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Something else about Colvin is that he was acting from a percieved position of being untouchable. Sure he knew that if (when!) everything fell apart or got exposed, he'd be in the spotlight, but he thought he could (bravely?) take all the blame on his own shoulders, and he only seemed willing to do that because he thought his pension was guaranteed at a Major's rank. He jokes about it all the time,"What are they going to do? It's not like they can take away my pension!" but I did get the feeling that is why he was doing it, because he thought he had nothing to lose and if worse came to worse he'd be fine from a financial point of view. He only really reacts passionately when they tell him they'll be downgrading his pension, and of course then he loses the John Hopkins job he thought he had squared away as an ace in the hole retirement plan. I'm not saying he was a selfish person, but he took some pretty big risks with the (false) knowledge that he himself was going to come out of everything okay anyway - in that sense he was very naive, which is probably also why he thought something like Hamsterdam could work in the first place.
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Aug 14, 2014 04:49
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drunken officeparty posted:How much heroin were the Greeks actually bringing in? It seems like they are the only guys around doing the actual importing straight from the source, and I think I remember someone saying the co-op only gets a couple dozen kilos at a time but the time they seized a shipment disguised as pigments it was like hundreds of kilos. That was cocaine.
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Aug 14, 2014 05:05
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drunken officeparty posted:How much heroin were the Greeks actually bringing in? It seems like they are the only guys around doing the actual importing straight from the source, and I think I remember someone saying the co-op only gets a couple dozen kilos at a time but the time they seized a shipment disguised as pigments it was like hundreds of kilos. Ehh Greeks seem like they have the best dope, but there is dope from NYC iirc which is probably where a lot of the coop gets their product before the coop. Also I agree that bunny is pretty high on the "good" scale, and agree that like everyone else there's no purely good and mostly no purely bad characters.
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Aug 14, 2014 05:54
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Jerusalem posted:Something else about Colvin is that he was acting from a percieved position of being untouchable. Sure he knew that if (when!) everything fell apart or got exposed, he'd be in the spotlight, but he thought he could (bravely?) take all the blame on his own shoulders, and he only seemed willing to do that because he thought his pension was guaranteed at a Major's rank. He jokes about it all the time,"What are they going to do? It's not like they can take away my pension!" but I did get the feeling that is why he was doing it, because he thought he had nothing to lose and if worse came to worse he'd be fine from a financial point of view. Good points all around. I'm just sympathetic to the idea of Hamsterdam, and after the Deacon gets involved, there's a lot of social services going down. But you're right when I think about it, Colvin was definitely cocky about how insulated he was. Hamsterdam's conception though, that implies sympathy. Why put the corner boys in the system? All it is is stats, and you may feel that de-legitimizes his idea but we see how stats affect the policing in the series. Why put more young boys in the system? What good does it do aside from boost your stats? That's still my favorite thing about Season 4 Carver, he gets it. He understands the impact of policing properly and he sees how it works when he applies it. Also, just finished my summer rewatch and Bodie's death will never not loving hurt.
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Aug 14, 2014 12:46
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Yea as much as the Colvin character comes off as a good man with good intentions, which overall he is, I think its important to remember that he sat there for a bunch of years and did nothing because he wanted the salary and the pension like everybody else. He's got all these words of wisdom to dole out in Season 3, but it seems like he's been holding all that in for years and just going with the flow because that's what's best for him and his family. He's very much a part of one of the biggest themes of the series, which is that even good people get chewed up by these institutions and it is almost unheard of for someone to stand up for what's right when their own future is on the line. The institution uses our human nature for self-preservation against us.
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Aug 14, 2014 14:53
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Boywhiz88 posted:Also, just finished my summer rewatch and Bodie's death will never not loving hurt. When my wife and I watched this series this was the only time she cried. I think the part when Colvin gets hosed over for his post-retirement position is one of the most depressingly real moments for me. It just solidified how far gone the upper level leadership in the PD was. At that point it was just pure spite, not even politics or anything.
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Aug 14, 2014 15:45
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Ainsley McTree posted:Ehhh, disagree a little bit. That scene is pretty much the only time we ever actually see him show any emotion. We should also pay attention to any of the times Chris talks about music. He really gets into it, he follows a bunch of radio stations, he even does a weird little dance when one of his favorite songs is on. Snoop is ready to murder a guy for not knowing which radio DJ is which, just because Chris said it might be a way for them to tell the NYC boys from the Baltimore ones, no further thought required.
