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Well its possible that Littlefinger was a lot more like Carcetti in his earlier years. The Littlefinger we see is like 8-10 years after The Wire when Carcetti has a cabinet position and is scheming to be President House of Cards style. Wow sorry, this is kind of a dumb post for a new page.
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Jul 29, 2014 17:55
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Basebf555 posted:Well its possible that Littlefinger was a lot more like Carcetti in his earlier years. The Littlefinger we see is like 8-10 years after The Wire when Carcetti has a cabinet position and is scheming to be President House of Cards style. Wow sorry, this is kind of a dumb post for a new page. Ehhh potentially. Littlefinger's more of a bitter brat who secretly loves to think he knows what he's doing. He does what he does because he was lowborn and hated that people thought nothing of him because of it. He just wants to climb the polital ladder and gently caress over as many powerful people as possible to prove that he can. I don't think he puts an ounce of thought into what he'd actually do if he were king. As far as I can tell, we don't really learn much about where Carcetti came from or why he chose a political career. His story's more about a bright eyed, idealistic young guy who wants to help people, who's slowly ground down by the system and becomes the same dead-eyed, self serving bullshitter as every other politician. He convinces himself that he's still out to help people, and that everything he does is for the greater good, he just never gets around to actually helping anyone. So I'd say Littlefinger's a petulant child who puts on a front of normality (very Frank Underwood-esque) while Carcetti's more of a slow collapse. I don't want to say he's more of a Walter White, but I'm too tired to come up with a better analogy.
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Jul 29, 2014 19:15
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computer parts posted: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. Really? Both are kind of underestimated, but Lester isnt a nihilist at all, he seems very clearly to be on the side of good (at least in he scope of the show he seems to be one of the least morally ambiguous characters). I don't know if there's a true little finger equivalent but I'd think Marlo's pretty close. He at least has the totally self interested part, though not little fingers manipulative nature.
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Jul 29, 2014 23:01
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gingerberger posted:Really? Both are kind of underestimated, but Lester isnt a nihilist at all, he seems very clearly to be on the side of good (at least in he scope of the show he seems to be one of the least morally ambiguous characters). Yeah, Marlo is probably the closest one. Not the Marlo that we see in the show necessarily, but the presumably younger version of him, back before he was independent, serving as a lieutenant or whatever (I can't remember if the show says he actually did that, but we can guess he had to start towards the bottom of the ladder like everyone else) with eyes on the throne and a willingness to be a ruthless, unscrupulous bastard to get there.
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Jul 29, 2014 23:09
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ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:I think Omar's arc was perfect. He started out as a badass, became this larger than life living breathing myth, gets gunned down when he lets his guard down and then gets confused with a white guy when he's in the morgue. Just goes to show that what happens on the street means less than poo poo to the big wide world See, back in middle school and all, I used to love the myths.
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Jul 29, 2014 23:35
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So how is Prop Joe still getting his good dope to share with everyone if the greek guys moved to parts unknown?
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Jul 30, 2014 06:30
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drunken officeparty posted:So how is Prop Joe still getting his good dope to share with everyone if the greek guys moved to parts unknown? Spiros explains that the attention they're getting means they need to temporarily move out of town, and that there will be a (depressingly brief) delay before they can start bringing in new shipments for him. Joe and everybody else basically has to get by with what they've got until they're set back up, and then everything is running exactly the way it was before the Major Case Investigation. Even more depressing, despite being "run out of town", the Greek and Spiros both return to Baltimore and even seem to operate out of the same locations they were before, because they know that the police won't be sitting on any of those spots and would have already moved on to new cases. In any other show, they would have been captured or made their escape and never returned because they feared how close the police had come. In this show, they get away and just wait a little while, then casually just stroll back in and take up where they left off.
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Jul 30, 2014 07:06
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Man that is so true about "any other show". One of The Wire's greatest strengths is its unflinching portrayal of police departments as riddled with severe problems just like any other big institution.
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Jul 30, 2014 21:07
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Lester might seem like a nice guy, but he's sort of a dick. He basically hauled McNulty back from the happy place he had gone to in season 4 just because he couldn't resist one more chance to gently caress the bosses. Jimmy had stopped drinking, had gotten together with Beadie and settled down. He was happy. Lester ruined all that.
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Jul 30, 2014 21:19
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MrBling posted:Lester might seem like a nice guy, but he's sort of a dick. What? That was because he felt guilty about bodie, it had nothing to do with lester.
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Jul 30, 2014 21:29
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Jerusalem posted:Spiros explains that the attention they're getting means they need to temporarily move out of town, and that there will be a (depressingly brief) delay before they can start bringing in new shipments for him. Joe and everybody else basically has to get by with what they've got until they're set back up, and then everything is running exactly the way it was before the Major Case Investigation. I haven't seen S2 in a while but doesn't the Greek have a very reliable FBI informant too? They probably knew exactly when they could come back safely and resume business-as-usual.
