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Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Yeah, Avon is the one who says he wants Omar or any of his accomplices strung up like a deer from a hunting trip. I don't think he would have been all that bothered or even noticed if they HADN'T done that, but he's the king and he said he wanted something, so those beneath him gave it to him.

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BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

GoutPatrol posted:

There are some things that "make sense" in the business world that don't work in the drug game and Stringer didn't realize that

https://youtu.be/Oj8JBBAM5jY?si=qgZKG0oKLrE0gQ-J

The CEO telling the workers he made more money with less of you was not a great idea

"is you taking notes on a criminal loving conspiracy?"

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
Imo despite taking the more street level and brutal approach Avon actually does understand the game in a way that Stringer was either unwilling or unable to. Letting Omar's transgressions pass without an attempt at payback would have made Avon's organization look weak to the streets. He was 100% right about that even if his attempts at payback ended up failing.

Avon also understood in an instant what Marlo was all about while Stringer continued to harbor delusions about bringing the streets to heel without using violence.

That's part of the brilliance of the Wire where Avon despite taking a more barbaric approach to things than Stringer is nevertheless revealed to be shrewd and highly intelligent. He understands the game in a way that Stringer can't. There's a reason the King became the King.

Eason the Fifth
Apr 9, 2020
Stringer is probably my favorite character in the series because of how complex he is. Which is saying a lot in a series that is (with a few exceptions) utterly nuanced in its writing. It's fantastic that I can read all these posts about the guy and not once say "No I think that's wrong" because they're all right. He was a great partner for Avon, but his actions while Avon was in prison -- while rational -- were wrong and led to the end of the Barksdale gang. He thinks he's intelligent because he has a literal 101-class knowledge of economics (and lords it up over others, trying to show off how educated he is, talking about market saturation) but isn't smart enough to know that it takes more than a college course to navigate downtown money. He tries to give off an aura of being calm and in control, but he snaps and often loses his self-composure.

McNulty sees Wealth of Nations on the bookshelf and wonders who he's chasing like he can't believe that Stringer is more than just another West Side gangbanger, but what he's really chasing is Stringer's image of himself.

zenguitarman
Apr 6, 2009

Come on, lemme see ya shake your tail feather


That's great because it made me think of D's reading group in prison which I only ever thought of in the context of D's own life. gently caress this show is so good.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

Eason the Fifth posted:

Stringer is probably my favorite character in the series because of how complex he is. Which is saying a lot in a series that is (with a few exceptions) utterly nuanced in its writing.

This made me immediately think of Mouzone, who I've always viewed as the most cartoonish and unbelievably written character. Never liked his "super cool calm badass monotone" delivery and I think the wild west standoff with Omar in the alley and all the back and forth dialogue about guns is silly.

Count Roland
Oct 6, 2013

Ginette Reno posted:

Imo despite taking the more street level and brutal approach Avon actually does understand the game in a way that Stringer was either unwilling or unable to. Letting Omar's transgressions pass without an attempt at payback would have made Avon's organization look weak to the streets. He was 100% right about that even if his attempts at payback ended up failing.

Nah. Marlo thought it reasonable (after Chris convinced him) to not go after Omar until the time was right. He was pissed about that in the end but that was only his own pride: nobody thought Marlo was weak.

Troll Bridgington
Dec 22, 2011

NIGHT DICK

BiggerBoat posted:

This made me immediately think of Mouzone, who I've always viewed as the most cartoonish and unbelievably written character. Never liked his "super cool calm badass monotone" delivery and I think the wild west standoff with Omar in the alley and all the back and forth dialogue about guns is silly.

His confrontation with Cheese is fun at least.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

Count Roland posted:

Nah. Marlo thought it reasonable (after Chris convinced him) to not go after Omar until the time was right. He was pissed about that in the end but that was only his own pride: nobody thought Marlo was weak.

Marlo not going after him cost him Street reputation as evidenced by the end where the two kids arguing on the street are talking about Omar and have no idea who Marlo even is.

Marlo and Avon both felt like such reputations mattered and they were probably right. Stacking bodies might not make financial sense due to the inherent risk involved but not doing it also risks making the next Avon or Marlo feel bold enough to challenge you. And Stringer cared so little about such things that he let the Barksdale organizations muscle deteriorate to nothing. Avon repaired it and was on the way to possibly even winning against Marlo before Stringer betrayed him.

deoju
Jul 11, 2004

All the pieces matter.
Nap Ghost
The original sketch of Biggie's shooter was a black dude in a bow tie, and the Nation of Islam has a history of erudition and violence. :shrug:

Ithle01
May 28, 2013
From what I recall The Wire draws heavily from sources during the 1970's and 1980's when the Nation of Islam would have been much more significant. Brother Mouzoune is actually pretty believable, but anachronistic for a series set in the early 2000's.

