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Started my re-watch last night, finished episode one at about half midnight and was so very, very tempted to burn through the next two but managed to restrain myself. One of the things I noticed about D'Angelo was how conflicted he seems to be. He gives it the big up in the car with Wee-Bey then gets scolded for doing so. He does the same with Avon in the club and again gets a dressing down. And the silent walkaways after Johnny gets beaten and Gant turns up dead, you can see the gears working in his head, like he's wrestling with "I'm not cut out for this/yes I am". But Larry Gilliard does it in such a subtle way that it just works. Also, Gilliard is married to Alma from season 5, never knew that!
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Dec 12, 2012 10:50
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As Omar is due to make his first appearance in The Rewatch, Donnie Andrews, the guy who Omar was based on has died. That's some spiderman poo poo right there...
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Dec 15, 2012 16:42
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cletepurcel posted:I think he did care with the dead Jane Doe, because that unmarked mass grave he describes sounds pretty horrifying even by the standards of Baltimore. The mass grave thing does exist, or at least it did in 1988 Baltimore in the Homicide book. One of the detectives (I think its Digger Waltermayer) has rather unfortunately landed the Black Widow case, involving a quite frankly batshit insane old woman who has a bad habit of taking out life insurance policies on her husbands and family members then murdering them, one of whom survived being shot twice, once in the head. Anyway, Waltermayer drives out to have one of the bodies exhumed and it turns out, the paperwork is wrong so they dug up the wrong body. He comes back when the cemetery has sorted out the paperwork, but it's still the wrong body. After a bit of a yell, the manager of the place admits that sometimes the ground in the main cemetery is too hard in winter so they dump all the bodies at the bottom of the place where it's easier to dig. ShaneMacGowansTeeth fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Jan 7, 2013 |
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Jan 7, 2013 22:35
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Finished my rewatch of Season 1 and one little observation and one bigger one. Firstly, the first words McNulty says to Stringer at D'Angelo's trial are "nicely done" and the last words said by Stringer to McNulty at Avon and Co's trial are "nicely done" (complete with smirk). And then there's Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy, loving Jimmy. After Kima get's shot, he's absolutely in bits, he feels guilt that she got shot on his personal crusade, it shows that he now realises that there are consequences to his actions. At the start of the next episode, he says that he now can't give a gently caress because Kima getting shot ruins his case (or at least that's what he implies). He's just such a loving rear end in a top hat.
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Jan 12, 2013 10:59
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Which episode are we supposed to be on? This sorta fizzled out because we all just seem to be watching whatever and whenever. I think number 4, but we're all going at our own pace I think. I got re-addicted and burnt through an episode a night four times a week, but am going to take a break before starting season 2.
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Jan 12, 2013 14:33
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Okay, I lied and started season two last night and noticed a couple of things, two technical, one general: 1) When Bodie and Shamrock are driving to Philadelphia, for some reason the audio sounds like it skips "ah come on man you're kill/killing me/me". What's weird is that the same line of dialogue is in the official soundtrack with the same error. Am I just mishearing it? 2) Bodie goes to Philadelphia with considerably less hair than he has when he gets back to Baltimore, which reminds me of an episode of Aussie soap neighbours when one of the actresses left her house in a rage to confront her boyfriend with her hair one way, and in her very next scene appeared with a rather expensive and fashionable haircut. 3) When Nick and Ziggy leave the cafe after getting the number of the can with the dead girls in, there's an absolutely gently caress off huge warship in the dock. It has absolutely no bearing or relevance on the scene, but I just never noticed this ship with the typically huge three barrelled cannon on its deck.
