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Jerusalem posted:We see in season 4 that Chris and Snoop make a point of being practiced, careful aims and even undertake "training" to ensure they're the most efficient killers possible. And they hate drive-bys. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhbrAkY_58s
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Jul 29, 2013 22:34
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DarkCrawler posted:How many people there were who actually looked like they knew what they were doing? On the top of my head: Cutty, back in the day! Slim Charles, though he still got caught with his pants down by Omar at least twice that I can remember. Once in Joe's shop, once in the doorframe when Omar gets back to town after Butchie's murder.
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Jul 29, 2013 22:38
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Brother Mouzone and Wee-Bey get dropped on by Omar, too. No shame in that.
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Jul 29, 2013 22:52
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DarkCrawler posted:True, but his planning is a pretty military-like ability too. Granted, strategists rarely do the shooting themselves though, so you're right, but I'd say he's more competent with guns then the average example in the show. That's more in the tactics area of play and tacticians even when they don't do the shooting themselves do draw on their previous experiences. Who was the operational master of West Baltimore you figure?
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Jul 29, 2013 23:04
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Jerusalem posted:In the low rises, Poot and Bodie are having a good natured argument over whether you can get "the bug" from getting your dick sucked. Bodie is adamant that you can't, saying that if you could then he'd have it by now, and that if Poot wants to wear a condom he can, but nobody likes sucking on rubber. From waaaay back on page 27, but this conversation is lifted almost verbatim from Boyz n the Hood, when they're celebrating Ice Cube's character coming home from prison.
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Jul 29, 2013 23:13
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Ithaqua posted:And they hate drive-bys. quote:Point blank LA taught yall foos how to gang bank flip crack LA mua fuckas killed pac and biggie LA gangs control other countries like ms 13 LA foos put usa on a movement If a "b more nigga " come to the LA county jail talking that mess ill give yall respect but i gurentee u the rips or damus dont get you the eses will cuz yall eastcoast foos act like LA aint active and we out here playing patty cake. poo poo i got stories for yall  Frostwerks posted:From waaaay back on page 27, but this conversation is lifted almost verbatim from Boyz n the Hood, when they're celebrating Ice Cube's character coming home from prison. Nice, I love stuff like that - especially in light of the guy in the video Ithaqua linked wanting to emulate a drive-by from that movie.
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Jul 29, 2013 23:18
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quote:
This poo poo is loving poetry. Asbury fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Jul 30, 2013 |
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Jul 29, 2013 23:24
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You know that guy who does your grammar sucks making fun of youtube comments? I really want an awesome beat laid down and that rapped over it.
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Jul 30, 2013 00:15
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Jerusalem posted:His gun of choice is a shotgun at close range, and when Mouzone confronts him in the alley he notes that the gun he's carrying means he doesn't have to take careful aim.
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Jul 30, 2013 04:44
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By not needing to take careful aim I guess he means he won't have to go for the headshot at that range with that caliber with whatever ammo he's carrying as it'd be capable of defeating whatever street-accessible body armor Mouzone would possibly be kitted with. Aren't a lot of common vests primarily designed to stop hollow point handgun bullets or buckshot? Is it maybe a case of, low mass, lower velocity projectiles that deform by nature in the case of the hollow points, that devastate unarmored bodies but because their energy is spread out over such a broad area, the characteristic that makes them so lethal against flesh and bone is stopped soundly, albeit painfully by ballistic plates? Shot is probably similar too as buckshot will kill a person dead no problem with it's many small projectiles if they're shot center mass without armor as you're probably going to be hitting multiple vital organs, but I have no clue how much mass an individual pellet of double ought possesses so I don't know how much energy we'd be talking about here. One thing I do know for a fact is that shotgun slugs are enormous loving projectiles and I doubt anything even the police will field would be able to prevent someone dying from blunt force trauma alone. Evan Schenck, you seem to know a lot about martial matters, does any of this hold weight or is it just me rambling like a crazy person with no validity whatsoever?
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Jul 30, 2013 07:44
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DarkCrawler posted:How many people there were who actually looked like they knew what they were doing? On the top of my head: 9/10 when someone shoots on the wire it's always TV or movie shooting styles where they don't bother using the sights and just jerk the trigger until their guns run dry, with predictable results. Chris, Omar, Wee-Bey, and Cutty use their sights and manage to hit what they aim for instead of 9 year old kids. And as for Omar's comments with his Colt Gold Cup as opposed to Mouzone's small and compact PPK firing 90 grain or so .380 acp, when Omar says that he can't miss, what he means is that as close as he is with the big .45 acp rounds throwing twice as much lead per bullet he won't need to hit anything vital to take Mouzone out of the fight. Despite them saying clip a couple times and the huge sparks thrown up when Ziggy shoots Glekas I loved how much detail they put into guns and gunplay in the wire. It made me smile to hear Omar tell one of his gang to put a couple pumpkin balls into his shotgun. Soupisgood fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Jul 30, 2013 |
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Jul 30, 2013 12:14
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Soupisgood posted:9/10 when someone shoots on the wire it's always TV or movie shooting styles where they don't bother using the sights and just jerk the trigger until their guns run dry, with predictable results. Chris, Omar, Wee-Bey, and Cutty use their sights and manage to hit what they aim for instead of 9 year old kids. What exactly is a pumpkin ball for the firearm challenged? A quick google search and a glance at wikipedia says they're spherical slugs and the ones that pop up near to first on google at Ballistic Products have a diameter of .715" and a mass of 1.25 ounces. That is... loving enormous lol. Is it just the one per shell? I know that tri-ball exists and it's like 3 3/4 ounce shot. Not as much individual mass but you've got three of the damned things to work with.
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Jul 30, 2013 13:30
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Either larger balls than regular bird/buckshot or a full bore round like a foster slug, depending on who you ask. Or you can load both in a shot cup. You get more range and less spread but it still puts a serious hole in something.