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Jul 30, 2014 21:33
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thathonkey posted:I haven't seen S2 in a while but doesn't the Greek have a very reliable FBI informant too? They probably knew exactly when they could come back safely and resume business-as-usual. Season 2 ends with Fitzhugh realizing that Koutris (the greek's FBI informant) was giving the greeks information, but because he was working for counterterror and presumably doing it with some kind of sanction from above (I don't honestly know much about how the FBI works but that's my guess), it's hard to say how much that revelation would be able to stop Koutris from continuing to give out information.
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Jul 30, 2014 21:41
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thathonkey posted:I haven't seen S2 in a while but doesn't the Greek have a very reliable FBI informant too? They probably knew exactly when they could come back safely and resume business-as-usual. Check out the Whitey Bulger case for a similar situation. Basically, the Greek would feed the FBI enough information for big "Dope on the Table"-type busts that they let him operate with immunity. Kinda like Omar's "get out of jail free" card writ large. A hosed up situation, no doubt, but one that has parallels in real life. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/13/us/boston-trial-s-troublesome-crux-how-to-handle-informers-crimes.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/29/us/fbi-agent-linked-to-mob-is-guilty-of-corruption.html
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Jul 30, 2014 21:51
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MrBling posted:Lester might seem like a nice guy, but he's sort of a dick. I couldn't support him after he encouraged the stupid serial killer plan. Yeah it sort of worked out for the best for some parties, but it was so ridiculously irresponsible and put careers and lives in danger. Men died as a direct result. I basically spent the whole season identifying with Bunk. Constantly murmering 'Jimmy!' to myself. But at least McNulty had the excuse of being drunk out of his mind and clearly mentally unstable. Lester just gave no fucks.
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Jul 30, 2014 21:56
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Yeah I honestly wish we could get a redo of S5 somehow sans the ridiculous fake serial killer plot  It sullied several characters for me also.Like i appreciate what they were going for but it was just too out there. Hamsterdam was way more believable.
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Jul 30, 2014 22:04
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Lester's a manipulative dick, he just gets away with it most of the time by being right. Even the time when his methods are wrong, faking the serial killer, I remember he goes all out to avoid actually touching anything with his own hands. He gets McNutty to do the dirty work, and merely enables it. It's been awhile since my last rewatch (about due for one actually) but that's how I remember it.
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Jul 30, 2014 22:25
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thathonkey posted:Yeah I honestly wish we could get a redo of S5 somehow sans the ridiculous fake serial killer plot I could tolerate the serial killer subplot, but the newsroom scenes were death. I would vastly prefer a season five where those were removed, instead.
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Jul 30, 2014 22:43
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I think the newsroom stuff would have been better without the serial killer plotline. I would have enjoyed more focus on the newspaper trying and failing(or not trying I guess) to cover the poo poo that we've been watching for 4 seasons. That is a major function of the serial killer plot but it ends up overshadowing the real point.
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Jul 30, 2014 22:58
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Basebf555 posted:I think the newsroom stuff would have been better without the serial killer plotline. I would have enjoyed more focus on the newspaper trying and failing(or not trying I guess) to cover the poo poo that we've been watching for 4 seasons. That is a major function of the serial killer plot but it ends up overshadowing the real point. Not trying for the most part. They do start the season with several of them standing around watching a giant fire.
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Jul 30, 2014 23:03
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Ainsley McTree posted:Season 2 ends with Fitzhugh realizing that Koutris (the greek's FBI informant) was giving the greeks information, but because he was working for counterterror and presumably doing it with some kind of sanction from above (I don't honestly know much about how the FBI works but that's my guess), it's hard to say how much that revelation would be able to stop Koutris from continuing to give out information. I never understood how they worked that out by the way. Fitzhugh called some desk and found that the guy he thought he had been taking to wasn't the guy he though he was talking to?
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Jul 30, 2014 23:06
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nuzak posted:I never understood how they worked that out by the way. Fitzhugh called some desk and found that the guy he thought he had been taking to wasn't the guy he though he was talking to? The way I understood it was that at first, he was communicating with the guy directly, not knowing what department he was working for (I think he was under the impression he was narcotics or something?). Then, later, when he tried to reach by calling his department and having the operator transfer him, he learned that he had been moved into counterterrorism, and therefore was not a good guy to share the details of his criminal investigation with. Or something. They didn't spend a lot of time explaining it, it is confusing if you don't know anything about it (I do not and had to ask someone to explain it to me).