God Hole
Mar 2, 2016

yeah Brother Mouzone is fairly true-to-life but he would get owned in the same way Al Capone would get completely owned if he was transported to the 21st century and he tried to rub shoulders with cops and gangsters in a post-WoD world

Lid
Feb 18, 2005

If someone talked to you
The way you do to you
I'd put their teeth through
Love yourself

And thats what they do
The bastards made you
Not want to look like you
So you pay through the nose
To look like someone else
All the weirdos on the shelf

Love yourself

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

Woah woah woah. It was Stringer's idea to brutalize Omar's boyfriend to make an example, right? That’s what caused both of those things.

No that was Avon's, they talk about it on the basketball court including Avon explicitly saying he wanted him displayed on the hood of a car like a dead deer after a hunt.

Edit: I was a page behind

King Of Coons
May 5, 2006

Ginette Reno posted:

Marlo not going after him cost him Street reputation as evidenced by the end where the two kids arguing on the street are talking about Omar and have no idea who Marlo even is.

No, that was because his operation had ended. Snoops dead, Chris is in jail and Marlo is inactive during his indictment.

It’s not like kenard is now a street legend

Count Roland
Oct 6, 2013

Ginette Reno posted:

Marlo not going after him cost him Street reputation as evidenced by the end where the two kids arguing on the street are talking about Omar and have no idea who Marlo even is.

Marlo and Avon both felt like such reputations mattered and they were probably right. Stacking bodies might not make financial sense due to the inherent risk involved but not doing it also risks making the next Avon or Marlo feel bold enough to challenge you. And Stringer cared so little about such things that he let the Barksdale organizations muscle deteriorate to nothing. Avon repaired it and was on the way to possibly even winning against Marlo before Stringer betrayed him.


Stringer handles Marlo poorly. He offers to help Marlo, which Marlo sees as a sign of weakness and immediately gets his people to tool up. But Marlo isn't using deadly violence at the start, his crew 'moves' Bodie's crew with beatings instead of shootings.

Avon, now out of jail, is appalled to see how weak his organization has become. He goes right on the offensive, even though Slim Charles tells him that aside from Cutty there's no other good muscle to be had. Avon orders the attack anyway. An ambush is planned but idiots gently caress it up, two of them are killed. Avon, furious, orders another attack. Slim and Cutty go out themselves, only dropping one boy because Cutty freezes up.

Marlo shows his smarts here and withdraws. Avon rushes in to take the abandoned corners and has found some additional muscle to man them. Marlo sends Snoop to attack the corner, killing one of the muscle.

Avon tries getting crafty, using that girl to get close to Marlo. Marlo is suspicious, and sends scouts, who discover Avon's planned ambush. The counter ambush kills another muscle and injures Avon himself. Marlo personally kills the girl.

After this Avon muscles up hard and prepares to go after Marlo but is interrupted by the police.

Marlo outplayed Avon on the street quite handily. Was Avon about to launch his glorious comeback? Maybe. But he and String had already betrayed each other, so it was not to be. Stringer certainly took the wrong tack with Marlo but Avon did no better and arguably did worse. Avon was the mastermind of the street only in his own mind, just like String was the master of business. When they were working together it might have been true, but divided neither was a match for Marlo.

Ainsley McTree
Feb 19, 2004


That last part is the interesting question to me. If stringer had waited like, 2 more days to betray Avon, would that final push against Marlo have worked? It didn’t look good for Marlo, but then again all the preceding events showed us that Avon was having a hard time actually executing any of his masterstrokes, it could have just as easily been another fuckup that spins the cycle of violence yet again.

At the end of the day, I guess you just have to shrug and say it’s television

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Given how loaded for bear they were, I feel like it would have kicked off a strong public outcry and gotten the top brass making all kinds of noises about how they are not losing the war on drugs* and the Major Crimes Squad would have gotten a brief blip of hope as money, resources and political clout got behind them... right up until the Commissioner and Deputy Ops has as much as they needed for another "dope on the table" photo-op and then everything went back to normal and those dealers who weathered the storm just picked right back up, with Avon maybe back in prison but the Barksdales still running things.