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Jul 30, 2013 13:59
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Back in the day, before shotgun slugs were widely available people would take .75 cal musket balls and put them inside of shotgun shells to hunt larger game with. Now you can just buy slugs, but some people still call them pumpkin balls. I just liked that Omar would use such an old timey phrase.
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Jul 30, 2013 14:09
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Soupisgood posted:Back in the day, before shotgun slugs were widely available people would take .75 cal musket balls and put them inside of shotgun shells to hunt larger game with. Now you can just buy slugs, but some people still call them pumpkin balls. I just liked that Omar would use such an old timey phrase. Well Omar was just an old timey guy
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Jul 30, 2013 14:13
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Frostwerks posted:Well Omar was just an old timey guy He kind of is actually. "Farmer in the Dell" (or "a-hunting we will go") is clearly his jam.
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Jul 30, 2013 15:42
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Seconding that the thing about "even if I miss I can't miss" is referring to the accuracy and power of .45 ACP. I'm not a gun guy, but I am a history guy, and .45 ACP was designed specifically to provide greater accuracy and stopping power in a pistol caliber, specifically for use in the Philippines with the Browning 1911 automatic pistol. The idea is that the ballistics combined with high muzzle energy make it very accurate over medium ranges, and the mass of actual bullet with that much energy behind it will incapacitate or kill no matter what you hit. The use-case was stopping a charging Moro in his tracks with one shot, at which .38 rounds had proven unreliable. It was so successful that the M1911 became the standard issue sidearm for the US armed forces until recently, and there are still holdouts.
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Jul 31, 2013 01:18
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I'm rewatching right now because hey, never a bad time to go through The Wire, and goddamn, the look on Beadie's face when she sees Sobotka's corpse is heartbreaking. Amy Ryan is such a great actress. Anybody who hasn't seen her in Gone Baby Gone needs to watch; she plays the complete opposite of her type on The Wire and The Office and is jaw-droppingly good.
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Aug 1, 2013 07:38
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Protocol 5 posted:Seconding that the thing about "even if I miss I can't miss" is referring to the accuracy and power of .45 ACP. I'm not a gun guy, but I am a history guy, and .45 ACP was designed specifically to provide greater accuracy and stopping power in a pistol caliber, specifically for use in the Philippines with the Browning 1911 automatic pistol. The idea is that the ballistics combined with high muzzle energy make it very accurate over medium ranges, and the mass of actual bullet with that much energy behind it will incapacitate or kill no matter what you hit. The use-case was stopping a charging Moro in his tracks with one shot, at which .38 rounds had proven unreliable. It was so successful that the M1911 became the standard issue sidearm for the US armed forces until recently, and there are still holdouts. Here's some numbers: .45 ACP: bullet weight 12-15 grams, diameter .452 inches, muzzle velocity 850-1200 feet per second .38 Special: 7-10 grams, .357 inches, 800-1000 feet per second .380: 6 grams, .355 inches, 1000 feet per second 9mm: 7-8 grams, .355 inches, 1200-1400 feet per second The numbers vary because there are many different loads for a given caliber. Different loads have different amounts of gunpowder, velocities, bullet weights, and bullet shapes (hollow-point, full metal jacket, etc), with heavier bullets generally having lower velocities. Hollow-point bullets, which are used by most civilian and police shooters (including Mouzone and presumably Omar), are designed to slow down, flatten out, and expand to up to twice the original diameter when they hit. Brother Mouzone and Omar both use a point shooting technique, where the pistol is held with one hand at chest level and pointed forward, without using the sights. This is the most effective method in a situation like this, because when you're that close you're pretty much guaranteed to put a bullet somewhere in their torso. But that doesn't mean they'll be incapacitated instantly. A lot of times, people will fall down when shot because that's what they see in the movies and they expect that to happen, and also because it can be pretty painful, but not for any physiological reason. Bullets cause unconsciousness and death in two ways: disrupting the central nervous system by hitting the brain or spinal cord, or severing a blood vessel and causing blood loss. Pistols are very hard to aim (the Olympics have 10, 25, and 50 meter pistol shooting, and nobody has ever scored perfectly), so headshots are pretty much out of the question, since the head is a small target and a miss means you'll just hit the air, while the torso is big and if you miss there's still a good chance of hitting an arm, a leg, or the head (though a hit to a leg or an arm isn't entirely useless, since that makes it harder to move or shoot back, and you could fall down from that). Our bodies have a lot of blood in them, and even with a bullet in the heart you can still keep walking for several minutes, so you want to damage as much tissue as possible to cause maximum bleeding and increase the chance of hitting a vital organ. This doesn't necessarily mean bigger bullets are always better; a bigger bullet will have less velocity, less magazine capacity, and more recoil, and the gun has to be bigger and heavier. A .380 suits Mouzone's purposes much better than a .45, because it's a lot easier to conceal (allegedly, it's possible to hide a small gun like that from a pat-down if you know where to put it), easier to put a suppressor on, and fits with his reputation better. If Mouzone's first shot misses or fails to incapacitate Omar, he can take another shot quickly because the .380 has little recoil, but it's harder for Omar to take another shot because the .45 has a ton of recoil. So if he misses, he'll still miss; a bullet doesn't do anything if it doesn't hit. But if Omar shoots first and hits, the bullet is more likely to incapacitate Mouzone because it's bigger. If Mouzone shoots first and hits, there's a larger chance Omar will stay on his feet and shoot back. How big a difference the caliber makes is is an open question; look on any gun forum and you'll find endless debates/flamewars about the effectiveness of .45 vs 9mm vs .40 vs whatever else. Though the difference in diameter is only 0.1 inches, they both use hollow points, so the difference will be bigger, about .2-.3 in depending on the loads, once they expand. While that's still not huge, it could be the difference between, say, fracturing the spinal cord or just cracking some ribs. However, we know Omar wears a bulletproof vest. I'm not sure if Mouzone does; it would make sense if he did, but earlier when Omar shot him he wasn't wearing one. While bulletproof vests don't stop all bullets (rifle rounds will go right through), they will stop nearly all pistol bullets, though the bullet impacting the vest can still cause blunt-force trauma behind the impact point. A normal .45 or .380 doesn't have enough velocity to get through a vest, and hollow point bullets are even less effective because they slow down when they expand. However, if Mouzone had prepared in advance to shoot Omar, he'd use armor-piercing bullets, which could penetrate the vest, but wouldn't cause as much injury because they don't expand. Sam. fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 01:43
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Jerusalem posted:Is there anything I should be doing differently in these write-ups, by the way? I had hoped that they were extensive enough/asked enough questions/raised enough points that they would generate a little more discussion on the episodes themselves, the overall themes of a particular season, contrary opinions on how particular scenes played out and what we should take from an episode etc, and that doesn't really seem to be happening. Not different or better, but maybe expand to Tumblr (goonsonthewire - ha). Might sound weird, but, for example, with the ASOIAF crowd or the LOTR (askmiddleearth - their guide to the Simarillion was excellent) there are some decent critiques and discussions that go on. I think your writeups would fit right in. Aside from the reviews with the gang members (because of their insight into the street) I think yours are some of the best media reviews I've ever read. Yeah, they may be a bit verbose, but they are with good reason. Most reviews, critiques are slimmed down for short attention spans.