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Jul 30, 2014 23:10
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Steve2911 posted:Lester just gave no fucks. For me, up until S5 Lester was the smart guy who had learned the hard way how to operate in the police department. He had spent years in pawn shop and it had tempered him into a good police who also knew there was a game to be played. Season 5 threw that away, out of nowhere he takes this insane risk that the Lester of the early season simply would not have taken. It really spoiled his character for me.
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Jul 30, 2014 23:54
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nuzak posted:I never understood how they worked that out by the way. Fitzhugh called some desk and found that the guy he thought he had been taking to wasn't the guy he though he was talking to? He and Daniels already knew that there was a leak somewhere, so when he called the field office only to be told that the agent he thought was working there was in fact in a different part of the country altogether, it would have set off some alarm bells. Why did Koutris not mention that he was no longer part of that office? Then he hears that Koutris is in fact part of counter-terrorism, and I suspect he knows that counter-terrorism guys would probably have enough pull to have high value informants like the Greek. The phone call told him that Koutris was not what he thought he was. It was just 2+2=4 from that point on.
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Jul 31, 2014 00:01
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thathonkey posted:Yeah I honestly wish we could get a redo of S5 somehow sans the ridiculous fake serial killer plot It might've helped if they'd introduced the Sun writers sooner given that media criticism was supposed to be the series' capstone.
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Jul 31, 2014 02:34
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bucketybuck posted:For me, up until S5 Lester was the smart guy who had learned the hard way how to operate in the police department. He had spent years in pawn shop and it had tempered him into a good police who also knew there was a game to be played. I dunno, Lester was always established as a risk taker. Right from the start even, the whole reason he was in the pawn shop department was because he did something that he knew the bosses didn't want him to do. He didn't even need to do it to make his case, he literally just did it because they told him not to. Then there's the whole thing with the subpoenas of political figures (I can't remember which season that was in) that he suspected was going to get him into a world of poo poo. The illegal wiretap on the fake serial killer is...a bit of an extreme raising of the stakes from that, I'll admit, but Lester's disregard for the consequences of his actions was part of his character from the beginning, I thought.
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Jul 31, 2014 02:39
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Hedera Helix posted:I could tolerate the serial killer subplot, but the newsroom scenes were death. I would vastly prefer a season five where those were removed, instead. Yeah, Simon was definitely too close to the media part. It is the only part of the show where there is no nuance: the bad guys will do anything and not give a gently caress and the good guys will destroy their careers in the name of integrity.
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Jul 31, 2014 03:11
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joepinetree posted:No, it didn't. Schmoke came out in favor of decriminalization, but there never was an area with police sanctioned selling of drugs.
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Jul 31, 2014 03:33
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This discussion about Lester is kind of interesting to me; I would have said he's chaotic good (fwiw last re watch was over a year ago). Sounds like a lot of people think he's neutral and self interested. I felt like he wanted to do some real good and was just willing to break rules and possibly gently caress people to get good done.
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Jul 31, 2014 03:35
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Ainsley McTree posted:I dunno, Lester was always established as a risk taker. Right from the start even, the whole reason he was in the pawn shop department was because he did something that he knew the bosses didn't want him to do. He didn't even need to do it to make his case, he literally just did it because they told him not to. Then there's the whole thing with the subpoenas of political figures (I can't remember which season that was in) that he suspected was going to get him into a world of poo poo. The illegal wiretap on the fake serial killer is...a bit of an extreme raising of the stakes from that, I'll admit, but Lester's disregard for the consequences of his actions was part of his character from the beginning, I thought. The corruption was what he always deep-down wanted to chase. He managed to use the investigation to flip Clay Davis and got really, really close to Levy, which would have toppled the whole house of cards.
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Jul 31, 2014 03:36
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janklow posted:we also get Schmoke himself snuck into a couple of those episodes, so there's definitely a reference to him going on either way. Sure. Him coming out in favor of decriminalization was pretty controversial. But nothing like Hamsterdam existed during his term. Which is all a silly discussion anyways, because being more or less realistic doesn't detract from the show. Hamsterdam, Omar, Carcetti are all inspired by real people and events, but greatly exaggerate them for dramatic effect. It makes for great television, great drama, while also conveying issues that are real, even if depicted in unrealistic terms.
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Jul 31, 2014 03:51
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joepinetree posted:Sure. Him coming out in favor of decriminalization was pretty controversial. But nothing like Hamsterdam existed during his term. Which is all a silly discussion anyways, because being more or less realistic doesn't detract from the show. Hamsterdam, Omar, Carcetti are all inspired by real people and events, but greatly exaggerate them for dramatic effect. It makes for great television, great drama, while also conveying issues that are real, even if depicted in unrealistic terms. According to David Simon in one of the episode commentaries there were a few locations at the time where police were directed to not bother with street arrests.