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Aug 14, 2014 17:37
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Isn't hamsterdam/separating the corner boys still a kind of stat-juking if you're trying to show off how impressive the classroom/street is when you segregate it? If that's the reform they were hoping for it's barely even worth it. Slow train indeed.
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Aug 14, 2014 18:12
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nuzak posted:Isn't hamsterdam/separating the corner boys still a kind of stat-juking if you're trying to show off how impressive the classroom/street is when you segregate it? If that's the reform they were hoping for it's barely even worth it. Slow train indeed. Hamsterdam might have been like that at first, but I don't think that applies to the school thing. It's not like they were saying "let's hide the troubled kids in a closet and ignore them so that the normal kids can focus on their tests," instead they separated them in order to genuinely try and come up with an educational program that would actually reach them, which the standard curriculum was not.
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Aug 14, 2014 18:20
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nuzak posted:Isn't hamsterdam/separating the corner boys still a kind of stat-juking if you're trying to show off how impressive the classroom/street is when you segregate it? If that's the reform they were hoping for it's barely even worth it. Slow train indeed. It doesn't seem like it's fundamentally trying to juke the stats, it's about getting the game away from citizens. All of the enforcement strategies being suggested were just getting humbles anyway, but the free zone was meant to cut down on things like murders for good territory as well as isolating it from citizens.
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Aug 14, 2014 18:35
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Hamsterdam is the opposite of juking stats. With the Hamsterdam agreement in place there was no more petty drug arrests(humbles), which is what the stat game is based around. Colvin knowingly sacrificed the usual stat-games, knowing that drug arrests in his district would go down, and he would get criticism for it. What he was hoping for was that violence in the district would go down drastically since there would be no more fighting for territory. What he didn't expect was that violent crime went down so far so fast that nobody in Ops would believe him that it was legit. The worst corners in his district went quiet and citizens could walk down the street again without fear. That's what he wanted out of Hamsterdam, not stats.
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Aug 14, 2014 18:46
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Hamsterdam was a form of surrender, too. It was not just recognition that the current system wasn't working, but also based on a sense that it was the only viable alternative to street rips. From the standpoint of what Colvin had control over, this is probably true, but from a larger standpoint, my own view is that it is completely false. In the early 1980s, walking around most parts of Baltimore and New York were equally scary. By the early 2000's, most of Manhattan had become almost like Disneyland, while much of Baltimore is still pretty dangerous. People may debate why, but I personally think the predominant reason is the "no broken windows" approach taken by Giuliani, which is pretty much the polar opposite of the approach taken by Colvin. By the way, one has to wonder: if the police could bring enough heat on the corners to force the trafficking to Hamsterdam, why couldn't they do the same thing to simply force it off the streets? There may be a reason, but it wasn't really adequately explained in the show, I don't think.
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Aug 14, 2014 20:14
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Finndo posted:Hamsterdam was a form of surrender, too. It was not just recognition that the current system wasn't working, but also based on a sense that it was the only viable alternative to street rips. From the standpoint of what Colvin had control over, this is probably true, but from a larger standpoint, my own view is that it is completely false. I'm wholly ignorant, but I think I remember hearing sociologists are pretty down on Broken Windows as being ineffective, and that NYC's recovery was due to a multitude of other factors. I could be getting that backwards, though
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Aug 14, 2014 20:23
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Thaddius the Large posted:I'm wholly ignorant, but I think I remember hearing sociologists are pretty down on Broken Windows as being ineffective, and that NYC's recovery was due to a multitude of other factors. I could be getting that backwards, though That was what I was alluding to by referring to debate... Again, my opinion, sociology is one of those fields (like interest-group studies, soldiering, climatology, investment banking, etc.) that tends to attract a certain type of person, and so I think there's a significant amount of confirmation bias that comes out in the work product. Regardless, though, even if you discard my opinion of cause and argue that other factors worked in New York, we know those other factors weren't Hamsterdam.
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Aug 14, 2014 21:06
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Finndo posted:By the way, one has to wonder: if the police could bring enough heat on the corners to force the trafficking to Hamsterdam, why couldn't they do the same thing to simply force it off the streets? There may be a reason, but it wasn't really adequately explained in the show, I don't think. The show explained it by saying that when they tried to force them off one corner, they would simply move to another one. Forcing them to Hamsterdam was pushing everyone to central locations. The only way to truly force them off the corner is to stick an officer at like every other corner for the entire west side, which just isn't going to happen.
