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OK, since the OP was very clear about this being a spoiler-y place, I'm carefully ignoring everything else in the thread to say: - I decided to finally watch The Wire this year, and I'm six episodes in. I'm hoping to get this and The Sopranos off my backlog for good in 2024. - It's very good, but I don't love it yet. However, episode six felt like the start of some upward momentum in that regard. - This is the first show I've needed to keep subtitles on for. A lot of very mumbly talkers in this cast. - Would've been fun to watch this during the Bush years and the height of Patriot Act / surveillance state discourse. - Baby Michael B. Jordan! That's fun, although I think he's a little uneven so far. - Also a big fan of the performances for Stringer Bell, Freamon, Bubbles, Omar, and Avon. - Dee looks like he's 10 years old and it freaks me out. - I hope the stripper that Dee slept with gets more screentime because she's interesting and the show doesn't have a lot going on in terms of female characters, which makes it feel kind of one-note tonally. - McNulty, his cubicle buddy, and Lieutenant Daniels all feel like cardboard cutouts from an '80s show. I don't dislike them but they feel like they're from a different show. - Love how virtually the entire cop brass are shitheels and so many of the detectives are dirtbags. Ahead of its time on that one! - So many scenes in this show look to me like I'm watching theatre, like it's a stage performance. It really works for some scenes but it makes a lot of the drama feel like melodrama. I'm not sure why that is.
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Jan 13, 2024 18:22
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Finished season one, which I felt improved significantly as it went on. By the last third, I thought it was really excellent. - The show does a nice job of reflecting our morally grey world while still making it clear that there are gradients in that grey and those matter. - The conversations between Dee and Wallace delve into that a bit (why does the game have to be so gruesome compared to other enterprises?). I hope the show eventually delves into the structural causes of why instead of leaving it as a fatalistic "that's just how it's gotta be"). Obviously it's big into examining institutional rot, but will it examine the policy issues behind the war on drugs to begin with or just leave those implied? - Speaking of the gradients in the grey, I'm very curious how contemporary viewers/critics reacted to the end of episode seven. Seeing two characters who we've been primed to believe are in the lighter shades of grey (Daniels and Greggs) beat Bird with the tacit consent of another (McNulty) is a really dark turn. In an environment where 9/11 was a much more recent memory than Rodney King and Guantanamo Bay was on the horizon with all of its defenders, I wonder if people were like "that's just what you gotta do when some rear end in a top hat suspect isn't cooperating!" - The degree that the cops initially cared about having a stakeout for the wiretap seems pretty unrealistic to me. I understand that they're supposed to have one and that not having a corroborating photo for a conversation could cause problems for the eventual court case, but when they're listening to the wiretap initially, it's very clearly a relevant conversation for them to hear, but they shut it off to have the exposition dump about needing the stakeout, which was silly. Like an "oh, it would be wrong to eavesdrop without having all of our ducks in a row!" They would definitely just listen to the whole call, even if they couldn't use it directly. I know they start cheating it later on, but still. - I also don't really believe that a circuit court judge would have this level of power over the police force. - Had absolutely zero idea who Sydnor was when he got namedropped in episode nine and identified Avon. - Speaking of episode nine, loved the streetball game. Also, Bubbles' little salute to the flag. - I forgot to shout-out the nepo baby failson on the task force in my first post. Love Prez's arc from "insecure loser who participates in a totally unnecessary police terror raid" to "guy who doesn't know how anything works so he just asks dumb questions to generate Freamon's smooth-voiced exposition" to "useful puzzle dweeb." - I like that Wallace's character was basically the metaphorical catcher in the rye at "home." - I've thought a little bit about how I would cast this show if it were being made today, and there are a lot of roles that I'm uncertain about, but I would definitely cast Daveed Diggs as the strip club owner Orlando. - Since the first time Omar showed up on the screen, I felt like he was a walking fireworks factory. Very exciting to finally arrive there in episode eight! I'm assuming this show is the origin of the phrase, "You come at the king, you best not miss." - The ending of episode 10 is one of the most well-shot stretches of television I've seen. Just really great stuff. Made the mistake of watching it immediately before bed late at night, which combined with having watched Chinatown (1974) for the first time earlier that same night, made for kind of a downer evening. Doubly so because of my (well-founded!!!) concern about what it would mean for Bubbles. - Fun to find the origin of a well-loved reaction gif in episode 11. - Love that "she's her... roommate" jokes go back decades. - The show's sense of humor usually doesn't land very well for me, but I did like the Wee-Bey aquarium reveal. - In episode 12, Stringer tells Dee that their main stash got hit by the cops, but we know that the task force specifically avoided that one. I assumed that was a lie to manipulate Dee, but then I started wondering if he told Avon the same thing. He might be able to get away with that since he convinced Avon to isolate himself. Long story short, I suspect the Barksdale Organization is going to be under new ownership soon. - Every character with any meaningful screentime gets some good and not-so-good morality moments, but I gotta say that I don't care about Freamon's latter moment. I think we're supposed to look down on Freamon getting together with Shardene because she's in a vulnerable spot, but I don't think she's anybody's victim. - Favorite actors from the first season are Freamon, Stringer Bell, Omar, Daniels, and Bubbles. There aren't many whiffs in the casting, but those five really stood out to me as a cut above, and obviously some of their careers caught fire. I'm understanding correctly that the thread's episode write-ups spoil things from future episodes, right? I also tried listening to the podcast that HBO put out a year or two ago and that seemed like it was going to start spoiling things. I'd love to have some spoiler-free reading or listening material to accompany me as I start up season two, but I'm not sure where to look without risk.
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Jan 18, 2024 01:56
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Something I forgot to mention: I think that was Bodie on a cell phone in the closing montage. Very curious if that signals either the end of the organization's control of the pit or a change in the rules with Stringer Bell running the show. Jerusalem posted:Yes, the write-ups are pretty open with spoilers at times so if you want to go in really clean it would be best to avoid them until you're done. Sorry! Dang! GoutPatrol posted:How could you not like Wee Bay Wee Bay came on strong in the last few episodes, but I couldn't have picked him out of a police lineup before then. Count Roland posted:It also took me some time to learn to Sydnor was when I first watched the show. Sydnor and Santangelo were both total background characters for me. I thought the latter was a completely different character from the homicide cop in McNulty's district who was into the psychic thing. Criminal Minded posted:They *wanted* to hold back on it. Carver snitched on them to the Deputy Ops. You see him yelling at Daniels in his office in the basement saying "DON'T BULLSHIT ME!" Ahhh, got it. I remembered the scene but I thought that resolution was the Deputy Ops being mad about Daniels lying about the main stash, but Daniels ultimately getting away with it.
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Jan 18, 2024 04:22
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Alright, four episodes into season two: - This rendition of the theme song is infinitely worse than season one. - It's so satisfying as the gang slowly comes back together in episodes three and four. - It's very difficult to look at Beadie and not see Marge Gunderson. - Avon's cushy time in prison is great; love that he's got some new perk every time we see him. Also, wild how many problems he solved with one plan by poisoning those drugs. - I forgot to mention in my last post, but Avon's lawyer (Levy?) definitely goes in that top-tier actor list. Like a cross between Paul Heyman and Saul Goodman. - McNulty looks so cozy in his marine unit garb, which is tough for me to reconcile with his rapidly disintegrating personal life. - Whoa nelly, Nick's girlfriend Aimee in episode four. - Nick is kind of a nothing character to me (meaning that he's just a realistic normal dude), but the Ziggy performance is perfectly calibrated. This annoying horndog loser dipshit who's just barely narrowly skirting a brutal beatdown from everyone who knows him through a mixture of intermittent charm and connections. - "God drat it, Ziggy, you sick gently caress! Get your dick outta my computer!"
