Warning: SPOILERS for those who haven't seen up to episode 9 of Season 5.
Allie Baker: Let’s talk a little about your background and how you are working on your dissertation on “The Wire.”
Todd Sodano: I started watching the show back in 2002, and around the second season, I realized that I was entranced by it. I realized I wanted to apply some sort of academic scholarship toward it. I’ve been studying it since, and I’m doing a cultural analysis of the series, which is three-pronged. One, I’m studying the text, which is the show itself, and how it was produced and what it looks like and the stories we’re talking about together. Second, I’m looking at the distribution, the political economy of “The Wire.” What’s HBO’s role in this? How is that network’s desire to make money influencing the show? And third, the audience.
And I’m also teaching a class on it. If there’s that much of a following of the show, there needs to be some kind of serious scholarship on it, not just from me, but from students who are going to be entering the industry. We’re having serious discussions based on the readings, based on people’s experiences with the show, people’s life experiences, my lectures, student presentations – all wrapped up in three hours.
Jenn Horvath: What do you hope will happen in the finale? Simon promised one happy ending.
TS: It could be Bubbles; we’d be set up for a real, sort of, punch in the stomach if something bad happens to him after what we’ve seen in the whole nine episodes so far. That would be horrible. That would mess with us big-time. People would revolt. Forget about what happened to Snoop, they would destroy David Simon. I think we already were sort of foreshadowed into what would happen to McNulty if he were to die. Beadie told him, this is what would happen to you.
JH: That’s what I think. I think he’s going to commit suicide.
TS: See, I thought that too. That Catholic guilt is really going to weigh on him. I think the thing with “The Wire” is that there are things in life that are worse than death. Look at Dukie’s life now. It would be better off it he just died. Not that I want him to, but the pain he’s going to endure for the next 50, 60 years of his life?
But I also see, I don’t know if I see Daniels and Ronnie Pearlman just sitting around like we are, like “Let’s just keep our friggin’ mouths shut. Let’s just sit Kima down and say don’t worry about it.”
JH: But the truth has got to come out, you think?
TS: Right, especially about fabricating the serial killer. That’s going to be ugly. What worries me, and I know “The Wire” is not going to do this, but I feel like there’s going to be some stupid “Law & Order”-type twist how Marlo and his boys are going to get released, something happens along the way that shouldn’t have happened.
JH: One of the big criticisms of “The Wire” this year was the hammering of the story in the newsroom. The “bad guys,” Klebanow and Whiting, they just seem so bad. Marlo is pure evil, but Stringer and Avon, they were always sympathetic. These guys are just horrible.
TS: I think that’s the big problem with this season, that nuance is gone. You have had, the first few seasons, the people you’re talking about, there are moments of humanity, and here, there’s not so much. Obviously, Simon has his axe to grind with his former editors. It seems too on-the-nose. It even started off too on-the-nose. First episode, they’re all sitting in that restaurant, Alma’s telling Templeton, ‘Oh, I still think it’s a good paper, we’re doing good things around here.’ And he’s saying ‘I want to work for The Washington Post or The New York Times’ or whatever. It just seemed so bogus. Everything else, seemed in years past, it seemed complex.
AB: Did you think that the hammering of the newspaper story, as opposed to other stories, came because Simon was so close to it?
TS: Absolutely. That’s a huge problem. It’s his backyard, so how unbiased can he be? You can almost see David Simon’s face coming through Gus Haynes’ body. He tears open his shirt, there’s a picture of David Simon on there. It just seems like there’s some kind of bias there that’s unavoidable. The insider perspective is what gives them such great credibility, but it’s damaging, I think, to this season.
JH: I just have easy questions. I really am interested in this. Who’s your favorite character?
TS: My favorite character is Lester Freamon.
AB: Why?
TS: He’s the smartest man in the room. And he stands up for what he thinks is right. It’s going to sound hokey, but he reminds me of me. There are things that I’ll do that I think are right, and in some ways I don’t care who’s on board with me. And I know that I’m going to meet resistance from a bureaucracy, whether it’s an academic institution, whether it’s resistance from a friend or a family member, but what Lester does, he does what he knows is right, and I admire that.
JH: What was the death that hurt the most?
TS: When it happened, it was Stringer. Looking back now, Wallace always fucks with me, pardon my language. I always think about Frank Sobotka. Believe it or not, Omar – not so much. It’s not messing with me because of the way it was presented – just some guy who got clipped on the street. D’Angelo, saw that coming, but that whole season just feels like a blur when I think of D’Angelo’s life in prison. He had hair; he wasn’t this sort of naive yet suave good-looking kind of guy on the street. He was just some dude locked up. That’s sad in a way: it’s not messing with me, I just kind of feel like what a waste, while he’s sitting there for the next 20 years. Like I was saying before with Dukie, it would be better if his life was just ended. D’Angelo got that, he’s gone. Rather than spending the next 20 years just miserable.
JH: I always feel so depressed watching “The Wire.” Do you ever get that sense of hopelessness watching it?
TS: Actually, no. Simon would tell you also, he’s not a cynic, the show is not cynical. It’s cynical about institutions, and how we can change things, but it doesn’t make me sad or depressed, but I get pangs before we start watching the episodes, like ‘this is going to mess with me now.’ But after it’s over, in some ways, I feel renewed, like this is how I’m going to do something beneficial for society now. And that’s in part why I’m a teacher, that’s in part why I want to teach a course about ‘The Wire,’ that’s in part why I want to write about it.
