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Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

I've always been of the opinion that "the solution" is a huge upheaval of the basic underpinnings of our society. As a result, no politician is ever going to push for it and destroy their careers, because in general people are only upset and desirous for change so long as their own comforts aren't threatened. Far simpler to make a great speech that sounds good and pushes all the right buttons, then do nothing about it at all.

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twerking on the railroad
Jun 23, 2007

Get on my level

Randomly Specific posted:

I tend to read Carcetti's sex scene as a reflection of his narcissism, in that sense that he's got the mirror in front of him because deep down he really really makes love to himself, no matter who else is in the room.

This is what I always took as well: when he catches his own reflection he gets stuck admiring his own sexual prowess.

I always felt like Carcetti's deal was that he felt like he really seriously cared about the people of Baltimore. He felt their pain and saw their problems and he did want to solve them. Sure enough he's a talented guy. Great speaker, real gift for politics. But he also had that narcissism, which I guess lots of young wannabe politicians have, but not everyone looks into the mirror as if to say "Look at how good I'm loving her. I'm the best there is."

I also feel like Carcetti's character changed over the course of season 4. The process by which he turns from a talented but slightly narcissistic and ambitious young guy of season 3 into the soulless creep who turns down the governor's money in season 5 is the phone room of season 4. The endless and dull crusade for money I think breaks young politicians. They either stop trying to advance or the ones who are really into themselves figure it out and learn to put important issues for the people on hold. After all, if you're clearly the best person for the job, then it's a little rough now, but you'll be able to do them a ton of good in a higher office! After all, you're the best! Look at how good you're loving that city/state/etc.

the black husserl
Feb 25, 2005

Season 3 is pretty amazing for it's realistic depiction of how a public official transforms into a professional politician.

stratdax
Sep 14, 2006

DropsySufferer posted:

Likewise look at Landsman, he stays a sergeant for the whole series. I wonder if he just stopped caring about rank?

In one of the Discworld books, a character is described as "one of Nature's Sergeants". That pretty much describes Landsman perfectly, I think.

The first time I watched this show I was confused as hell by the different ranks in the different divisions, but I have it sorted out now. One thing though, why doesn't Homicide have a Lieutenant, and why doesn't Narcotics have a Sergeant?

Season 3 is great but I can't help think "Hamsterdam couldn't possibly last this long without being noticed".

ShaneMacGowansTeeth
May 22, 2007



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

stratdax posted:

In one of the Discworld books, a character is described as "one of Nature's Sergeants". That pretty much describes Landsman perfectly, I think.

The first time I watched this show I was confused as hell by the different ranks in the different divisions, but I have it sorted out now. One thing though, why doesn't Homicide have a Lieutenant, and why doesn't Narcotics have a Sergeant?

Season 3 is great but I can't help think "Hamsterdam couldn't possibly last this long without being noticed".

there probably are those ranks, they're just not characterised. For instance, judging by the Homicide book, Rawls seems to be a shift lieutenant, but has the power of a captain though again in that book, the captain who Rawls would report to was in charge of the Crimes Against Persons. I guess there could have been some restructuring.

On another note, it's my birthday and my brother has sent me some money. I've just ordered the paperbacks of The Corner, Truth Be Told and Re-Up. More Wire goodness!

SpookyLizard
Feb 17, 2009
Rawls is out and out stated to be Colonel in the show. Or a Lieutenant Colonel. In charge of Homicide, and presumably right under the head of CID. He may function as shift lieutenant at times, but he's clearly higher ranked than that, especially considering his rise in rank in the following seasons.

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming

SpookyLizard posted:

Rawls is out and out stated to be Colonel in the show. Or a Lieutenant Colonel. In charge of Homicide, and presumably right under the head of CID. He may function as shift lieutenant at times, but he's clearly higher ranked than that, especially considering his rise in rank in the following seasons.

No, he starts off as Major in Season 1. Then makes Colonel. Then makes Deputy of Operations. There is a (canon) webisode showing him as "Lieutenant Rawls" that was posted a few pages back.

The SituAsian
Oct 29, 2006

I'm a mess in distress
But we're still the best dressed
Hope ya'll like it :ohdear:

Season 3 Episode 4 – “Hamsterdam” (originally called Amsterdam)

Directed by: Ernest Dickerson (“Bad Dreams” S2E11, “Mission Accomplished” S3E12, “Misgivings” S4E10, “Final Grades” S4E13, “Unconfirmed Reports” S5E2)

Written: George Pelecanos, David Simon

Fruit posted:

Why you gotta go and gently caress with the program?

The episode opens on a depiction of a rug showing the last supper. A sergeant in the Western District is holding a public safety meeting at church and is attempting to assuage his audience of the few people mad enough at the situation to come by with empty platitudes. We are committed to giving 100 and 10 percent. We will take back your streets. That’s all fine but the problem is they need the cooperation of the people to whom they've made too many empty promises; he’s quickly shouted down with some very un-Christian language.

In perhaps one of the more interesting callbacks of the show a man interjects that his cousin once went downtown to testify and now he’s deader than Tupac (assuming you’re not one of those who subscribe to the theory that Tupac Shakur is still alive). His cousin’s name was William Gant.