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Aug 14, 2014 21:51
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Finndo posted:That was what I was alluding to by referring to debate... Again, my opinion, sociology is one of those fields (like interest-group studies, soldiering, climatology, investment banking, etc.) that tends to attract a certain type of person, and so I think there's a significant amount of confirmation bias that comes out in the work product. Regardless, though, even if you discard my opinion of cause and argue that other factors worked in New York, we know those other factors weren't Hamsterdam. I don't know what the bolded is supposed to mean, but broken windows came from sociologists as well.
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Aug 14, 2014 21:59
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joepinetree posted:I don't know what the bolded is supposed to mean, but broken windows came from sociologists as well. Sorry, I meant sociologists that disagree with me. Anyway... didn't mean to hijack the thread with a debate over academic disciplines. Really just trying to make the point that Hamsterdam is not the only solution to street crime, just the only one that Colvin felt he could execute.
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Aug 14, 2014 22:09
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Finndo posted:By the way, one has to wonder: if the police could bring enough heat on the corners to force the trafficking to Hamsterdam, why couldn't they do the same thing to simply force it off the streets? There may be a reason, but it wasn't really adequately explained in the show, I don't think. I got the impression that bringing that heat meant a lot of extra work and so a lot of extra overtime, which I doubt they could afford. They could "bring the heat" for a short time to make a point, but I doubt they could have maintained the expenditure indefinitely.
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Aug 14, 2014 23:08
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bucketybuck posted:I got the impression that bringing that heat meant a lot of extra work and so a lot of extra overtime, which I doubt they could afford. They could "bring the heat" for a short time to make a point, but I doubt they could have maintained the expenditure indefinitely. Yeah, I think that was basically the gist, but what the means really is they couldn't have enforced Hamsterdam, either, if challenged. Or, put another way, if they had the muscle to force everyone off the corners to Hamsterdam, they had the muscle to keep them off the corners, period. And if they didn't have the muscle for anything more than a burst of "heat," well it was really just a bluff.
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Aug 14, 2014 23:16
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Finndo posted:Or, put another way, if they had the muscle to force everyone off the corners to Hamsterdam, they had the muscle to keep them off the corners, period. e: there was no real downside to hamsterdam from the dealers pov, so they moved there with not too much resistance. The same wouldn't have been true for just not dealing at all. awesmoe fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Aug 14, 2014 |
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Aug 14, 2014 23:23
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Yeah, Colvin's plan was just to get the dealers to take the path of least resistance. If he had his men run them off corners they'd just move to new corners or come back to the old ones when the police were gone. He couldn't sustain a program of just manning all corners 24/7 to keep the dealers away, but he could do it in a concentrated burst while simultaneously making it clear that "over there" was a place where the police wouldn't go. Once the initial suspicion of the dealers had been overcome, they didn't desire returning to corners that were now mostly unwatched by police (other than the beat cop walking their patrol) because it was less work/more reward to stay in Hamsterdam.
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Aug 14, 2014 23:32
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Rip Omar 
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Aug 15, 2014 00:48
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Jerusalem posted:Yeah, Colvin's plan was just to get the dealers to take the path of least resistance. If he had his men run them off corners they'd just move to new corners or come back to the old ones when the police were gone. He couldn't sustain a program of just manning all corners 24/7 to keep the dealers away, but he could do it in a concentrated burst while simultaneously making it clear that "over there" was a place where the police wouldn't go. Once the initial suspicion of the dealers had been overcome, they didn't desire returning to corners that were now mostly unwatched by police (other than the beat cop walking their patrol) because it was less work/more reward to stay in Hamsterdam. Not to mention that once word gets out among the junkies that they can get high in hamsterdam without any trouble from the cops, that's where all the business is gonna go anyway. I don't think that was really mentioned in the show, but it's just kind of logical that it would work that way.
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Aug 15, 2014 00:56
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Ainsley McTree posted:Not to mention that once word gets out among the junkies that they can get high in hamsterdam without any trouble from the cops, that's where all the business is gonna go anyway. I don't think that was really mentioned in the show, but it's just kind of logical that it would work that way. They try to stimulate that by picking up all the junkies and taking them their when it first starts. The weakest crews moved there, but complained that they didn't have clients. I think it was Carver who sent for the junkies. drunken officeparty posted:Rip Omar Spoiler alert!
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Aug 15, 2014 01:39
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gingerberger posted:They try to stimulate that by picking up all the junkies and taking them their when it first starts. The weakest crews moved there, but complained that they didn't have clients. I think it was Carver who sent for the junkies. Haha, that's one of my favorite scenes actually, the one where the young dealers walk up to carver and say "how are we supposed to deal with no customers?" And Carver says "kid's got a point!" One of the young dealers gets this hilariously smug look on his face. I'd screencap it but I forget exactly which episode it's in.