Allie Baker: Let’s talk a little about your background and how you are working on your dissertation on “The Wire.”
Todd Sodano: I started watching the show back in 2002, and around the second season, I realized that I was entranced by it. I realized I wanted to apply some sort of academic scholarship toward it. I’ve been studying it since, and I’m doing a cultural analysis of the series, which is three-pronged. One, I’m studying the text, which is the show itself, and how it was produced and what it looks like and the stories we’re talking about together. Second, I’m looking at the distribution, the political economy of “The Wire.” What’s HBO’s role in this? How is that network’s desire to make money influencing the show? And third, the audience.
And I’m also teaching a class on it. If there’s that much of a following of the show, there needs to be some kind of serious scholarship on it, not just from me, but from students who are going to be entering the industry. We’re having serious discussions based on the readings, based on people’s experiences with the show, people’s life experiences, my lectures, student presentations – all wrapped up in three hours.
Jenn Horvath: What do you hope will happen in the finale? Simon promised one happy ending.
TS: It could be Bubbles; we’d be set up for a real, sort of, punch in the stomach if something bad happens to him after what we’ve seen in the whole nine episodes so far. That would be horrible. That would mess with us big-time. People would revolt. Forget about what happened to Snoop, they would destroy David Simon. I think we already were sort of foreshadowed into what would happen to McNulty if he were to die. Beadie told him, this is what would happen to you.
JH: That’s what I think. I think he’s going to commit suicide.
TS: See, I thought that too. That Catholic guilt is really going to weigh on him. I think the thing with “The Wire” is that there are things in life that are worse than death. Look at Dukie’s life now. It would be better off it he just died. Not that I want him to, but the pain he’s going to endure for the next 50, 60 years of his life?
But I also see, I don’t know if I see Daniels and Ronnie Pearlman just sitting around like we are, like “Let’s just keep our friggin’ mouths shut. Let’s just sit Kima down and say don’t worry about it.”
JH: But the truth has got to come out, you think?
TS: Right, especially about fabricating the serial killer. That’s going to be ugly. What worries me, and I know “The Wire” is not going to do this, but I feel like there’s going to be some stupid “Law & Order”-type twist how Marlo and his boys are going to get released, something happens along the way that shouldn’t have happened.
JH: One of the big criticisms of “The Wire” this year was the hammering of the story in the newsroom. The “bad guys,” Klebanow and Whiting, they just seem so bad. Marlo is pure evil, but Stringer and Avon, they were always sympathetic. These guys are just horrible.
TS: I think that’s the big problem with this season, that nuance is gone. You have had, the first few seasons, the people you’re talking about, there are moments of humanity, and here, there’s not so much. Obviously, Simon has his axe to grind with his former editors. It seems too on-the-nose. It even started off too on-the-nose. First episode, they’re all sitting in that restaurant, Alma’s telling Templeton, ‘Oh, I still think it’s a good paper, we’re doing good things around here.’ And he’s saying ‘I want to work for The Washington Post or The New York Times’ or whatever. It just seemed so bogus. Everything else, seemed in years past, it seemed complex.
AB: Did you think that the hammering of the newspaper story, as opposed to other stories, came because Simon was so close to it?
TS: Absolutely. That’s a huge problem. It’s his backyard, so how unbiased can he be? You can almost see David Simon’s face coming through Gus Haynes’ body. He tears open his shirt, there’s a picture of David Simon on there. It just seems like there’s some kind of bias there that’s unavoidable. The insider perspective is what gives them such great credibility, but it’s damaging, I think, to this season.
JH: I just have easy questions. I really am interested in this. Who’s your favorite character?
TS: My favorite character is Lester Freamon.
AB: Why?
TS: He’s the smartest man in the room. And he stands up for what he thinks is right. It’s going to sound hokey, but he reminds me of me. There are things that I’ll do that I think are right, and in some ways I don’t care who’s on board with me. And I know that I’m going to meet resistance from a bureaucracy, whether it’s an academic institution, whether it’s resistance from a friend or a family member, but what Lester does, he does what he knows is right, and I admire that.
JH: What was the death that hurt the most?
TS: When it happened, it was Stringer. Looking back now, Wallace always fucks with me, pardon my language. I always think about Frank Sobotka. Believe it or not, Omar – not so much. It’s not messing with me because of the way it was presented – just some guy who got clipped on the street. D’Angelo, saw that coming, but that whole season just feels like a blur when I think of D’Angelo’s life in prison. He had hair; he wasn’t this sort of naive yet suave good-looking kind of guy on the street. He was just some dude locked up. That’s sad in a way: it’s not messing with me, I just kind of feel like what a waste, while he’s sitting there for the next 20 years. Like I was saying before with Dukie, it would be better if his life was just ended. D’Angelo got that, he’s gone. Rather than spending the next 20 years just miserable.
JH: I always feel so depressed watching “The Wire.” Do you ever get that sense of hopelessness watching it?
TS: Actually, no. Simon would tell you also, he’s not a cynic, the show is not cynical. It’s cynical about institutions, and how we can change things, but it doesn’t make me sad or depressed, but I get pangs before we start watching the episodes, like ‘this is going to mess with me now.’ But after it’s over, in some ways, I feel renewed, like this is how I’m going to do something beneficial for society now. And that’s in part why I’m a teacher, that’s in part why I want to teach a course about ‘The Wire,’ that’s in part why I want to write about it.
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