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Hard Clumping
Mar 19, 2008

Y'ALL BREADY
FOR THIS
He was in Chronicle. He's also going to be the Human Torch in the new Fancy Four movie. What a world

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Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Hard Clumping posted:

He was in Chronicle. He's also going to be the Human Torch in the new Fancy Four movie. What a world

oh poo poo I never knew that was him, awesome

banned from Starbucks
Jul 18, 2004




Bodie deserved a better career so did Poot

Philthy
Jan 28, 2003

Pillbug
Just got to the part where Bodie goes down. I loved his character, he didn't take any poo poo till the end.

Party Plane Jones
Jul 1, 2007

by Reene
Fun Shoe

zVxTeflon posted:

Bodie deserved a better career so did Poot

JD Williams is 36.

Not Al-Qaeda
Mar 20, 2012
Finished S2, liked it more than the last time but it didn't suddenly turn into my favourite season, I don't know what yall are smoking if you like it more than s4

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

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

Fun Shoe

Not Al-Qaeda posted:

Finished S2, liked it more than the last time but it didn't suddenly turn into my favourite season, I don't know what yall are smoking if you like it more than s4

As a whole I'd have to agree with you that Season 4 is the best, but Season 2 has the Sbotkas, who are my favorite characters in the whole series outside of the major players like Avon/Mcnulty/Stringer/Omar. The downfall of the Sbotkas feels as soul crushing and tragic as what happens to the kids in Season 4, just in a different way.

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

To me the docks seem like a more realistic, well-painted world than the crumbling school system. It also showed me things I hadn't already realised, namely that a) white dudes are just as hemmed in by the system and victims of capitalism as anybody else, and b) it's not as simple as looking at a dying industry and saying "they can just go get other jobs," because it invalidates their heritage, their culture, and everything their parents and grandparents have built up as a community in this one small trade; it underestimates how important the work aspect is for the working class, how closely their identity and their community is tied to their jobs.

Also as much as I love Prez his arc in s4 kinda sucks - I'm actually two episodes into my first rewatch of it now, but IIRC he literally goes from one episode where he's hopeless and has no control over the class, to being the cool, inspiring teacher in the next, with no transformative catalyst in between. And the Inspiration Teacher cliche is a bit odious when it's mixed with the White Saviour, and really only redeemed in the Wire by the fact that Prez actually fails to have any ultimate long-term impact on the fates of any of his students.

edit - I should mention that I liked season 2 just fine the first time around, and my favourite season is 3.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



freebooter posted:

b) it's not as simple as looking at a dying industry and saying "they can just go get other jobs," because it invalidates their heritage, their culture, and everything their parents and grandparents have built up as a community in this one small trade; it underestimates how important the work aspect is for the working class, how closely their identity and their community is tied to their jobs.

Or, in the case of Johnny 50, can't get other jobs, despite all their experience and ties...

New Yorp New Yorp
Jul 18, 2003

Only in Kenya.
Pillbug

freebooter posted:

Also as much as I love Prez his arc in s4 kinda sucks - I'm actually two episodes into my first rewatch of it now, but IIRC he literally goes from one episode where he's hopeless and has no control over the class, to being the cool, inspiring teacher in the next, with no transformative catalyst in between. And the Inspiration Teacher cliche is a bit odious when it's mixed with the White Saviour, and really only redeemed in the Wire by the fact that Prez actually fails to have any ultimate long-term impact on the fates of any of his students.


I'm just finishing up season 2 on my HD rewatch so this isn't exactly fresh, but I remember it being a bit more nuanced than that. He gradually found some common ground and ways to reach out to the kids and put the material he was teaching in terms that made sense to them, and also became better at making due with the resources he had available. Very similar in some regards to Wallace with the young kid in season 1, where the kids can't handle a simple addition/subtraction word problem when it's in terms of passengers getting on and off a bus, but is able to do the exact same thing easily when it's put in terms of keeping the count of drugs right.