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Aug 2, 2013 02:40
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Getting into season 4 again, which I still think is among the most perfect seasons of TV I've ever seen. The four boys...gets me every time. There's a devastating little bit of foreshadowing in the first episode where Randy's piss balloon scheme goes awry (thanks to Namond's lack of street toughness) and Michael gets the worst beating from the Terrace boys. Namond says when running away he "hurt his ankle a bit" and Michael rather coldly replies "But you got away, though."
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Aug 2, 2013 04:54
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cletepurcel posted:Getting into season 4 again, which I still think is among the most perfect seasons of TV I've ever seen. The four boys...gets me every time. There's a devastating little bit of foreshadowing in the first episode where Randy's piss balloon scheme goes awry (thanks to Namond's lack of street toughness) and Michael gets the worst beating from the Terrace boys. Namond says when running away he "hurt his ankle a bit" and Michael rather coldly replies "But you got away, though." The worst part is when Poot has to convince Bodie that Marlo was right to kill Little Kevin years after Bodie had to convince Poot that it was right to kill Wallace, especially considering that Poot had to fire the fatal shots.
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Aug 2, 2013 06:30
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"...we fight on that lie." - Slim Charles This is the 12th episode of season 3 of the Wire, or "Mission Accomplished." As David Simon says in the DVD commentary, by this point he felt like he really had to hammer it over peoples' heads that this season was an allegory for the Iraq war. Hence the decidedly un-subtle title which I've honestly never liked. That said, I'm extremely glad that if I'm going to write up one episode, it is this one. There are some big moments, sure, but there are also little moments and characters which I'm sort of amazed by. Also, in watching this a few times, it's kind of neat to see the camera work, which in this episode is filled with long, lingering zooms and pans along with a general sparse feel. Let's start with the opening scene, or the "BNBG scene." "Just one witness so far. You know what that means. Right now it's all BNBG." - Bunk   Here we land at the aftermath of Stringer Bell's murder. Andy Krawczyk is sitting on the edge of an ambulance receiving oxygen while Bunk, Rawls, and others gather round and try to find the culprit. Bunk despairs at the fact that the lone witness is a rich white guy who doesn't belong in the neighborhood and probably can't tell too many black faces apart. He tells this to Rawls with four simple letters, "BNBG." Rawls merely muses that "There's a whole lot of campaign contributions sitting on the back of that ambo!" Already city hall has called multiple times, perhaps giving a nod to Avon's assessment that you can't just kill a politician. When Krawczyk is asked about his dealings with known drug-trafficker Bell, he gives an amazing look and says that he never inquired about where the money came from. When he described to detective Holley the one shooter he saw as "Black. Big, I thought ... with a large weapon," then Holley can only chuckle when Bunk glares and states "BNBG." Or as Holley lets out of the bag, "Big Negro, Big Gun."    Upstairs we see the victim. Apparently at the time of airing, audiences did not really believe that Stringer Bell would die, perhaps that he was wearing a vest or some such thing. Looking upon the body forlornly is McNulty, as we see when we pan up from Stringer's corpse and zoom in on his face for what seems like forever. Watching the scene with commentary, or essentially without sound was like watching an art film, Kima and Stringer and Bunk laid out like peeled fruit in a still life. Bunk lights a cigar and sidles up to McNulty, who can only quip "I caught him Bunk! I caught him on the wire and he doesn't loving know it." McNulty's hubris is still getting the better of him. Whatever crimes Stringer committed, he certainly can't be prosecuted anymore. Yet still, all McNulty can think of is how he got 'im. "He seems a bit more contemplative than George Bush"- Simon  After the theme song, Cutty tries once more to make a connection with a long-lost love. She admits that she's proud of him and kisses him on the cheek but she's ready to let the past be the past. Still dealing with the present is Avon, who sits in silence in his office. In a nod to Stringer's favorite line, when disturbed by Shamrock, Avon barks "Shut that fuckin door!" This is not the only Bell line that Avon repeats. While Bodie tells Slim to just say the word, and the rest of Avon's crew strokes guns, Avon tells Slim the truth that Marlo had nothing to do with Bell's death and more to the points "gently caress Marlo. gently caress this war. All this beef over a couple of corners?" This of course leads to the the epigraph. It truly doesn't matter who did what at this point. Avon started a war and now it's truly gotten away from him. "If it's a lie then we fight on that lie, but we gotta fight." Again in the commentary, Simon spells out the parallels between the Iraq war and the Barksdale/Stanfield war. The analogy is not perfect. If you were going to compare Marlo to bin Laden or Hussein then the best you could do is Hussein in the first Gulf War. At least in the early 90s, Hussein was making a power grab for Kuwait as Marlo grabbed for corners. After the towers fell, Hussein was more trying to keep his fiefdom and life. Still, once you find yourself in a war, especially with a stronger power than you thought going in, it can be very hard to pull yourself out. We briefly flash back to Bell being zipped into a body bag and Jimmy still moping around. Bunk brings the contents of Bell's pockets to Jimmy who is unmoved until they bring up the possibility of serving a warrant on the late Bell's apartment. "Come on, Tommy. They dealt you a winning hand and you act like you forgot how to play." - D'Agostino  Meanwhile, Tommy is making a case to Teresa for Hamsterdam. Teresa is hearing none of it. Everyone is just too entrenched in the drug war to allow drugs to even be de facto legalized anywhere. Again as Simon says, this is another war that has gotten away from us. Even if you start off with a somewhat-legitimate aim to get people off of drugs, if you declare a war then you've essentially declared a war against the underclass of society. And you can't really win that war, so you just keep on fighting, even if no one has ever stopped taking drugs because of someone hitting them over the head with a stick.  