ABSTRACT
The Wire is as much a police procedural television show as the Trojan horse was a horse. Among its various rich mythic elements are a Faustian arrangement involving legalising drugs. The police Major responsible – Bunny Colvin – is scapegoated by the end of the third season. This chapter highlights the ambiguity and ambivalence of carnivalesque subjects of variable personal status. The carnival here is a species of the state of exception where ordinary rules do not apply and opposites are rendered indistinguishable. This reprieve is only momentary. Its very brevity guarantees the long-term stability of the normal situation.
