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Jerusalem posted: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. Jimmy was happy as a patrolman though. Before he got pulled back in. But you can't tell me that Bunny would pull a stunt like Hamsterdam if he was 5-10 years out from retirement with pension. Same with Lester and the subpoenas and illegal wiretap. They were fed up with not being doing the job in what they felt was a proper way. McNulty basically just wanted the bosses and criminals to know how big his dick was.
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Jul 31, 2014 15:32
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MrBling posted:McNulty basically just wanted the bosses and criminals to know how big his dick was. Can you blame him? He was white in a city that was black.
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Jul 31, 2014 16:08
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kanonvandekempen posted:Did he bang more than one? I only remember him putting the moves on the attractive intelligent stripper and everyone else being really impressed. Didn't she become his longtime girlfriend/wife?
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Jul 31, 2014 17:57
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plainswalker75 posted:Didn't she become his longtime girlfriend/wife? Yes. And to say that Lester "bangs informants" is not a fair assessment. Was it 100% appropriate for Lester to pursue the dancer in Season 1 while she was working with the police? Probably not, but to act like it's some sort of common schtick with Lester is pure speculation countered by the fact that he and Charlene ended up in a lengthy, committed relationship. Lester wasn't some creepy perv just wanting to move in on a vulnerable woman, he obviously had real feelings for her from the moment they met. There's nothing wrong with that except that maybe he should have waited to make his feelings more obvious until the investigation was over.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:43
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Protect and serve, lieutenant, protect and serve.
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Jul 31, 2014 21:30
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awesmoe posted:Protect and serve, lieutenant, protect and serve. Lester, are we still cops?
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Jul 31, 2014 21:36
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In the season 5 finale there is a young man or teen laying dead on a street corner, Bunk is there ... the kid has a ponytail and looks like Namond but that wasn't him I don't think. If not Namond, was it anyone significant to the show?
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Aug 1, 2014 04:12
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wormil posted:In the season 5 finale there is a young man or teen laying dead on a street corner, Bunk is there ... the kid has a ponytail and looks like Namond but that wasn't him I don't think. If not Namond, was it anyone significant to the show? Pretty sure it's just supposed to be a random body.
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Aug 1, 2014 08:48
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gingerberger posted:Pretty sure it's just supposed to be a random body. Definitely this. Just another scene showing how things carry on in cycle.
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Aug 1, 2014 13:39
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Life goes on...well, not "life" but you know what I mean.
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Aug 1, 2014 14:05
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Its to mirror the first scene of the show with Snot-boogie. Its not like the Snot-boogie murder ever had any bearing on the story.
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Aug 1, 2014 14:10
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So I'm doing a rewatch of the show since I last watched it about four years ago. I've been following along with these write-ups episode by episode, and they've been great (I'm ashamed to admit that I never caught the reason they call him Bubbles is because of his spit bubbles when he nods. Wow!) I have a weird question, sorry if this has been discussed already. What is up with the dope vials? It seems very impractical that they would spend money on putting H in those vials, when they could just distribute it the typical stamp bags for practically nothing. Any reasoning behind this?
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Aug 2, 2014 02:55
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RichardDunn posted:So I'm doing a rewatch of the show since I last watched it about four years ago. I've been following along with these write-ups episode by episode, and they've been great (I'm ashamed to admit that I never caught the reason they call him Bubbles is because of his spit bubbles when he nods. Wow!) Not sure if there's a functional reason (maybe branding i.e. "Red tops!" Or maybe the dope comes off glass easier so you don't miss any when pouring it out) but I can't imagine the vials are that expensive.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:45
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Anyone know why they are called red tops or blue tops or whatever? Does it have to do with whether there's heroin or coke or crack in then? Is it quality? There is a lot of different mentions of "brand names" but red tops is universal so it can't be that. Also what is a two and two / one and one?
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Aug 2, 2014 03:48
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drunken officeparty posted:Anyone know why they are called red tops or blue tops or whatever? Does it have to do with whether there's heroin or coke or crack in then? Is it quality? There is a lot of different mentions of "brand names" but red tops is universal so it can't be that. Not sure on the branding question, but two and two is 2 (bags/vials of) coke and 2 heroin.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:10
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drunken officeparty posted:Anyone know why they are called red tops or blue tops or whatever? Does it have to do with whether there's heroin or coke or crack in then? Is it quality? There is a lot of different mentions of "brand names" but red tops is universal so it can't be that. The color refers to the vial cap color. I don't think it indicates which drug, I think it's more like branding, but I'm not sure.
