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Asbury
Mar 23, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 6 years!
Hair Elf

drunken officeparty posted:

This plotline about them moving everyone to a vacant street to openly sell drugs is kind of testing my limits on believability.

You're in a part of the series where it starts being more about exploring ideas (season 3, legalization of drugs; season 5, lies and the media) instead of being a realistic look at policework (season 1) or an analysis of decaying systems (season 2, the death of the working class; season 4, the broken school system).

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boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

Ainsley McTree posted:

I hadn't really thought of that, but I dunno, I don't think the show really has anything good to say about the prison system. Every other character's reaction to it (except Ziggy) is basically "I don't mind, you only do two days anyway" and then they're back to the game. Prison's just a square on the board for them.

Yeah, if anything Cutty's arc criticizes the prison system for failing to prepare convicts for release. Cutty immediately goes back to his old ways because what the hell else is he going to do, but quickly finds out that the game just doesn't fit him anymore. He'd rather do honest but lovely labor like yard work rather than be a gangster, not because he's afraid of prison but because he's changed as a person and gangster stuff disgusts him. It's the revival of D's arc brought to a nice conclusion. If Cutty were broken I would expect to see more of a tragic arc than the redemptive arc which turns him into a productive citizen.

Renzian
Oct 25, 2003
REDTEXTING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS YOU GUYS.

SERIOUS.
BUSINESS.

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Yeah, if anything Cutty's arc criticizes the prison system for failing to prepare convicts for release. Cutty immediately goes back to his old ways because what the hell else is he going to do, but quickly finds out that the game just doesn't fit him anymore. He'd rather do honest but lovely labor like yard work rather than be a gangster, not because he's afraid of prison but because he's changed as a person and gangster stuff disgusts him. It's the revival of D's arc brought to a nice conclusion. If Cutty were broken I would expect to see more of a tragic arc than the redemptive arc which turns him into a productive citizen.

I think to get the full impact of the statement Cutty's arc makes about ex-cons place in society, one has to sort of read between the lines. The only way Cutty was able to get on his feet and escape the Game completely is because he had all this help and these friends in high places who were willing to help him get the permits and stuff needed to make his gym, and to navigate through the red tape. Now let's look at real life. 99% of ex-cons don't have that. 99% of ex-cons are seen as the scum of the earth by 'respectable' folk. So, Cutty had a way out, he had hope, but the vast majority of ex-cons in real life don't. In real life, Cutty probably would have either been forced to stay back in the Game or end up sleeping on benches just scraping by.

Renzian fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jul 28, 2014

the_american_dream
Apr 12, 2008

GAHDAMN
I can stretch my believability to literally everything but Brother Mouzone but he's still a great written character without the superhuman stuff

pokeyman
Nov 26, 2006

That elephant ate my entire platoon.

the_american_dream posted:

I can stretch my believability to literally everything but Brother Mouzone but he's still a great written character without the superhuman stuff

Sometimes I see Mouzone as an embodiment of "out-of-town gangsters". Seemingly from nowhere a bunch of local boys get got, and the rumours start going around that some scary hired guns have arrived for a brief stay. It's a bit of literary shorthand to just make it one guy instead of a larger crew.

This obviously falls apart when Chris and Snoop go dropping the New York (?) soldiers when they get trivia questions wrong. Really I'm just making excuses, but I'm at peace with it.

Unzip and Attack
Mar 3, 2008

USPOL May
I don't think anything Mouzone did was particularly out there. His rep is what made him seem like Superman, while he himself wasn't all that impressive. Omar jumping out of a high rise apartment building and living was way crazier than that.

thathonkey
Jul 17, 2012
Also dont forget, for all of Mouzone's rep, Omar gets to him at the motel pretty easily and would have killed him if he didnt take Mouzone's word that he was being played.

(s5 contains all the most unbelievable parts.)

Also when you think of moments like in S1 where Omar just strolls into the pit on basketball game day by himself it is kind of surprising some random corner kid didnt take him out from behind way before Kenard.

thathonkey fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Jul 28, 2014

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Unzip and Attack posted:

I don't think anything Mouzone did was particularly out there. His rep is what made him seem like Superman, while he himself wasn't all that impressive. Omar jumping out of a high rise apartment building and living was way crazier than that.