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Jan 23, 2024 14:14
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Season two, episodes five through eight: - Give me hours of Ziggy getting beat up or hosed with. He's like an early 20-something version of Paulie from the Rocky franchise. The Maui "fight" was extremely entertaining though. - I'll also take as many Frank speeches rattling off presidents as you've got. - It's very funny that Frank pulled a "I'm a brother to three sisters with daughters; I care about women" card and then immediately looked at Beadie expecting approval. - Even still, I like Frank a lot. He's the only thing holding the port (and that new set of characters) together for me. I'm very worried for him. - Poot sucks. I hate his name, I hated his lovely polo shirts in the first season, and I hate his wimp rear end. - I love the degree to which Prez worships Freamon. Prez's reaction is so funny when he comes in and identifies Frank Sobotka right away. - I get it, though. Freamon could convince me of anything. - I said in my last post that it was fun to get the gang back together, and that's mostly true, but it also feels very silly. Also, I think Herc and Carver are major liabilities; I wouldn't want them on my task force. Speaking of, the second they put that bug in the tennis ball, I knew exactly what would happen. - A sitcom about community college featuring serious student Stringer Bell as part of the ensemble would go pretty hard. - I gotta say that Donette's actress doesn't impress me at all. She really underwhelms in an otherwise very strong cast. It was a relief when Dee got killed; I thought a lot of the weakest stuff this season was tied to him. The aftermath episode was also well done, I thought. - How many people tried going to STREETDRUGS.BIZ when that aired? - Could not have picked Bird out of a police lineup before episode six, but the way he boils over (gradually, then suddenly) at Omar's testimony and tries to leap over the table at him was so intense. - A not-insignificant part of me was hoping that the episode eight opener was going to end with McNulty hitting that pillar straight-on. Such a loving sleaze. I can't stand drunk drivers. - Bunk Moreland: just a humble motherfucker with a big-rear end dick. Also a sleaze, but at least the show doesn't try to make him the main character. - Excellent casting on the Greek. I don't know how he manages to have that grandpa-like twinkle in his eye at certain moments and completely dead inside at others, but it's impressive. - This show has the same writer(s) for all of it, right? I think so, but episode eight felt like a different writer, or a different director; it had like 4x as many comedy scenes as usual. I thought it was setting up a big shock moment or something at the end, but nope. Still, very curious to see what gets wrapped up this season and what's just set-up for future seasons.
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Jan 29, 2024 06:42
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OK, and closing out season two: - I hope every season has at least one totally pointless police-terrorizing-the-projects-for-security-theater-politics scene. So far we're 2-for-2. - The duck dying of alcohol poisoning within one episode made me cackle. Everything Ziggy tries fails. A tryhard made up entirely of flopsweat. - Speaking of Ziggy, shocker: he gets beat up again! But, oooh, this time he's got a gun, and the very first thing he does with it is shoot some teenager when he predictably gets screwed again. Major Columbine vibes from Ziggy. - And then he gets beat up AGAIN offscreen while he's in jail awaiting his hearing! - "Did he have hands? Did he have a face? Yes? Then it wasn't us!" - I usually find cat-and-mouse stories pretty tedious, but it's pretty impressive how many moving parts there are in The Wire, how realistically they move, and how well they're juggled. The closest comparison I can think of (in terms of attention-to-detail, not scale) is the first half of Death Note. I can tell that it's just going to keep expanding, too. - "Probably sending a text message? My kids are crazy over that." - Felt very dumb not putting 2 and 2 together to guess that Brother Mouzon would be Nation of Islam. Also, if you told me that Gus Fring was 10% inspired by this character, I'd believe it. - Omar vs. Brother Mouzon! ...Not quite as fun as I was expecting, but still, really enjoyed their conversation. - Also, gimmie that "I AM THE AMERICAN DREAM" shirt Omar's got. - I rewound Prez punching Valchek four times in a row. - I appreciate that Nick got increasingly sleazy looking over the course of the season, only to clean up that facial hair before turning himself in. - If we divide the first season into two casts (the law vs. the street), each cast had a mixture of characters I enjoyed or found underwhelming/forgettable. The second season added a third cast (the port), and thank god for Frank Sobotka because otherwise the port cast was pretty dire. They were mostly fine actors, and a couple were decently interesting (The Greek, Bea), but I couldn't give less of a poo poo about most of them. - That made the end of episode 11 a real fuckin' bummer, to put it lightly. - Really frustrating that the law has made the same dipshit mistake three times now. Every time they get a perfect informant, whether it's Wallace, Dee, or Frank, they always dilly-dally around and fail to close out. - Oooh, dang, that shot in the finale where Nick realizes that Frank saved his life by refusing to let him go to the bridge meetup, and then the camera focus shifts to Frank's picture on the board in the background. - "No one fucks with us on our turf." <-- well that's just definitely not true, Nick. God, if I find out in season 3 that the car trailing him was a goon sent to kill him rather than his police protection, I'm going to pull my hair out. I think the Greek mentioned pulling all of their guys out, though, so it's probably not. Overall, I think I enjoyed season 1 a little more because of my greater affinity for more of the characters involved, but season 2 was excellent and very impressive television. I see how it's a clear step up.
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Jan 31, 2024 07:05
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Charting my journey with Ziggy over the course of the season, beginning with the first third:surf rock posted:- Nick is kind of a nothing character to me (meaning that he's just a realistic normal dude), but the Ziggy performance is perfectly calibrated. This annoying horndog loser dipshit who's just barely narrowly skirting a brutal beatdown from everyone who knows him through a mixture of intermittent charm and connections. Then the second third: surf rock posted:- Give me hours of Ziggy getting beat up or hosed with. He's like an early 20-something version of Paulie from the Rocky franchise. The Maui "fight" was extremely entertaining though. And the final third: surf rock posted:- The duck dying of alcohol poisoning within one episode made me cackle. Everything Ziggy tries fails. A tryhard made up entirely of flopsweat. Following up on the first post: the Ziggy performance is excellent. It's a difficult character to play, and he does the best you possibly could with it. I think the reason I stopped seeing him as a person and started seeing him as, like, a looney tune was just how often he got poo poo on. Outside of a nice conversation with his dad and the brief sugar rush of his surf rock fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 15:59
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OK, first three episodes of season 3: - Opener rankings: 1 > 3 > 2 - Great little speech from Bodie to open the season. - Much like with Ziggy, I have cognitive dissonance from how much I enjoy the performance from Carver's actor versus how poo poo Carver is. Awesome police brutality speech to the neighborhood, dipshit. He and Herc haven't learned anything. And they continue steadfastly refusing to learn from Bunny Colvin too. - To be fair, nobody has learned anything. If anything, most of the characters are regressing. - Stringer applying Robert's Rules of Order to his meetings is great. - I cannot wait to see the Avon vs. Stringer confrontation we're barreling toward. I actually have no idea how it will go. Stringer is such a fun character and is seemingly set up to be the big antagonist of the show so my assumption has been that he'll have Avon killed before he gets out on parole, but on the other hand, Stringer's approach toward the game is looking pretty naïve at this point. This is the first time I've started wondering whether Avon has a shot to regain power just by being more violent while also being intelligent. - Just another unbelievable entry into a season from Omar. - As someone who's not a pet owner or even very affectionate to dogs, the dogfighting scene still hosed me up. That's some messed-up poo poo. - Herc and Carver running into Bodie and Poot at the movies is fun but also the kind of scene you've gotta save for deep into a show's run because it's goofy as hell. - That said, the slapstick timing of the door opening just as the battering ram or whatever the gently caress it's called swings through the now-empty doorway (immediately followed by the "uhhhhh" hesitation) was perfect in that same episode. - I'm glad that our major crimes unit looked at four murders in one night and was like "actually, you know what, we should probably intervene here even if it means giving up the wire to stop this." The show would be a lot worse if the cops never had a pang of consciousness strike, even if McNulty ended up being right in this case. - GODDAMN Cedric is ripped. - I really like Bunny and I know what happens to the characters I really like, so it's not looking promising for him. The foreshadowing here is heavy. - Getting some Patrick Bateman vibes from the councilman. - In terms of my pet interests, I've been hoping to get more into the city's politics, so this season has been a treat so far.
