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So I watched Season 2 again and it struck me on a second viewing just how useless the dock workers are. Like, functionally speaking, their jobs seem redundant. Unloading boxes probably will always require human hands, but even then you just look at their whole world and life and they're basically just alcoholic layabouts with delusions of a golden age on the horizon and nothing but nostalgia on their lips. It makes for a contrast with the utterly voiceless sex workers, who could use the sort of passion and loyalty Frank gives to his union in their own defense, but instead they are easily discarded by everyone in the cast. Disposable to the utmost. It's quite striking, especially when you contrast this to Avon's criminal enterprise. Season 3 demonstrates a bit of the daily life of the "king" in that regard--he gives money to community upkeep, and even with a war brewing, he's clearly intent on putting his wealth and power to work improving at least some of what he considers his intimate territory. He is doing what Sobotka wants to do. Why Avon is successful and Sobotka was not is I think a very interesting question. If you want to maintain the capitalism-critical interpretation of the Wire, perhaps Avon was just a better player of the market because he was a full time criminal?
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Jan 8, 2017 21:12
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 16:25 |
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No, I get all that. I guess what I'm poorly attempting to articulate is more that... Well, when I first watched Season 2, I felt really bad for these guys. You get caught up in all their silly antics and it's kind of a nice break from teh dreary realities of Homicide and murders. It's on second viewing where I find this feel-good feeling more hollow and forced. The desperation is also more clearly visible. Consider the Greek, Frank's money, and the man apparently bankrolling the only effort to keep the dockworkers' jobs intact, even for a short period of time: The Greek finds great value in Frank's capacity to smuggle poo poo for him, but Frank sees his value as preserving this noble tradition of work, this specific work at that. It's all wrong. Frank's biggest value is that of a smuggler--it is his only way out. Given how shallow and pathetic the stevedores' world is (perhaps not all of their own doing, I get that) it stands into sharp relief, though, that all you hear are these loud-mouthed drunks waxing nostalgic over eggs and beer whereas the prostitutes don't speak. I mean, I don't think any of the sex slaves or workers speak a single line of dialogue in any scene where they aren't dead. Even the immigrants McNulty finds are largely incapable of speaking English. They lack a voice. Frank is committing despicable actions, thoughtless to their gruesome consequences until they're shoved into his face, and he's doing it to preserve a way of life that's grown redundant and corpulant. Yet his people have a voice, he is their voice. Those girls are dying to keep his docks afloat. I think you're intended to feel sympathy for the plight of the stevedores, but I find the story is just as effective if you consider them to be a more negative faction, a culture lingering well past its expiration date, and in the process proving to be a source of criminal infection to an already sickly city.
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Jan 8, 2017 22:07
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I do like how Omar becomes more and more unbelievable up into the fifth season. Like, Marlo is a terrifying force of nature in his own right, taking over the streets body by body, vacant by vacant, and the police keep getting schooled each time they try to bring him in. The only problem Marlo has is Omar, who is like the road runner to his coyote. Omar just keeps messing up Marlo's plans, and literally pulls "spiderman poo poo" to evade his clutches. Worse, Marlo's name is quickly forgotten but Omar's rings out. He's something greater than the king. He's a legend. Maybe Michael is picking up on that, playing the legend for himself, seeing how he likes what it feels. I suspect if he ever had his own show or story, you could easily chart him breaking out into his own style of stick-up man over the next few years, but him playing homage to Omar is probably intended to reflect just how deeply Omar "won" his battle with Marlo. Michael was Marlo's soldier, trained by his guys, but in the end he'd rather remember Omar, proving again whose legacy and reputation ultimately endured.
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Jan 10, 2017 17:09
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Jerusalem posted:You're probably already aware, but one of my favorite things about Omar's "Spider-man poo poo..... doesn't seem believable..." stuff in season 5 is that the writers toned it down from what actually happened to Donnie Andrews, the real life guy who provided one of the inspirations for Omar's character. That guy got surrounded by armed guys and leaped from a great height, and he not only survived but had NO injuries. Makes it kind of hilarious whenever I read somebody saying that Omar got unbelievable in season 5. I kinda find it more strange that he'd return most of all. Omar had loyalties in Baltimore, but he skipped town to New York pretty quickly and it seemed he returned to Baltimore largely on whim than anything else (or else New York was too hot even for him). He had his network, but I kind of felt like they were rehashing the Brandon motivation again, giving Omar a character who is motivated it seems first and foremost by revenge. It's a fine excuse for a story to bring him out of his comfy "retirement" but I found it pretty hard to believe that he'd even be able to get word of what happened where he was at, let alone to leave his comfort and take up a brand new fight in a city where literally every major criminal faction has impetus to kill him. Like, isn't he in Aruba? That's pretty far away from the poor neighborhoods of Baltimore.
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Jan 11, 2017 01:20
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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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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 16:25 |
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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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