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Aug 15, 2014 01:44
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The junkies getting out of the police transport van and immediately being accosted by dealers in full sight of the police is such a surreal moment 
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Aug 15, 2014 02:27
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nuzak posted:Isn't hamsterdam/separating the corner boys still a kind of stat-juking if you're trying to show off how impressive the classroom/street is when you segregate it? If that's the reform they were hoping for it's barely even worth it. Slow train indeed. It's basically reverse hotspotting, where they concentrate law enforcement presence in targeted high crime areas. Finndo posted:In the early 1980s, walking around most parts of Baltimore and New York were equally scary. By the early 2000's, most of Manhattan had become almost like Disneyland, while much of Baltimore is still pretty dangerous. People may debate why, but I personally think the predominant reason is the "no broken windows" approach taken by Giuliani, which is pretty much the polar opposite of the approach taken by Colvin That and shipping all the homeless out to Newark.  Thaddius the Large posted:I'm wholly ignorant, but I think I remember hearing sociologists are pretty down on Broken Windows as being ineffective, and that NYC's recovery was due to a multitude of other factors. I could be getting that backwards, though There was a fear in the early 90s, which coincided with the development of stats packages to track crime and policing, of so-called "super predators", a generation of mostly minority kids who were poised to tear society apart, which in turn led to an increased focus on "tough on crime" legislation and programs. Of course that never happened, for various reasons- my favorite is the elimination of in lead in paint and gas. NYT had a good documentary on it a while back, with the guy who coined the term expressing (limited) regret for his error: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/07/us/politics/killing-on-bus-recalls-superpredator-threat-of-90s.html Alec Bald Snatch fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 04:43
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I'm on the last episode. Why is S5 shorter than the rest. I don't want it to end 
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Aug 15, 2014 04:57
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nooneofconsequence posted:That was cocaine. That was also the NYC Colombians' shipment, not the greeks'. (I don't think the seizure was even in Baltimore. You see details on a screen at some point, might even be in one of this thread's write-ups.) The NYC shipments were presumably much larger, if they supplied NYC, the Barksdales in S1, and presumably other groups/cities. That seizure is one of my favorite connect-the-dots moments in S2. The greeks tipped their FBI guy off to it when they and the Colombians had a disagreement, but the scene where the greek actually tells the FBI guy about it is filmed from a distance, so everything they say is drowned out by background noise. You don't really figure out what's happening until the agent actually scrapes the paint off the cocaine.
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Aug 15, 2014 06:25
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There should be a sixth season that looks at the issues surrounding militarized police.
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Aug 15, 2014 14:12
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Finndo posted:There should be a sixth season that looks at the issues surrounding militarized police. David Simon wrote some stuff about it yesterday: http://davidsimon.com/the-endgame-for-american-civic-responsibility-pt-i/ http://davidsimon.com/the-endgame-for-american-civic-responsibility-pt-ii/ http://davidsimon.com/the-end-game-for-american-civic-responsibility-pt-iii/
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Aug 15, 2014 18:23
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Just finished. Did Herc tell Levy that he gave them the number and they had an illegal wiretap? What the hell is Marlos ending supposed to mean? Did Kenard ever get his money for killing Omar? So many questions !
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Aug 16, 2014 03:38
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drunken officeparty posted:Just finished. Did Herc tell Levy that he gave them the number and they had an illegal wiretap? What the hell is Marlos ending supposed to mean? Did Kenard ever get his money for killing Omar? So many questions ! Marlo just can't stay out of the game even when it's so obviously what he should do. I doubt kenard gets the money since I'm pretty sure he's locked up.
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Aug 16, 2014 03:47
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drunken officeparty posted:Just finished. Did Herc tell Levy that he gave them the number and they had an illegal wiretap? What the hell is Marlos ending supposed to mean? Did Kenard ever get his money for killing Omar? So many questions ! Herc tells Levy they had a wiretap, but he never reveals how they got Marlo's number (also that Carver never actually admitted there was a wiretap). Levy uses that information to save his own rear end from prison AND get Marlo free, so he's extremely grateful to Herc both professionally and personally. Marlo's ending represents a hollow victory for him personally as he effectively wins in every conceivable way and still isn't happy because he loses the one thing that truly mattered to him (his name/reputation), and is pretty clearly on a path towards either death trying to get back on the streets or being caught by the police and thrown in jail anyway. There's nobody to give money to Kenard because Marlo's entire organization goes down, and despite his fronting he's still a kid who was shocked by the reality of what he did and is probably back at home having nightmares and freaking out about what he did. He's arrested at the end, so he can look forward to a future of poorly funded juvenile or mental healthcare, or at "best" life in one of those horrible group homes before getting tossed out onto the street at 18 to sink or swim on his own (if he doesn't take off back to the corners before then).