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Feb 13, 2024 05:49
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Season 3, episodes four through six: - I've been growing to appreciate the show's dialogue more and more. I've considered it pretty good from the get-go, but some of the street talk felt a little corny. The thing that's grabbing my attention more recently though is how many characters have some room for doubt in what they say or how they say it, which feels kind of unusual for this genre of television. That's really apparent with Bunny Colvin, who is taking a big stand but is completely forthright about having no idea whether his idea will work, just the certainty that he needs to try something different after 30 years of ever-worsening failure with the old approach. There are some exceptions to this like Rawls, but by and large, even the most hardheaded characters like McNulty or Avon will sometimes second-guess themselves or concede some level of openness to the person they're debating with. - Speaking of, I'd love to know the percentage of the show's scenes that feature people arguing with each other. It has to be like >80%. - Kind of nice to see Freamon cuss out McNulty. It was a good slow burn over the first few episodes of the season, him covering for McNulty or gently trying to nudge him to do his actual job instead of his lone wolf vengeance quest, only to boil over when McNulty started taking shots at him. McNulty really is the worst. - I like that it's unclear whether or not Kima cheated, although she's such a poor partner regardless that it almost doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure she did cheat though given the degree to which she's being presented as McNulty's new partner in - Goddammit McNulty, you're holding that volcano way too lackadaisically! It's not a pizza; it's your kid's science project you dope. - Sydnor is back... I think? I swear I've seen him in a couple of scenes this season involved in stakeouts or whatever. What the gently caress is up with this character? - Somebody in Colvin's district would've ABSOLUTELY leaked his plan to Burrell or Rawls the second that meeting ended. Probably half the people in that room. I'm sure all of these districts are loaded with deadbeats like that sad old man duo asking about overtime in the first season. - Colvin explicitly endorsing police brutality for anyone who doesn't go to the free zone is, uh, not what I was hoping for. - I liked the successive scenes of Herc and Carver trying to get the hoppers to move over to Vincent Street, but it drives me fuckin' crazy how bad they are at messaging it. It's in-character, but when the hoppers are like "why would you do this, why would this matter" it would be so easy to say "because your poo poo gets violent sometimes and at least over there it's a bunch of vacant houses that would get shot up instead of a loving residential area." - Last season the big technological marvels were the internet and texting, and this season it's burner phones. God I wish I could've watched the show when it first aired. It must've been absolutely mindblowing. - "gash-hound" has to be the worst slang term I've heard in my entire life, jesus christ ughhhhh - Forgot to mention Cutty last time. I liked how his story started, but it would be nice to have just one character who decides to go straight and then sticks with it despite temptation without either backsliding or getting killed for his trouble. Fingers crossed, maybe it'll be Bubbles. - I'm not going back to check, but I wonder if Johnny's anti-snitching passion only started after Bubbles was beat up in the interrogation room. - I wonder if someone will ever notice these cops running around with binoculars on rooftops and in cars. Not even the targets, just someone walking by knocking on the window being like "hey are you guys perverts, what the gently caress are you doing in there?" - Pearlman, I desperately need you to start having some expectations for your love life. This is a pretty thankless role, especially after the first season. - Gotta love Stringer's deputy getting so deep into the minutiae of Robert's Rules of Order that he started taking meeting minutes. - McNulty is just the lamest and most divorced dad. However, can't blame him for getting with Terri D'Agostino, goddamn - Really, really liked how they handled the Avon and Stringer reunion. I thought they might leap straight to the power struggle, but instead, it's just these little ripples of discord. I imagine the fracture will come once Avon realizes that he's basically being treated as Stringer's trophy - The little speech that Stringer gives Avon about how it doesn't matter who has the corners, you can just feel that he's been rehearsing that in his head for months leading up to that moment. And it's so hard to tell whether Avon actually isn't able to see it from a non-gangster perspective like he says, or if he's right and Stringer is deluding himself, or if he's just unwilling to lose the battle of wills. - Sometimes I wish the entire show was just the street side of things, these interactions between Stringer/Bodie and Stringer/Avon, etc. We're getting to the good part now, the walls starting to close in on the Barksdale organization as the police, success, past mistakes, and hungrier newcomers all start chipping away at the foundation. - "Y'all are too fickle for Bubs, I swear!" - OK, if the councilman doesn't turn out to be a secret serial killer, I'm gonna have to rewatch this season with every scene of his in a different frame of mind. Right now, I'm just sitting there in suspense waiting for the mask to fall off. I thought he was gonna go after his wife for the son's little sandwich VCR stunt. - I'm going to assume that Carver has some kind of upward trajectory or turnaround over the remainder of the show, because the amount of screentime he gets with zero growth would otherwise be insane. Herc is a dead-end joke character and gets treated as such. - loving hell Omar, what an unbelievable loogie - For a show with as many plots and characters as this, you'd think there would be a ton of other shoes waiting to drop, but I feel like there aren't that many. There's the full story of Cedric's history in the Eastern district and the presumable return of Brother Mouzone. But the show keeps most of its developing stories front-and-center or at least touched on fairly regularly. - I know there are multiple good options but this should be the #1 gif associated with The Wire: 
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Feb 14, 2024 21:12
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Season 3, episodes seven through nine: - Literally laughed out loud when Sydnor showed back up at the task force meeting and complained about being on rooftops fighting cicadas for weeks while monitoring Kintel's people. Love that one of the Baltimore Police Department's few "good police" is just always offscreen doing poo poo work. - Did Under Armour sponsor this season? Buncha characters showing up wearing those shirts, including main cast. Very trendy for this time. - I really like - Also a big fan of Colvin's deputy's mustache. That guy really landed on his feet after being transferred in from the Fargo unit. - Hamsterdam at night is an ugly place, drat. Get outta there Bubs!!! - Very curious to learn more about Roman. - Of course McNulty plays up the racism angle when talking with the rural cop, and of course it blows up in his face. - There are a lot of pretty thankless female roles in this show, but the role of Bernard's girlfriend has got to be the worst. - "Prez has exactly one skill but boy howdy does he enjoy it, and that's enough." <-- that's what I had typed up before midway through episode nine. I knew something bad was gonna happen when he left his hermetically sealed office, but I didn't think it was gonna be THAT bad. Thought the aftermath of that was really well-handled. - Nearly passed out holding my breath the last few minutes of episode eight. We got to the fireworks factory sooner than I expected, and it was a real struggle to go to sleep instead of jumping forward to episode nine to see what happened next. So, after 30 minutes of failing to sleep, that's exactly what I did. - Given the amount of poo poo that Stringer has been dealing with for years, it's unbelievable that he didn't snap until that confrontation. Still, pulling the "actually I am street enough for this, and my proof is that I murdered your family" card is a wild move. - Love that that fight wasn't the end for those two, though. It's gonna take more than that to break up Avon and Stringer, even when they've started diverging down different paths so heavily. - Omar's got a new vengeance quest, folks. - Feels like Jimmy's big speech about how almost everyone in the department sucks other than his detail will turn out to have been recorded and will be used against him at some point. - "The job will not save you, Jimmy."