The well-meaning sergeant sympathizes but tries to point to a chart on a marker board but before he’s interrupted by a woman-likely a healthcare worker come direct from work-who tells him that her kids can’t play outside, she has to sleep under the bed some nights and sometimes she can’t even get into her front door. The camera pans to an uncomfortable Bunny Colvin, Dennis Mello and Tony Gray.
Colvin stops the bloodbath and steps up the podium and finally cuts through all the bullshit. They couldn’t lock up every corner kid. Where would they put them if they even could? He could show them all the charts they want but how could that make a difference when there are kids on her corner slanging with no hope of stopping them? It’s not going to any better anytime soon and it may never get better; it’s time we finally have the courage to admit that it’s the world we live in. Thinking that there must be something more, a man asks “So what’s the answer?” Colvin takes a minute to think and gives-all things considered-the best possible answer.
“Well I’m not sure. But whatever it is, can’t be a lie”

He gives the podium back to the sergeant and audience resumes their indignation. Sitting in the back row is Tommy Carcetti, conspicuous due to the color of his skin, who introduces himself to Marla Daniels and offers a bit of support in her attempt to take down the very entrenched Eunetta Perkins on the City Council. When Daniels notes that this isn’t his district he talks it away as being on the Public Safety Committee and wanting to hear what’s going on in the community. That may have been the case but when Colvin and Mello walk by to leave he looks at them and is no doubt thinking about how he might be able to use this atypically blunt commander to some sort of advantage.

In what can be presumed to be his grandmother’s basement Dennis ‘Cutty’ Wise throws combinations at a ratty heavy bag while across town Bubbles is putting in work of his own. He’s enjoying a McDonald’s hash brown with Kima and McNulty while enjoying the food as much as he is the money he’ll come into for snitching. McNulty asks about Johnny Weeks and Bubbles tells them that he doesn’t care much for what he is doing and dismisses him as the “laziest white man to ever shift between two pairs of shoes”. The conversation turns to his past and he reveals that he once worked a legit job loading things at a discount store until one day he threw a clock radio in a trash can which he didn’t even need for no reason in particular.

Cutty rides in the back of a truck with several Hispanic day laborers when some drug dealers pull up in a Range Rover. He looks at it with obvious yearning and the crew foreman-who we’ll learn has a past of his own-notices Cutty noticing the drug’s dealers car/ice before driving away.

Bunk interrogates a group of young dealers who’ve been arrested by Carver and Herc and he tries to make them an offer. If anyone could help find “Peanut” who may have Dozerman’s gun, he could make any charge go away and hands them each his card. He’s met with stone silence until one of them just says “huh” and they are led away by Truck and Colicchio. He sullenly admits to Herc that he had to try something and his former colleagues on the Major Case Squad can only laugh now that someone else has to go on fool’s errands for the bosses.

Greggs and McNulty return to the Major Case Squad where Freamon and Prez are working on Kintell Willamson, clearly unhappy to have been forced to move on from their previous work but accepting of it as part of having a chain of command. Jimmy has clearly never given a poo poo about such things and when Freamon reminds him that they’re on their own hunting Stringer he taunts Freamon that Bell is still amassing property-and the legitimacy that comes with it-while still having command of the Barksdale organization right in front of them and no one is doing anything about it except him (and Kima). Lester has finally had enough of his bullshit and tells him by keeping on about his business he’s not only loving himself over but Daniels-who got him off his hated boat- as well. McNulty simply replies “gently caress the bosses” and when Freamon stands his ground it appears as if the two are about fight when Kima intervenes but not before Freamon tells McNulty that he sets fire to everything he touches and walks away while it burns.

And he’s right just as Pearlman was right in season 1. This isn’t about getting drugs off corners, getting mothers clean and keeping young black men out of the morgue. Yeah, all those things may happen and that’s great but at its essence all of this work is about McNulty proving how loving great he is. How stupid the bosses are. How wrong Elena was for leaving him. These are the heroes we’re given. Still, he’s given Lester an itch he cannot scratch and after McNulty and Greggs leave he asks Prez to check into String’s properties.

Colvin sits in a cafeteria at Johns Hopkins eating cheesecake with two men and discussing the possibility of taking a job with campus security at the University after his imminent retirement. A former colleague in the Baltimore Police Department tries to entice him by telling him how great the pay is and how easy it will be and while Bunny is clearly uncomfortable around academic types (which will appear in the next season) it’s clear that he’s been sold on the position.

Again Cutty and Bubbles are juxtaposed as the former attempts to start a lawnmower to no avail with Bubbles deftly giving McNulty and Kima an expert map of the West Baltimore drug trade, block by block which he’s learned through a hard day of hustling. The foreman of Cutty’s crew finally walks over and tells him to how to start it before telling him that he obviously wasn’t hired for his superior landscaping skills. The foreman admits he has a past too and that he once drove a SL Mercedes with nice gold rims but he’s since been able to forget all about it. Now it’s just day after day in the hot rear end sun working hard as hell for little reward; and that’s all that will be waiting for Cutty if he chooses the straight and narrow. He is later dropped off from his day’s work by a pay phone and it’s obvious which path he’s chosen when he calls the number given to him by Shamrock only to be confused that it’s been disconnected.

Daniels knocks on the door of Pearlman’s office and they make small talk before she shows him a paper that Avon Barksdale will be getting a parole hearing after one year because of his framing of C.O. Tilghman in season 2. While shocked she’s confident that a strongly worded letter she’s written will be sufficient to get them to deny parole. She takes a look at his crotch and notes that he dresses left :pervert:.