As the scene goes on, it becomes clear that he really wanted D'Agostino to talk him out of it. We end the scene with Carcetti staring into space, trying to "shed his guilt," as put so masterfully by David Simon. This is what I would call the turning point between Councilman Carcetti and Mayor or Governor Carcetti. He hasn't yet begun the long process of having all his morals ground into a fine powder which is season 4 for him. As of right now he just wants people to love him and he knows that some people will deservedly not love him after he betrays Colvin. But the monster urge for power just under Carcetti's skin is ready to come out. "Harm reduction... sounds good, hmmm?" - Royce  The current mayor is also unable to restrain himself. Despite warnings from various offices that he cannot call it legalization and that anything like Hamsterdam is going to require significant gussying up, Royce cannot let go of the 14% drop in the crime rate. More to the point, he can't let go of the idea of being the mayor who solved drug crime in Baltimore. So they try to play it as an enforcement strategy. Maybe they're using it to go after the high level players? One advisor astutely points out - the BPD has been doing street rips for so long, there might not be high-level enforcement left. Royce knows such a line would be bullshit, but anything he could do to get the public to swallow Hamsterdam would let him in on the crime drop that he can't let go. "How'd he take it?" - Freamon On the Wire, all the talk is that Marlo dropped Stringer. It really doesn't matter who did what in a war. As Lester notes to Kima, this only means the drug war is going to rachet up. Kima and Lester both know of McNulty's obsession with Bell and wonder what's happened now that Stringer won't be able to say "gently caress you, Detective," anymore.   We switch over to McNulty getting ready to "rifle through Stringer's apartment" as Kima says. First though he takes a call from Bunny Colvin, who is about to give McNulty the key to Avon's empire. What a surprise we get just behind the door though! Like some dream of Tyler Durden before his personality split, Stringer's apartment is really nice. It's not all tasteful, the samurai swords are a bit of a silly choice, but all in all, it's not what Bunk and McNulty were expecting. Rather than the CEO of the underworld, Stringer Bell was a Gatsby. Although born into poverty and massively successful in the trade of illegal drugs, Bell desperately wanted to go legit. Also as Gatsby, he had a full shelf of books which seem to almost never have been cracked. The one McNulty pulls down is Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations." The generally accepted main point that Smith wanted to make was that there are two main ways to create the wealth of nations - to either enhance existing markets or to use labor more productively. The first point is something Stringer definitely took to heart, which minimized the Gatsby analogy (since it sure seems like Stringer read the book!), but that analogy is at least completed by how he was blown away by the lover of someone Bell killed. "What's done is done." - Mouzone  Their work completed, Omar and Mouzone return to the hotel room so that Omar can pick up Dante. Dante is looking a bit worse for the wear, having taken it as long as he could. Omar seems a little disappointed, but glad to have his lover back. On the way out, Dante glares at Mouzone, who gives a handgun to Omar, who says that since Baltimore is his city, Mouzone trusts Omar to "do it proper." I wasn't quite sure of what to make of this exchange - was it merely a gesture of respect or was it encouragement for Omar to kill Avon if he wasn't arrested? Difficult to know! As a final note: in the commentary, Simon notes how glad he is that DeAndre has survived these past ten years. As you may know, DeAndre's demons did eventually catch up to him.  Elsewhere, the meeting between McNulty and Colvin is going down. Colvin is on break for the forseeable future but gives McNulty the tip on Avon's safehouse. As he notes, that may be his last bit of policework in a long and storied career. "Pretty cool that Daniels' wife is running for council, huh?" - Sydnor  In what was apparently an expensive bit of video to have on the show, Cutty shows his students the Ali-Patterson fight. One boy notes that Ali is whippin rear end so Patterson must be soft. Cutty retorts that if you're standing at the end of a round, you aren't soft. This is clearly inspirational to some of the boys. Inspirational to the rest is what McNulty brings to the detail - the contents of Bell's apartment, and to Lester in a side room, the address of Avon's safe house. In the apartment, there are only signs of how cautious Bell was - about 100 SIM cards. Outside, the tip Stringer gave to Colvin. McNulty tells Freamon to raise Daniels, who is at Marla Daniels' candidacy press conference.   Sydnor looks at the scene on TV with admiration, while Perlman looks on in dismay. She's glad to be with Daniels, but it sure seems like she can't take being the other woman for much longer. "I'm thinkin it might be what you call one of them good problems" - Partlow  Back at the rim shop, Marlo discusses Stringer's death. He is all too happy to take the blame and have Avon provoked into action. This part seems funny to me because Fruit formed a substantial part of Marlo's muscle in later seasons and would have been gone here if not for Cutty's inability to pull the trigger.  Meanwhile, Hamsterdam rages on, the police who watch it discussing the fate of Bunny Colvin. A couple of Carver's underlings also suggest that it might not just be Colvin who falls for it. Clearly Carver's moving the body out of Hamsterdam has not gone unforgotten. Speaking of falling for it, Johnny tries to bum Carver for five bucks. Carver asks if he looks stupid - why would he think that a crackhead going into an open-air drug market would use that five bucks on bus fare? Well as Johnny says, he's already got his hit!  Far away from Hamsterdam is a Kima sex scene. I was very mad at myself for missing this scene on the first watch. First, well it's a sex scene and no one likes to miss those, especially with the two actresses involved. Second, it's pretty important for character development - the woman Kima is with is NOT Cheryl. In fact Cheryl interrupts with a phone call. Kima disregards it, and the scene switches to Bunk and McNulty, standing at the train tracks where the train is on, but is not moving. In terms of the "trains as institutions" metaphor, this would seem to symbolize everyone sitting and waiting to move on Hamsterdam. In a bit of poetry, Bunk notes that all night, McNulty's been drinking like his "rear end is candy. Shameful poo poo." McNulty is still in mourning over his white whale. Bunk correctly notes that the pumpkinballs probably mean that it was Omar that got to Stringer. McNulty downplays it though, correctly noting that "Execution style" does not play like Omar Little. Combined with the chatter on the wire, it sure seems like Marlo did Stringer. Little do they know all the intrigue that's been happening! Bunk notes that the city is hosed and they're going to pass 300 murders by New Year. While he says that, a train crows in the background like a rooster.  