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Feb 15, 2024 15:37
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Closing out season 3: - Speaking of waiting for the other shoe to drop, Brother Mouzone is back! He's kind of a cartoon character, but it's still fun. - Big surprise, McNulty is intimidated by D'Agostino and doesn't like that she's got an edge on him. - Colvin's speech to Carver about the difference between soldiering and policing felt like a big moment for the show. I wonder to what extent the transformation in policing he described is real instead of rose-tinted glasses for the past. - Alright, I was legit surprised by Rawls showing up at the gay bar. - "SWEET BEATRICE RUS-" - Beadie, no! Nooooo! Don't let McNulty in! - Caroline is not quite the same level of undercover actor as Freamon. - OK, Devonne's death is pretty rough. I haven't had a lot to say about Marlo (he seems pretty generic to me outside of his mandatory quirks of golfing and birdkeeping), but that was memorable. - The main thing I wish this season had was more from the mayor's perspective in the lead-up to the last few episodes. Getting just the perspective of the one city councilman is pretty weak compared to how much we got from multiple perspectives on the street in season one and the port in season two. When he starts mulling over the 14% drop in crime, it's hard to judge whether that's him being the first person to look at Colvin's experiment with sincere interest or just him thinking about the PR boost he could get from that kind of stat. I was legitimately surprised that it turned out to be the former! - I was much less surprised that the councilman ultimately decided to throw away his interest in results to feed his ambition instead. How blah his story ended up being. - Colvin's lack of genre awareness, constantly bragging about how close he was to retirement, was remarkable. Of course it ended the way it did. At least he lived. - Love that Stringer got bamboozled by Clay Davis. He's been such a master-of-the-universe type for so long, but he's swimming in totally different waters now and it's not going to be an easy transition. Avon might be too stubborn about those corners, but he's right to be wary of changing up entirely on the presumption that Stringer is ready to lead them to the promised land. - Oooh, Stringer is cracking up and lashing out. Ordering a hit on a state senator? Stupid as gently caress. Betraying Avon by working with the cops? Very dicey on both a practical and emotional level. - And down goes Stringer Bell! Holy gently caress. I was absolutely certain through the first two seasons that he would be around all five. I started to have a little doubt this season, but I thought for sure he would last through four at least. I am so glad I haven't been spoiled on that in the decades since this show aired. - Goddamn, what a scene. Those fuckin' birds flying around Omar... - I want to know when Avon decided to kill Stringer. Was it when he learned about Dee? Was it when he talked with Brother Mouzone and realized Stringer had sent Omar after him? Or did he just have the feeling that Stringer was coming after him too? - I guess the B&B Enterprises plotline had become a dead end, but still, killing Stringer feels like a real sharp end to a big part of the story web, especially with Avon going back to jail too. That part isn't hugely surprising, but is the street portion of the show really gonna hang on this Marlo character? That's pretty weak. Is Bodie gonna go big-time? Seems unlikely. - I'm a little surprised those weren't Chekhov's grenades during the raid on Avon's safehouse. - You know, I thought for a bit that we might get through a season without an unnecessarily brutal police raid, but we got there in the finale. - Alright, y'all were right, the role of Bernard's girlfriend tuned out to be excellent. - "I can't wait to go to jail." - Bernard surf rock fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 05:47
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I forgot to mention: Stringer's penthouse was exactly what I would have expected, right down to the fuckin' katana display behind his desk.
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Feb 16, 2024 23:06
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OK, starting up Season 4 with the first three episodes: - Opener song rankings: 3 > 1 > 4 > 2 - It took about two minutes to realize that Duke is gonna break my heart. - The Carcetti storyline is still underwhelming to me. I don't care about him or the other characters in his orbit, outside of maybe the campaign manager and deputy campaign manager since they've got a lot of interiority. I work in a field adjacent to electoral politics, though, so a lot of this stuff just feels trite to me, like a joke you've heard a thousand times before. Yeah, fundraising sucks, we get it. I like the political angle more when it's centered on the wheeling-and-dealing of officeholders. - I did enjoy the Battleship scene. - Given how successful and unpredictable the major crimes unit has been, it's kind of surprising that their new lieutenant would be an empty suit. Thank god he's gone quick in favor of TOM HAMMERSCHMIDT, who... well, he's pretty lame. - I'm extremely curious to see how Prez develops as a teacher. This storyline felt like it had big cornball potential, but the classroom face-slashing to close out episode three moved us out of Freedom Writers territory. - "Lester's up on a wire???" Good surprised-Pikachu from McNulty. - I don't know why, but I got major Breaking Bad vibes from the first episode. I think it was the tone of the cold opener and waiting for the other shoe to drop on that. - Also, Herc kind of seems like the embryonic version of Hank, doesn't he? - Look at Carver out there, trying his best to take Bunny's advice! Pretty stiff for the moment, but he'll get better. - Don't love the new street label being pandemic. - Good thing we've got enough room in the juggling act this season to keep up with every woman in the neighborhood wanting to gently caress Dennis. - I'm not gonna complain about getting more Bodie this season. - Seems like the idea is that if Stringer was the sophisticated criminal and Avon was the hot-blooded criminal, Marlo is the cold-blooded criminal. He's still not really clicking for me as a character though. I'm just reminded of the line from an earlier season when one of the characters criticizes the regular refrain that the next generation is always worse than the last one. - I laughed when the kids brought out the box-on-a-string, but I cackled when they were running around with that loving net. - gently caress days to go! - Wonder if the showrunners regretted shipping off Wee-Bey to prison so early. Glad the fish are shown to be OK. - "Did he do the thing where he looks at you over his reading glasses?" <-- that little scene between Pearlman and Cedric immediately vaulted into my top 10 favorites for the whole series - Clay Davis is fun but also feels like he's acting on a completely different register from everyone else. Not better or worse, just different. - Bubbles cleans up so nicely. - The house dropping its stash to an unsuspecting Omar was great. - Of course Omar was the one to finally notice cops in cars taking pictures. - Can't wait to see how McNulty ruins Beadie's life. - Her kids calling him McNulty is a good touch though. Keep him at arm's length, kids! - Couldn't tell for the life of me what that was on the back of Beadie's blouse. A vine? Japanese writing? - This mayoral race has to end with Tony Gray winning, right? I feel like that's the obvious foreshadowing.
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Feb 20, 2024 05:07
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Episodes 4-6 of season 4: - It's funny that the homicide department doesn't actually seem like an especially bad place to work as far as police goes. Rawls is a jerk but he's pretty hands off most of the time, and Jay's not terrible. The tie-cutting mausoleum, the city zoo prank for newbies, the admittedly hosed-up slip of paper in the body's hand; I guess it's alright as long as you're not a total rear end in a top hat like McNulty. - Really, the biggest issue with the homicide department (and all of these other departments) seems to be that they're built to churn through individual cases, not to invest huge resources in manpower/cash in spotting patterns and going after the big fish behind them. Now, if they just had a major crimes unit, that would solve so many of their chall-oh, wait. - I was uncertain whether - I think my problem with Marlo might be a mixture of the casting and acting. The actor has no visual presence to me at all; he's just Some Guy. Combine that with the acting being so understated, and I'm just underwhelmed. Yeah, he can be menacing in the right situation/framing, but to me it's a pretty dull package for someone who's now a really major player in this story. Feels like when big chunks of the first season rested on Dee's unremarkable shoulders. - I was very concerned that they were gonna have Marlo or his people kill Omar in order to help establish him as a Big Deal to viewers, but framing him for a murder was indeed a better move. - This show has a lot of assholes in authority, but I think the worst might be Burrell. I'm trying to think of what redeeming moments he's had over three and a half seasons. The closest I can come to is that I think he's the one who talked with Kima's girlfriend in the hospital when she got shot. So basically nothing in other words. - Enjoyed the mayor's poker game fundraiser. There we go, we got an election-related scene that I really liked. - "There ain't no 'bout a-doubt it." - you tell 'em, Bubs - Admittedly, your ice cream truck song could use some work, Bubs - Prez is hanging in there a lot better than I'd expected. I'll give him that. - "Monday-to-Friday-angry" is tough. - It's fun to see the parallels between, say, a police interrogation and the interrogation Randy got about tagging those hallways. These school staff aren't dummies. - Love the scene of Colvin just wandering the halls, seeing the little sparks of educational light in the sea of chaos. No, it's not ALL bad... but it's mostly bad. - I'm kind of surprised that Deacon put up Dennis to the roundup van job. It's such a cynical ploy that of course it was going to depress him. - "Yeah boy, you know I love the women!" - Dennis, what the gently caress, he's a kid. Very funny though that Dennis's storyline has become that he's simply too hot and bothered to stop banging his student's moms. Real left-turn from where it started. - So, Slim Charles is working for Prop Joe now? We know Bodie - One thing I know about De'Londa, she sure as gently caress isn't ever going to get a job herself. Awful. - Feels like Carcetti's acting got noticeably worse between seasons. It wasn't amazing in season three, but he feels so wooden here. Or maybe it's the same and, now that it seems like he doesn't actually have any meaningful skeletons in his closet, I'm not misreading it as a false front. - Enjoyed his just-barely-out-of-rhythm clapping during the church service, though, as well as his kids going haywire from the energy of the choir. His wife is also very sweet, which is a nice bit of sugar given the atmosphere of this show. He even resisted loving D'Agostino! - Learned some new hate speech from that Irish guy on election day, jesus. Also, what an accent. - Didn't take long to get this season's dumb police raid! - The show has so little music that it's nice when we get some diagetic tunes. Gotta love some Curtis Mayfield. This might be the most ambitious show I've ever seen. The number of plates being spun simultaneously at this point is absurd. About the only thing they've dropped focus on is the port and Cedric's history in the Eastern (not sure that shoe will ever drop). Someone mentioned Twin Peaks earlier, and I like the comparison. It's a lot easier to understand now why this show became an obsession for folks, and how it would be so many people's all-time favorite.
