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I do think that sadly Randy will end up dead or in jail relatively quickly. The kid we saw through most of season 4? Yeah I could see him being a Prop Joe/Stringer Bell type of character, but not the kid from season 5. Stringer and Joe both had community/friends/family who looked out for them and that they cared about - sure they would be tough when necessary but they understood empathy and were broader people because of it. Randy's lesson learned from the group home is that he can't trust anyone, open up to anybody, talk to anybody etc he just puts up a permanent front of indifference, his anger boils over and he has nobody to watch his back or that he can trust. Namond gets the best ending, Michael is at least free, but Dukie and Randy are both completely screwed 
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Jan 12, 2017 03:36
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Also keep in mind that the reason Randy got his rear end kicked at the group home is because they found out about his reputation as a snitch. Which is...not good for him.
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Jan 12, 2017 03:52
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My partner and I just finished S4. Randy's fate in the group home caused a lot of anger. I may have to rewatch S5 alone... Which brings me to my one lasting concern - how do we feel about Namond? I remember loving his character arc, but on this viewing, something feels off, or perhaps just missing. Perhaps it's just that the show works too hard to remind us that deserve ain't got nothing to do with it (it's striking, and feels deliberate, that the three other boys all assert themselves with above-and-beyond kindness - devastatingly - this episode. Michael takes in Dukie; Dukie gives Prez a gift of appreciation; Randy tries to let Carver know that he tried. Namond's last act of self-assertion was a feeble, loathsome attempt to bully Dukie, and he really doesn't do anything after that, let alone show his gratitude to Bunny.) Or maybe it's that the show is spending so much time (effectively) showing that Namond is no gangster, which doesn't leave much space to remind us of his positive potential. But an impressive Eiffel Tower model and some corridor banter seem like a very long time ago, and so Bunny's description of a 'clever, funny, open-hearted' kid just didn't feel as if it had been sufficiently demonstrated, scene-by-scene. Again, perhaps that's the point - but it slightly undercut the sincere drama of some very good, impassioned scenes with Bunny and Wee-Bay. Perhaps we just needed one more moment between the two of them? PS: I did love Namond's final scene, as a parallel to Cutty's truck encounter with some gangsters (with the 'reformed' character toiling in the sun as his old life passes by). Every day will be hard - and there are no immediate, or certain happy endings. PPS: I might be misremembering, since we only glanced at them - but weren't Randy's two overseers at the group home an older, stern white woman and a heavily overweight, tired-looking black man, a la Tilghmann's? (A signal that things were going to be exactly the same for him, even here?)
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Jan 12, 2017 09:30
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Jerusalem posted:I do think that sadly Randy will end up dead or in jail relatively quickly. The kid we saw through most of season 4? Yeah I could see him being a Prop Joe/Stringer Bell type of character, but not the kid from season 5. Stringer and Joe both had community/friends/family who looked out for them and that they cared about - sure they would be tough when necessary but they understood empathy and were broader people because of it. Randy's lesson learned from the group home is that he can't trust anyone, open up to anybody, talk to anybody etc he just puts up a permanent front of indifference, his anger boils over and he has nobody to watch his back or that he can trust. Well thats what I was sort of saying maybe it came out wrong? While maybe becoming Stringer/Prop Joe is a stretch, I guess my comment on him becoming Bodie V2 works after all the main description of Bodie was he was angry however underneath the anger he was still relatively clever, so yeah he probably won't live to see twenty unless his luck turns around. grobbo posted:My partner and I just finished S4. Randy's fate in the group home caused a lot of anger. I may have to rewatch S5 alone... I mean there is also the cynical reading that Naymond got lucky and essentially conned his way into Colvin's graces and that debate setup is foreshadowing that he is actually just gonna be the next Clay Davis corrupting the system even further to put himself ahead, because he never learned the right lessons. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Jan 12, 2017 |
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Jan 12, 2017 11:55
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"gently caress it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll go a few more." Forgot how good season 1 is. 
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Jan 12, 2017 13:40
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Jan 12, 2017 15:48
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The legacies this show leaves behind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDiveb6Fhy0
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Jan 12, 2017 16:59
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Yeah, I think it's time for us to re-watch this as well. (mild spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the show). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWmryAVUoL8 Funny or Die is hit and miss to me but this is pure gold.
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Jan 12, 2017 18:20
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8-Bit Scholar posted:The legacies this show leaves behind I always dug that after Stringer exits the show, there's a scene with Avon where he mumbles,"Yo lock that door" as somebody is leaving. LloydDobler posted:Yeah, I think it's time for us to re-watch this as well. (mild spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the show). Snoop  Love that Bubbles puts a red hat on Omar at the end there.