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Jan 15, 2013 21:13
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Just finishing watching 'All Prologue' and its still my favourite episode in the whole run, I feel I could write a dozen essays on just this one episode. It's so drat good
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Jan 23, 2013 01:20
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Gangringo posted:"Mr. Hilton are you the second coming of our savior?" would it necessarily matter within a court of law? Bird and Omar weren't involved in Dee's trial, and I don't remember if Levy was defending Dee either. He also makes sure to tell the jury on two occasions to disregard part's of Omar's testimony. I'm sure some legal eagles can correct me if I'm wrong though
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Jan 23, 2013 22:06
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cletepurcel posted:Pretty much the entirety of the Bird trial is unrealistic, just enjoy it (much like the Clay Davis trial we see later). of that I have no doubt, though Phelan's needling of Bird at the end is something I'm sure happens in trials all the time. Maybe not major crimes like murder, but certainly at the lower levels
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Jan 23, 2013 23:23
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So after the brilliance of 'All Prologue', I've always felt that the next episode 'Backwash' was a pretty mediocre (for The Wire anyway) follow-up. Not so! Halfway through the episode, Frank is sitting in on a presentation about the mechanisation of Rotterdam and immediately asks how man longshoremen are still working there. He's obviously looking out for his union, and the suit presenting says he doesn't have the exact figures but seems awfully please to tell Frank that 4000 work there. Later, Frank and Bruce have an animated discussion over the presentation. Frank is aghast that his union will die out when robots take over all the work, and then Bruce starts talking to Frank about his granddad lumping a grinding stone up a street to sharpen stake knives, and how his granddad scrimped and saved to send Bruce's dad to college. And in a very subtle manner Bruce is telling Frank that he's fighting progress and rather than simply funneling money at him to grease the right political wheels, he should be looking out for his family and his workers and getting them of the mindset that a job simply runs in the family and should start looking at a life beyond the docks. (Of course, Bruce takes the money anyway). And then the coup de grace comes a little later when New Charles is injured when a pallet crushes his leg - the mechanisation that Frank is fighting a losing battle against would have meant that the accident wouldn't have occured, either by New Charles having been laid off years ago or by mechanisation. We then later find out that New Charles was named as such because on his first day on the docks, a previous Charles was crushed to death by a can. It's just a little sub plot that runs almost in the background and comes circle in about four scenes, and it's just genius.
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Jan 24, 2013 23:20
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Protocol 5 posted:The worst thing is Andre Royo apparently being condemned to get bit parts forever, despite his amazing work in the Wire. It seriously blows my mind that an actor with his charisma and comedic timing doesn't have a regular gig in something. He was in an episode of Criminal Minds as a killer. He had no lines. He was goddamn awesome.
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Jan 25, 2013 20:02
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escape artist posted:I don't remember much about him, but one thing I remember is he did this thing where he would theoretically bet on on horse races, and always did it, but would never wager any money. he was a member of the shipbuilders union, but states that he hasn't been union for 30 years & I think Frank mentions that the shipyards shut down in the 70s in one of his waterfront chats with either Ziggy or Nick. He also turns down Frank's offer to sit on a labour relations board for the union, complete with stipend, because he doesn't want to earn money for nothing. I think he even directly says "it needs to be clean" in reference to earning the money.
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Jan 30, 2013 08:31
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Nearly done with Season 2, and I'm now absolutely convinced that I've somehow managed to skip an episode as suddenly Cheryl is pregnant and I don't recall seeing Kima walking around the baby store with a look of "what the gently caress did I do?" on her face. Anyway, I didn't think this existed on YouTube but it does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DozVdtbMuM8 
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Jan 31, 2013 08:28
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This truly is the thread that keeps on giving. More observations that I didn't list earlier: after Ziggy murders Double G and exits the store, there's some really weird motion blur they use when he's staggering back to the car. It's off putting, and snaps back when it cuts to a shot of a parking meter expiring. It's a pretty cheesy device, but bugger me it doesn't half work in a "so obvious it should induce eye rolling but doesn't" kind of way. Also didn't know that former WWE superstar Vladimir Kozlov has a cameo as muscle for the greeks. And on the subject of the theme tune and music in general, 'If I Should Fall From Grace With God' would have worked, but perhaps not the full blown Pogues original version. it's thematically similar to 'Way Down In The Hole' to work, but would need to be slowed down. Another little nugget is Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock's 'It Takes Two' which gets an airing during season one, and also happens to be used by Simon in the Homicide book to illustrate the beat of a Baltimore summer drowning in murders. 'Body Of An American' is also too genius when used at the wakes by the police, but another neat touch to me is using 'Transmetropolitan' by The Pogues to soundtrack Jimmy's failed attempts to crash his car. I didn't really think about it until hearing the song in full later, but my god, it really really fits.