Yea if anything you could say that the insane level of respect he garnered from people who'd never been and probably never would go to New York was the part that was hardest to believe. But he never actually does anything all that over-the-top, and he gets out-smarted by Omar fairly easily.

Edit: Beaten on the Omar point.

kanonvandekempen
Mar 14, 2009

comes along bort posted:

Cutty's redemption is a little off because it implicitly endorses the idea that prison can reform criminals essentially by breaking their spirit.

Think of it as, after doing his time, and being a changed man, either changed because of age or because of spending time to think about his crimes in prison, the system spits him back out with no social structures in place to support him, pretty much forcing him back into the life he was sent to prison for. It takes all his willpower and some luck for him to avoid it.

PostNouveau
Sep 3, 2011

VY till I die
Grimey Drawer

pokeyman posted:

I love how when the streets are all abuzz with the (for once, true) rumour of Omar's death, the journalist at the newspaper doesn't even give a second glance at his name. The biggest, most fearsome/mythologized name in one world isn't even recognizable in the other.

Two of the biggest moments for the newspaper plot line are the paper passing on the stories of Omar and Prop Joe dying. For all the flak that story line gets for being too black-and-white, the city editor and the cops reporter aren't actually all that great at covering the community; they just look good when compared with the incompetent managing editor and the fabricator.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

kanonvandekempen posted:

Think of it as, after doing his time, and being a changed man, either changed because of age or because of spending time to think about his crimes in prison, the system spits him back out with no social structures in place to support him, pretty much forcing him back into the life he was sent to prison for. It takes all his willpower and some luck for him to avoid it.

In a way its sadder than that( or not I guess, depending on how you want to look at it). Cutty didn't even use willpower or take advantage of luck to get out of the Game, he tries to pretty much pick right up where he left off. Its only when he is about to kill someone and physically can't pull the trigger that he realizes his old life just isn't an option anymore.

In some ways I think he'd rather have been able to just blow Savino(I think) away and continue on, making money and living the life for as long as possible. But he learns in that moment that all that just isn't in him anymore. Its like he doesn't even know why, but its become self-evident. I think that's a major part of why Avon reacts so well to Cutty quitting, he can see in his eyes that there's no choice. Cutty has nothing left to give the Game.

thathonkey
Jul 17, 2012
Minor point but it is Fruit that Cutty has dead-to-rights but cant pull the trigger despite Fruit having ripped him off on his coming home package.

Savino is in the Barksdale crew (and later Marlo). He, of course, gets ended by Omar in S5. Good riddance, always hated him since he helped set up Kima getting shot

stev
Jan 22, 2013

Please be excited.



Basebf555 posted:

I think that's a major part of why Avon reacts so well to Cutty quitting, he can see in his eyes that there's no choice. Cutty has nothing left to give the Game.

For all the poo poo Avon pulls, and for as terrible as he generally is, that moment is so drat respectable. Marlo would have put him straight in a vacant for that.

PostNouveau
Sep 3, 2011

VY till I die
Grimey Drawer

thathonkey posted:

Minor point but it is Fruit that Cutty has dead-to-rights but cant pull the trigger despite Fruit having ripped him off on his coming home package.

Savino is in the Barksdale crew (and later Marlo). He, of course, gets ended by Omar in S5. Good riddance, always hated him since he helped set up Kima getting shot

Oh god, he'd show up once or twice in the later seasons, and it's always like "Jeez, this rear end in a top hat is still kicking around?"

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Steve2911 posted:

For all the poo poo Avon pulls, and for as terrible as he generally is, that moment is so drat respectable. Marlo would have put him straight in a vacant for that.

Yea, Cutty is a guy who put everything he had into the Game and eventually just ran empty. Avon sees this and thinks he deserves retirement, Marlo would think the same thing except his definition of the word is a little bit different.

thathonkey
Jul 17, 2012

PostNouveau posted:

Oh god, he'd show up once or twice in the later seasons, and it's always like "Jeez, this rear end in a top hat is still kicking around?"