Kima and McNulty stop back at Major Crimes and she’s looks up Marlo Stanfield (who they assume is working for the Barksdale) on her computer and decides to go to homicide to investigate when she finds the name came up in a murder while Jimmy is off on his own.
Having made no progress finding Dozerman’s gun, Bunk waits until Landsman is on the phone to walk quietly to his desk. Humorously Landsman sips his drink loudly to announce his presence as he peers over Bunk’s cubicle wall and lets him now that since he tried sneaking in he knows that he hasn’t gotten anywhere finding the gun. Kima asks for Vernon Holley and as she walks away they check her out with Landsman proclaiming he would murder that if she wasn’t…..particular? He abruptly commands Bunk to find the gun.

Kima has met up with Holley and he tells her while mixing his coffee that Marlo Stanfield is the spawn of the devil. They almost had him on a murder. Even a witness stashed all the way over on the East Side (apparently Old Face Andre isn't the only person who sees the East Side as another world) who stupidly went to the West Side to get the same weed he could’ve gotten on the east side and got two bullets in his chest and one in his mouth for his trouble. He ominously tells Kima that Marlo is for real.

Jimmy and Elena McNulty walk from a science fair with their youngest Michael, Jimmy proudly holding one of those baking soda volcanoes. He tells his son how cool it is but Mike is dismissive and mentions a student who built a computer (!) and indifferently tells his dad he can keep the volcano. Elena steps to Jimmy to ask about the alimony, he’s behind as expected but between that-which he only agreed to because he thought they’d be together-and child support it’s 3000 a month off the top. He asks if her “boyfriend” (Dennis from earlier in the season) can help make up some of the cash and she glares at him before driving away.

Colvin announces his command to the officers at the morning roll call to get the word out to the dealers that they are free to sell drugs in the free zones examined in this and the last episode. Officers begin rounding up crews and drive them the free zones pointing out the boundaries only to be met with blank stares and shrugs. Carver and Herc have a number of dealers against the wall and are telling them that if they go down to Vincent street than no one will bother them. A dealer one drops some vials from his pocket and when asked for his name tells them it’s “Peanut Butter and Jelly”. They try to explain that Vincent street is their Switzerland or Amerstdam and when they drive away the corner boys are dismissive of this new “Hamsterdam”. Carver and Herc later try to propose the same to Fruit’s crew who asks why the police have to gently caress with the program: they grind and the police try to stop them. Good morning Sam, Good morning Ralph. Colvin and Mello inspect one of the free zones and Colvin-who now knows of the failure of his men’s efforts-decides that he will round up all the dealers and tell them all himself that he has decided to gently caress with the program in a big way.

Carcetti sits at a bar with 3 friends as they talk about current events with one joking that he’d be shocked if the perpetrator of a murder they see on the news was African-American. Tommy seems genuinely upset when he –rightfully-points out of the city’s crime rate affects all residents and that it one of his friend’s “my poor immigrant father bootstrapped his way out of the ghetto why can’t the blacks?” bullshit is just that. The conversation then turns to business as they name off potentially vulnerable congressmen for Carcetti to run against when he announces-seriously to him to jokingly to his buddies that he’s running for mayor-and they act like he just ripped the most uproariously hilarious fart. All eyes then turn to an attractive woman who just sat down at the bar. They give Tommy 20 bucks to approach her and he finally gives. One of them lets the others known they've been scammed when he tells them other that the woman is Theresa D’Agostino who works for the Democratic Congressional Campaign and that she and Carcetti have known each other for years.

Just how well is revealed when she tells him that he couldn't have approached her for some dumb bet and because he wants a quick gently caress (Ankle straps and 2 and half star hotel seems awfully specific). He lies that he isn't like that anymore and finally drops the bombshell that he plans on running for mayor and that he want her to run his campaign. D’Agostino is as more diplomatic than his friends but just as dismissive of the idea while Carcetti is insistent and shows just how resolute he is about a mayoral run.

McNulty’s hunt for Stringer takes him to Baltimore City Community College where he pries Bell’s information from the girl at the registrar’s office implying that he beats women. He tracks him to a computer lab where he peeks through the window as Bell types away at a station and finally in the parking lot when he dials a number from his cell. Stringer answers the phone and hangs up after hearing no answer. Having this number will prove vital in bringing the Barksdale now but for now McNulty is content with the odd prank call. Finally he ends up in his car outside from a nice restaurant where he eats pizza while Bell lunches with Clay Davis and Andy Krawcyzk. He's clearly excited when they tell him that he is sitting on real estate that will soon greatly increase in value and stops to take a call about his other business (and I’m doubting it's copies) out in the open.

Bodie is hopping mad complaining to Slim Charles that all it took was a beating and now they’ve been chased to a lovely corner while Slim tries to calm him down by telling him Stringer will take care of things. Cutty walks up to him and tells Slim Charles he’s looking for work while Bodie continues to react with hostility until Cutty recognizes him and tells him he used to spar with his older brother James. Bodie almost smiles but when Cutty asks if he’s still out here all Bodie has to say is “James been dead.” leaving Cutty to contemplate of much things have changed. They spot a school bus wrangling up a nearby group of dealers and leave while Poot attempts to call Shamrock but can’t due to his burner having run out of time.

Colvin has finally managed to round up of all of the young ins from the corner and herd them into a school gym but they are just as unresponsive and flippant to him as they are his men. The principal manages to momentarily quiet the kids but when Colvin retakes the mic they immediately stop paying attention and he gives up, he won’t be able to get through to these kids.

McNulty returns to the squad after a couple of days and reports all of his activities to the squad. He triumphantly announces that he has Bell’s number but Freamon already knows it since Prez has pulled all of the deed transfers involving B&B as asked and that number is on each of the deeds. They take a minute to talk about disposable cell phones and how it’s going to make their job so much harder before they return to Stringer and finally piece together that he’s not just trying to make a quick buck by flipping properties; he actually has a development plan and is trying to-partially-go legit. Lester than offers Jimmy a few more days to try and make a case on Stringer but if he doesn’t come back with anything he has to come back on focus on Kintell Williamson or whoever else the Unit is targeting.