"If you mess up the count, they gently caress you up" :(

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



Ithaqua posted:

I'm just finishing up season 2 on my HD rewatch so this isn't exactly fresh, but I remember it being a bit more nuanced than that. He gradually found some common ground and ways to reach out to the kids and put the material he was teaching in terms that made sense to them, and also became better at making due with the resources he had available. Very similar in some regards to Wallace with the young kid in season 1, where the kids can't handle a simple addition/subtraction word problem when it's in terms of passengers getting on and off a bus, but is able to do the exact same thing easily when it's put in terms of keeping the count of drugs right.

"If you mess up the count, they gently caress you up" :(

If I remember correctly, there's a joke like this on The Office, where accountant Kevin Malone can't count unless it involves food.

With Idris Elba and Amy Ryan also playing regulars, I really should do something comparing the two series and the degradation of America, work culture, capitalism, cynicism...

awesmoe
Nov 30, 2005

Pillbug

Ithaqua posted:

I'm just finishing up season 2 on my HD rewatch so this isn't exactly fresh, but I remember it being a bit more nuanced than that. He gradually found some common ground and ways to reach out to the kids and put the material he was teaching in terms that made sense to them, and also became better at making due with the resources he had available. Very similar in some regards to Wallace with the young kid in season 1, where the kids can't handle a simple addition/subtraction word problem when it's in terms of passengers getting on and off a bus, but is able to do the exact same thing easily when it's put in terms of keeping the count of drugs right.

"If you mess up the count, they gently caress you up" :(

Also, the major trouble-makers were removed from his class

Copper Vein
Mar 14, 2007

...and we liked it that way.
Why can't Nicky and Ziggy go get jobs at footlocker like Poot?

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Copper Vein posted:

Why can't Nicky and Ziggy go get jobs at footlocker like Poot?

Something season 2 does a really good job of demonstrating, in my opinion, is how important the "work" is to these guys - it's a history and culture that they bought into hook, line and sinker. You have generations of guys who grew up being told by society that the work they did was noble and inspirational, that they were an integral part of something bigger (American Industry), that what they did mattered and as an extension so did they. Then around the 80s and the time of Ronnie "Union Buster"* Reagan, the rich dudes running those industries sold up, shut down, or otherwise moved on and many of those industries died or were so crippled to be practically dead.... and the workers are supposed to just shrug and walk away from the only life they and their families have ever known/the one thing that they perceive as ascribing value to them as people.

Yeah there comes a point where it becomes almost childish as they stubbornly refuse to let go of their past, but I can absolutely understand that somebody whose entire life/career and that of their fathers and fathers' fathers revolves around this one particular way of life would struggle to then just go get a job working retail or a call center or some other kind of office job.

* Ronnie Reagan was once the head of the Screen Actor's Guild :smith:

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



"The job will not save you, Jimmy. It won't make you whole, it won't fill your rear end up." :smith:

Alec Bald Snatch
Sep 12, 2012

by exmarx

Jerusalem posted:

Something season 2 does a really good job of demonstrating, in my opinion, is how important the "work" is to these guys - it's a history and culture that they bought into hook, line and sinker. You have generations of guys who grew up being told by society that the work they did was noble and inspirational, that they were an integral part of something bigger (American Industry), that what they did mattered and as an extension so did they. Then around the 80s and the time of Ronnie "Union Buster"* Reagan, the rich dudes running those industries sold up, shut down, or otherwise moved on and many of those industries died or were so crippled to be practically dead.... and the workers are supposed to just shrug and walk away from the only life they and their families have ever known/the one thing that they perceive as ascribing value to them as people.

Yeah there comes a point where it becomes almost childish as they stubbornly refuse to let go of their past, but I can absolutely understand that somebody whose entire life/career and that of their fathers and fathers' fathers revolves around this one particular way of life would struggle to then just go get a job working retail or a call center or some other kind of office job.