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Feb 24, 2024 18:37
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Episodes 7-10 of season 4: - Stabbed up the rear end is a really tough way to lose a fight. - Thanks for not blowing Prez's cover, Bubs. - There's not a lot of afternoon-special to this show, but one thing it's very consistent about is showing that the life of an addict living on the streets is a nonstop series of violations to your extremely vulnerable person. gently caress that psychopath who keeps bullying Bubs, and double-gently caress that cop Walker who spends all his days robbing and abusing people. - Herc is such a do-nothing dipshit that it's easy to overlook him in the Biggest rear end in a top hat power rankings, but he just sucks. Always willing to sink to the lowest level he can feasibly get away with. gently caress him for leaving Bubbles out to dry. - It was a small sample size, but Spider's actor seemed shockingly bad. - Pretty good that absolutely everyone involved in the polygraph knew that polygraphs are bullshit and never pretended otherwise. - Thought for sure that Dennis was about to get shot trying to protect that dope Namond; that little scene was one of the highest-tension moments in the show's whole run to me. - Your lieutenant is, what, seven years old Namond? Good loving luck. - The best thing going for Marlo or his crew is how much of a weirdo Snoop is. Also, what a perfect name for her. I liked her sincere look of distress at the loss of her nailgun. - It's pretty silly that two of the characters we were on-track to lose at the end of season 3 both end up working at the same school. I like following Colvin and Prez's stories but that's a stretch. - Lester, you sonnuva bitch, you did it again! Big win for Pearlman. - Seemed kind of crazy for Kima to be doing field work in those heels, let alone burst into an unknown house gun drawn with multiple people inside, but fair enough I guess. I do like that the show's rare forensic scenes are usually dialogue-free. - That little entrapment scene while Carcetti is on the ridealong was some real bullshit. They took his bike! - "The job isn't about picking the stories we like best." - hoo boy, what a line - "And he who owes his good fortune to the numbers, abides by them." - another banger - Fuzzy Dunlop gets namedropped in the same episode that introduces Sydney Handjerker? Beautiful. - Loved Prop Joe's little acting showcase there. If they had done a spinoff show, he would have probably been one of the best options to lead it. - Whole lotta bad parents this season, although De'Londa is still leading the pack. loving horrendous. - I forgot to mention this in previous posts, but thank god they stopped saying "suction" every two minutes in this show. When it still pops up occasionally I feel a chill; what an awful bit of slang. - Poot looks a little better with a bit of facial scruff and a crewneck instead of those polos. - Good "passing the bar" joke, Kima. A+ work. - How many times is it going to be a plot point or emphasized in dialogue this season that Dennis loves banging chicks? - I'm obviously familiar with the idea of teaching the test, but it's wild to have every class not only directly teaching the questions but all in the same unit (language arts) regardless of the class's subject. Oof. - I haven't mentioned him before, but noting for the record that the cop who looks like the prototype for Jon Bernthal with the half-shaved head has now spent multiple seasons as the generic Bad Cop. - Good on the writers for making the other shoe drop with Namond's hair. You really can tell that poo poo from a mile away. - When the bottomless pit of corruption Clay Davis left the room, Carcetti's "jesus christ!" and audible sigh of relief made me laugh. - Clay Davis is the living embodiment of Mac's "I'm playing both sides, that way I always end up on top" meme, except it actually works. - "It's bad in there. I don't know if it's THAT bad." - Of course Burrell hears "maybe try doing some police work so that firing you isn't as obviously desirable" and his solution is to literally double-down on the useless bullshit. Burrell continues to have absolutely zero redeeming qualities. - "Oh, man! My brew! My shoes!!!" - Nobody does a bemused expression like Bunny Colvin. Perfect casting for the guy whose existence is running a new wacky scheme each year. - "We have 45 minutes left. We can do Last of the Mohicans-NO!!!" - Interesting that it's unclear why exactly Michael wants his dad (or maybe just Bug's dad, not certain on that one) dead. Chris's assumption is that he's a child abuser, but I don't think Michael ever says that directly. I guess you can infer that his discomfort with any level of physical touch between him or Bug and the guy stems from that, but it could also be abandonment issues. - The first Ben Carson reference from the show made me nostalgic, but the second one (not by name, just allusion) from Bunk about his younger son... is his son the one in Colvin's class? Didn't look the same to me, but would be really weird to do that if not.
