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The Chicken/Burgers thing between D and Wee-Bey is a great observation. Has that been called out as something that was purposefully done? Because if so, wow and if not, even more wow. I just finished a re-watch the other week... but maybe I'm up for another 
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Dec 11, 2012 20:32
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escape artist posted:Reminds me of the scene where Dee takes his girl-- who is freaking gorgeous, by the way-- to a fancy restaurant. Dee feels completely out of place. Besides, why go anywhere when you can get Lake Trout Sub The comfort of the members of the Street, including the S4 kids, outside of the corners and neighborhoods they know comes up pretty consistently. Wallace being confused by crickets and coming back to say that the Towers are all he knows. Heck, I think more than a few characters in the Street say they've never left the West Side, let alone Baltimore. You can see parallels in D's behavior at the restaurant, and the kids in S4 when Bunny takes them out. They're fish out of water, and they haven't even left city limits. The show makes a lot about how the system can trap you, but I think examples of how limited these people are from a bigger world really illustrates that.
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Dec 12, 2012 14:48
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Can no one recall the scene in season 3 where he's laughing in Stringer's face for just giving money to Clay Davis? He's in a position of power, like HoneyBoy says, he's on their side in a very important game. It is interesting to think of D in the box, Bodie in the box and Cheese in the box. Bird and Wee-Bey don't count because they had both of them dead to rights. D is clearly the dumbest. Starting to write the letter. Bodie waits for the cops to play their hand, gets lucky and then says "LAWYER!" (That and his entrapment defense make me love the character so much) The confusion during the Cheese incident could have played a lot of different ways, but Cheese keeps it cool until the dog is brought up. The cops think they've broken him, and then gently caress it all up. We see so much of Cops vs The Street, but I wish we could have seen more in the judicial sense. What those negotiations look like, what the challenges were in the war on drugs.
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Dec 16, 2012 08:34
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escape artist posted:On that note, I like how people's preconception of the show is that it's "Cops vs. Robbers" when, in reality, it's "The Institution vs. The Individual" I meant more in the sense of the institutions we see. We definitely some of the issues that Rhonda and Phelan have, but what else, ya know? That write up was worth it for the Chicken v Beef alone. Please keep going! Also, hope ya feel better.
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Dec 16, 2012 19:26
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Basebf555 posted:I saw him in The Collection recently and he has only 1 or 2 lines, so to me he was still Bubbles. A flak-jacketed, machine gun toting Bubbles that gets a meathook through the face. Very disturbing to see that happen to Bubbles. Well if he kept firing off like that, he was bound to fall out someday.
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Jan 25, 2013 15:47
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escape artist posted:You're thinking of Johnny. He was given this advice by two elder heroin addicts, and well... and it's slamming poo poo like that. Sorry, I'm a Wire savant... and sure enough, Bubbles and the unnamed elder heroin addict were drat right. They even used the same wording-- if not the same advice verbatim-- when speaking to him. Sadly, they were both right. Oh believe me, I know. Bubs says it to him the first time he and Johnny shoot up together after the photocopy dollar scheme, I think. It was just a joke about Andre Royo's character having a gun and dying  But I guess my wording was off anyway :PAlso, season 2 theme is the best cause I love Tom Waits but season 4 is the most haunting because of the children aspect, of course.
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Jan 25, 2013 21:11
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chesh posted:(Both sides are pushing. Hence, the desk is immovable.) And the symbolism is that they're working against each other without realizing it.
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Feb 15, 2013 14:32
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melon farmer posted:He says when he gets the visit from Frank that he was just tired of being the butt of every joke. Why he had a gun in the first place probably includes some misplaced aspirations of gangsterhood, but I'm inclined to take it at face value that he just got sick of being everyone's bitch and snapped. Yeah, the entire point is that the season lead up to this. Ziggy was the butt of every joke, but well, he had been! He was a gently caress up, and then he actually pulls a good job and then gets shorted on the deal and then insulted. He's honestly searching for a father figure the whole time. He resents Nick because they're so close in age, but he loves it when all the other longshoremen are eating him up. But he doesn't realize it's because he's acting like a fool or buying liquor. And when he kills his duck, that's the last of that from them. So he goes to Glekas with a grand plan, and ultimately he pisses on him too. That's all there is to it, Ziggy just wanted love and respect and he tried so hard but could never really understand how he had to or could earn it. That's why the bruises are such a big deal when he sees his dad, Frank. Frank has never seen the bruises that are in Ziggy's soul, how him being pushed around affected him but now that he's in county lockup with the big guys, well... it's all too apparent. Sorry, I think Ziggy is the most tragic character in Season 2. He gets the short end of the stick, ultimately. I mean, his dad is dead and he's in jail for a double homicide, one of whom is a well connected Greek gangster. Think about what that means for him. EDIT: I also purposely avoid bringing up Frank until the end because that's the point. Frank was never really there for him, he was always with the union. Boywhiz88 fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Mar 1, 2013 |
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Mar 1, 2013 09:37
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Spoilers Below posted:Bodie and Poot killing Wallace If you don't tear up at this poo poo, you're cold blooded. "Y'all my niggas, man." You don't get to see it in the 5th season, but I imagine that well, that's the poo poo that followed Poot. That and Bodie's death.