The thing with that though is it's a really isolated phenomenon that was only possible for a very brief period of time and in a handful of locations. For a time you might have been able to count on a job at the plant like your dad and granddad if you lived in the Northeast or Rust Belt, but anywhere else you took whatever was available, even uprooting your entire family if need be.

I understand romanticizing it, but it was never really the norm.

grilldos
Mar 27, 2004

BUST A LOAF
IN THIS
YEAST CONFECTION
Grimey Drawer
Specifically that mentality is related to blue collar unions, and definitely still exists. Season 2 is probably a very eye-opening and strange thing for people who've always lived in Right To Work states.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

The moment that always stands out to me is when McNulty and Diggins are on the water and they point to the old shut down factories and talk about how their fathers worked there, and they say it with pride. Even somebody with as angry and cynical take on authority and politicians and rich people as McNulty still buys into the myth/mentality of the working man as a good and righteous thing to be looked back upon with nostalgia, pride and warmth.

I can't remember which season it is, I think season 2 and involving Frank, but Spiros points across at those same factories and says,"They used to make steel there" and it comes across as far more of an indictment, a reflection on how that way of life (and American industry in general) has become a thing of the past. Frank rants about it later with all the bewildered anger of somebody whose time has past and who can't accept it,"We used to make poo poo in this country!"

LloydDobler
Oct 15, 2005

You shared it with a dick.

grilldos posted:

Specifically that mentality is related to blue collar unions, and definitely still exists. Season 2 is probably a very eye-opening and strange thing for people who've always lived in Right To Work states.

Absolutely true. I remember one of my first visits to a union shop, where we were training the union machinists how to set up and run a machine, and we had to stand around and wait 45 minutes for someone from the electrician's union to bring us a god drat extension cord and plug it in for us.

Or last year at a trade show where the convention center was union controlled, and we weren't allowed to set up our own booth without at least one union worker there to participate. With a mandatory charge of $125 an hour, 2 hours minimum. To be fair though, the worker absolutely busted rear end with exactly zero loving around. She was a genuine help.

But yeah, union rules and behavior are weird if you come from out west.

Alec Bald Snatch
Sep 12, 2012

by exmarx

Jerusalem posted:

The moment that always stands out to me is when McNulty and Diggins are on the water and they point to the old shut down factories and talk about how their fathers worked there, and they say it with pride. Even somebody with as angry and cynical take on authority and politicians and rich people as McNulty still buys into the myth/mentality of the working man as a good and righteous thing to be looked back upon with nostalgia, pride and warmth.

I can't remember which season it is, I think season 2 and involving Frank, but Spiros points across at those same factories and says,"They used to make steel there" and it comes across as far more of an indictment, a reflection on how that way of life (and American industry in general) has become a thing of the past. Frank rants about it later with all the bewildered anger of somebody whose time has past and who can't accept it,"We used to make poo poo in this country!"

IIRC it's the episode where Stringer and Bodie meet down by the Inner Harbor, or maybe when he meets with Omar, but on the commentary David Simon goes off on the concept of the Museum of Industry.


e: The funny thing is American industry hasn't died at all. Our actual output's only increased, but it's more automated and less-labor intensive, same as farming. The same death in the Rust Belt's been going on in rural areas on a slower scale for just as long, if not longer.

Alec Bald Snatch fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Mar 11, 2015

Slo-Tek
Jun 8, 2001

WINDOWS 98 BEAT HIS FRIEND WITH A SHOVEL

comes along bort posted:

IIRC it's the episode where Stringer and Bodie meet down by the Inner Harbor, or maybe when he meets with Omar, but on the commentary David Simon goes off on the concept of the Museum of Industry.


e: The funny thing is American industry hasn't died at all. Our actual output's only increased, but it's more automated and less-labor intensive, same as farming. The same death in the Rust Belt's been going on in rural areas on a slower scale for just as long, if not longer.

