopranos, profoundly shapes the fourth episode, Transitions, written by Ed Burns. Burns adopts an almost ruthless economy, orchestrating not one, but two pivotal departures of major figures whose absences would irrevocably alter the trajectory of Baltimore’s fractured ecosystems.

The first departure, that of Commissioner Ervin Burrell, arrives with the grim predictability of a long-overdue reckoning. His removal was scarcely a shock; the Hamsterdam debacle in Season Three had effectively signed his professional death warrant within the logic of any semblance of functional governance. Indeed, even the abysmal handling of the row houses used for gangland slayings in Season Four – a scandal that would have toppled a commissioner in a city operating with even minimal competence – should have sealed his fate years prior. The true indictment of Baltimore’s dysfunction lies precisely in the time it took. Despite the ascension of the ostensibly reform-minded Mayor Tommy Carcetti, city’s entrenched web of incompetence, patronage, and outright corruption led to Burrell clung to power far longer than any semblance of "orderly" or "civilised" political process would permit elsewhere.

This development, one might assume, would fill Cedric Daniels, Burrell’s designated successor, with unalloyed relief or even triumph. Yet, Burns masterfully subverts expectation. Daniels is not jubilant; he is genuinely terrified. His fear stems from the very real prospect of the humiliated commissioner unleashing long-buried skeletons from Daniels’ own past – potential compromises made during his rise through the ranks of the Baltimore Police Department. This anxiety, however, proves largely unfounded, revealing Carcetti’s cold political calculus. To secure his own future – specifically, a viable run for Governor – Carcetti must first appease Burrell’s powerful former allies: the influential Black ministers and City Council President Nerese Campbell. Appeasement, in this Baltimore, demands tangible concessions. Burrell is granted a golden parachute – a lavish pension and the hollow, honorary title of "City Crime Advisor" – while deals likely favourable to the shady business interests of Campbell’s donors are quietly brokered. Only once this political detente is secured does the transition occur: William Rawls ascends to Commissioner, and Daniels, appointed Deputy Commissioner, finally occupies the chair from which he will replace Rawls within months. His quiet, fleeting smile in that moment is less a celebration of principle and more a weary acknowledgment of surviving another round in the city’s brutal power game – a triumph rendered inherently fragile by the circumstances that enabled it.

The departure of the second major figure, however, resonates with far greater seismic force and tragic weight. Proposition Joe Stewart, the Eastside’s urbane, philosophically inclined drug lord, commands respect through a blend of business acumen, community investment, and carefully calibrated violence. The episode opens with Joe genuinely distraught over the death of his old associate, Butchie. Yet, the critical question hangs: will Omar Little, the avenging angel of the corners, believe Joe’s protestations of innocence? Omar’s return to Baltimore, his violent interrogation of Slim Charles seeking confirmation of Joe’s guilt, underscores the precariousness of Joe’s position. Slim Charles, demonstrating remarkable loyalty and political skill, manages to temporarily assuage Omar’s fury, convincing him Joe was not responsible. However, this reprieve proves illusory. Joe’s authority is already visibly eroding, most tellingly during the New Day Co-Op meeting where his lieutenant and nephew, Cheese, brazenly talks out of turn, challenging Joe’s leadership. Marlo Stanfield, the ever-observant predator, perceives this fracture instantly. Seizing the moment, he bypasses Joe entirely, returning to the Greeks with a direct offer: cash for an independent supply line. Vondas expresses skepticism, but the enigmatic Greek, guided solely by ruthless business calculus, makes the fatal decision. Joe’s recent sloppiness – allowing himself to be robbed – marks him as a liability; Marlo’s sheer, terrifying violence presents a more reliable, if dangerous, alternative. Fearing Omar remains a threat, Joe prepares to flee, but his attempt to escape the consequences of the game he played ends not with exile, but with a bullet to the head from Chris Partlow, delivered with chilling finality on Marlo’s orders.