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Feb 28, 2024 04:02
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And closing out season 4: - Season rankings: 3 > 4 > 1 > 2 - It's been a relief to have only a scene or two of McNulty each episode this season. That's the right amount. - Good on Prez for confronting Carver about handing Randy off to Herc. Carver, you partnered with Herc for how long and still don't understand that he's a gently caress-up that can't be trusted with anything? - Guess Carver can't be trusted with anything, either. Didn't expect a firebombing this season, jesus. That walk down the hospital hallway is gonna stick with ya. - I was impressed that he tried to take on the foster parent responsibility himself. Of course that ends with yet another disaster. Just an endless stream of disasters. - It's nice that nobody seemed mad at Dukie for running to get help. Dukie's not a fighter. Pretty rough to see Dukie end up working the corner too. - Not surprised that Michael's story this season ends with him becoming a soldier for Marlo. - I kind of expected there to be another shoe that would drop about corruption in the school being why the computer/textbooks were down there. I guess maybe that's a clue about the upcoming budget deficit. - I would be more excited about Freamon getting back the major crimes unit if I didn't know there was another season left, but I'm not sure this is the happy ending it appears to be. The immediate discovery of the subpoena returns did make me laugh, as did the editing back-and-forth between the documents and the fundraiser. - "Can you fix this, Joe?" --> "What's the problem?" --> "Ran out of time." - Appreciate how consistent it's been over the course of the show that Omar isn't just smart, he's well-prepared. He's always doing recon for the next thing. - That said, I had no idea the co-op was a secret until Omar discovered it. Just seemed like the kind of thing that would've inevitably leaked out past the top brass by this point. - I got a bit lost with Omar's story in the second half of the season. After making his promise to Bunk, he initially went to threaten Andre, realized Andre had been killed by Marlo so he started trailing Marlo, then he saw Marlo connecting with Slim Charles and started following him. Slim Charles also met with Prop Joe, which confused Omar and eventually led him to discovering the co-op's existence. Then Omar threatens Prop Joe about lying to him about the card game and asks for info on how to steal Marlo's next package, or else he'll go tell Marlo that his tipoff about the card game was from Prop Joe. Prop Joe agrees and gives him a phone, but Omar starts tailing Cheese to his meeting with Marlo, and then again to the eventual delivery. Prop Joe tries calling him, but Omar ignores it since he already knows where the delivery is taking place. I think I've got all of that right, but the actual robbery is what confuses me. I understand that instead of just stealing Marlo's portion of the shipment, Omar's crew steals the entire shipment. Then that gets divvied up between the various crew members, but Omar goes and tells Prop Joe he'll sell him back the shipment for 20 cents on the dollar. I guess the idea is that Omar just decided that, while taking his revenge, he might as well pull off a huge score too, and that he kept enough of the shipment to match Prop Joe and Marlo's shares specifically? I dunno, lot of moving pieces on that one. - Very funny that Prop Joe told Marlo that the price was 30 cents on the dollar. - "Dignity, I say! Dignity above all!" - Namond asking Mike to be his backup to talk with baby Kenard is pretty embarrassing. - "I ain't want it." - well, he got there eventually, at least. But of course he backslides the next day and doubles down in an even more embarrassing way before finally giving up the illusion for good. - Every scene we've had of Wee-Bey since season one just makes me think that we got robbed of him too early. - Sherrod poisoning himself was telegraphed clear as day. Bubs, you gotta warn your partner if you're gonna leave poison lying around! - I did a legitimate Luke-finding-out-Vader-is-his-dad NOOOOOOOOOOO! when Jay opened that door and Bubbles was hanging there. I'm still recovering from losing Frank Sobotka, you can't do this to me. - "Like I ain't who I am, right?" - Not shocking that Dennis got himself shot, although he handled the high dude well enough earlier in the season that I thought he might've played that situation smarter. Even less shocking that Dennis ended up with the hot nurse. Big romcom vibes from their first scene. - The corpse gymnasium is a good setpiece. That bit of Cedric backstory makes me think maybe that other shoe from the Eastern District days is going to drop after all. - I'm still waiting for a dead prostitute to tumble out of Carcetti's closet so the putting-his-ambition-above-the-schools thing didn't catch my attention much. - We finally got to the fireworks factory with Bodie this season. Cylburn Arboretum was a nice setting for his penultimate sendoff. "...I feel old.  "
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Feb 29, 2024 02:01
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Omar stole a lot of drugs. Lots. Yes, I understand that. I don't understand how Omar simultaneously divided up the shipment between the crew and is also selling the shipment back to Prop Joe.
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Feb 29, 2024 03:07
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Entering season 5 with episodes 1-4: - After listening again to each, my final ranking of each season's opening song rendition: 1 > 3 > 5 > 4 > 2 - Oh no, there was a mix-up at the dream factory and this season is Oops! All McNulty! - Who would have ever guessed that McNulty would be a disaster upon leaving patrol, up to and including cheating on Beadie? And he doesn't pay for news, either! - And of course McNulty has plummeted from the wagon too, and he's somehow now significantly worse than he was at the start of season one. - Honestly, to some extent it feels pretty lazy to just have everything go from a mixture of good/bad to just total poo poo between seasons. About the only thing that has gotten better is Michael isn't quite as hardboiled as he seemed by the end of season four. - An adventure to Six Flags! And hey, Dukie's got game. - It was a good idea to have Marlo hold court outdoors initially. Pretty distinctive. No surprise that's over now. - Also, someone finally noticed a white guy with loving binoculars on a rooftop at all hours of the day! About time! - Carcetti looking at his campaign consultant before every single decision and demanding to know what the crime stats were is pretty rich. - Also, Norman's right. In terms of Carcetti's political ambitions, turning down the money didn't accomplish anything because who's gonna elect the mayor of a dying city to be governor? It was just his ego from the governor making him wait and then requiring a press conference. - Could not give less of a gently caress about the cops not getting overtime pay. Like hell they don't have the money to pay a drat bar tab. - Herc just keeps failing upward. - Sydnor being like "no, I don't remember that detail about a case I wasn't involved in" is simultaneously very satisfying as an attentive viewer and also feels like something they added just to allow for McNulty's expository dialogue without annoying what I'm sure was a rabid internet fanbase at the time. - I'd heard that this season added the press to the show's various institutional focuses, and I had worried that that would feel very antiquated. So far, it has. As funny as the show's occasional scene has been where people get blown away by now-commonplace technology (burners! texting! search engines!), those moments were also really few and far between over the past four seasons. - With the press stuff, I know it's accurate for when it's set, but it feels more like a time capsule than anything resonant now. They thought they were struggling with the first few rounds of buyouts/layoffs and unfilled positions, but the endless waves of devastation that came after makes this feel like a fantasyland. It just stands out to me because so much of the show still feels so contemporary, and this is the last season so you'd expect it to feel the CLOSEST to the present day. The obliteration of the media outside of the NYT has just been staggering. - "At this rate, there won't be much to call a newspaper in 10 years." - pretty close estimate! - Scott is such a little prick, ugh. - I thought Dee-Dee at the narcotics anonymous meeting at the start of episode two must've been Eliza Dushku's younger sister or something; the resemblance was uncanny. - As always, ACAB, but Bunk's many little schemes (the McDonalds driveby! the Xerox polygraph!) are entertaining. - "Tough gig, mother of four." - One thing I've been wondering about ever since her last appearance in (I think) early season two is what Shardene's up to. Curious whether she and Freamon are still together. - "If you leave everything in, soon you've got nothing." - Gale Boetticher is here! So interesting that these shows just barely overlapped. - And Avon is back! Long overdue, jesus. The visitation between him and Marlo just re-exposed Marlo's lack of charisma. - The FBI guy who's inexplicably buddies with McNulty is such a plot device. I'm glad he got one fun scene with the car tag stuff after five seasons. - "Ain't no other way. I can see that." - aw, man, not Butchie. - Fun to see Omar bopping around a tropical island. - "What the gently caress, Lester?" - - Knowing now that the other shoe to drop about the Eastern District was skimming from drug money seizures... that's so lightweight. I mean, we saw Herc and Carver doing it in season one. It's the cop equivalent of jaywalking. The closest equivalent I can think of between how I feel about seasons 1-3 versus 4-5 of this show is the anime Death Note. In Death Note, it was much more interesting to follow Light vs. L than it was to follow Light vs. Near/Mello. In this show, it was much more interesting to follow The Law vs. Avon/Stringer than it is to follow The Law vs. Marlo Stanfield. Especially with Marlo knocking off the other characters who were keeping the street part of the story afloat, like Bodie and Prop Joe.
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Mar 1, 2024 17:15
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Season 5, episodes 5 and 6: - "Like, how do you get from here to the rest of the world?" - man, I just want to send Dukie on that adventure to Antarctica in A Place Further Than the Universe. Listen to Dennis and Michael, Dukie. - Forgot to mention it last time, but I like Alma. The scene of her going all the way to the printer to look for her first big story was nice. - Clay Davis stuck out like a sore thumb the first season he started getting meaningful screen time, but he's been a better fit lately. Shout-out both to the insane way he says "poo poo" and Norman's imitation of it. - Also, shout-out to Norman's own very strange voice. - Would be nice to believe that Herc went after Marlo out of the goodness of his heart, but we know better. - Tough to see Randy again, just completely and justifiably embittered. - Really appreciating the degree to which Bunk is not down with McNulty's bullshit. - Run, Beadie, run! - Hopefully the show ends with McNulty dead or in prison with Avon. - "Did you make an appointment? Sorry, I'm booked up all afternoon." - Dunno about the actor for Nathan Levi Boston. - It's absurd how badly turning down the money hosed the city. - I still think Scott is a smarmy little poo poo, but his story would make a lot more sense if he had this experience trying to track down react quotes from the homeless first and then started making poo poo up rather than the reverse. We already know he'll just make quotes up and either manufacture or alter stories, why would he spend all day around food kitchens and homeless encampments now? - I'm betting the ex-Marine gets revealed as a fake. - This serial killer gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss poo poo is so goofy. Not a fan of this plotline at all. - I'm glad they brought back Walon for the Bubbles story at the end of last season. - Marlo's completely nonplussed reaction to the height of Omar's fall from the window almost made the past 20 episodes of ambien acting worth it. "Some Spider-Man poo poo there." - Death of the co-op was also a good scene. - Just noting for myself who's in that little montage of photos that the intro flashes through: Wallace, Dee, Avon, Frank Sobotka, Bodie, Wee-Bey. Interesting they left out Stringer! - Was that Nick listening at the fringe of Carcetti's speech at the harbor development ribbon-cutting? I thought he went into witness protection at the end of season two. - The serial killer press conference was very interesting. First great acting moment from Carcetti this season, and we see Daniels do well in the line of fire from the media too. Big test! - The et al reveal = classic. - "You're a supervisor's nightmare." holy poo poo gently caress you McNulty - I'm such a dope. When Jimmy saw the homeless guy stumbling around the street, I thought he was starting to realize how hosed up what he'd started was. Nope! He's just kind of generically sad about the depressing life of the homeless guy, but not enough so to keep him from driving out of his own loving city.