One of the interesting things about that is that Ohio still has a ton of small-mill stuff. It never really got boomy-huge and rich like Pittsburgh with steel, or Detroit with automotive, with tens of thousands of people megafactories, but lots of towns had, and probably still has a half dozen 100-500 person shops doing something weird and nichy, like telescoping poles, or combustion-control instrumentation, or exotic metals fabrication. It is a much slower fall, from a much lower height.

Still, don't recommend being from, or going to Ohio, but the work available appears to not be declining a ton faster than the population, and there are places to absorb some of the hit when the GM plant shuts down, and a 400 person shop isn't going to have a golden-parachuted management team "finding efficiencies" relocating to Indonesia, and probably aren't going to get enough tax abatement to move to North Carolina or Texas.

[edit]
Woops. I was reading this like a D&D post. Not terribly wire-relevant.

Also, don't make a drama about life in an Ohio industrial town.

Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Mar 11, 2015

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

comes along bort posted:

e: The funny thing is American industry hasn't died at all. Our actual output's only increased, but it's more automated and less-labor intensive, same as farming. The same death in the Rust Belt's been going on in rural areas on a slower scale for just as long, if not longer.

We see some of that when Frank attends that meeting discussing Rotterdam's automated systems, and all the suits are very enthusiastically nodding along as the merits are discussed, while Frank looks on in horror realizing that more automation means less required manpower, which means less jobs. Even when the guy brings up the fact that it enormously cuts down on workplace injuries, you can tell Frank is thinking,"Yeah, because there aren't any guys around to get injured."

Edit: poo poo, I have a vague feeling he may actually outright say that, too. Maybe I need to rewatch the entire series all over again. You know, just to make sure.

Cape Cod Crab Chip
Feb 20, 2011

Now you don't have to suck meat from an exoskeleton!
He does. Verbatim: "Can't get [hurt/injured] if you ain't workin'."

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS
Yeah he says something like "you can't get hurt if you ain't working"

e;fb as myself and other goons pile on to show off our wire quote knowledge

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I don't know you guys.... I feel like I can't trust you and I need to rewatch the entire series start to finish all over again just to be sure.

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

Jerusalem posted:

I don't know you guys.... I feel like I can't trust you and I need to rewatch the entire series start to finish all over again just to be sure.

this makes a lot of sense and you kind of owe it to yourself and your (future) children to exercise due diligence on this matter

Philthy
Jan 28, 2003

Pillbug
I'm halfway through the last season again.

I don't want it to end again. :(

bucketybuck
Apr 8, 2012

Jerusalem posted:

The moment that always stands out to me is when McNulty and Diggins are on the water and they point to the old shut down factories and talk about how their fathers worked there, and they say it with pride.

See also the reverent tones whenever anybody referred to William Gant, "a taxpayer","a working man".

UFOTacoMan
Sep 22, 2005

Thanks easter bunny!
bok bok!

bucketybuck posted:

See also the reverent tones whenever anybody referred to William Gant, "a taxpayer","a working man".

I don't disagree but I've always viewed this through the lens of William Gant not being in the Game, thus the police took more offense at his killing.

Copper Vein
Mar 14, 2007

...and we liked it that way.
Like when Tasha got dropped, but before Bunk made her as a player, he refers to her as "someone that matters."

To which Landsman replies, "she's still dead in a zip code that does not loving matter."

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

UFOTofuTacoCat posted:

I don't disagree but I've always viewed this through the lens of William Gant not being in the Game, thus the police took more offense at his killing.

It's not just the police though, it's also the drug dealers. It shows that they on some level realize they are making their living grafting off society rather than contributing meaningfully in any way. But then society doesn't offer them any opportunities to contribute in a meaningful way and they gotta eat so gently caress it.