McNulty gets a phone call, and covers for Kima as McNulty has described others doing for him before. The cycle of cheating continues. Bunk says that he needs more and the train crows again. McNulty stands in the tracks and says that he's tired, basking in the glow of the train's light. What a scene. "Failure to properly identify myself as a police officer. Sounds like what I was guilty of for most of my career" - Prezbylewski   Prez meets with Freamon in a park. Apparently only 6/10 black officers think he's a racist shitbird. It was noted in the commentary that every time the cops meet on a bench, their back is to the camera and every time the dealers meet on a bench, they face the camera. Simon responds that was not planned, rather it is merely a function of where the respective groups of people meet.   We flip back to the detail, where McNulty lets out of the bag that Bell is Colvin's CI. While the previous info McNulty was able to give didn't quite bring the case down, naming Bell really does it. What's sort of funny here is that the fame Marlo is chasing is again going to escape him. It wasn't Marlo that brought down Avon, but the police, and they could only really do that if they raided the safe house that day. So Marlo gets an empire, and he gets to live, because otherwise Avon's crew would have jumped on him. But he doesn't get that recognition.  Back in Hamsterdam, a police officer is reading an amusing sports page for the surroundings, which are about to change in a hurry. News vans pull up like a bunch of cop cars getting ready to do street rips. For some reason, no one tries to talk to the cops, but instead to the junkies.   Tony Gray and Carcetti take interviews while Royce looks on in horror. "What the gently caress was I thinking?" He meets with Burrell, who for once will not be thrown under the bus. He negotiates a way to stay police commissioner for the full five-year term and Rawls is more than ready to move on Hamsterdam.   In a nod to Apocalypse Now, Rawls turns on "Ride of the Valkyries" and gets on the walkie-talkie. The response is swift and brutal. The dealers and users ask what happened to the deal while chatter over the radios is entirely positive.     "That poo poo was worse than fuckin pathetic" - Pearson Once again, the truth does not matter in war. Snoop spins a yarn about how Stringer Bell died. It is not truly so far from his actual death, except replacing Chris and Snoop with Omar and Mouzone. Slim is casing the place though and spots that this would be a good time to hit Marlo. He calls it in to Shamrock while Lester and McNulty know exactly what this means - it's time to move!   Before Shamrock can tell Avon it's time to move, Kima and Sydnor and casing Avon's safehouse. Avon waves off Shamrock and reluctantly grabs his gun. Meanwhile Rawls plans the demolition of Hamsterdam "So the loving reporters don't have anything to stand in front of tomorrow." He is then informed that they found a body. It's Johnny, dead apparently from overdose. Because his face is bloody, Rawls asks if there is any trauma. The medic tells him that they can't tell with all the rat bites  . Rawls demands that his body be carted out in a paddy wagon so that the reporters don't see an ambo coming through.Outside Avon's safe house, Sydnor spots a new entrant and McNulty counts at least 10 people to bust in the safehouse. This motivates Daniels to call in the wrecking crew. Meanwhile, Colvin gets the word that his job at Hopkins has fallen through.  Burrell _personally_ called the chief academic officer to say that Colvin makes his own rules. It's ironic because it was Colvin's action that gave Burrell the leverage to get the full five-year term. I see it as distinctly likely that Royce would have just kept on stringing out Burrell until he found someone better if not for Hamsterdam. At the end of the scene, Colvin gets more good news - he's up at Comstat in the morning. "If y'all ask me, you ugly-rear end niggas shouldn't be all in here fuckin with all these guns an poo poo, y'know what I'm talkin about?" - Barksdale  Carcetti and Teresa are gloating over their new victory. The story is about to go national and Tommy's face is on the front of it. Teresa warns Carcetti to save the best questions for Gray though. He needs it.  Outside the safe house, Herc - one of the few cops that Baltimore could drag out given the move on Hamsterdam - wonders why exactly they should be knocking - seems like they'd get lit up! McNulty notes that a) you can't flush guns and b) given that they're at war, if they don't knock they WILL get lit up. Simon goes into more detail in the commentary, bad gangster movies play it like all drug dealers will go out Scarface-style. In reality, if you're stuck in a house with a bunch of guns when the police knock, you're eating a charge one way or the other. Might as well take it like a man. And indeed when the knock comes, they know they've got all the exits covered so there's no choice but to go peacefully.  For now though, they're minutes away from the hit on Marlo. Word comes in that except for a skeleton crew, Marlo's muscle is out. Guns and grenades of all things are everywhere. What are you going to do with a grenade in a drug war anyway?Another reason I love this scene is for this character.  Why is he so willing to take Avon's weapons charges?  Who couldn't love him?  I'd shrug too.  Avon will do the rest of his seven without seeing a jury, and a conspiracy to murder charge might also be coming. Make no mistake, this is a huge bust. Lieutenants will roll on Avon and the Barksdale drug organization is done. Barksdale is flippant - you only do two days anyhow he says. This is when McNulty pulls his trump card - the warrant.  Across town, Slim knows they missed their shot. He will live to fight another day, mostly because David Simon loves the guy's voice. "Get on with it, Motherfucker." - Colvin Colvin gets to sit and watch Rawls and Burrell tear down Colvin's career. They're busting him down to lieutenant, forcing him to retire before he gets to the vesting age for his pension and if he doesn't, they'll poo poo on his supervisors for the rest of their careers. As Rawls says "What part of 'Bend over' didn't you understand?"  Back at the gym, the older boys are back on the street, working Marlo's package. Marlo happily takes possession of the Barksdale corners while Carcetti goes wistfully into council meeting and Royce gets some crap from the federal government.    As the commentary says, the messengers are a perfect acting performance of someone who drove up from Washington to annoyedly give a speech. Royce is looking at a half-billion dollar price tag to the Hamsterdam experiment if anything like that should reappear. Odell Watkins is not happy about it and wants Burrell out. That's not an option for Royce though. Royce instead throws Watkins a bone by agreeing to back Marla Daniels. Eunetta Perkins has had her day. Over in Comstat, Colvin is bending over.  