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Mar 3, 2024 06:23
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Season 5, episodes 7 and 8: - Clay Davis offering to get his indictment upped to federal for twenty grand is great. - It was an extremely good idea for them to finally let the other shoe drop with Davis so that he could feature more prominently in the show. So many of the charismatic characters have been killed off or moved to the sidelines by this point that we desperately needed stuff like his press conferences and testimonies to keep the entertainment factor afloat. - Speaking of, down goes Omar. Once he came back from the tropics, I knew I wouldn't be very happy with any of the outcomes. Omar killing Marlo would've been a rerun of season 3, while Marlo killing Omar would've annoyed the absolute poo poo out of me. So, I was hoping for some kind of tradeoff, like Omar-killing-Chris-but-Snoop-killing-Omar. I think that a kid killing Omar is better, though. He was injured and taking major risks, and it makes sense that someone would finally go after that bounty and/or reputation. - Omar might've been a cartoon character, but of course I loved him. - Poor Bunk is actively transforming into Frank Grimes. - "What the gently caress is a huh-vac?" let me tell you, Michael, it's expensive as gently caress - dang that Dukie can dance! - I think the only bit about the serial killer thing that I'm enjoying is McNulty getting a taste of the supervisor life. Also the Quantico profile. - "I DON'T KNOW HOW THE gently caress DID YOU OF ALL PEOPLE DO THIS poo poo, HUH?" - old reliable IKEA humor - Probably a good thing that we haven't seen Namond or Bunny. Maybe safe to assume that things are going OK there. - Poot got out of the game, too. Couldn't have happened to somebody I cared about less. - So, this season's funny moment of "wow, look at X technology! what'll they think of next???" was GPS. Love it. - What the gently caress was that Arthur Tolan scene? Was that a real guy that the showrunners just hated and decided to spend two minutes making fun of? Bizarre. - "I'm tired of these fuckin' Republicans." - Get his rear end, Beadie!
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Mar 5, 2024 01:25
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Finally, episodes 9 and 10 of season 5: - Final season rankings based on impressiveness: 4 > 2 > 3 > 1 > 5 - Final season rankings based on enjoyment: 3 > 4 > 2 > 1 > 5 - I'll be in Baltimore for a couple of days in May. I wonder if there are any show-related sights I should go track down. - I want to know how Junk Man got that pretty horse. - Marlo finally had his big emotional moment and it was real "nice meltdown, idiot" vibes. - "Postpartum depression, son." - No wonder Lester's voice is always slathered in honey like a prime Lando Calrissian; doing police work is his kink! Glad to know Shardene's still in his life, even after the other shoe dropped. He's just fine, baby. - Michael isn't a dumbass; he read Snoop like a book. Not Snoop's best bit of deception though, to be honest. - lol, good job spotting the Omar-sized hole in the Baltimore job market, Michael - Good for Bunny, he finally got a win. - The press plotline this story was such a flop. I appreciate the idea of what the show was trying to do by adding all of these other institutions to the mix beyond the simple law vs. street beginning, but I think they got progressively less compelling with each new institution. - Did not realize that Cheese was Randy's dad. Thanks for nothing, jackass. - "You got to see this! There's a serial killer, but he only be killing other serial killers." - It's actually shocking that Dukie survived. Prez is smart to cut ties here and that's how I would've handled it too, and the last scene is foreboding, but I haven't written Dukie off. - Prez is the rare case of someone looking worse with a beard. Aside from that, though, he's near the top of the list for the show in terms of his character development. What a journey. - I liked the little montage of city landscape shots as time passed midway through the finale. - Good brinkmanship on Lester's part to wring that much info out of Clay Davis with the threat of a federal suit that he already knows will never come. - Of course when Herc gets told that his info about the wiretap set Marlo free, his reaction was simple pleasure at getting an attaboy. No regrets at all. - "To be continued." - "The lie's so big, people can't live with it, I guess." - "This is the lie I can't live with." The other shoe has finally dropped on Daniels' background in the Eastern. - I wonder how many times Bubbles' sister did the basement routine with him leading up to the show's timeframe. This is the second time we've seen it, and given how long Bubs has been clean at this point, I have to imagine there were at least several more failed attempts before this to keep her this cautious still. And it makes his final scene all the more impactful, because we know he earned it. - "My name is Reginald." I've loved this show. It took a little bit of time to sink its teeth into me, but I can certainly see why it it's never let y'all go. It easily makes my top 10 all-time, and probably pretty high on that list. That said, I think the wheels were coming off the wagon this season, and I'm relieved it ended here. It kept The Wire's entire run somewhere between "good" and "phenomenal." I can't wait to start reading through the OP's episode summaries and listening to the show's podcast. I deliberately avoided looking up anything about the show while on this watch-through for fear of inadvertent spoilers, and I finally got to scratch my itch just now about where I've seen Avon (Creed!), Beadie (The Office!), and Carver + Dennis before (The Walking Dead!). Thank you all for reading along with these posts, sharing your insights/expertise, and kindly not spoiling a single thing. But first, one more thing, certain to be uncontroversial... THE OFFICIAL SURF ROCK POWER RANKINGS The Law 1.) Lester Freamon 2.) Cedric Daniels 3.) Bunk Moreland 4.) Dennis Mello 5.) Bunny Colvin 6.) Beadie Russell 7.) Prez 8.) Fitz 9.) Carver 10.) Santangelo 11.) Jay Landsman 12.) Sydnor 13.) Dozerman 14.) Kima Greggs 15.) Jimmy McNulty 16.) William Rawls 17.) Marimow 18.) Patrick Mahon 19.) Augustus Polk 20.) Valchek 21.) Herc 22.) Ervin Burrell 23.) Anthony Colicchio 24.) Eddie Walker (editor's note: I included one joke ranking in the above list, see if you can find it!) The Street 1.) Bubbles 2.) Omar Little 3.) Stringer Bell 4.) Prop Joe 5.) Avon Barksdale 6.) Snoop 7.) Bodie 8.) Butchie 9.) The Greek 10.) Dennis 11.) Michael 12.) Wee-Bey 13.) Shamrock 14.) Bernard 15.) Brother Mouzone 16.) Kimmy/Tosha 17.) Vondas 18.) Wallace 19.) Orlando 20.) Slim Charles 21.) Marlo Stanfield 22.) Renaldo 23.) Dee Barksdale 24.) Poot 25.) Old Face Andre 26.) Bird 27.) Chris Partlow 28.) Cheese 29.) Johnny Weeks 30.) Dante 31.) Kenard 32.) 33.) Hungry Man 34.) Spider 35.) White Mike 36.) Lamar 37.) Ziggy 38.) Bubbles' stalker The Actual Law 1.) Rhonda Pearlman 2.) Maurice Levy 3.) Billy Murphy 4.) Ilene Nathan 5.) Judge Phelan 6.) Rupert Bond 7.) Steven Demper The Dock 1.) Frank Sobotka 2.) Nobody else matters The Politicos 1.) Clay Davis 2.) Norman 3.) Clarence Royce 4.) Odell Watkins 5.) Theresa D'Agostino 6.) Tony Gray 7.) Tommy Carcetti 8.) Nerese Campbell 9.) Marla The Family & Friends 1.) Shardene 2.) Walon 3.) Dukie 4.) Bug 5.) Randy Wagstaff 6.) Beadie's kids 7.) Elena 8.) Sherrod 9.) Namond 10.) Jimmy's kids 11.) Brianna 12.) Donette 13.) Squeak 14.) Donut 15.) Raylene Lee 16.) De'Londa
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Mar 6, 2024 04:30
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Jerusalem posted:Poor Donut ranking so low Donut is kind of entertaining, but that's a very personal one for me since my mom was murdered by someone driving a stolen car recklessly. Also, I only included characters I could remember off the dome (both their name and something about them), so I'm happy to explain any of my rankings.
