The Pager
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| “The Pager” | |
|---|---|
| The Wire episode | |
 |
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 5 |
| Guest stars | see below |
| Written by | David Simon |
| Directed by | Peter Medak |
| Production no. | 105 |
| Original airdate | June 30, 2002 (HBO) |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "Old Cases" | "The Wire" |
| Episode chronology | |
"The Pager" is the fifth episode of the first season of the HBO original series, The Wire. The episode was written by David Simon from a story by David Simon & Ed Burns and was directed by Peter Medak. It originally aired on June 30, 2002.
Contents |
[edit] Guest Starring roles
- Peter Gerety as Judge Daniel Phelan
- 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
- Hassan Johnson as Wee-Bey
- J.D. Williams as Bodie
- Michael K. Williams as Omar
- Michael B. Jordan as Wallace
- Clayton LeBouef as Wendell "Orlando" Blocker
- Delaney Williams as Sergeant Jay Landsman
- Shamyl Brown as Donette
- Tracy Chaney as Poot Carr
- Wendy Grantham as Shardene Innes
- Michael Kevin Darnall as Brandon
- Curtis Montez as Sterling
- Brandon Price as Anton "Stinkum" Artis
- Lance Williams as Bailey
- Fredro Starr as Marquis "Bird" Hilton (uncredited)
- Angel M. Wainwright as Tywanda (uncredited)
- Unknown as Chantal (uncredited)
[edit] Episode recap
Avon Barksdale wakes up at his girlfriends apartment. The phone rings, but the line goes dead when his girlfriend, Chantal, answers. This prompts him to look out the window and he begins to worry about the safety of the place. His enforcer Wee-Bey Brice picks him up. Avon tells Wee-Bey to remove the phone lines from Chantal’s apartment. Wee-Bey tells Avon he is worried they are being paranoid. Avon refuses to use the first payphone they come to.
Omar, Bailey and Brandon discuss their next rip on an East Side corner. Omar draws out a plan to trap the dealers in the alley they use. Omar approaches from the front whistling "The Farmer in the Dell" while Brandon and Bailey wait in the alley.
Judge Phelan visits the Barksdale detail to sign the wiretap affidavit for their payphone and pager clones.
In the low-rises, young dealers Bodie Broadus and Poot Carr discuss AIDS. Their boss D'Angelo Barksdale watches indulgently as Wallace plays with an action figure. Bodie throws a bottle at him, angry that he appears weak. D'Angelo steps up to Bodie but changes his mind and walks away.
Stringer Bell visits D'Angelo in the low-rises and warns him that they think he might have a snitch in his crew. He tells D'Angelo to withhold his dealers' pay and see who does not need an advance to get by, thus identifying anyone with another source of income. Finally, Stringer chastises D'Angelo for letting Poot have a cell phone.
Lester Freamon monitors the pager clones and finds that each message consists of a seven-digit phone number and a two-digit identifying tag. The phone numbers used are largely dead lines, so Freamon postulates that they are using a code to mask the numbers.
Detective Kima Greggs reports to her colleague Jimmy McNulty that her confidential informant Bubbles has found Omar’s van. She hopes to catch Omar with a gun and convince him to become an informant. They discuss the problems with the cloned pagers. Greggs and McNulty sit on the van, waiting for Omar to show up. McNulty uses Greggs's phone to call Elena and ask for his sons to come over. She questions him about their sleeping arrangements. McNulty insists he has everything ready, but she does not believe him and refuses to allow the visit. Later, he drunkenly assembles flat pack bunk beds for his absent sons.
In the detail office Detective Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski makes copies of the telephone keypad and the noise wakes up Augustus Polk. Detectives Ellis Carver and Thomas "Herc" Hauk track Bodie down to the low-rises and violently arrest him for absconding from a juvenile detention centre. Carver tries to interrogate Bodie, but Bodie sees straight through the good cop/bad cop routine. Carver reveals that he "came up hard" himself through the Flak house projects. Bodie refuses to consider making a deal and Herc and Carver respond to his insults with a savage beating. While waiting to hand Bodie over to juvenile intake, however, they end up playing pool with him.
D’Angelo takes his girlfriend Donette out to an expensive restaurant. He worries that he seems out of place, but she tells him that as long as he can pay, he has every right to be there. D’Angelo worries that his upbringing will always stay with him.
Stringer and Avon discuss taking over the Edmondson Avenue corners, as they are wide open. Avon orders that they approach the one remaining dealer, Scar, and order him to move on. He tells Stringer that Stinkum should run the territory, as he has been looking to move up. Later, Avon gives Stinkum the good news. Avon gets a page from Wee-Bey to let him know that they captured one of Omar's crew. Avon fills a refuse bag with cash and Stinkum drives him away.
Bubbles visits his friend Johnny in a clinic and learns that he has AIDS. Bubbles is upset at his friend's misfortune. Bubbles tells Johnny that he is on a mission to bring down the Barksdale hoppers that beat Johnny. Johnny cannot understand why Bubbles is voluntarily working with the police.
Bunk gets good news from a ballistics tech: the casing from the Kresson scene links to two other murders (Leggett and Doyle) just as Landsman predicted. When McNulty visits the homicide department, Landsman enjoys his victory but also tells McNulty about Rawls's offer. McNulty criticises Landsman for not telling him about the murder of John Bailey from Omar’s crew. Bunk tells McNulty that he has a new number for the witness in the Kresson case: Tywanda. They interview the witness and she tells him that Deirdre told her that D’Angelo was there that night. They learn that Deirdre threatened Avon. They also learn about Orlando’s from Tywanda.
At the club, Orlando discusses business with D'Angelo. He tells him about Stinkum's promotion. D'Angelo makes a date with dancer Shardene Innes after she diffuses a situation with an irate customer.
Stinkum, Avon, and D'Angelo visit Avon’s comatose brother in a county care facility. Avon sees his brother as an example of the dire consequences of acting carelessly in their way of life. Avon tells D’Angelo that one mistake could see either of them like his brother and that the fear motivates Avon to work harder.
At the detail office, Prez reveals that he has cracked Avon's pager code and delights in explaining it to McNulty and Greggs. Freamon visits Daniels office and tells him that they need a wire on the project phones to make the case. He knows that Daniels is concerned about his career, but insists that they put the cases first.
Later, McNulty and Greggs resume their stakeout of Omar's van. They follow the van into a cemetery. McNulty tries to convince Omar that they have an enemy in common, but Omar thinks that working with the police is wrong. McNulty reveals that Bailey has been killed and Omar responds by saying that he was a good man with a lot of enemies. As the police go to leave, Omar tells them that Bird killed "a working man".
Later, Poot and Wallace spot Brandon in an arcade and page D'Angelo to let him know. D'Angelo pages the news in from the project phones. Stringer receives the page as he surveys Scar's territory with Bird, Wee-Bey and Stinkum. Stringer meets with Wallace and Poot and arranges for Wallace to point out Brandon to Wee-Bey. He then calls D'Angelo to let him know the work is done. Although all the pages are logged at the detail office, the calls themselves are not recorded, so the picture is not clear for the detail.[1][2][3]
[edit] Deceased
- Bailey: Off screen murder, killed by Roland "Wee-Bey" Brice and two other unnamed attackers.
[edit] First appearances
- Marquis "Bird" Hilton: A foul mouthed Barksdale organization enforcer.
[edit] Title Reference
The title refers to the pagers used by the Barksdale organization and cloned by the detail.
[edit] Epigraph
| “ | ...a little slow, a little late. - Avon Barksdale | ” |
Avon uses this phrase in a speech he makes to D'Angelo about the random nature of their business and the constant danger involved.