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Jan 31, 2013 21:50
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:
You have to remember the context of that particular line. He says it to Bruce DiBagio, who has been dipping his hand in Frank's pocket, while Bruce's granddad pushed a cart uphill to sell/sharpen steak knives (the build poo poo part). I see it less as a justification of his stealing but a lament for a time when hard work, graft, blood & sweat were worth a drat and that know it's all who you know and how much you can buy them off for. Valchek, Carcetti, Rawls, Burrell, Davis even Daniels get where they end up by whose wheels they grease and who they know higher up the food chain. The stevedores are getting hosed over by politicians with more cash and clout or the march of technology. gently caress, we saw it the UK when Thatcher declared war on the unions and manufacturing industry over here and turned us into a finance orientated economy. I've seen it in all the jobs I've done where I've grafted, gone over and above what's required me and seen someone get ahead of me because they're related to someone in a position of power. "The world goin' one way, people another yo"
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Feb 1, 2013 00:11
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Enjoy that, its worth it. Also a plea to any polish speaking goons: what does Valchek say when he receives the last surveillance van picture from Australia? After he calls Frank a motherfucking cocksucker, obviously
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Feb 1, 2013 01:51
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Going back to Hamsterdam, did Colvin ever have a plan to mop up his mess? I mean, he tells all of the officers that after a while they will go down and bust all of the dealers there... but he's going out with a major's pension and 30 years service. It seems to me like the whole idea was to get his figures up and pass the problem on to someone else. I mean, he sure as gently caress must have known that if he got caught legalising drugs that he was going to be fired and give all that up.
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Feb 7, 2013 22:10
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Someone mentioned it earlier, but the "make me sick motherfucker" scene between Bunk and Omar, what a loving scene. Midway through Bunk's speech he starts breathing heavily, as if to try and stop himself from doing something stupid. The contempt, anger and despair that come across, Wendell Pierce needs more TV work
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Feb 12, 2013 00:50
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Parachute Underwear posted:Man. Just watched the episode where Prez shoots that cop on accident. There's that closing scene where he's at the office, sitting there and looking at all their work and the equipment for the last time. Every time I see that scene, all I can hear is McNulty's, "I had such fuckin' hopes for us." I've just reached that point as well, and it's probably only the second time where McNulty realises that his loving crusade to be the smartest guy in the shop is actually having consequences (the other being when Kima got shot). Jimmy's progression over season three is wonderful though as he becomes a bigger arsehole as time goes on. Daniels rips him, Lester tears him a new one twice, and the coup de grace comes when he talks to Breanna about D'Angelo not being a suicide. Here's a grieving mother and he basically flat out tells her "yeah, you made him take the years, and if he had flipped he would be alive, this is all your fault and you don't care at all". It's just such a crowning moment of arseholeishness (though what's worse is that McNulty's speech is more than likely true) that then after that point, Jimmy gets taken down peg after peg until he's sitting in the homicide department, hears Jay ripping Prez and walks out a broken man. He's officially done. Oh and one more thing - when he finds out about Hamsterdam, he has this little exchange with Bunny: "do the bosses know?" "gently caress the bosses!" I wonder where he learnt his insubordinate tendencies, and of course THAT harks back to Daniel's speech to Carver at the end of season one about "piece of poo poo lieutenants turning out piece of poo poo sargeants"
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Feb 15, 2013 19:22
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The rooftop scene between Avon and Stringer when they're reminiscing about the old days, knowing what's coming next
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Feb 19, 2013 00:30
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HelmetCheese posted:I'm onto season three of my rewatch. I'm noticing a lot more small details on my second time through, and seeing a fair amount of callbacks to Simon's book, Homicide. Detective Worden, for instance, gets mentioned in passing a few times during the first season. And that scene at the start of the first episode--"this America man, you got to let him play"--it's so cool knowing that that actually happened. Blew my mind when I learned Bubbles, Omar, Landsman, and McNulty are all based on real people, too. Worden actually gets a speaking cameo in season five. He plays a night detective being relieved by Bunk, and asks his colleague in the office to "type quieter rear end in a top hat", while Lieutenant D'Addario plays the grand jury worker who sells the sealed court documents to Levy
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Mar 5, 2013 00:11
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Jerusalem posted:
wait, wait, wait, how the hell have I missed this all after all these rewatches? I'm kind of glad I'm single and not subjecting a girlfriend to watching this as I'd spend every episode talking about all the minute details that crop up all the time
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Mar 9, 2013 12:51
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The only thing I didn't like about Wallace's death was how all of the writing leading up to it, especially the bit in the takeout place, seemed very... heavy handed and too foreshadowing. Usually this show likes to do a lot of its best storytelling in gestures, looks, broken phrases, something in the background but that scene was almost too "police procedural" for me.