See the points I've made earlier in this thread about surplus labour and it not just disappearing even if you don't account for them in your economic models. Basically you either give these people something honest to do with which they can support themselves, or you straight up support them, and if you don't you get the kind of poo poo The Wire is all about. European welfare states still have drug and gang problems, but we don't have boarded up neighbourhoods with dealers standing on every corner the way the US does. The places in Europe that look most like that are those where the people most excluded from contributing meaningfully to society live.

Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Mar 12, 2015

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

Watching early s4 again, and Norris picks up a homicide which was a witness murder. He's delighted about the overtime but Landsman tells him to "bury the witness angle" because there's an election on and they don't want to stir poo poo up. As soon as Norris shuts the door Landsman rings a Major, which turns out to be Valczek, who then triumphantly reports it to Carcetti. I get why Valczek is trying to butter up his chosen candidate, but what's Landsman's motivation? Is he just trying to get in the good books of a potential police chief?

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

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

Fun Shoe

freebooter posted:

Watching early s4 again, and Norris picks up a homicide which was a witness murder. He's delighted about the overtime but Landsman tells him to "bury the witness angle" because there's an election on and they don't want to stir poo poo up. As soon as Norris shuts the door Landsman rings a Major, which turns out to be Valczek, who then triumphantly reports it to Carcetti. I get why Valczek is trying to butter up his chosen candidate, but what's Landsman's motivation? Is he just trying to get in the good books of a potential police chief?

Basically. Landsman is an expert in departmental politics. He gives the "proper" orders to Norris that the witness angle should be buried, so that if it comes back to him he can tell the current Chief he tried to sweep it under the rug. But behind the scenes he uses the knowledge to, as you say, butter up Valczek because Landsman knows he's going to be in a position of power at some point. He's covering all his bases.

MrBling
Aug 21, 2003

Oozing machismo
Landsman might also just have come up under Valchek and feels some sense of loyalty toward him, while obviously also playing the office politics game.

Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Dec 22, 2005

GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS
Landsman is politically savvy enough that I'm surprised he didn't make Lieutenant. Presumably it's because his character fit his role so perfectly that it'd be a shame to write him out of it.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

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

Fun Shoe

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

Landsman is politically savvy enough that I'm surprised he didn't make Lieutenant. Presumably it's because his character fit his role so perfectly that it'd be a shame to write him out of it.

I think Landsman represents an extreme rarity: A guy who has risen as high as he really should go and knows it. I think all the politics he plays are what he knows he needs to do to protect his position, which he values, but the reason he is able to be so successful at it is in part because he doesn't have much ambition.

The show is chock full of people who think they should be more than they are, and I'd say that's human nature for the most part. Landsman represents the exceptions.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



If you think about it, Landsman has a pretty baller job.

He hangs out all day, mostly eating and reading porn. Occasionally he has to pass orders up or down the chain of command, or chews someone out. Nothing is ever really his fault: it's always the people above or below him. Once and a while someone like Bubbles falls into his lap, but not too often. He'll retire with a sizable pension as a respected member of the force. Why try harder?

He's what Mahon and Polk would have loved to be.

Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Mar 12, 2015

Copper Vein
Mar 14, 2007

...and we liked it that way.
What about all the flagrant public porn readin', think that was a real thing Simon observed during his B-More days?

Fuckin' Landsman at his desk, flipping through an issue if Barely Legal, and on the cork board behind him there's a picture of him holding a baby like a family man. Sleeves me out.

HiipFire
Sep 1, 2013

JENNY DEATH LIVES
Could be, Jay Landsman did audition to play himself so I can't imagine it wouldn't have fit his actual persona.

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ShaneMacGowansTeeth
May 22, 2007



I think this is it... I think this is how it ends

HiipFire posted:

Could be, Jay Landsman did audition to play himself so I can't imagine it wouldn't have fit his actual persona.

I'm honestly disappointed that the "you should use a puncture repair kit" line the real Landsman used in Homicide when referring to a shooting victim didn't make it in

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