Not much else to say there. "You've got to be the stupidest motherfucker that I've ever gone out with!" - Squeak "I can't wait to go to jail" - Bernard  Over in Homicide, Freamon admires the tie graveyard with Bunk while Squeak and Bernard know they've been had. Shamrock rolls, Bodie not so much. "This must be one of them contrapment things?" he protests when asked about Hamsterdam.    Daniels meets with Burrell and hears that he's getting a promotion to Major. Burrell wants to somehow pin Avon a little bit more on Colvin, so Daniels doesn't blow the lid on the fact that the bust was almost entirely Colvin. As Stringer said, he only came to Colvin because of the free zones. Daniels is confused regarding Eunetta Perkins' seat and Burrell reassures him, "Good policework maybe. Not everything is politics. Immediately thereafter, Burrell is short on a putt, reinforcing what Burrell doesn't know.   Jimmy meets with Bunny for beers outside the station house. When Jimmy asks about the family, Bunny quips that his wife "lost 30 pounds and got a real estate license, so I guess she's fixin to leave me." Jimmy shares a Natty Bo with Bunny and admits that since Stringer was shot to death, Jimmy stuck Bells name on it to tighten the Probable Cause. This hurts Bunny because it's not really good police work. They share a bit of rebellion and toss their crushed beer cans on top of the roof, joining hundreds of others.  On the nice side of town, Daniels and Perlman share wine and dinner in public. Having learned about Marla being put on the mayor's ticket, they both know she wins without him. So Daniels and Perlman are free to be out in the open. At Beadie's place, McNulty has come a-courtin. He seems to have some idea of what's wrong with him. Amy Ryan makes a great face/motion when McNulty asks to meet her kids in lieu of a nightcap. There's a dichotomy between a Daniels/Perlman sex scene and Cutty on the punching bag. I was kinda... whatever about this scene.    And now the council meeting. It's again ironic that Colvin's bust gives Royce and Burrell an out. Oh, we didn't move on those buildings for six days so we could conclude an investigation by major crimes! Burrell again tries to pin it on Colvin, but Carcetti goes all-in. Check out the sweet eyeroll by Eunetta Perkins! He says some bullshit, but through the power of television he looks downright mayoral, getting an ovation from the crowd, the attention of Watkins, and a glare from Tony Gray. "It's not you, it's me"-McNulty  Over in the detail, McNulty puts in his papers. He backstabbed Daniels and now he's going to a spot where he doesn't feel the need to backstab. Back on the street, Cutty goes to get his boys, who are now working for Fruit. When Fruit spots Cutty, he remembers the time he was almost shot and the boys agree to come back after Cutty stares down Fruit.   This leads us into the ending montage, set to Van Morrison's "Fast Train" as performed by Sol Burke.          Seriously, look at that guy. "It's like someone took out a big eraser and rubbed it across" - Bubbles    After the montage, we get a teaser for the famous fourth season, with Bubbles trying to school his new protege. He runs into Colvin, who at least knows that even a druggie like Bubbles is a human being and deserves to be treated like one. Bubbles backs off of calling it a good thing, but says that at least you weren't messed with. Colvin says "Thank you" and the season is over. I'll just make one note here: I thought the treatment of Hamsterdam was interesting. As Simon said in the commentary, he really didn't want to make Hamsterdam seem like some liberal perfect solution. He claims that it has the same basic problems as the drug war - instead of actively waging war on the underclass, you just give them a hole you don't look into where they can die like Johnny. His claim is that it's all a little hopeless until we start as a society caring about our underclass and treating them like people. I don't know that I exactly believe that, but I don't disagree that the basic way of doing that is just to do what we can for the people around us - and not just the folks in our same social class. Album - http://imgur.com/a/hXH6L twerking on the railroad fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 22:17
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Good recap! Somehow I always find watching with the commentary on rather annoying and it's always interesting to see Simon's thoughts on episodes. Re: Mouzone's "I trust you to do it proper" line - the first time I saw it I thought he was encouraging him to kill Dante (I don't think it's coincidental that Omar has a new boyfriend in season 4, because Dante's treatment from Mouzone pales in comparison to what Brandon - who never cracked - went through.) However, since we see Omar tossing the guns in the harbour at the end, I think the simplest explanation is best - he gave him the gun used to kill Stringer to get rid of. I find Burrell a rather loathsome character on the whole, because we never see him do much outside of retaining his own power (and he rather pettily destroys Daniels' career on his way out the door) but I always find myself admiring what a magnificent bastard he is in wringing out a full 5 year term out of Hamsterdam. Also I love how Rawls claims that shutting down Hamsterdam was delayed because of the Avon case, even though Daniels specifically said the two had nothing to do with each other. (Though, it is interesting he doesn't say Colvin provided the final key tip.) I liked rewatching this one because time and again you see characters stumbling close to the truth, and either not elaborating on it or ignoring it. Without prompting, Royce argues Hamsterdam might be used as a way to ignore the low rungs of the drug trade while going after the kingpins...not knowing that this sort of strategy is exactly what guys like McNulty have argued for years! I think in Carcetti's grandstanding speech, it starts out okay but then he reveals himself for what he is - another politician - when he starts using all these grandiose war metaphors. I agree that the Daniels/Pearlman sex scene is...quite unnecessary. It might be the only scene I always fast forward. I also agree that the Iraq War parallels don't quite work, which I think is a minor criticism working against season 3 when the seasons are ranked. (I love them all but am never sure how to rank them aside from 4 being the best and 5 the weakest.) Though I notice now that, while Avon is ultimately more correct in his assessment of Marlo than Stringer, he's still only a problem once Avon decides to take the initiative in starting the war (especially since his muscle is so weak - akin to the US invading Iraq with such inadequate planning.) It might have worked out better if they'd waited for Marlo to come at them. And trying to conquer Marlo while also having unfinished business with Omar seems akin to invading Iraq while pretending Afghanistan is no longer a problem. Overall though, I think the reason I've never liked the theme is because The Wire is all about the failures in domestic social policy and so an obvious foreign policy allegory seems somewhat of a distraction. Particularly with McNulty's (accurate, I think) rant earlier in the season about how the only way the President would give a gently caress about Baltimore would be if Air Force One crashed there on its way to Washington. This is mostly nitpicking though because I think season 3 is probably in my top 3 seasons (though ranking them is itself the ultimate nitpicking.) grading essays nude fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 23:06