Stringer goes to see Donette who is very annoyed that he has not been answering his calls. Donette also reveals that she has spoken to McNulty who’s told her that D’Angelo’s death was not a suicide. Stringer succeeds in temporarily allaying her suspicions by telling her that there’s no way D’Angelo could’ve been killed in jail because of Avon’s power. He them reassures her of their “relationship” and they have sex. Stringer heads back to the car where Shamrock is waiting and tells him that he will now be responsible for reviewing the receipts from Bernard’s disposable cell phone runs and that if Donette calls to take the call.

Bunk and McNulty are at another bar with McNulty drinking happily but knows that the only reason that Bunk is buying tonight is because he wants something. Bunk finally breaks and tells McNulty about that’s he caught the murders of Tosha and Tank and knows that Omar is involved. He needs McNulty to get word to Omar to which Jimmy can only say “again?” Bunk hits on two women, using the invented story that his mother recently died and McNulty proceeds to drink his fill. McNulty leaves the bar to familiar territory-Rhonda Pearlman’s house-and drunkenly knocks on the door while Daniels takes a peek through the blinds and they wait for him to leave. After a few minutes Jimmy realizes that no one is coming and notices a strangely familiar car parked on the curb.

Levy and Avon are at the parole hearing with the Warden, state trooper and Assistant District Attorney in a sparsely decorated room at the (now closed) Maryland House of Correction at Jessup when apparently the conversation turns to the letter that Pearlman has drafted. Levy expertly brushes it off as just the same rumor and innuendo from his initial trial and reminds the men of his agreement with the prison officials when he framed Tilghman. The state trooper protests but it’s obvious that he won’t win and Avon will walk.

Cutty and Slim Charles are in an SUV with Gerard and Sapper spying a Barksdale dealer who is hustling hard , driving an Infiniti G35 and wearing a $400 Wes Unseld throwback jersey but mysteriously keeps coming up short for the organization. Cutty asks if he has a girlfriend and when Gerard confirms he does its clear where the organization’s money is going; his ferocity may have diminished from his time in jail but his instincts have not. Slim has Sapper pass Cutty a Sig Sauer and remembers the last time he was out there they used revolvers. The game has changed he muses only for Slim to reply that the game is still the same; it’s just gotten more fierce.
After work Daniels and McNulty go for a drink and make a bit of small talk before discussing the elephant in the room. Daniels tells him that he didn’t make a move on Pearlman, it just happened and he hopes that it won’t cause problems with McNulty. For what it’s worth Jimmy is magnanimous and it appears to be genuine but Daniels leaves and Jimmy stays around to drown his sorrows. At least something in him isn’t satisfied with how that conversation went.

Bodie and Shamrock lead Cutty through the hallway at a raucous party and he is overwhelmed by the music, girls and drugs. They stop in the bathroom to crack open some 40s and Slim takes a hit and blows the smoke in Cutty’s face inviting him to kiss the sky.

A very drunk McNulty is still at the bar when eyes an attractive blonde sipping glass of wine but is denied making a move when a man approaches her and they leave together. He then goes to a payphone (still hard to believe just how antiquated a lot of this stuff is. They might as well be using derringers and driving around in Stutz Bearcats as far as the technology is concerned) , and counts his change only to realize he has no one to call and stumbles out the door and into the night. While McNulty is striking out Cutty is getting more than he can handle when a woman in a literally see through blouse walks into the bathroom and kisses him. He throws a stunned look at Bodie who asks to make sure “he still likes females”. As if to prove the point he kisses her again and they walk out the bathroom, past a couple doing it openly on a staircase and into a bedroom where another woman waits on the bed who closes the door. Bodie and Slim are pleased to have given their man a proper welcome back.

EDIT: Cleaned up some spacing and grammar.

The SituAsian fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Jun 26, 2013

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Nice write-up! I love the school gymnasium scene, all those dealers (many of whom would be rivals) just clowning around having a good time and enjoying the novelty of it all, and then all of them shutting the gently caress up when the lady yells, then ripping loose again when Colvin says (from memory),"I'm going to tell you how it's going to be from now on."

I imagine a lot of these kids don't have any stable male authority figure in their lives, but have mothers or grandmothers who have raised them, and they know that when a woman makes an order, they MUST always (or almost always) comply. A man trying to lay out the law though? gently caress that guy!

I do love how furious Lester gets at McNulty, but also how he can't help but go back to looking into Stringer's case. The way he effortlessly gets the same info that McNulty stretched himself to the limits of his ability to get always makes me laugh - McNulty is so sure he's the smartest guy in the room and he isn't a patch on Freamon.

stratdax
Sep 14, 2006

To me the school scene showed that, no matter how hard these guys are, at heart they're still just a bunch of kids like any you would meet anywhere. It's tragic.

Alec Bald Snatch
Sep 12, 2012

by exmarx

Jerusalem posted:

I do love how furious Lester gets at McNulty, but also how he can't help but go back to looking into Stringer's case. The way he effortlessly gets the same info that McNulty stretched himself to the limits of his ability to get always makes me laugh - McNulty is so sure he's the smartest guy in the room and he isn't a patch on Freamon.