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Aug 2, 2014 05:42
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I thought it was just the Barksdale name for their drugs, just like in later seasons when its called WMD'S or something similiar. Do we hear anybody shout "Red tops" in later series?
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Aug 2, 2014 08:00
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gingerberger posted:The color refers to the vial cap color. I don't think it indicates which drug, I think it's more like branding, but I'm not sure. Pretty much. When it gets put together for selling on the street the whole supply gets the same top. So if you liked the high you got from a red topped vial before you'll get a red top again hoping that it's from the same supply.
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Aug 2, 2014 12:00
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Yeah, it's just a branding thing. If you look at the actual vials before they're used, like when Omar steals them and dumps them out on the table, the caps on them are colored. So if it's a vial with a red-cap they call them red-tops. Same thing with "spider bags." I don't think they actually show any in the show but I've read enough TCC to figure it's literally being sold in a little baggie or envelope type thing with a picture of a spider stamped on it. And as much as it's about putting a brand name to product, it can be used to un-brand a product quickly and easily too. If you're out there selling yellow-tops and word starts spreading among the users that yellow-tops are weak, you put the next batch in red-capped vials and suddenly your hard to move weak product becomes the new poo poo everyone wants to try. edit: ^^ what he said better than me. And I figured I'd be the only one posting about the Wire at 5 am. frenton fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 12:09
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frenton posted:suddenly your hard to move weak product becomes the new poo poo everyone wants to try. I know they're addicts but drat. How stupid do you have to be to buy 5 identical terrible products in a row from the same people on the same corner because they put a different coloured top on it?
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Aug 2, 2014 12:17
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Yes, and I just watched the episode where D says to Avon "Can't wait to get to get the new supply that'll be strong as hell." And Avon laughs at him. He explains that there is no new supply, they just take the same stuff and put it in a different cap. Then he goes on a great speech about junkies and whatnot, and that if a product is strong they're gonna want it. If a product is weak, they're gonna want twice as much, cause you know they'll always be chasing that high. Also noticed it was at this time that the vial caps switched from red the previous episodes, to yellow now. ^^ Could be wrong, but it seems to me that the Barksdale organization pretty much has a monopoly on the drug trade in that whole area. Not like those junkies are gonna hop in their car they don't have and drive to the next city, they really don't have a choice. RichardDunn fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 12:25
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^^ IIRC, that is Stringer who gives the "poo poo weak, we sell twice as much" speech. Anyway, yeah the cap colors are just another type of branding like "WMD!" "Spider bags!" and it means nothing more than that - branding. I suspect some well-established gangs tend to "own" certain brands (I think Avon used yellow and red tops?). At the level of Avon/Stringer/Marlo/Joe, they're buying "raw" (closish to pure product) and cutting it themselves down to various strengths as they package it for street distribution. So the quality fluctuates - but within a fairly controlled range. It's not in their best interest to have a huge swing in quality. Too strong, you'll start killing your customers. Too weak, you'll lose them all. You'll hear reports of a rash of ODs from a "really strong batch" or something cut with a stronger narcotic by accident, but those are exceptions to the norm. 2 and 2 would mean 2 coke 2 heroin. I think you also occasionally hear "2 for 1" - 2 for the price of 1 (some deals available at certain times of the day when business are slow). Not sure if yellow vs red top meant the drug within... I'm guessing you usually just verbally tell whoever is taking your money what your order is exactly. I've never heard an explanation for why Baltimore uses those glass vials. It is the only place I've ever heard of glass vials being used to distribute coke and heroin. I know in New Jersey they use weird (wax I think?) stamped bags (the stamps fill the role of branding here). I think those are just weird little idiosyncrasies that have been ingrained in those big drug markets. Other big cities mostly just use tiny little plastic bags. thathonkey fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 13:17
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Is there any reason for the dealers not to step on the drugs as much as they can, since they'd sell more that way?