I think he goes to jail for a few years (due to whatever they were able to charge from his involvement in Kima's shooting) and by the time he's out, Avon and Stringer have fallen and he starts muscling for Marlo.

PostNouveau
Sep 3, 2011

VY till I die
Grimey Drawer

thathonkey posted:

I think he goes to jail for a few years (due to whatever they were able to charge from his involvement in Kima's shooting) and by the time he's out, Avon and Stringer have fallen and he starts muscling for Marlo.

Haha, I think I mistook him for Fruit in the third season as well.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



For those of you who think Mouzone is too unrealistic, read up on the Nation of Islam. The bow tie and suit combination coupled with the stoic self-control and focus on education strongly suggest he's one of them. He's not nearly as out there as you might think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/nation-of-islam

thathonkey
Jul 17, 2012

Steve2911 posted:

For all the poo poo Avon pulls, and for as terrible as he generally is, that moment is so drat respectable. Marlo would have put him straight in a vacant for that.

Yeah it's almost as if the writers were afraid they had portrayed Avon as too likable (and you could definitely make the case that he is even glorified to some extent) so for his successor, Marlo, they made him completely ruthless and more of a textbook "villain" (scenes like killing that security guard who calls Marlo on shoplifting the lollipops are there just in case you didn't realize that he is basically the spawn of satan)

thathonkey fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jul 28, 2014

PostNouveau
Sep 3, 2011

VY till I die
Grimey Drawer

Spoilers Below posted:

For those of you who think Mouzone is too unrealistic, read up on the Nation of Islam. The bow tie and suit combination coupled with the stoic self-control and focus on education strongly suggest he's one of them. He's not nearly as out there as you might think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/nation-of-islam



It's not the obvious Nation of Islam stuff that makes his character unbelievable for me. The NOI is openly racist and anti-semetic and has a history of violence, but contract killing does not seem like their style at all.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



PostNouveau posted:

It's not the obvious Nation of Islam stuff that makes his character unbelievable for me. The NOI is openly racist and anti-semetic and has a history of violence, but contract killing does not seem like their style at all.

Well, he's also drinking alcohol in his hotel room, which is strictly forbidden by their tenants. I always assumed that he was a former NoI member who had struck out on his own, but retained many of the trappings of his previous lifestyle.

boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich

PostNouveau posted:

It's not the obvious Nation of Islam stuff that makes his character unbelievable for me. The NOI is openly racist and anti-semetic and has a history of violence, but contract killing does not seem like their style at all.

Mouzone may or may not be NOI, it is a somewhat terrifying persona for a hitman though. Omar pulled out some dumb Scooby-Doo disguises at times, so I don't think he or Mouzone are supposed to be entirely realistic so much as outlandish heroic figures.

stev
Jan 22, 2013

Please be excited.



Spoilers Below posted:

Well, he's also drinking alcohol in his hotel room, which is strictly forbidden by their tenants. I always assumed that he was a former NoI member who had struck out on his own, but retained many of the trappings of his previous lifestyle.

Or he just had a god drat library card and the rest came naturally.

Hedera Helix
Sep 2, 2011

The laws of the fiesta mean nothing!

Renzian posted:

I think to get the full impact of the statement Cutty's arc makes about ex-cons place in society, one has to sort of read between the lines. The only way Cutty was able to get on his feet and escape the Game completely is because he had all this help and these friends in high places who were willing to help him get the permits and stuff needed to make his gym, and to navigate through the red tape. Now let's look at real life. 99% of ex-cons don't have that. 99% of ex-cons are seen as the scum of the earth by 'respectable' folk. So, Cutty had a way out, he had hope, but the vast majority of ex-cons in real life don't. In real life, Cutty probably would have either been forced to stay back in the Game or end up sleeping on benches just scraping by.

Just imagine what would've happened if he didn't have Avon to lend him the money to start a gym...