I don't know if it's so much Lester is that much smarter than McNulty (though he definitely is smarter, and more importantly wiser) as it is he's aware of more resources to exploit. They pretty much came to the same conclusion about where to go next, but Lester knew an easier route to get the same info. That's the kind of thing which comes with being on the job for far longer.

Alec Bald Snatch fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Jun 23, 2013

The SituAsian
Oct 29, 2006

I'm a mess in distress
But we're still the best dressed
For all the progressive ideas Colvin has-and he has a lot of them no doubt-in that scene he definitely falls into the trap of believing that since he is who he is then these kids will automatically listen to him.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

comes along bort posted:

I don't know if it's so much Lester is that much smarter than McNulty (though he definitely is smarter, and more importantly wiser) as it is he's aware of more resources to exploit. They pretty much came to the same conclusion about where to go next, but Lester knew an easier route to get the same info. That's the kind of thing which comes with being on the job for far longer.

That's the thing, Lester's obsessions are channeled into obsessive research to get a definitive answer/solution, while McNulty's are channeled into using his "street smarts" to get to the result he wants as fast as possible. The way he deals with those maps and charts in season 2 is one of the few times we see him actually using something beyond a mixture of an informant and his own instincts to get to the solution he wants, and that's ONLY because he had no other options. Part of that may be down to time and his exile teaching Freamon how to hone his skills, but I do think that Lester is just a better detective that McNulty, who - like Landsman points out - is too used to the idea that he is the smartest guy in the room when the other guys in the room aren't particularly bright. When he finds himself on the other side of being a booty-call with D’Agostino is probably one of the first times he faces up to not being as smart as he thinks he is, and he HATES it.

The SituAsian posted:

For all the progressive ideas Colvin has-and he has a lot of them no doubt-in that scene he definitely falls into the trap of believing that since he is who he is then these kids will automatically listen to him.

This reminds me, the scene with Colvin and the Johns Hopkins academic really stands out because you can see that Colvin's actions are really only taking place because he feels secure in his future. He's got a Major's pension coming up and a potential six figure job to go to when he retires - of course he's leaving all the guys underneath him behind to deal with the mess he is making, but HE is going to be okay. Of course, his planning ends up loving up both those things - he still gets his pension but at a reduced rank, and Johns Hopkins doesn't want anything to do with him anymore.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Jun 23, 2013

geeves
Sep 16, 2004

quote:

Jimmy and Elena McNulty walk from a science fair with their youngest Michael, Jimmy proudly holding one of those baking soda volcanoes. He tells his son how cool it is but Mike is dismissive and mentions a student who built a computer (!) and indifferently tells his dad he can keep the volcano. Elena steps to Jimmy to ask about the alimony, he’s behind as expected but between that-which he only agreed to because he thought they’d be together-and child support it’s 3000 a month off the top. He asks if her “boyfriend” (Dennis from earlier in the season) can help make up some of the cash and she glares at him before driving away.

This always bugged me. We were shown in Season 2 that Elena is a real estate agent and presumably successful given the types of homes she was selling. If Elena had said Child Support, I would have no problem. But alimony? Please.

Alec Bald Snatch
Sep 12, 2012

by exmarx

Jerusalem posted:

That's the thing, Lester's obsessions are channeled into obsessive research to get a definitive answer/solution, while McNulty's are channeled into using his "street smarts" to get to the result he wants as fast as possible. The way he deals with those maps and charts in season 2 is one of the few times we see him actually using something beyond a mixture of an informant and his own instincts to get to the solution he wants, and that's ONLY because he had no other options. Part of that may be down to time and his exile teaching Freamon how to hone his skills, but I do think that Lester is just a better detective that McNulty, who - like Landsman points out - is too used to the idea that he is the smartest guy in the room when the other guys in the room aren't particularly bright.


Absolutely. That's what I meant by Freamon being wiser; he knows how to be more productive and less self-destructive, though that largely came about from initially torpedoing his own career.

Grumpwagon
May 6, 2007
I am a giant assfuck who needs to harden the fuck up.

geeves posted:

This always bugged me. We were shown in Season 2 that Elena is a real estate agent and presumably successful given the types of homes she was selling. If Elena had said Child Support, I would have no problem. But alimony? Please.

Pretty sure they state earlier on that he agreed to pay that with those papers he signed. He says something like "my attorney says I'd never have to pay anywhere near this amount in court, but I signed it anyway." I don't know anything about family law, but I imagine if a spouse volunteers to pay alimony, a judge would be ok with that.

SpookyLizard
Feb 17, 2009
Well i think it may be time for me to watch the show again. My memory is slipping.

grading essays nude
Oct 24, 2009

so why dont we
put him into a canan
and shoot him into the trolls base where
ever it is and let him kill all of them. its
so perfect that it can't go wrong.

i think its the best plan i
have ever heard in my life
I find it funny how disdainful Bunny is of the academics, both in this episode and next season (when he's disgusted that Dr. Parenti only valued the pilot project as an academic study) when Harvard and several other colleges have created courses based on The Wire. (Granted, at the time this was made it didn't have near the cult following it does now). It's one of those things that I think Simon refers to when he rants about how people miss the point of the show.

Asbury
Mar 23, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 6 years!
Hair Elf

cletepurcel posted:

I find it funny how disdainful Bunny is of the academics, both in this episode and next season (when he's disgusted that Dr. Parenti only valued the pilot project as an academic study) when Harvard and several other colleges have created courses based on The Wire. (Granted, at the time this was made it didn't have near the cult following it does now). It's one of those things that I think Simon refers to when he rants about how people miss the point of the show.

It's an interesting meta-critique that has some flaws.