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Jan 12, 2017 23:07
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Ginette Reno posted:Michael annoys me because I don't feel like the show earned his transformation into Omar. It feels really clumsy how he busts in and rubs the drug dealers and starts making wise cracks like Omar too. Michael was never the type to joke around like that. It felt hamfisted in a way the Wire normally isn't. Like I get that Michael is supposed to be following Omar's path but he's not supposed to be a word for word clone of him. Michael doing an impression of Omar is meant to emphasize how cyclical crime is. People get shot or arrested but since the underlying issues that lead to the drug trade don't get fixed, everything just repeats itself.
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Jan 14, 2017 16:53
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little munchkin posted:Michael doing an impression of Omar is meant to emphasize how cyclical crime is. People get shot or arrested but since the underlying issues that lead to the drug trade don't get fixed, everything just repeats itself. While it is meant to do that, I kind of agree that the way they executed it was a little too heavy handed. I think people would have understood if he was drug ripping like Omar, without also copying his whole aesthetic without establishing why (I don't remember him ever mentioning being a big fan of Omar though I guess a lot of people in the game were).
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Jan 15, 2017 00:02
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cosmically_cosmic posted:While it is meant to do that, I kind of agree that the way they executed it was a little too heavy handed. I think people would have understood if he was drug ripping like Omar, without also copying his whole aesthetic without establishing why (I don't remember him ever mentioning being a big fan of Omar though I guess a lot of people in the game were). Look the part be the part, motherfucker.
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Jan 15, 2017 00:38
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In S5, when we see Avon, is he quietly implied to be using in prison? It never occurred to me before but Wood Harris's performance is noticeably more twitchy, talkative and anxious - his mode of speech is just slightly faster and slightly less considered. If so, that'd be a great little implication (with time, Avon has abandoned his 'only two days' mantra, and taken a step closer to standing in the shoes of the nephew he thought of as weak)
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Jan 15, 2017 00:53
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That's a take I've never really considered before, and it's a very interesting interpretation that I think you could easily make. For me I've always taken the tack that this is Avon "high" on the one drug that he actually needs, which is the respect that comes from power. Here's the guy who caused him so much trouble back in season 3, that he could never get his hands on... and now he's in his power. Now he has to do what Avon says, he has to kowtow to him and do as he says. What he asks for means nothing to Marlo, but the important thing is that he tells Marlo what has to be done and Marlo does it, and then and only then can Marlo get what he wants. Marlo for his part doesn't mind because this is something that he understands, Avon's display might be pathetic but it is an exhibition of power and a demanding of respect and it gets Marlo access to the power and respect HE wants too. All that stuff about East Side/West Side? Avon may actually believe it since he did put stock in that artificial divide, but at the heart of it this is about getting one-up on Marlo and make him acknowledge Avon's own status.
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Jan 15, 2017 02:25
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Avon is serving out 7 years, I feel like he fully anticipates getting back out and back into the game. Maybe with Stringer's death he realizes he's lost his whole empire? I kind of got this feeling that Avon was pretty comfortably "retired" in jail. I mean, he probably has money still, and he probably still gets plenty of special treatment, so his prison sentence probably isn't too arduous for him. Just because the camera is off him doesn't necessarily mean Avon's story is over. I never really got the feeling he was "out" at all, and I don't think he ever considered himself to be either. Unless he's incarcerated, life without parole, or dead, I don't think Avon would ever stop trying to be king, nor stop thinking of himself AS the king.
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Jan 15, 2017 05:44
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It still seems crazy that for everything Avon did, he ends up only having to serve a max of 7 years in prison. And also that, in a show about institutional failure, I'm upset that a character isn't spending enough time in prison
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Jan 15, 2017 06:28
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little munchkin posted:Michael doing an impression of Omar is meant to emphasize how cyclical crime is. People get shot or arrested but since the underlying issues that lead to the drug trade don't get fixed, everything just repeats itself. I get that, but that doesn't mean Michael magically changes into Omar. I have no problem with Michael attempting to follow Omar's path, I just take offense in how that means he automatically has a shot gun and is trying to make wise cracks. It just feels out of character to me and forced. The type of personality Michael has would have him trying his own way of doing the stick up game I think, not parroting Omar. I mean poo poo they might as well have had Michael making out with a guy too for how heavy handed they were with Michael = Omar. cosmically_cosmic posted:While it is meant to do that, I kind of agree that the way they executed it was a little too heavy handed. I think people would have understood if he was drug ripping like Omar, without also copying his whole aesthetic without establishing why (I don't remember him ever mentioning being a big fan of Omar though I guess a lot of people in the game were). So basically this.