Diddie
Sep 1, 2001

What the heck is going on in here???

thathonkey posted:

Also dont forget, for all of Mouzone's rep, Omar gets to him at the motel pretty easily and would have killed him if he didnt take Mouzone's word that he was being played.

(s5 contains all the most unbelievable parts.)

Also when you think of moments like in S1 where Omar just strolls into the pit on basketball game day by himself it is kind of surprising some random corner kid didnt take him out from behind way before Kenard.

Omar got the jump on him there but he was also able to stalk and get the jump on Omar in S3, so he his rep wasn't completely undeserved.

nuzak
Feb 13, 2012

drunken officeparty posted:

This plotline about them moving everyone to a vacant street to openly sell drugs is kind of testing my limits on believability.

Didn't that literally happen in Baltimore tho?

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

PostNouveau posted:

Two of the biggest moments for the newspaper plot line are the paper passing on the stories of Omar and Prop Joe dying. For all the flak that story line gets for being too black-and-white, the city editor and the cops reporter aren't actually all that great at covering the community; they just look good when compared with the incompetent managing editor and the fabricator.

The really big issue is that Gus is navel-gazing, he is putting all his effort and attention into the inner workings of the paper and his idealized ideas of what proper journalism is, and becomes so inward-looking that he fails to realize he (and the people under his command) aren't doing any real journalism either. Exposing a journalist who is flat out making poo poo up is something he should be doing of course, but not at the expense of the paper itself becoming completely detached from the streets. Early in the season he catches that the City Council has done a deal with a suspected drug kingpin, and that's a good example of a journalist with his finger on the pulse of the city. But by the end Prop Joe and Omar pass him by completely because his focus is on Scott and tilting at windmills with "sick burns" on the comically incompetent editors.

Part of the issue there is the loss of institutional knowledge and a lifetime of connections/networking due to the cutbacks, but Gus is so busy fighting the good fight at the newspaper that he's made it utterly irrelevant to the reality of Baltimore.

McNerd
Aug 28, 2007

Basebf555 posted:

In a way its sadder than that( or not I guess, depending on how you want to look at it). Cutty didn't even use willpower or take advantage of luck to get out of the Game, he tries to pretty much pick right up where he left off. Its only when he is about to kill someone and physically can't pull the trigger that he realizes his old life just isn't an option anymore.

This isn't quite fair. He tries to go honest but he's intimidated by the prospect of a long life of unmitigated backbreaking toil, which it's hard to blame him for. Before that, he gets a package as a gift from Avon and tries to sell it; while of course I'm not going to defend him for wholesaling drugs, it's a far cry from picking up his life as a hit man.

Also, didn't they explain that when Cutty was arrested, he killed someone and then just waited there for the police to show up? The people telling the story frame it as proof that he's some sort of fearless badass, and I'm sure he and his friends encouraged that interpretation of events, but it sounds to me like he "broke" way back when he was a kid. That could even have been the first time he killed someone (remembering that the streets were a little less fierce back then).

PostNouveau
Sep 3, 2011

VY till I die
Grimey Drawer

Jerusalem posted:

Part of the issue there is the loss of institutional knowledge and a lifetime of connections/networking due to the cutbacks, but Gus is so busy fighting the good fight at the newspaper that he's made it utterly irrelevant to the reality of Baltimore.

Yeah, I think the big hit to the team is really the courts reporter that takes the buyout early in the season.

Gus is certainly disconnected from the community and not making a good effort to reconnect, but the person who should really be doing that is the reporter, not the city editor. But Gus' team after the buyouts is Scott, a rookie cops reporter, and a courts reporter who is somehow supposed to cover both the state and city courthouses, and it's just not enough.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I think there is a bit of jealous guarding of positions going on too. Given the nature of the buyouts, you'd think the departing reporters would basically make some kind of effort to take the younger staff left behind around to meet their contacts and introduce them. That way at least if the relationship falters or the reporter fails to make proper use of them, it's because THEY weren't capable/prepared, as opposed to being left to twist in the wind while the "retired" reporter gets the satisfaction of seeing everything go to hell now that they're no longer around.