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Aug 2, 2014 15:43
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Sam. posted:Is there any reason for the dealers not to step on the drugs as much as they can, since they'd sell more that way? They pretty much do as a general rule. But if it gets too weak, theyll lose customers to someone stepping on iy slightly less. Too strong, they'll lose customers to OD. There is a bit of an art to it. Avg purity levels of cocaine and heroin sold in the US were laughably low last i checked (like <20%). Thats why occasionally when a batch gets out that got stepped on once or twice less than the usual for whatever reason and there is a spurt of ODs. End users of drugs like that are used to the status quo which is remarkably low purity (%-wise). PS. This is why the notion of selling 99% pure meth in Breaking Bad is wholly unrealistic for a bunch of reasons. thathonkey fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 16:22
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Steve2911 posted:I know they're addicts but drat. How stupid do you have to be to buy 5 identical terrible products in a row from the same people on the same corner because they put a different coloured top on it? Steve2911 posted:they're addicts
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Aug 2, 2014 18:38
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Steve2911 posted:I know they're addicts but drat. How stupid do you have to be to buy 5 identical terrible products in a row from the same people on the same corner because they put a different coloured top on it? It's not like they can go shopping at a wide range of providers, they are addicted to a product, they take what is available or, when things get REALLY bad they might go as far as the other side of the city (season 2 has addicts crossing over from west to east side i think).
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Aug 2, 2014 19:48
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Somebody stabbed Slim Charles http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/dc/2014/08/03/dc-police-man-stabbed-at-dc-cafe-asia-club/13544593/ He's fine, but still 
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Aug 3, 2014 22:02
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Ainsley McTree posted:Somebody stabbed Slim Charles http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/dc/2014/08/03/dc-police-man-stabbed-at-dc-cafe-asia-club/13544593/ And I just got to season 3 on my annual rewatch. Glad to know he's OK though. It's fun to rewatch this on my own after the thread last year. I find myself looking more and more for the little things.
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Aug 3, 2014 22:13
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Just finished. What a ride.
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Aug 5, 2014 11:55
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This is my third rewatching of the show and this thread is incredibly insightful. I just finished with the second season last night It seems to me like Proposition Joe was how Stringer ultimately wanted to operate. No miss or fuss, just business. But what was his ultimate failing? He wasn't stupid. You can't run as a number two (and sometimes number one) to a drug empire like theirs and not be smart. I don't think it was even that he was greedy, though he was certainly that. Most of the gangsters from their line of work look at society with disdain, but he looked at it with admiration. My perception is that gangsters see their culture as naturally superior, but the criminals who hate what they do never make it. D'Angelo wanted to breathe; Frank Sobotka turned a blind eye to what he did only because he loved his people more; and Stringer wants so desperately to be above who he was born as that it blinds him. To be a businessman you need to be fierce, but to be a gangster you need to be loyal to your brothers in arms. If you can't be loyal then you'll either end up dead or as a states witness. If Stringer has a fault, its not that he's an idiot who parrots back what he heard at his community college to gangbangers, it's that he can't forgive himself for the original sin of being born in The Game.
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Aug 5, 2014 15:19
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MrSlam posted:It seems to me like Proposition Joe was how Stringer ultimately wanted to operate. No miss or fuss, just business. But what was his ultimate failing? Stringer wanted to have his cake and eat it too, whereas Prop Joe was actually content to make a shitload of money and stay under the radar. The reason Stringer tries so hard to go legitimate is because he wants the lavish lifestyle of a gangster, but he doesn't want to worry about prison or getting shot every minute. Prop Joe was willing to say gently caress all that I'll work out of my pawn shop and rake in the dough, who cares about fancy cars and waterfront condos?
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Aug 5, 2014 16:21
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MrSlam posted:But what was his ultimate failing? His love for Avon. Had Stringer killed Avon straight out of prison, before Avon had time to reestablish himself, Stringer would have been fine. edit, Stringer and Avon always had different goals but both shared the same source of income and were subject to the same risks. To Avon it was more about reputation and territory, Stringer just wanted the money. wormil fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 17:27
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Stringer wanted the profile of a legit businessman, because he wanted to actually be able to spend all his money out in the open. Prop Joe in his words, kept things dead boring. He kept a low profile because that way the cops didn't know about him and I assume it suited his lifestyle.
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Aug 5, 2014 17:36
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MrSlam posted:This is my third rewatching of the show and this thread is incredibly insightful. I just finished with the second season last night This is an excellent post, but it also is leaving out that the "real gangsters" of big business and politics run in a different league entirely. The power is obtained in a completely different way, and the game is played with lies, favors and blackmail rather than violence. Stringer is like that guy who is the best basketball player in his college, but his college is actually way more sheltered and small-time than he or anyone he knows imagined. So the first time he steps onto a pro court he just gets walked. Then when he goes back home everyone there thinks they're world class, but he knows better and is completely disillusioned by it. In the end he returns to what he knows because he realizes just how small-time he is and has no idea how to break in to the other world. He's actually Bubbles in that world. The junkie who found a stash and tries to turn it into a big score, and he gets taken advantage of in the exact same way, someone with more power just takes his poo poo away, and he has no choice but to eat it.