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Jan 15, 2017 07:30
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cosmically_cosmic posted:While it is meant to do that, I kind of agree that the way they executed it was a little too heavy handed. I think people would have understood if he was drug ripping like Omar, without also copying his whole aesthetic without establishing why (I don't remember him ever mentioning being a big fan of Omar though I guess a lot of people in the game were). Im pretty sure Michael co-opting Omar's style and personality wasn't done to draw a comparison for the benefit of the audience, it was done to draw a comparison in the minds of the people he robbed. He's trying to pick up some of Omar's legend by associating himself with Omar's image, trying to tie himself to the same sort of dangerous "you can't get him, but he can sure as hell get you."
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Jan 20, 2017 06:58
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Feb 16, 2017 23:58
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Here's a new NYT article about the inspiration for Cutty and his gym.
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Feb 24, 2017 21:16
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Ainsley McTree posted:It still seems crazy that for everything Avon did, he ends up only having to serve a max of 7 years in prison. We don't know that Avon is serving only 7 years. In fact, the parole violation means that his minimum is the remainder of his original 7 year sentence. They never got into what else he was charged with or convicted of.
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Feb 24, 2017 23:17
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If nothing else, that big a stockpile of guns would attract the ATF's attention, and those guys don't gently caress around. Somebody is doing some serious Federal time for that, and it wouldn't be some random kid taking the fall.
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Feb 25, 2017 03:42
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Konstantin posted:If nothing else, that big a stockpile of guns would attract the ATF's attention, and those guys don't gently caress around. Somebody is doing some serious Federal time for that, and it wouldn't be some random kid taking the fall. Nah, I don't see it that way. Avon has the money to pay for the best criminal defense, and he's got the juice to get any of the guys in that building with him to say the guns were theirs. Avon was only doing 7. He woulda got out a couple years ago. The core group of people that came up with him and allowed him to become the king of West Balmer are all dead or serving life, so I don't see him trying to reestablish himself in the game afterwards either. His sister took care of at least some of the financial aspect of the operation, and as we saw when she was dealing with Namond's mom, she made sure not to blow it all.
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Feb 25, 2017 08:54
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Any reason they never named any of these gangs on the show other than "Barksdale organization" or "Stanfield organization" ect. Seems pretty dumb for the average street lvl guy to go off spouting "im with [head of huge drug empire]s people!"
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Mar 9, 2017 23:46
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banned from Starbucks posted:Any reason they never named any of these gangs on the show other than "Barksdale organization" or "Stanfield organization" ect. Seems pretty dumb for the average street lvl guy to go off spouting "im with [head of huge drug empire]s people!" Well in real life it is the name that counts, anyone can say they're reppin the 42nd street killaz but if you're talking to another thug on the street, dropping a name they would recognise would probably be better. I mean it's not like it's some huge secret, it's just almost impossible to catch them because they are so far up that they are never in the same room with the drugs.
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Mar 10, 2017 00:02
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quote:When you're a Barksdale
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Mar 10, 2017 00:14
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Any excuse to post it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWmryAVUoL8
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Mar 10, 2017 01:09
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cosmically_cosmic posted:Any excuse to post it: Snoop 
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Mar 10, 2017 01:58
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NPR had a short piece about dirty plain clothes cops in Baltimore today. It sounds Herc, Carver a Kima are going back to uniform work.
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Mar 10, 2017 02:18
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Just watched Goodfellas for the eleventy billionith time and noticed that the doctor who insists on treating Henry during the helicopter chase scene is none other than Clay Davis.
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Apr 13, 2017 10:10
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fuckpot posted:Just watched Goodfellas for the eleventy billionith time and noticed that the doctor who insists on treating Henry during the helicopter chase scene is none other than Clay Davis. well sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit
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Apr 13, 2017 22:36
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Fog Tripper posted:well sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit fuckpot posted:Just watched Goodfellas for the eleventy billionith time and noticed that the doctor who insists on treating Henry during the helicopter chase scene is none other than Clay Davis. Watch the 25th hour. He even pulls out the line. And Atlanta. And CHIPS. He's been busy lately, ol' Clay.