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Aug 16, 2014 03:49
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drunken officeparty posted:What the hell is Marlos ending supposed to mean? From: "My name is my name!" To: "Do you know who I am?"
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Aug 16, 2014 04:13
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In a show full of parallels, I guess Kenard could be the new Snoop!
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Aug 16, 2014 09:18
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Well, at least they didn't get lost in the stack http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28817688
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Aug 16, 2014 10:50
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bucketybuck posted:In a show full of parallels, I guess Kenard could be the new Snoop! I always saw him becoming the new Marlo, mainly because I could absolutely see Marlo making his bones at age 9. I also think of him ripping off Namond in season 4 and nearly getting away with it (mind you, it was obvious to everyone that Namond was in over his head but still, that's some balls for a kid that young). Note also that, even though everyone from Michael to Chris and Snoop (!) are still somewhat terrified of Omar, Kenard is the only one who recognizes the guy is literally on his last legs. It reminds me a bit of how Marlo had the same predatory instinct towards Stringer - he interpreted the Co-Op as a sign the Barksdales could not longer back up their power with force and he proved right (though, as mentioned before, it should also be remembered Marlo's life was saved by the MCU raid on Avon. I always want to scream at Avon in that scene because all he needs is to send Slim the say so but it seems he wants to kill Marlo personally!) Cheston posted:That was also the NYC Colombians' shipment, not the greeks'. (I don't think the seizure was even in Baltimore. You see details on a screen at some point, might even be in one of this thread's write-ups.) The NYC shipments were presumably much larger, if they supplied NYC, the Barksdales in S1, and presumably other groups/cities. This is also the one scene that really makes it clear what the Greek and the FBI guy's arrangement is before the reveal at the end. I like that it also shows that most/all of the Greek's tips are likely bullshit - note the Greek gets a pass because he's allegedly a counterterrorism asset, but it's just a big drug bust that he gives up because the Columbians stiffed him IIRC. Jerusalem posted:The junkies getting out of the police transport van and immediately being accosted by dealers in full sight of the police is such a surreal moment "I hear the WMD is the bomb!"
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Aug 16, 2014 10:51
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Basebf555 posted:Yea as much as the Colvin character comes off as a good man with good intentions, which overall he is, I think its important to remember that he sat there for a bunch of years and did nothing because he wanted the salary and the pension like everybody else. He's got all these words of wisdom to dole out in Season 3, but it seems like he's been holding all that in for years and just going with the flow because that's what's best for him and his family. He's very much a part of one of the biggest themes of the series, which is that even good people get chewed up by these institutions and it is almost unheard of for someone to stand up for what's right when their own future is on the line. The institution uses our human nature for self-preservation against us. I never thought of it this way but this is a good point. Like Cutty and Namond, two other happy ending characters, things had to align absolutely perfectly for them. Colvin only goes forward with Hamsterdam because he thinks he's close enough to his 30 he can just retire on a majors pension even when it falls apart. I realize now that given the timing of it all, and that he retires right as he hits the 30, he would have seen the drug war develop in real time, presumably well before making major. He was probably like season 1 Daniels at some point, genuinely believing in the stat based approach. Going back to the point on institutions - the great sad ironic scene is the one where he talks to the other Major who's about to get fired in Comstat, and he tells him not to worry, worst they can do is bump him back down to Lieutenant. The guy shakes his head and tells him he doesn't even want to think about the worst they can do, and neither does Bunny. Given the theme of the series, that newly demoted Lieutenant probably got sent to the basement or something as well at some point  As a side note I find the Comstat scenes very underrated. Rawls is just such a magnificently scary rear end in a top hat boss. I've always seen Burrell as like Valchek but with more charm but he also brings a lot of gravitas when he tag teams with Rawls to chew people out. I know that Comstat was based off Compstat from IRL police departments and I really want to believe the meetings are that profanity laced. grading essays nude fucked around with this message at 11:25 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 11:16
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Is there some sort of meme for Prop Joe's hair? Because there should be. Every episode the dude's in he's got a different hairstyle. There really needs to be a Youtube compilation video. Similar to Stringer's "Hey yo shut tha door"
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Aug 16, 2014 12:36
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