I mean, I agree with the things Bunny says. I hate talking about the show with my friends here in grad school because 1) everyone loves it, 2) they believe it's written to force the onus of social change upon the viewer, and 3) not one goddamn person I know, myself included, has done anything to solve or prevent the kinds of things The Wire shows (:siren:WHITE GUILT:siren:). In short, just discussing it (even here in the thread) becomes the kind of academic exercise that Bunny rants against.

The thing is, it's a fictional television show. It isn't an exposé. It's based on the things Simons and Burns saw, and many characters are based on people they knew, but in the end, it's still fiction, and any good form of fiction is going to generate discussion. Sometimes that discussion will be academic, sometimes it'll be about character, sometimes it'll be about the production or on-set stories, but whatever kind of discussion there is, there's no sin in having it. Even if doing so seems to miss whatever point of the show Simon rants about.

Asbury fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jun 23, 2013

chesh
Apr 19, 2004

That was terrible.

The SituAsian posted:

(still hard to believe how anachronistic a lot of this stuff is. They might as well be using derringers and driving around in Stutz Bearcats as far as the technology is concerned)

There is a ridiculous number of pay phones still lingering around Baltimore. Like, today, in 2013. I see them everywhere when I go to visit, and a quick Google turns up this ginormous list:

http://www.payphone-project.com/numbers/usa/MD/BALTIMORE/

Great write up, btw.

Frostwerks
Sep 24, 2007

by Lowtax
Bunny's speech at the church is one of my favorite things in the Wire but oddly enough it's not on youtube. Anyone capable of fixing that?

Randomly Specific
Sep 23, 2012

My keys are somewhere in there.

3Romeo posted:

Even if doing so seems to miss whatever point of the show Simon rants about.

Once you create a work and turn it loose into the wild, you lose all control over how it's viewed and interpreted. Simon created a masterpiece and it may be frustrating for him as to how it's viewed, but that's the nature of the arts.

For example, people are going to attach to characters, liking some better than others. Inevitably you get the whole 'Who's cooler, Stringer or Omar?' debate and the like. It may miss Simon's 'point' with the characters, but it is ultimately a legitimate usage of the artistic medium by the customers.

Now I definitely do agree with his point about the critics who now act like everyone always knew the The Wire was the greatest thing ever who were entirely absent when the show was airing. There is an artistic sheep effect that happens with any great work. But again, it's out in the wild and that's life.

Alec Bald Snatch
Sep 12, 2012

by exmarx
I thought Simon's gripe was more with people who only engage the show on a superficial level, doing poo poo like ranking seasons and the like.

grading essays nude
Oct 24, 2009

so why dont we
put him into a canan
and shoot him into the trolls base where
ever it is and let him kill all of them. its
so perfect that it can't go wrong.

i think its the best plan i
have ever heard in my life

comes along bort posted:

I thought Simon's gripe was more with people who only engage the show on a superficial level, doing poo poo like ranking seasons and the like.

It is. I was speculating with the comment about the Harvard courses.

Granted, he does this stuff a lot, I remember he was really whiny when he realized most people don't like Treme, saying something to the effect of them being too stupid to figure out the show. (I have never watched past the first season.)

Fragmented
Oct 7, 2003

I'm not ready =(

cletepurcel posted:

Granted, he does this stuff a lot, I remember he was really whiny when he realized most people don't like Treme, saying something to the effect of them being too stupid to figure out the show. (I have never watched past the first season.)

Which is funny because there's nothing really to get about Treme. I like it because i can get baked and enjoy an hour of music mixed with a side of drama. I must just not get it.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Treme is a wonderful show for me as just a slice of American life. There ARE deeper thematic issues going on, but quite honestly for me the appeal is in just getting to see all these characters act, interact and react to life in New Orleans. Playing great music, making and eating incredible food, and just getting by day to day.

I always think of that early season conversation between DJ Davis and Kermit when I think of Treme.

Davis: Come on Kermit, you could make it big! Do you really want to spend the rest of your life playing these small clubs, eating some barbecue and getting high?
Kermit: .....that'll do! :haw:

Crumbletron
Jul 21, 2006



IT'S YOUR BOY JESUS, MANE

Jerusalem posted:

Treme is a wonderful show for me as just a slice of American life. There ARE deeper thematic issues going on, but quite honestly for me the appeal is in just getting to see all these characters act, interact and react to life in New Orleans. Playing great music, making and eating incredible food, and just getting by day to day.

I always think of that early season conversation between DJ Davis and Kermit when I think of Treme.

Davis: Come on Kermit, you could make it big! Do you really want to spend the rest of your life playing these small clubs, eating some barbecue and getting high?
Kermit: .....that'll do! :haw:

Yeah exactly. I didn't like or dislike the show but I stopped watching because I kind of lost interest, not because I didn't "get" it.

Likewise there are tons of reasons why people watched the Wire or not during its original run. No HBO, no awareness of it existing, age (my reason--I was too young when it premiered), whether you like that type of show or not. It just makes Simon come off as whiny.

"Where were you when The Wire originally ran?"

"Uh, I was a freshman in high school with no satellite TV?"

Ainsley McTree
Feb 19, 2004


My main problem with Treme is that it made me feel stupid/uncultured with startling frequency. Like there'd be this parade of characters that would come on and off the show with no introduction, because they're famous musicians/food critics/something else playing themselves and I'm just supposed to recognize them, except I don't, because I'm not really tapped into that part of popular culture.

I don't dislike the music exactly, I just...don't care about it very much, which sort of became an obstacle to getting the most out of the show.