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Really nice write up! Thanks for the guest spot. The only thing I'd say is, I had some issues with a few of the pictures being very small. timg is your friend.
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Aug 2, 2013 23:24
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quote:However, since we see Omar tossing the guns in the harbour at the end, I think the simplest explanation is best - he gave him the gun used to kill Stringer to get rid of. D'oh! That's almost certainly it. Grumpwagon posted:Really nice write up! Thanks for the guest spot. The only thing I'd say is, I had some issues with a few of the pictures being very small. timg is your friend. Done!
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Aug 2, 2013 23:40
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Do the songs in the ending montages have any deeper meaning?
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Aug 3, 2013 02:33
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Nice work, Skeesix, thanks very much for finishing this off for me  I love and hate Carcetti's speech so much. I love it because it's the point where a truly fascinating character finally utterly commits himself to the pursuit of power. Sure he would continue to offer up justifications for everything he does, but I point to this moment when he stands exposed for what he truly is, which is just another politician looking to advance his own career. I hate the speech because it's so loving good as a political speech. Everything he says, the way he says it (he took onboard everything that adviser D'Agostino brought in suggested) are designed to get an emotional reaction from the viewer, to make people feel better, to gird their loins etc... and none of it means anything. It's pure theater, designed specifically and almost callously to make Carcetti look good, with all other considerations secondary if they exist at all. Everything he says and does is meaningless, that impassioned speech that stirs the hearts of the voters is designed specifically to stir their hearts.... so that they will vote for him. He tells them what they want to hear in the same way the police hit street corners - a lot of noise and visibility in order to create the impression that action is being taken, with the end result being exactly the same - the drug trade keeps on thundering along like a train, and it sure as hell isn't a slow one. The Big Negro, Big Gun bit is especially fun because Omar isn't THAT tall, "only" a little under 6 feet tall though that probably seems quite tall to Krawcyzk.... but more than that, he has an incredible defining feature of the GIANT loving SCAR RUNNING DOWN THE MIDDLE OF HIS FACE but Krawcyzk (who immediately is panicking and almost immediately drops to a fetal position) only sees a "big" black guy with a big gun. The Bernard/Squeak bit is even funnier if you listen in on what Squeak is saying in the background as Bunk is checking out the interrogation room windows. She's berating Bernard for buying the phones in bulk and claiming that she warned him about the danger of doing so, which is hilarious. Bernard's quiet,"I can't wait to go to prison" is hilarious. I doubt anybody will mourn Johnny but his death is the clearest example of how Hamsterdam is no kind of solution, even if the madness does seem in some ways preferable to the status quo. People die or otherwise wreck their lives for drugs, something needs to be done about it, and neither the status quo nor the Hamsterdam solution are that something. The answer (if there is one) is a massive upheaval of the accepted underpinnings of our society - something that no politician would EVER say, and that most of us (and I include myself in this group) would probably resist the moment it started to impact on our own comfortable and secure lives. That's why people take solace in the well-meaning platitudes of the likes of Carcetti, because it sounds good, he seems genuine, and we can go away satisfied that we're doing something even as things stay exactly the same. It's the same with the police - with Hamsterdam destroyed, most of the police are happy because they can get back to "doing their job" which of course turns out to be the same ineffectual crap as earlier. During the ending montage, we see Herc driving by a corner where dealers are brazenly hanging about, not dealing while the cops are near but ready to spring back into action the moment they're gone - Herc and the others got what they wanted, and the result is that they get to feel good when they physically manhandle a few bottom-level dealers off the corner for a few hours/days, while the greater bulk of the dealers continue to deal with impunity while the police celebrate their "victory". I like how things are set in motion for the "new day" after this all wraps up. Prez is looking for a new career/direction in life; McNulty has faced up to his self-destructive tendencies after Freamon's warnings about the job not saving him turned out to be true (McNulty "won" almost as completely as he could possibly win this season, and feels hollow inside afterwards); Marlo now rules the West Side; Cutty's gym has gotten over its opening wobbles and started to work; Carver has realized there has to be more to being police than how he has worked his career to this point; Carcetti has achieved his needed prominence and Tony has realized the trap he walked into; Daniels and Pearlman are free to pursue their relationship in public (Pearlman is no longer "the other woman", she has become "the woman", if you'll excuse the misogynistic overtones of that statement); and Daniels is starting to move up the career ladder after only last season thinking his career was dead. Everything is set in motion for season 4, which as I'm sure you're tired of hearing me say, is the best season of the best television show ever made, I am very much looking forward to writing up every drat episode of that season, and nobody is going to stop me!