These two monumental shifts – the political and the criminal – inevitably crowd out other narrative threads, most detrimentally the season’s ostensible focus: the decline of The Baltimore Sun. The newspaper’s storyline is reduced to fragmented vignettes: editor Gus Haynes lamenting how buyouts and cutbacks have stripped the paper of experienced reporters capable of properly covering Burrell’s dismissal; his frustration that television, not print, secured the scoop of State Senator Clay Davis’s perp walk (a move orchestrated by the politically ambitious State’s Attorney Bond to secure state, not federal, prosecution); and the pitiful spectacle of Scott Templeton attempting to land a job at The Washington Post by trashing his current employer. These moments feel less like integral plot points and more like hurried signposts, underscoring the media’s decay but lacking the depth and integration afforded to similar critiques in earlier seasons. Similarly, Jimmy McNulty and Lester Freamon’s increasingly outrageous serial killer hoax continues apace. They exploit the services of patrolman Oscar Requer (Roscoe Orman), who directs them to fresh corpses among the homeless, enabling them to desecrate the dead – using false teeth to fake murder evidence – in their morally bankrupt quest for relevance. This descent culminates in Beadie Russell finally confronting McNulty about the ruinous trajectory of their relationship, a moment of human consequence amidst the procedural madness.

Transitions also consciously threads callbacks to Season Two, reinforcing the series’ cyclical nature. The reappearance of the Greeks provides the direct link, but the more poignant echo arrives with Johnny "Fifty" Spamanto (Jeffrey Pratt Gordon), the former port checker now reduced to a pathetic, drug-addled fixture among the very homeless McNulty exploits. His presence is a stark, silent indictment of the systemic failures that first shattered the port community and now consume the entire city.

Directed with characteristic precision by Dan Attias (who deservedly won the DGA Award), Transitions? largely succeeds despite the journalism subplot’s distracting thinness. It paints an even bleaker portrait of Baltimore’s future than previous seasons dared. Carcetti’s capitulation to the old order – his humiliating, likely corrupt concessions to Burrell’s allies – reveals the hollowness of his reformist veneer. Daniels’ smile in Rawls’ shadow is a moment of fleeting personal victory, yet The Wire has relentlessly taught us that such triumphs within these broken systems are invariably short-lived, pyrrhic victories at best. Most damningly, Baltimore is unequivocally a worse place after Marlo’s final, silent move against Joe. Marlo’s ascension as the undisputed, utterly ruthless master of the corners signifies descent into a more primal, less predictable, and infinitely more dangerous order.

The episode’s most indelible scene is undoubtedly Proposition Joe’s execution. Robert F. Chew delivers a masterclass in quiet desperation – Joe’s initial calm, his pragmatic attempt to reason, his final, almost resigned plea, and his ultimate, silent acceptance as he closes his eyes. This profound humanity is met with Jamie Hector’s chilling counterpoint. Marlo’s face remains utterly impassive, devoid of triumph, anger, or even recognition. Hector portrays not a monster in the traditional sense, but the embodiment of pure, calculating, robotic evil – the logical endpoint of a system that rewards only cold, efficient violence. This scene resonates with unbearable power. In contrast, the earlier confrontation between Daniels and Burrell, while thematically relevant, feels comparatively theatrical. Burrell’s silent, golf-club-wielding posture, the unspoken threat of violence dissolving into the mundane act of hitting a ball, borders on heavy-handed symbolism, lacking the devastating subtlety of Joe’s demise.

Yet, amidst this pervasive gloom, Transitions locates a shard of unexpected, fragile humanity. Herc, seemingly fully corrupted while working for defence lawyer Maurice Levy, engages in casual, almost friendly banter with Marlo Stanfield in Levy’s office – a moment suggesting his complete moral surrender. However, later, when Carver tells him about breaking the sacred blue wall to report Officer Colicchio’s brutalisation of a schoolteacher, Herc chooses to support Carver. This small act, born of loyalty to a friend rather than principle, signifies that even within the most compromised individuals, and within the most degraded systems, the faintest embers of connection and conscience can still flicker. It is a desperately needed, though minor, counterpoint to the overwhelming darkness of the episode’s central transitions – a reminder that while institutions crumble and power shifts with brutal efficiency, the human capacity for choice, however flawed, endures.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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