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Mar 20, 2013 12:34
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Despite having rewatched the show over 4 times or so, I always just want to yell for Wallace's call to get marked pertinent. And it never does  And in many ways, it mirrors how Randy ends up. One little thing makes a whole lot of difference. Marking the call as non-pertinent, letting it slip to Little Kevin that someone told Herc that he was there.
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Mar 24, 2013 19:44
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You know what's funny, is talking about the Koutris/The Greek angle is something that's never really looked at again. The relation of the Federal institution vs how it counteracts whats happening at a state or local level. Remember, it's hard for The Detail to get resources from the FBI because the institution is now focused on terrorism. It's a phrase that had appropriate usage in Breaking Bad, but I would say Kafkaesque is an accurate way to describe what you learn in those last few episodes. There are games being played that no one has any idea about. I think Season 2 has a theme of federal vs local government/people. After all, the FBI is overjoyed about busting the Union. But the Union was the only thing keeping that area intact.
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Mar 29, 2013 04:27
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Randomly Specific posted:Part of that is showing how fleeting the opportunities for major coups are. The Greek is not a comic book villain who's going to come back and taunt the heroes. He knows full well how close he was to getting perp-walked. The FBI maybe gets him out after he's publicly busted, but at that point he's damaged goods and his position in the grand scheme is greatly complicated. So he steps back and lets the boredom do its killing (scores half the detail by the end, right?) and then he returns to the scene. And then you have to ask, who's the real villain? The Greek or the institution that, truly, allows him to operate?
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Mar 29, 2013 14:21
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the black husserl posted:
Jimmy's real legend lies in the vice bust. To be fair, he was outnumbered.
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Apr 15, 2013 00:05
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cheese and crackers posted:I was also interested in seeing a closer look at the transformation of the drug game vis a vis cellphones and the decline of open air markets. I feel like it is important both because it lessens the visibility of the drug trade to citizens and the violence over territory between drug crews. That said, I still think they did a great job and I mostly just miss the Wire and would watch anything even tangentially related to the show. I think this is interesting as throughout the 5 seasons all you see is open market dealing. The idea of open market dealing is crazy to me. And well, I think the way that they play the corners after the towers fall is well done. Carver or McNulty riding up on a corner, clearing it or talking poo poo but not getting gung-ho at that point. I think that's a point of McNulty's and Carver's character, they learn to understand the dealer at some level. I think they can see that the higher ups are the real problem and if you're on a corner, then you're just a poor mope.
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Apr 17, 2013 13:41
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Great write-up, Jeru. I seriously love this season so much and I've really enjoyed your analysis. A couple typos and a confusion of Elayna/Aimee at one point, as an FYI. BUT, the biggest oversight: No mention of Herc's toothpick! The most crucial of props! EDIT: I should probably finish the second part >_< Boywhiz88 fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Apr 28, 2013 |
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Apr 27, 2013 16:52
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Jerusalem posted:It's probably stretching things way too much, but there's also the dealers in the Towers making "competing" products that are just the same thing repackaged to appeal to people unsatisfied with the original. "I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase" 
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Apr 30, 2013 13:43
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I always appreciate the not-so-subtle symbolism of the warehouse belonging to "Pyramid Inc." Drug dealing, the ultimate pyramid scheme.
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May 6, 2013 16:49
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I'm at episode 12 right now in Season 4 and I always forget how bad I feel by the end of the season. I really think that it's because everyone does start so high at the beginning of the season and then everyone just ends up hosed up. And Bodie
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Aug 24, 2013 20:20
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Narcissus1916 posted:Interesting thing about the end of season four - I dragged my mother into watching The Wire this year (she ravenously reads a bunch of crime books and raised me with a healthy love of stuff like Colombo) and I fully expected season four's finale to wreck her. Yeah, Bodie's death was the one that affected me the most. His absence is felt in Season 5. The worst part about Season 4? All of that stuff is finishing up around December
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Aug 24, 2013 20:54
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Ainsley McTree posted:Yeah, I don't know why exactly, but I got really bummed about Bodie's death too (I really hope you stopped reading the thread by now, Combo!). I couldn't say why exactly; he's not somebody that I'd like if I met him in real life. He's a drug dealer, a murderer, he doesn't really give a poo poo about what the game does to the community, it's all just business to him, he's pretty amoral and unsympathetic when you look at what he actually does with his life, but for some reason when you follow his story arc, you're rooting for the guy and it's tragic when he dies. I think part of it is how much time we've had with him that we get to see if things had gone differently, he may have ended up alright. He's a clever guy, he's got a work ethic, but he's also a product of his environment. We see it with a bunch of characters, but the charisma of Bodie and moments like the entrapment dodge for Hamsterdam really help to humanize him for me.