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Aug 3, 2013 03:23
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Ride of the Valkyries refers to Apocalypse Now, a movie set in another pointless war that couldn't be won.
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Aug 3, 2013 23:38
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Orange Devil posted:Ride of the Valkyries refers to Apocalypse Now, a movie set in another pointless war that couldn't be won. Rawls even explicitly quotes Lt. Kilgore ("Outstanding, red team, outstanding, get you a case of beer for that one").
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Aug 4, 2013 00:12
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Jerusalem posted:I doubt anybody will mourn Johnny but his death is the clearest example of how Hamsterdam is no kind of solution, even if the madness does seem in some ways preferable to the status quo. I don't understand this. The show makes it explicit: Hamsterdam is allowing health and aid workers to treat addicts that they NEVER would have reached otherwise. Johnny would have died alone in a shooting gallery regardless of whether or not the free zone existed. At least in Hamsterdam he had the chance to get some help and didn't have to die in prison. It's a shame that Johnny slipped through the cracks, but I don't think the free zone is responsible at all. Hamsterdam was just getting started, a little more time and they might have been able to get counselors, aid workers, job placement programs...it could have been a beautiful thing. I also kinda hate the way the show uses that scene of Bubbles marveling at all the drug use as a 'condemnation' of hamsterdam. It's a pretty base appeal to emotion: this looks disgusting, therefore it's evil. I'm sure you could film a sad looking short of people shooting up after scoring at needle exchanges, but that doesn't stop needle exchanges from being an unambiguous good.
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Aug 4, 2013 00:19
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The way I always see it is, it's not perfect but it's a hell of an improvement over what was there before. The tragedy is that it's torn down just as it's becoming more refined from just a cesspool of addicts and dealers. Not to mention this: pretty much everyone who actually looks at it critically sees merit in the idea, most notably Royce (although probably not for the right reasons - I realize now his motive was more the 14% drop in crime than anything) but because it's political suicide nobody's brave enough to step forward and defend it. Of course, the last scene with the deputy drug czar chewing out Royce makes it clear that it was doomed no matter what. I also notice that Odell Watkins, who is held up by the show as a rare example of a good, non-self serving politician, seems as disgusted at Hamsterdam as anyone - he basically uses it as more evidence of Burrell's incompetence. I'm not sure what to make of that, because Odell is usually used to highlight how worthless the Mayor's Office is. Speaking of politicians, Martin O'Malley appears to have all but confirmed he'll run for President in 2016: http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/martin-omalley-putting-together-framework-for-presidential-b . I don't think The Wire has quite enough cultural influence to make this happen but it would warm my heart if "O'Malley is Carcetti IRL" became a negative talking point.
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Aug 4, 2013 02:53
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cletepurcel posted:
This is probably a generational thing. "It makes me sick, motherfucker, to see how far we done fell" sort of stuff. I like that there are principled positions taken that are not white liberal college egghead approved positions. So, while legalization plays well to me, and probably to you, to show that it doesn't play well to people who we see as smart and committed to the community, I think is a nice layer of complexity and acknowledgement of reality in a bit of a fantasy scenario.
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Aug 4, 2013 04:31
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Links for the OP, escape artist, season 3 now complete - just copy and paste! Season Three Episode 1 - Time After Time Episode 2 - All Due Respect Episode 3 - Dead Soldiers Episode 4 - Hamsterdam Episode 5 - Straight and True Episode 6 - Homecoming Episode 7 - Back Burners Episode 8 - Moral Midgetry Episode 9 - Slapstick Episode 10 - Reformation - Part 1 Episode 10 - Reformation - Part 2 Episode 11 - Middle Ground Episode 12 - Mission Accomplished Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Aug 4, 2013 |
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Aug 4, 2013 04:46
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I really enjoyed the snippets from the commentary that were injected into that recap; I never really listen to commentary tracks, so it was nice to hear what I was missing, I wouldn't mind more of that in the future.
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Aug 4, 2013 06:43
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Ainsley McTree posted:I really enjoyed the snippets from the commentary that were injected into that recap; I never really listen to commentary tracks, so it was nice to hear what I was missing, I wouldn't mind more of that in the future. Thanks. I knew I had to put some of it in there when Simon sang the praises of Avon over Dubya. That said, not all commentary tracks are created equally. I remember one from season 5 where Dominic West was talking about the shot he tried to get of the lawyer where he could position the horns behind his desk into devil horns... and then gave up. I love Dominic, but I soured a bit on his directing prowess after that one. Another bit I saw from the commentary. Simon notes that he did hear that a few communities here and there did try to implement Hamsterdam-lite solutons after the episode. He however does not know how they ended up.
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Aug 4, 2013 13:33
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I like the one where they sit there laughing about someone in the wire getting shot in the start of a movie after having a screen time of like five seconds, and then talk about some guy's wife for the rest . Great write up on season three. And now we begin one of my favorite seasons of television ever. algebra testes fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Aug 4, 2013 |
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Aug 4, 2013 15:31
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Sorry, I didn't see anything posted in the OP about this, but I have heard from multiple people that this show is amazing. Is there a place to watch the old episodes online by chance?
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Aug 4, 2013 16:41
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Bulls Hit posted:Sorry, I didn't see anything posted in the OP about this, but I have heard from multiple people that this show is amazing. Is there a place to watch the old episodes online by chance? HBO Go or Netflix DVDs
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Aug 4, 2013 16:47
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And for your own good, stay out if this thread until you've watched it.
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Aug 4, 2013 16:53
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