I mean, that's if we take all their big talk about their love of journalism and the newspaper business at face value, as opposed to them being (very human!) self-aggrandizing egotists.

PostNouveau
Sep 3, 2011

VY till I die
Grimey Drawer

Spoilers Below posted:

Well, he's also drinking alcohol in his hotel room, which is strictly forbidden by their tenants. I always assumed that he was a former NoI member who had struck out on his own, but retained many of the trappings of his previous lifestyle.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

Mouzone seems to be a man of principle. His principles are completely twisted, but he seems very sure of them and seems to believe he leads a noble life for adhering to a moral code. Being a gun-for-hire is just such an dishonorable profession that I have a hard time believing Mouzone would fall into it.

PostNouveau
Sep 3, 2011

VY till I die
Grimey Drawer

Jerusalem posted:

I think there is a bit of jealous guarding of positions going on too. Given the nature of the buyouts, you'd think the departing reporters would basically make some kind of effort to take the younger staff left behind around to meet their contacts and introduce them. That way at least if the relationship falters or the reporter fails to make proper use of them, it's because THEY weren't capable/prepared, as opposed to being left to twist in the wind while the "retired" reporter gets the satisfaction of seeing everything go to hell now that they're no longer around.

I mean, that's if we take all their big talk about their love of journalism and the newspaper business at face value, as opposed to them being (very human!) self-aggrandizing egotists.

Yeah, the reporter who gets pushed into taking the buyout does seem to somewhat enjoy listening to Gus bitch about how bad things are when they meet for drinks.

The paper gets a bit of an uplift though, as they promote the guy who profiles Bubbles to City Desk Editor when they demote Gus. At least the new guy is capable of making connections to people who actually know what life in Baltimore is like. If he were ever inclined to ask, Bubbles could give him the entire org chart of every drug gang from memory.

Alec Bald Snatch
Sep 12, 2012

by exmarx

drunken officeparty posted:

This plotline about them moving everyone to a vacant street to openly sell drugs is kind of testing my limits on believability.

It actually happened during Kurt Schmoke's tenure.

gingerberger
Jun 20, 2014

Gotta love my Squirtle Swag

comes along bort posted:

It actually happened during Kurt Schmoke's tenure.

And I think the point is that the people in power don't give a gently caress about what's actually happening and moreover don't have any idea what's actually happening. They just care about the stats, politics, white neighborhoods, etc

drunken officeparty
Aug 23, 2006

It must have been boring for Aidan Gillen to play the same character in two different shows.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

comes along bort posted:

It actually happened during Kurt Schmoke's tenure.

No, it didn't. Schmoke came out in favor of decriminalization, but there never was an area with police sanctioned selling of drugs.

nuzak
Feb 13, 2012

PostNouveau posted:

Yeah, the reporter who gets pushed into taking the buyout does seem to somewhat enjoy listening to Gus bitch about how bad things are when they meet for drinks.

The paper gets a bit of an uplift though, as they promote the guy who profiles Bubbles to City Desk Editor when they demote Gus. At least the new guy is capable of making connections to people who actually know what life in Baltimore is like. If he were ever inclined to ask, Bubbles could give him the entire org chart of every drug gang from memory.

The newspaper storyline has a lot in common with the docks storyline the more you look at it.

ruddiger
Jun 3, 2004

drunken officeparty posted:

I mean they are on the same team and everything right?

From a few pages back but this is the most adorable thing I've read today. That people even think that this applies to real life is hilarious too.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

drunken officeparty posted:

It must have been boring for Aidan Gillen to play the same character in two different shows.

Littlefinger is not much like Carcetti at all because Carcetti at least tries to pretend that his actions are noble whereas Littlefinger is explicitly nihilistic and lives for manipulation.

The equivalent for Littlefinger on the Wire is probably Lester, because both characters are frequently underestimated and are willing to do almost anything to achieve their goals.

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stev
Jan 22, 2013

Please be excited.



Littlefinger and Carcetti also have completely different motivations and backgrounds. It's just their setting and some of their actions that are similar.

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