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Aug 24, 2013 21:48
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Sarkozymandias posted:And it ain't the other way. World going one way. People another, yo
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Aug 25, 2013 20:16
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Also, can we talk about Herc? This is the season where he goes from lovable oaf to a person you're screaming at each episode due to his brutishness and inability to do things correctly. Then he gets to loving up Randy's life through his lovely interrogation techniques. When he asks Carver next season about "I bet you think they needed to do me too?" Like, YES HERC. YOU'RE A gently caress UP. Ugh. gently caress your stripes.
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Aug 29, 2013 13:35
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Lord Tywin posted:I can't myself to hate Clay Davis, he's just so drat smooth. Him on the stand is just amazing. Watching Bond and Pearlman's faces fall when he's ranting about "I'm sorry I didn't get a receipt from the poor old woman with arthritis" and everything else, just classic. Honestly, the worst parts of Season 5 are the serial killer, but otherwise everything else is great.
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Aug 30, 2013 00:23
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Skeesix posted:Well, OK not everything. But McNulty doing some dumb poo poo like that made sense. As did the press going along with it. Everything else though... You know, I'm actually OK with the newsroom stuff. Yes Gus is a Mary Sue, but he doesn't win. Scott comes out on top and Gus is pushed back to the copy desk, Alma is transferred. I think it's a great parallel of the police department in the show, but without Gus having a terrible flaw like drinking or cheating. Or are you speaking specifically to the bosses? Because I find them to just be more well-spoken and academic versions of Rawls and Burrell. I mean at one point Gus gets called out for his language and how they're trying to maintain a collegiate atmosphere, and I don't find that much different than the bullshit spewed at police. The whole "do more with less" is a clear parallel between the paper and the police. Also, I think we're a few episodes away from one of the most heartbreaking moments where Donnelly asks Prez if he plans on adopting Dukie, because he's just one of many that he's going to see through the years. Poor Dukie, if only Prez had made that exception, but it's such a sad reality. These children exist in the tens of thousands, and they'll never have anyone that cares about them
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Aug 30, 2013 02:06
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the black husserl posted:I think an even sadder moment is when Carver heroically steps up to the plate and says he will loving adopt Randy. In any other show, that's the crowning moment of nobility for the hero, that's when a crazy sacrifice makes everything right Randy yelling at him in the hospital.
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Aug 30, 2013 07:25
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Dice Dingus posted:Now that I'm going back through these fantastic writeups, I'm really staggered. I didn't pick up on the subtext that Micheal was sexually abused at all. It's completely obvious now that I'm looking back on it. In the 5th season, Bunk is reviewing the cases and when he comes across Bug's dad he even states "you baby bumpin motherfucker." I think he goes to prison specifically for his sexual abuse. Bodie's arc is great for showing how the system traps these people, and the difficulty of getting out. It takes Poot losing him and Wallace to finally make the change. I think Bodie states that it's like he can't even breathe when he kicks out the window in the cop car. Which I find to be indicative of the feeling that a lot of these guys hold.
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Aug 30, 2013 15:26
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Parachute Underwear posted:Why did Lester show Marlo the clock when the arrests happened at the end? I mean I get why, but at that point BPD wasn't supposed to have cracked the code, legally, so why would he potentially tip his hand like that? I don't recall there being any follow-up references other than Levy possibly referring to it, among other things, when he claims there's a lot of stink in their case. The case was supposed to be built around a CI that stated the clocks were a form of coded messages.
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Aug 30, 2013 17:19
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Parachute Underwear posted:Ahhh. I must have missed the part about the CI knowing about the clocks. Carry on Yeah, it's in the affidavit they receive and that's when Levy asks Marlo who knew about the clocks, and Marlo says just him, Monk, Cheese, and the supplier.
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Aug 30, 2013 17:25
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comes along bort posted:It was to get Marlo and his crew to start turning on each other trying to figure out who was the snitch, which is why they got word to Snoop to take Michael out figuring he was the only person not in prison who could've known and was likely to talk. And gloating a little. Lester Freamon is nothing if not a professional poo poo disturber. Not really. Snoop didn't even know the code, I don't think Chris did either. Like Marlo tells Levy, it was just Monk and Cheese. Michael gets targeted because they think he talked to the police about Chris killing his dad.