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Apr 15, 2017 03:18
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hiddenmovement posted:Watch the 25th hour. He even pulls out the line. I read somewhere that it was a catchphrase that the actor used in his private life before being cast as Clay Davis, which is why it turns up elsewhere
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Apr 23, 2017 11:24
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How many seconds does a word need to be spoken before it constitutes a phrase.
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Apr 23, 2017 15:53
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What feels off about Namond is that he's basically hood royalty growing up, and out of all the kids to get a happy ending, it's the relatively privileged and spoiled one that gets it. When you look at Namond as just Namond, it's a happy story about a guy born in a hosed up family and life who manages to escape it and get a real shot at something better because of the selfless efforts of a no poo poo good guy cop. When you look at it in the context of the whole group of kids, even this arc of salvation is mired in classism.cosmically_cosmic posted:While it is meant to do that, I kind of agree that the way they executed it was a little too heavy handed. I think people would have understood if he was drug ripping like Omar, without also copying his whole aesthetic without establishing why (I don't remember him ever mentioning being a big fan of Omar though I guess a lot of people in the game were). With how big Omar's name and legend ring out, and the fear low level drug dealers had for him, why wouldn't you adapt that persona when you're trying to rob low level drug dealers? Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 26, 2017 09:00
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Orange Devil posted:With how big Omar's name and legend ring out, and the fear low level drug dealers had for him, why wouldn't you adapt that persona when you're trying to rob low level drug dealers? Sticking up the rim shop isn't exactly low level. Dude was a mentor and probably some sort of bank for Marlo, so he was more than a little bit deep in the game. That said I hate all this bitching about Michael=Omar. Michael was himself acquainted with Omar, having been in on the hit squad that almost took him out in the apartment, and afterwards when Omar walked up on him on his corner. He grew from childhood in the years when Omar's name rang out loudest in the streets, when he was a walking legend. Omar's aura of fear extended all the way to the top of the game. How many fearsome characters did we see him go after by his lonesome? Stinkum, Avon, Stringer, Slim Charles, Fat Face Rick, Cheese, walking into prop Joe's shop in body armor with a clock like it ain't no thing. Drawing the parallel between himself and Omar as obviously as possible could only be a good thing for Michael. edit: didn't prop joe specifically say that crossing "that predatory motherfucker" Omar is as good as committing suicide?
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Apr 26, 2017 09:56
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Orange Devil posted:What feels off about Namond is that he's basically hood royalty growing up, and out of all the kids to get a happy ending, it's the relatively privileged and spoiled one that gets it. When you look at Namond as just Namond, it's a happy story about a guy born in a hosed up family and life who manages to escape it and get a real shot at something better because of the selfless efforts of a no poo poo good guy cop. When you look at it in the context of the whole group of kids, even this arc of salvation is mired in classism. You are correct. Many adoptions involve parents picking out the child with the best "potential*" which only furthers class issues. In this case it's the bittersweet cherry on Colvin's story. I bet if you pull up the scenes of Namond with Colvin, they're juxtaposed with Randy's dealings with the orphan system. *The word "pedigree" floats to mind, with all of its racial tension.
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Apr 26, 2017 13:46
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Suxpool posted:
Also don't forget that he basically turned a legendary NY assassin brought in to specifically hit him into an ally through a combination of direct violence and an appeal to his sense of honor. Omar is a loving hero and everyone in those projects knew it. Michael consciously/subconsciously mimicking him makes perfect sense.
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May 12, 2017 18:42
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about Omar
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grilldos posted:You are correct. Many adoptions involve parents picking out the child with the best "potential*" which only furthers class issues. In this case it's the bittersweet cherry on Colvin's story. I bet if you pull up the scenes of Namond with Colvin, they're juxtaposed with Randy's dealings with the orphan system. Namond is gonna grow up to be like Ben Carson ~ I made it out of the ghetto and its not that hard, wait what do you mean i was ridiculously lucky? ~ and then ride the ghetto hero success gravy train.
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May 17, 2017 04:42
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Jack2142 posted:Namond is gonna grow up to be like Ben Carson ~ I made it out of the ghetto and its not that hard, wait what do you mean i was ridiculously lucky? ~ and then ride the ghetto hero success gravy train. I guess being a white guy, I never even knew who Ben Carson was until he ran for president. Rewatching Season 4 recently, and he comes up a few times, sometimes by name, and other times just by kids talking about how they want to be a neurosurgeon when they grow up. I had to look it up, but he did his residency at Johns Hopkins, so I guess he was probably more well known in Baltimore.
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Jun 2, 2017 17:34
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