That could have potentially continued to raise tension between the Barksdales and the others, with the New Day Co-Op mad that they ate a lot of poo poo as well for something that Avon did, while without Stringer around Avon is leaning harder on Slim Charles who is having to take on a more administrative role and getting courted by Prop Joe - and maybe Chris and/or Snoop is still around and also getting folded in with one of the other big groups.

* They already lost the War on Drugs.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Jan 21, 2025

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

Count Roland posted:

Stringer handles Marlo poorly. He offers to help Marlo, which Marlo sees as a sign of weakness and immediately gets his people to tool up. But Marlo isn't using deadly violence at the start, his crew 'moves' Bodie's crew with beatings instead of shootings.

Avon, now out of jail, is appalled to see how weak his organization has become. He goes right on the offensive, even though Slim Charles tells him that aside from Cutty there's no other good muscle to be had. Avon orders the attack anyway. An ambush is planned but idiots gently caress it up, two of them are killed. Avon, furious, orders another attack. Slim and Cutty go out themselves, only dropping one boy because Cutty freezes up.

Marlo shows his smarts here and withdraws. Avon rushes in to take the abandoned corners and has found some additional muscle to man them. Marlo sends Snoop to attack the corner, killing one of the muscle.

Avon tries getting crafty, using that girl to get close to Marlo. Marlo is suspicious, and sends scouts, who discover Avon's planned ambush. The counter ambush kills another muscle and injures Avon himself. Marlo personally kills the girl.

After this Avon muscles up hard and prepares to go after Marlo but is interrupted by the police.

Marlo outplayed Avon on the street quite handily. Was Avon about to launch his glorious comeback? Maybe. But he and String had already betrayed each other, so it was not to be. Stringer certainly took the wrong tack with Marlo but Avon did no better and arguably did worse. Avon was the mastermind of the street only in his own mind, just like String was the master of business. When they were working together it might have been true, but divided neither was a match for Marlo.

Well I feel like there's a difference between being strategically smart and tactically smart. At the strategic level Avon correctly understood the threat that Marlo represented and he was right that trying to diplomatically approach Marlo was unlikely to work. The tactics that Avon employed to take out Marlo ultimately failed.

Stringer was wrong from both a strategic perspective and from a tactical one. Nothing he tried with Marlo worked or was ever going to.

As for your last point...I think that Avon understood the street quite well. The problem was like you said with him Stringer not being on the same page. But at one point (for most of season 1 and certainly prior to that) they were on the same page and they ruthlessly and efficiently took control of much of the West Baltimore drug trade.

Ainsley McTree posted:

That last part is the interesting question to me. If stringer had waited like, 2 more days to betray Avon, would that final push against Marlo have worked? It didn’t look good for Marlo, but then again all the preceding events showed us that Avon was having a hard time actually executing any of his masterstrokes, it could have just as easily been another fuckup that spins the cycle of violence yet again.

At the end of the day, I guess you just have to shrug and say it’s television

It looked bad for Marlo yeah but who knows if the hit they'd had planned works or not. Like you said previous events did show that Avon's best laid plans often went astray. Maybe Marlo escapes the attempted hit alive.

FlamingLiberal
Jan 18, 2009

Would you like to play a game?



I feel like Marlo would have been tipped off about the attack beforehand by somebody and escaped.

algebra testes
Mar 5, 2011


Lipstick Apathy
Jay Landsman... I mean the fake one not the real one, is playing a scumbag defense lawyer on this SVU episode.

He rules, as if I didn't need to tell you that.

ulvir
Jan 2, 2005

Alhazred posted:

I think Avon was right when he said that Stringer was "not hard enough for this right here and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there. "

Stringer Bell was a classic example of lacking the correct habitus needed

he achieved a business education, and would probably know enough to run a chain of bars or whatever, but had no lived experience in navigating the world of white-collar corruption which he wanted to rise to

ulvir fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Jan 21, 2025

Troll Bridgington
Dec 22, 2011

NIGHT DICK
I don't know why I never noticed this before, but Prez's fortune cookie was actually relevant to his immediate future.