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Apr 3, 2013 13:59
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The dialogue runs as follows:quote:Freamon: When they took us off Marlo this last time, when they said they couldn't pay for further investigation... I regarded that decision as illegitimate. So Sydnor knew the wiretap was illegal, but I assume Lester would have done everything in his power to give the bosses the impression he told anyone working in Major Crimes that it was a legitimate wiretap and fallen on his own sword when/if the poo poo hit the fan. As far as I can recall, Sydnor knew nothing about the fake killer thing either.
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Apr 3, 2013 21:54
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escape artist posted:What about the scene where Sydnor's got the cell phone and they route his number to make it look like that phone (in that specific area) was used to call the police (as the serial killer)? He then slips his phone in some foil so that the signal isn't readable. It's been a while! I've actually abandoned my re-watch after season 3 because I somehow in my mind split the show into 2 separate parts: The Barksdales and then The Stanfield era. I'll probably jump back into Season 4 next week, but I don't have the love for season four that others do whereas I could probably watch season 2 on an infinite loop until the end of time.
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Apr 3, 2013 22:36
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In other news, Hamsterdam may be coming to England, or at least a more controlled variant of the idea anyway
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Apr 18, 2013 08:14
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David Simon's going to talk about The War On Drugs at the Royal Institution. If I lived near London, I'd be all over this
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May 9, 2013 15:37
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Fabulous write up J-Ru, and even better censorship!
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May 14, 2013 22:35
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Ainsley McTree posted:You seem to be forgetting one of the funniest lines on the show! I've never noticed it before, but he really whispers it hoping she doesn't hear
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May 15, 2013 23:02
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Jerusalem posted:Colvin's,"Maybe I'll legalize drugs," gets a big laugh from everybody else, but then he goes ahead and does just that. Is Rawls Deputy Ops at this point? Because if so, that's kind of the role he needs to take. I think again Simon talks about the power structure early on in Homicide where the Deputy Ops is the actual power of the department, while the commissioner takes all the political flak
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Jun 4, 2013 07:37
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on a note apropros of nothing, this year is the 25th anniversary of the year Simon embedded himself with the Baltimore Homicide department. And again, I'm re-reading that book again, and it's brilliant. Sample dialogue below:quote:Quietly, almost casually, Jackson tells the detectives that he made his payment to Mr Plumer yesterday afternoon; then the old man took the money and drove away. in short, buy this book
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Jun 13, 2013 00:13
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I always saw the "dead in a zip code that don't matter" not in geographical terms but simply departmental priorities: she's dead in a shoot-out with no witnesses aside from the kids, no physical evidence and no suspects. It's simply a case that will never be closed, so in terms of the department, it does not matter. Dozerman's gun on the other hand, is very important to the department because they don't want the general population thinking that it's okay to steal an officer's weapon. Interestingly enough, the stolen gun was lifted straight out of the Homicide book as well, except in real like the detective was using some home made porn tapes of his prime suspect as leverage to get the gun back. Unfortunately for said detective, he never signed them into evidence and as such was suspended while attempting said negotiations so being found interrogating someone with his service weapon was not a smart move. Hell, Edgerton in the book kind of reminds me of McNulty in a way
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Jun 18, 2013 21:19
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stratdax posted:In one of the Discworld books, a character is described as "one of Nature's Sergeants". That pretty much describes Landsman perfectly, I think. there probably are those ranks, they're just not characterised. For instance, judging by the Homicide book, Rawls seems to be a shift lieutenant, but has the power of a captain though again in that book, the captain who Rawls would report to was in charge of the Crimes Against Persons. I guess there could have been some restructuring. On another note, it's my birthday and my brother has sent me some money. I've just ordered the paperbacks of The Corner, Truth Be Told and Re-Up. More Wire goodness!