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Mar 6, 2024 04:45
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PostNouveau posted:Snubbing Fuzzy Dunlop  Fuzzy Dunlop was a CI from the street, not part of the law.Actual answer: putting Sydnor (and Diet Sydnor: Dozerman) dead-center in the law rankings. Perfectly lukewarm, that's Sydnor. Xiahou Dun posted:The dude with the horse is an Arabber, someone who sells fruit from a horse-drawn cart. Baltimore is the only place that still has them in the US and they’re pretty fringe there. It’s just one of those weird, super local details The Wire drops in there and never explains because it’s the loving best. That's awesome. FlamingLiberal posted:Re: Dukie’s ending, he is basically the new Bubbles like how Michael is the new Omar ...but that means there is still hope for him  Ithle01 posted:Cheese getting what he deserves is one of my favorite moments in the last episode and why Slim Charles should be ranked higher. Cheese's death was hilarious. I missed that Slim Charles did it. People here are so wild for Poot; I thought there would be something this season to justify it but I guess it's just a meme. What I remember about Poot: awful name, wore lovely polo shirts, pushed Bodie over the edge to kill Wallace, sucked at running the pit, fled Bodie's death on the corner, worked at Footlocker. Terrible.
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Mar 6, 2024 14:51
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Wallace's death is the least of my criticisms in that list, but rewatching the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hor_gOBU_GU - Poot initially covers for Wallace before this, and he's slowplaying things at the start as Bodie pushes to do the job; this is the most sympathetic Poot ever gets IMO - Bodie pulls the gun, but his hand is already shaking. Wallace pleads for his life and Bodie really starts hesitating. Poot yells "DO IT GODDAMMIT" and Bodie fires. - Wallace is alive and audibly suffering so Poot fires a couple more rounds. That part feels more like a mercy kill to me. My point is just that Bodie seemed like he was losing steam up until Poot yelled at him to go through with it.
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Mar 6, 2024 16:28
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PostNouveau posted:J. D. Williams, who is putting on a clinic in every scene and makes Bodie one of the top 5 characters in the whole show for most viewers Oh, this would be fun to do. Let's see, my top five overall: 1.) Bubbles 2.) Lester Freamon 3.) Frank Sobotka 4.) Omar Little 5.) Stringer Bell So where would Bodie land? If I keep it going... 6.) Prop Joe 7.) Clay Davis 8.) Cedric Daniels 9.) Bunk Moreland 10.) Avon Barksdale 11.) Rhonda Pearlman 12.) Maurice Levy 13.) Snoop 14.) Bodie 15.) Norman Top 15 isn't bad!
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Mar 6, 2024 18:55
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I listened to the 20th anniversary HBO podcast hosted by Method Man (fine but not very interesting), and I'm now listening to the Van Lathan/Jemele Hill episode reviews that The Ringer put out in 2020 (way better). I'm up to their discussion of season 1, episode 12, and it reminded me of the scene where the cops talk to Wallace's mom. It made me think a bit about the moms in The Wire, and I had to break it down into three tiers. Good moms 1.) Cheryl (???): good move in booting Kima at her worst 2.) Elena (Sean, Michael): kids seem like they're turning out pretty normal despite the McNulty of it all 3.) Rae (???): probably smart to keep her brother Bubbles separated from her child until she knew he had recovered 4.) Jen (???): if a sandwich in the VCR is as bad as it gets in the Carcetti household, she's killing it 5.) Donette (Tyrell): bad girlfriend but the kid seems like he's doing alright Iffy moms 6.) Beadie (Jack, Cary): severe deduction for inviting McNulty into the family unit 7.) Joan (Nick): Nick Sobotka turned out kinda lovely so I'm not impressed 8.) Brianna (D'Angelo): leaned on her son not to testify, but generally protective Bad moms 9.) ??? (Dukie): sold her son's school clothes 10.) Darcia (Wallace): doesn't care about her son's wellbeing 11.) Raylene: (Michael/Bug): generally pathetic, welcomes home an abuser 12.) De'Londa (Namond): blew her money on luxuries and pushed her son into harm's way when the spigot turned off to keep her lifestyle intact Arguably De'Londa should be #9 since Namond was provided for, but that wasn't through any doing of her own and she's the only one without an addiction (that we know of) to help explain her behavior. edit: not going to bother to do a dad ranking since there aren't any good dads in The Wire (there are a couple of loving dads, but that's not enough to make a good dad)
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Mar 18, 2024 05:03
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Something interesting that I'm picking up from the Way Down in the Hole podcast: Avon is pretty consistently happy (or at least not perturbed) when folks he knows gets out of the game. There are multiple instances of that in season 3 specifically between Cutty and Shorty Boyd. At the same time, he is personally all-in on the game and largely disinterested or dismissive of Stringer's attempt to change it. So when his subordinates leave and he's fine with it, is that because he (1) thinks that they weren't up to the challenge anymore anyway, so no harm no foul, or (2) thinks that the game is a sucker's bet anyway, but he's in too deep at this point to do anything different? Or something else? I think the character of Avon just continues to rise higher in my estimation as I revisit the show. Going back to my top 15, I think I would move him up to #7, move Omar up to #3, and flip Pearlman and Bodie to #14 and #11, respectively.
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Mar 29, 2024 00:28
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Let's power-rank the best monologues from The Wire. Here're the ones that are coming to mind off the bat: 1.) Omar Little: I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. 2.) Lester Freamon: The job will not save you. 3.) D'Angelo Barksdale: Chess speech 4.) Bunny Colvin: Soldiering and policing, they ain't the same thing. 5.) Avon Barksdale: Be a little slow, be a little late, just once. 6.) Randy Wagstaff: You gonna help, huh? You gonna look out for me? 7.) Bunny Colvin: Paper bag speech 8.) Frank Sobotka: We used to build poo poo. 9.) Stringer Bell: 40-degree day speech 10.) Slim Charles: If it's a lie, then we fight on that lie. 11.) D'Angelo Barksdale: Great Gatsby speech
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Mar 31, 2024 02:01
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awesmoe posted:It’s time for a power ranking of the surf rock power rankings! 
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Mar 31, 2024 14:03
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Rep for money worked until it didn’t. He got kicked out as the head of the co-op. I also think that, even if Stringer succeeded in getting Avon put back in jail (thereby letting him try to end the war with Marlo and retain leadership of the co-op), it actually wouldn't have turned out any differently. Either Marlo would've been like "actually it takes two people to end a war and I'm winning so let's keep going  " or Marlo would've eventually usurped Stringer later on like he did Prop Joe. It seemed like the only organizations with meaningful muscle in Baltimore were Avon's and Marlo's.I'm sure everyone else had an enforcer or two, but when the New York crew came to town, the co-op came running to Marlo to deal with it. And when Marlo made his move, everyone was like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Mar 31, 2024 15:29
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