Alec Bald Snatch
Sep 12, 2012

by exmarx

cletepurcel posted:

It is. I was speculating with the comment about the Harvard courses.


That reminds me of this piece he wrote years ago:

David Simon posted:

Which brings us back to this week in Baltimore and that jury report, the one that everyone had something to say about, but no one actually bothered to analyse. The draft study, which tracked jury trials in Baltimore over a one-year period from July 2005, found that jurors in surrounding, predominantly white suburban counties were 30 times more likely to convict defendants of the most serious charge. Overall in the surrounding counties, the acquittal rate was 27%. In the city, it was 43%. And the disinclination of Baltimore juries to convict drug defendants on serious charges was even more pronounced, according to the Baltimore Sun.

The Sun’s coverage indicated that the report’s author had speculated vaguely as to “population characteristics and socioeconomic factors” being relevant to the statistical variance. The Sun itself provided no additional analysis, reportage, thought or speculation as to why city juries behave as they do.

Again, the why of the thing. The only part that really matters.

Because in my city, we have fought the drug war to the very end of the line, with sergeants becoming lieutenants and majors becoming colonels and city mayors becoming state governors. We have done so for decades, one day into the next, one administration after another, each claiming progress and measuring such in arrest rates, drug seizures, crime stats. And no one asks: why?

No one asks why, with all the arrests and seizures, the availability and purity of narcotics and cocaine has actually increased over the past three decades. No one asks why, with all the law enforcement committed, whole tracts of the city have nonetheless degenerated into free-fire war zones. No one asks why police commanders are routinely able to reduce the rates of robbery, or rape, or assault significantly in any time period prior to an election, while the murder rate – in which the victim can’t be obscured or clerically “unfounded” – stays as high as ever. And now, this week, no one asks why men and women from Baltimore, upon being given a chance to strike a blow against disorder and mayhem by convicting those charged criminally, would shirk their responsibility.

Well, here it is, plain as day…

In order to elect Baltimore’s mayor as Maryland’s governor, crime had to go down. And when that mayor was unable to do so legitimately, through a meaningful deterrent, his police officials did not merely go about cooking their statistics, making robberies and assaults disappear by corrupting the reporting of such incidents, they resorted to something far more disturbing.

For the last years of his administration, Mayor Martin O’Malley ordered the mass arrests of citizens in every struggling Baltimore neighbourhood, from eastside to west. More than 100,000 bodies were dragged to Central Booking in a single year – record rates of arrest for a city with fewer than 700,000 residents. Corner boys, touts, drug slingers, petty criminals – yes, they went in the wagons.

But school teachers, city workers, shopkeepers, delivery boys – they too were jacked up, cuffed and hauled down to Eager Street – hundreds of them a night on the weekends. Some were charged, but few were prosecuted. And in 25,000 such cases, they were later freed from the detention facility without ever going to court; no charges were proffered because, well, no crime had been committed.

I wasn’t arrested. Nor was Ed Burns or Dominic West or Aidan Gillen. Nor were my neighbours or the Baltimore Sun’s editors or the members of the Maryland Club. But then, we’re all white. Among the black members of my cast and crew, it was often impossible to drive from the film set to home at night without being stopped – and in some cases detained or arrested – on nonexistent probable cause and nonexistent charges. The crackdown came wholly in black neighbourhoods and it landed wholly on the backs of black citizens.


And now, just a few years later, comes this document that causes the state’s attorney to deny the obvious and leaves everyone else wondering weakly and vaguely as to the why of it. Is it so hard to understand that the same people who had their civil rights cleanly dispatched, who spent nights in jail because police officers lied on them and dragged them off without charge – that these people might be inclined to disbelieve the word of law enforcement in any future criminal case?

In places like West Baltimore, the drug war destroyed every last thing that the drugs themselves left standing – including the credibility of the police deterrent. To elect one man to higher office, an entire city alienated its citizenry and destroyed its juror pool.

Mayor O’Malley is now Governor O’Malley. The police commanders have all been promoted. A daily newspaper that had no stomach for addressing the why a decade ago when it had 400 editors and reporters, a newspaper more consumed with prize submissions and gotcha stories than with complex analysis of its city’s problems, now has 220 bodies in its newsroom and is even less capable of the task. And nothing, of course, changes.

Yes, such a scenario is grist for The Wire. We could have easily built half a season out of the collapse of the Baltimore jury pool and the inability of city prosecutors to bring cases into court.

Yet there is also something appalling in the suggestion that a television drama – a presumed entertainment – might be a focal point for a discussion of what has gone wrong in urban America, for why we have become a society that no longer even recognises the depth of our problems, much less works to solve any of them.

But where else is the why even being argued any more? Not in the stunted political discourse of an American election cycle, not in an eviscerated, self-absorbed press, not in any construct to which the empowered America, the comfortable and comforted America, gives its limited attention. To know why city juries won’t participate in the drug war any more, to know why they have opted out of our collective dysfunction, you’d have to travel to the other America – to West Fayette Street or Park Heights Avenue or East Madison Street or any other of the forgotten places. And, well, as has already been said, we are separate nations at this point. Few of us ever cross the frontier to hear voices different from our own.

Also, anyone who doesn't read David Simon's blog, get on that poo poo: http://davidsimon.com/

grading essays nude
Oct 24, 2009

so why dont we
put him into a canan
and shoot him into the trolls base where
ever it is and let him kill all of them. its
so perfect that it can't go wrong.

i think its the best plan i
have ever heard in my life
^^^ that is absolutely mindblowing on a meta level, because we see Burrell do pretty much the same thing (actually milder, the way Simon puts it there) after Carcetti is elected. Based on the timeline there, that may have been in the middle of season 4 being shot (that season aired in 2006; not sure when it was shot precisely.)