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Jun 22, 2013 13:26
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 So, which should I start first?
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Jun 26, 2013 21:11
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I've read Homicide three times now, and am currently binging through the series (oh it's so, so, so, so good). I've seen The Corner (De'Andre  ), so... The Corner it is!
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Jun 26, 2013 21:36
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and his mum too! I also lied, and went with the Re-Up first, as it's a little lighter than the other two. Turns out that it's basically this thread in a book with shorter episode write-ups and comments from various Guardian readers. There's also a little nugget in there which I thought "no, it can't be true": in season two, in the background of some scenes there's an old woman scrubbing her steps. That's all she does, scrub her steps. At the end of the season, we see her again, and she's put a for sale sign up in her house - can anyone watching this confirm it. And on Homicide the book, looking at the Wikipedia page has just made me realise something. My dad took that book out from the library about 17 years ago, and I only remembered because of the distinct look of the BPD shield on the front cover. I don't think I ever read it, but it's odd that this little journey could have started way back when
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Jun 26, 2013 22:42
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Not sure, but it might be
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Jun 27, 2013 07:30
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So I mentioned a little earlier in the thread about getting some books and started with The Wire: Re-Up because it's not as heavy going as the other two (Truth Be Told & The Corner). Anyway, there's an interview with Dominic West inside, and he's come up with a few choice quotes, which kind of tie in nicely with the above. For starters, here he is on getting the role:Dominic West posted:Originally, they wanted Ray Winstone, but I think he turned the down because he didn't want to live in Baltimore for five years. MAybe they were desparate or maybe I did a great tape. I don't know On not getting a better deal on British TV and missing awards: Dominic West posted:I always blamed it on there being far too many black people. We should have had more white people and we would have been a glorious success and won loads of emmys. It was always accepted that you had to have a white lead otherwise no-one would watch it. I felt a bit uncomfortable about that, or more uncomfortable than I did being a Brit stealing an American job. But it was always a great atmosphere among the actors. Among the princpals, we all had the same trailer. We all got treated like poo poo. We were all subordinate to the writing On getting homesick and wanting to leave the show: Dominic West posted:David would have to try to persuade me, you know, offer me loads more sex scenes. Half those sex scenes were to try and keep me quiet It's deliberately short, but he does bring up a few salient points, mainly about shows with a predominantly black cast getting screwed by awards and ratings, and the writing being king. I'd like to see an honest to goodness roundtable discussion with some of the cast, writers, directors and just let them shoot the poo poo for hours.
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Jul 8, 2013 22:55
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well I'm 120 pages into The Corner, and I'll admit that I've already seen the mini-series so know how some of the characters end up. But so far... gently caress me, this should be required reading for everyone. I'm only a little way in but I've run through anger, horror, revulsion, despair, anger, agony and disbelief. But more than anything, and knowing how he ends up, I just want to get Gary away from the drat corner
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Jul 26, 2013 20:38
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Fragmented posted:Yeah it's a really sad story. He was a kind soul who became an addict in like the worst place a nice person could become an addict. I like to think that David Simon wrote Bubbles as Gary with a happy ending. But Gary was bright, and he was making serious money and yet fell away and never recovered. I have a feeling the further into the book I get, the more angry/upset I'm going to get
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Jul 27, 2013 00:37
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