Never dismiss the fortune cookie

Count Roland
Oct 6, 2013

You'll need to explain the cookie, I don't remember that

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

His fortune cookie is,"A new friend makes himself known", then he ends up shooting an undercover cop (a friend) who was "making himself known" with an identifying mark that Prez (who stayed housebound long after his disciplinary period was over) wasn't familiar with.

bucketybuck
Apr 8, 2012
I don't know why people are downplaying Avons actions in the war with Marlo?

Yes Marlo got a few hits in during the back and forth, but by the end all of Marlos people were gone from their corners and afraid to be seen on the street. (Recall the scene with the gunfire, a kid running and then Snoop pulling up in a car and saying "The gently caress you doing on the street, don't you know theres a war on, man", or something to that effect).

And it is made pretty clear that come the end Marlo was in huge danger of getting wiped out. Slim Charles is sitting outside watching him in a place with very little protection, Avon's crew is about to land with a lot of weaponry, its pretty obvious the show intends us to think this is about to be a huge hit. Because the show needs us to think that, to make the tragedy of Stringers betrayal be even more pointed.

Marlo made a little bitch out of Stringer. Avon got out of jail, started with minimal muscle and within short order had Marlo's people running for cover and got within an inch of wiping out Marlo himself before the betrayal happened.

In terms of a gangland war I'd love to know how Avon could have done better.

deoju
Jul 11, 2004

All the pieces matter.
Nap Ghost
Dunno why, but I just thought about a line from Snoop. She sees Michael and Bug leaving their house and calls them 'Huxtables.' That's the family from the Cosby show. Man, how rough must her family life be if Michael and Bug's family look like a sitcom.

Of course we know what a monster Cosby is now, but we didn't at the time.

Rev. Bleech_
Oct 19, 2004

~OKAY, WE'LL DRINK TO OUR LEGS!~

FlamingLiberal posted:

They were two sides to the same coin. Stringer was the more passive suit-wearin' bidnessman side of the operation and Avon was just a gangster I suppose

fixed

Troll Bridgington
Dec 22, 2011

NIGHT DICK

He was just a simple man who wanted his corners.

Alhazred
Feb 16, 2011




deoju posted:

Dunno why, but I just thought about a line from Snoop. She sees Michael and Bug leaving their house and calls them 'Huxtables.' That's the family from the Cosby show. Man, how rough must her family life be if Michael and Bug's family look like a sitcom.

Of course we know what a monster Cosby is now, but we didn't at the time.
Man, that line aged horribly.

Ainsley McTree
Feb 19, 2004


Alhazred posted:

Man, that line aged horribly.

Worse than the one about ben carson even

Count Roland
Oct 6, 2013

When someone says something has aged poorly I take that to mean it maybe shouldn't have been fine in the first place. Which isn't how I feel about either of those references.

Data Graham
Dec 28, 2009

📈📊🍪😋

It could also be that the phrase "aged poorly" has aged poorly.

(i.e. that both meanings are applicable, not because of ageism)

Kosmo Gallion
Sep 12, 2013
Herc just turned up in Yellowstone. Even wearing a mask I recognise that voice.

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

Mods please perma this sicko!

J/K! Exordia is actually excellent and way less horny than that post might imply.
He's in REPTILE where he plays a, you'll never believe it, shady cop.

Troll Bridgington
Dec 22, 2011

NIGHT DICK

General Battuta posted:

He's in REPTILE where he plays a, you'll never believe it, shady cop.

He was in a season of Reacher as well, but they actually made him a clean cop. His character was quite indignant when he was accused of anything. Part of me wanted to believe he was tired of being type casted or something lol.

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming
Kiss the butt of this lyricist.

RARE, VINTAGE SCIENCE FICTION AND HORROR BOOKS! Updated Feb 7th with more stuff.

Kosmo Gallion
Sep 12, 2013
What does quicklime do to bodies? Why do Chris and Snoop cover their victims in it?

hawowanlawow
Jul 27, 2009

according to Chris it keeps them from stinking

timestamped

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz8DrqzEtyI&t=748s

hawowanlawow fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jan 31, 2025

HootTheOwl
May 13, 2012

Hootin and shootin

Kosmo Gallion posted:

What does quicklime do to bodies? Why do Chris and Snoop cover their victims in it?

Prevents bacteria from decomposing the body, reducing smell

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Criminal Minded
Jan 4, 2005

Spring break forever
I really wanna know in what context Marlo Stanfield owns a golf club



There's no way he's playing regularly, if he just hits the range sometimes you don't need your own set for that. Baffling character note, just give him an Easton bat.

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