Ainsley McTree posted:

My main problem with Treme is that it made me feel stupid/uncultured with startling frequency. Like there'd be this parade of characters that would come on and off the show with no introduction, because they're famous musicians/food critics/something else playing themselves and I'm just supposed to recognize them, except I don't, because I'm not really tapped into that part of popular culture.

Yes, this did annoy me. There's a writer (for the Times-Picayune I think) who does great recaps of each episode, explaining every single reference to the local culture, and often in the first season it was the only way I could really get an episode. I understand how one could enjoy the show without it but still, it seemed overpowering, even though the research done into the culture also seemed quite impressive.

SpookyLizard
Feb 17, 2009
Treme is a pretty baller show with some awesome music, but j guess if you dig that sort of stuff whatever. Its a similar thing where the city andor neighborhood is as mich character as anyone else, but there really isnt any sexy drugs or violence to help draw people in, just a bunch of people trying to live their lives.

The only person j really recognized on it was Steve Earle and i only recognized him because i knew him from the Wire.

team overhead smash
Sep 2, 2006

Team-Forest-Tree-Dog:
Smashing your way into our hearts one skylight at a time

I've just started watching Treme and I'm most of the way through Season 1.

For me aside from the general drama and recreation of Katrina and it's aftermath, the show is so far focusing on two things.

Firstly Disaster Capitalism. Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine goes into this with specific reference to New Orleans, but basically the way the democratic wishes of people are overturned in a disaster and capitalist forces use this destruction to create new especially exploitative forms of profit.

The total abandonment of a normal public school system in place of the mass charter schools initiative is something that would have been impossible to do without the disaster. You've got the liveable houses standing empty that Big Chief Detective Lester Freamon wants to see used, but instead stand idle and empty while the poor suffer in foreign cities and FEMA trailers waiting to return to homes that will eventually no longer exist because developers will have replaced them with new buildings far outside their price range.

The people's wishes are ignored and swept away while they're still battered, weakened and disparate from the effects of Katrina in a way that is very out of the ordinary.

The second is the culture. Not just an exploration and indulgence of New Orleans culture, but rather considerations of ownership, exploitation, conflict and deeper meaning.

You're got gentrification with Davis and his neighbours (who are both guilty of it), you have the appropriation of a cultural heritage with Dr Dave John's cover of the Mardi Gras Indians sacred song, the weakening of the uniqueness of New Orleans in the need for commercialisation as tourists come to listen to New Orleans music meaning musicians have to force themselves to NOT play New Orleans because it's not sanitised and easily sellable, etc. Dave Harvey's Rebel Cities goes into this quite well and would be a useful read for someone looking to get some more depth from Treme.

ShaneMacGowansTeeth
May 22, 2007



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


So, which should I start first?

HoneyBoy
Oct 12, 2012

get murked son
The Corner, read it then watch it.

Ainsley McTree
Feb 19, 2004


Yeah, I'd start with the corner, just so you can see where Simon was coming from when he made The Wire (also read Homicide if you haven't already).

ShaneMacGowansTeeth
May 22, 2007



I think this is it... I think this is how it ends
I've read Homicide three times now, and am currently binging through the series (oh it's so, so, so, so good). I've seen The Corner (De'Andre :( ), so... The Corner it is!

Ainsley McTree
Feb 19, 2004


I started watching Homicide, and liked it but for whatever reason kind of fell off around season 2.

It's definitely a show that suffered from being held back by network regulations though. For example that scandalous scene where a detective calls his captain a "butthead", as baltimore cops are prone to do

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming
^^ I also fell off in Season 2 or 3 of Homicide. I was watching the episodes in order and they hosed up and spoiled a huge event because the airdates were not the same as the production dates, and after that I was just like "gently caress it".

Also, your edition of The Corner is so much prettier than mine. And that's the real DeAndre on the cover there! Rest in peace.

I have a used copy of The Corner that I bought from a college bookstore, because it was being used for a class. Not my class, I was just browsing books, saw it, and bought it impulsively. It's pretty funny reading the notes in it, there's a lot of just trying to decipher the Baltimore slang. "Hopper" and "tout" and "runner" are all highlighted, and stuff like that.

escape artist fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Jun 26, 2013

ShaneMacGowansTeeth
May 22, 2007



I think this is it... I think this is how it ends
and his mum too! I also lied, and went with the Re-Up first, as it's a little lighter than the other two. Turns out that it's basically this thread in a book with shorter episode write-ups and comments from various Guardian readers. There's also a little nugget in there which I thought "no, it can't be true": in season two, in the background of some scenes there's an old woman scrubbing her steps. That's all she does, scrub her steps. At the end of the season, we see her again, and she's put a for sale sign up in her house - can anyone watching this confirm it.

And on Homicide the book, looking at the Wikipedia page has just made me realise something. My dad took that book out from the library about 17 years ago, and I only remembered because of the distinct look of the BPD shield on the front cover. I don't think I ever read it, but it's odd that this little journey could have started way back when

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Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:

in season two, in the background of some scenes there's an old woman scrubbing her steps. That's all she does, scrub her steps. At the end of the season, we see her again, and she's put a for sale sign up in her house - can anyone watching this confirm it.

Isn't that the woman who Nick catches looking at him when he's lording it up over Frog?

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