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Jul 31, 2014 04:03
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Lester is a trickster spirit. Him and McNulty both. They cannot directly affect sweeping change so they gently caress with poo poo because it's fun and funny.
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Jul 31, 2014 04:52
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I've been carefree about spoilers and know a lot about who lives and dies just based on the wikipedia thing under their picture that says their last episode is S5E10, but I am shocked, shocked at Stringer just dying  . I could have sworn I saw his last episode as the end and assumed he would talk his way out or not actually die and just be in the hospital but got dam they actually killed him.Also Slim Charles just kind of appeared as a character but he is a badass with a badass voice and badass braided hair. drunken officeparty fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 05:00
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Frostwerks posted:Lester is a trickster spirit. Him and McNulty both. They cannot directly affect sweeping change so they gently caress with poo poo because it's fun and funny. They make the mistake of thinking that loving with this stuff IS going to somehow make a difference. Like every other person who tries to take on an indifferent and lumbering bureaucratic system, they fail and get run over in the process. Lester mocks McNulty for thinking that there is going to be a "Jimmy was right!" parade if he manages to arrest Stringer Bell, but he ends up falling for the same conceit - the idea that he can just fake evidence, lie on reports and misappropriate finances but that the ends will justify the means and all the Bosses will have to stop and say,"Well it seems Lester was right, we can't argue with his results!" The same thing happened to Bunny Colvin twice. Luckily for him instead of becoming self-destructive and destroying his life in addition to his career, he grasped onto the fact that the best changes are made in a one-on-one, individual sense. Sure he can't fix the system, but he can help one person have a better life, and hope that person does the same for others, and that eventually things will spread till they gain the weight and momentum to actually change the system. Same deal with Cutty really, he wasn't dreaming of having the greatest gym in Baltimore, he just wanted A gym. A place where people could have a couple of hours away from the streets and the gangs and family problems and school and just enjoy "that sweet science".
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Jul 31, 2014 05:01
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Jerusalem posted:They make the mistake of thinking that loving with this stuff IS going to somehow make a difference. Like every other person who tries to take on an indifferent and lumbering bureaucratic system, they fail and get run over in the process. Lester mocks McNulty for thinking that there is going to be a "Jimmy was right!" parade if he manages to arrest Stringer Bell, but he ends up falling for the same conceit - the idea that he can just fake evidence, lie on reports and misappropriate finances but that the ends will justify the means and all the Bosses will have to stop and say,"Well it seems Lester was right, we can't argue with his results!" They both realize this and it is why McNutty drinks and Lester bangs informants. 
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Jul 31, 2014 09:17
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And also why McNutty fucks everybody.
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Jul 31, 2014 09:17
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I got the strong impression, from the moment Lester and McNulty sit down and have their little drink in season 1 ('they're gonna ask you where you wanna go...') that McNulty and Lester are very much cut from the same cloth. Lester just happens to be older, wiser, and more sober, giving him the appearance of a stability and morality that eludes McNutty. They are both intellectually vain, risk taking cops who have been shown to be happy to gently caress with authority for the sheer hell of it. When Lester does get on board with the serial killer plan, his eyes light up more out of how clever he thinks it is than anything else. The ending montage, which gives us an impression of the cyclical nature of the characters in the show (Pearlman the new Phelan, Michael the new Omar, etc), left me with a really strong impression that McNulty is the new Lester. He hasn't strictly been fired, merely told that he is going to be buried deep in the department if he doesn't quit, far away from any real police work (like the pawn shop unit). He's not going to quit. He looks out over the city one last time and you don't get this sense of resignation about him, the show ends for McNulty much the way it does for Vick in The Shield. Neither of them can stop being who they are. Eventually he will be down there long enough for everyone to forget what he did (13 years and 4 months). hiddenmovement fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 09:27
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The difference is that Lester knows he can just retire and walk away if things start to go bad. Jimmy has a long time to go before he can do that. Its the same with Bunny. He does the whole Hamsterdam thing because he knows he can retire.
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Jul 31, 2014 11:59
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McNulty explicitly retires. That's what the whole scene with the wake is about, and Landsman pointing out that he wasn't on the force long enough to qualify for a pension. I don't think McNulty knows what he is going to do now that he's no longer police, he just knows that the job isn't just unhealthy for him but actively doesn't want him anymore. Wherever he ends up, he's likely to be in a better place emotionally for it.
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Jul 31, 2014 12:25
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Frostwerks posted:They both realize this and it is why McNutty drinks and Lester bangs informants. Did he bang more than one? I only remember him putting the moves on the attractive intelligent stripper and everyone else being really impressed.
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Jul 31, 2014 13:17
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