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Aug 5, 2014 19:53
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wormil posted:His love for Avon. Had Stringer killed Avon straight out of prison, before Avon had time to reestablish himself, Stringer would have been fine. Eh, seems to me Stringer would've been eaten one way or another, either due to past sins while Avon was locked up (the affair with Brother and Omar), by Marlo and Stringer's utter mishandling thereof (it was Prop Joe who got Marlo to join the Coop, and that didn't even go well), or by Clay Davis and his like. Stringer just set his goals too high, and got burned accordingly.
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Aug 5, 2014 20:15
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Thaddius the Large posted:Eh, seems to me Stringer would've been eaten one way or another, either due to past sins while Avon was locked up (the affair with Brother and Omar), by Marlo and Stringer's utter mishandling thereof (it was Prop Joe who got Marlo to join the Coop, and that didn't even go well), or by Clay Davis and his like. Stringer just set his goals too high, and got burned accordingly. The Wire is above cosmic justice for the most part. Bad things happen to people because of their own fallibility or sometimes because of bad circumstance, not because of past sins. Marlo was the most evil character in the series and walks away rich and free. Stringer's fate was tied to Avon from the beginning but his love for Avon was his Achilles's Heel and vice versa. Omar was the only character I can think of who was really punished. A man can only live that life by never letting his guard down and yet he allowed someone to walk up behind him while he was on the hunt. It could be argued that he fell victim to his own legend, or perhaps was worn down from injury, that maybe his few months off in the islands softened his edge, and all those things might be true but in the end it felt very much like justice or karma.
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Aug 5, 2014 20:36
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Nah I didn't so much get a 'justice' feeling from Omar. More like 'this sort of thing should have happened years ago and he's incredibly lucky to have survived past the age of 20'.
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Aug 5, 2014 20:47
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Steve2911 posted:Nah I didn't so much get a 'justice' feeling from Omar. More like 'this sort of thing should have happened years ago and he's incredibly lucky to have survived past the age of 20'. I think part of it was also to demonstrate how the streets just keep getting worse and worse, and the anger, bitterness, and emptiness people feel is being concentrated inside them much more quickly and dangerously. Twenty years ago when Omar was Kenard's age nobody really had to worry about 9-year olds shooting people in the back of the head.
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Aug 5, 2014 20:59
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wormil posted:The Wire is above cosmic justice for the most part. Bad things happen to people because of their own fallibility or sometimes because of bad circumstance, not because of past sins. Marlo was the most evil character in the series and walks away rich and free. Stringer's fate was tied to Avon from the beginning but his love for Avon was his Achilles's Heel and vice versa. Omar was the only character I can think of who was really punished. A man can only live that life by never letting his guard down and yet he allowed someone to walk up behind him while he was on the hunt. It could be argued that he fell victim to his own legend, or perhaps was worn down from injury, that maybe his few months off in the islands softened his edge, and all those things might be true but in the end it felt very much like justice or karma. Very true, I didn't mean to imply a greater message in referring to Stringer's sins, I just meant his past actions were one of many pieces that showed he wasn't ever going to succeed long term.
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Aug 5, 2014 21:12
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wormil posted:Marlo was the most evil character in the series and walks away rich and free. And yet he isn't happy with it. He basically gets the ending that Stringer Bell wanted and it doesn't satisfy him at all, even though he tries to spin it that way to the Co-Op and makes the barest of token efforts with Levy at the party. He isn't happy again till he goes down to that utterly insignificant corner and forcibly takes it from the two dealers, and even though the last time we see him in the show he is exhilarated and smiling, we also know that he's basically signed his death warrant. If he's going back to "The Game" then he's doomed - he'll either be killed or caught by the police and jailed. More than that though, he's already been defeated in the worst way possible for him and he knows it. Marlo's true "death" comes during the MY NAME IS MY NAME scene when he realizes that for weeks Omar was walking openly around the streets of Baltimore calling him a bitch, and that everybody out there thinks that Marlo was too scared to come out and face him. That bit where he insists that once they're out they go around and tell everybody he didn't know and would have faced Omar if he had, you can see in his face that he knows nobody is ever going to believe it, and that his reputation has been irrevocably tarnished. When he goes down to that corner at the end of the series, the guys there have no idea who he is but are in the middle of telling a tall tale about the legend of Omar, who has gained the immortality and respect that Marlo so desperately craves.
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Aug 5, 2014 21:49
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