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Aug 30, 2013 19:02
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comes along bort posted:That's the whole point. Lester knows that they didn't actually have an informant. From his perspective he was making Marlo think that they did, which the affidavits would later confirm. Marlo, Chris, Cheese, and Monk ran through likely sources while in booking, landing on Michael for a number of reasons. Chris points out Michael wouldn't have been the informant on his murder because it would've implicated himself as well, but Monk telling Marlo he'd been acting cagey lately led Marlo to decide it was him. Considering I just watched the 5th season, what happens in holding is that Chris has the murder charge on him and that's why they think Michael rolled. He's not up high enough to know anything about distribution, but he could put the murder charge on Chris and so they wonder if he snitched about that, not the whole operation.
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Aug 30, 2013 20:45
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Ms. Anna's fate is so sad. You can tell she's one of the few good foster parents out there, and the street takes her out too. Randy yelling at Carver, "Huh?! YOU GONNA HELP ME, SERGEANT CARVER?! HUH? YOU GON HELP ME!?" I think it's a good twist that Namond gets out while being the "baddest" of the group, and everyone else suffers. Good writing doesn't make me any less sad though.
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Sep 3, 2013 22:14
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DarkCrawler posted:When he works with Avon as a soldier, I'd say enough to make a decent living and with a large payout whenever he kills someone or protects drug transfers, doing whatever muscle has to do. When he works with Joe he seems to be probably high enough to get "points of the package", AKA getting a percentage of the drugs sold. So I guess something like maybe $50,000 a year as a soldier and something close to $100,000 when he worked with Joe? Haha, I was just about to come in and say that Slim probably got points on the crews he led over Hilltop with Joe after the fall of the Barksdale Empire. It's part of why he complains about losing a few crews to Marlo's package at the co-op, he's losing money! Also, we're getting really close to one of the funniest moments in these last few episodes when Namond gets picked up to go to baby-booking and he starts getting wigged out. Namond:"Yo, West Side be beefing wit the East Side. Boys be getting raped up in there" Carver: *wide eyed* "I, uhhh, I don't think it's that bad"
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Sep 10, 2013 18:39
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Jerusalem posted:Not IN the show itself, but Method Man googling himself after his character dies and finding out that EVERYBODY was celebrating his death was loving hilarious. Please tell me you have the link for this
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Sep 10, 2013 22:45
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Jerusalem posted:There's a point in season 3 where Avon says to Slim (or was it Stringer who said it? I think it was Avon),"Time for you to earn that money we're paying you." Probably some kind of retainer with bonuses for each head.
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Sep 11, 2013 23:37
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One thing I dig is that while they work as a team, Chris and Snoop are very different people. You never hear about Snoop's family, and frankly I'd imagine she doesn't have any. Chris' family shows his motivation for what he does, whereas Snoop's motivation could be viewed as just sadistic. Not to mention that Chris has a better idea of the culture of Baltimore, and maybe even the world in general. Snoop doesn't even know B-More radio stations or music. He's clearly the better educated, more professional of the two and I think that's what shocks Snoop when Chris kills Devar. He's been calm and professional possibly the whole time they've been together and he just loses it. But Snoop isn't even that shocked, she just finds it funny. Same with her grabbing the security guard's badge, it's a trophy that appeals to her but I doubt she can express why it does. It's an interesting relationship for two people who are lumped together due to their association in the Stanfield organization, but probably wouldn't hang out on their time off.
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Oct 28, 2013 22:53
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Ixtlilton posted:And gently caress Herc, he was never good police and now he's in bed with the slimiest lawyer ever. Yeah Herc is probably the street-level officer I dislike the most. McNulty is obsessed with his ego but at least his pursuit is admirable and he's attempting to bring BIG cases through hard work. Herc is self-serving because he wants to have glory and bust heads. He's not about cases, he's about cuffing guys. And his negligence is just so infuriating. From the beginning of Fuzzy Dunlop to the end of his career. I agree, gently caress Herc.
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Nov 10, 2013 23:39
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Orange Devil posted:To a limit. McNulty is more interested in outsmarting a high level yet local criminal than he is in bringing in the really big cases. But that's the difference isn't it? Herc is satisfied with street rips, McNulty wants to bring down a kingpin. Ultimately it's because of their egos and ultimately it doesn't make a difference what either does. If anything, I think Season 2 really drives home the idea that things will keep moving no matter what. It's one of the themes we haven't really talked about too much in this thread recently. I mean, we've talked about the train tracks and the imagery and metaphor of the train, but that's the other thing about trains, they can only go the path they're guided on. And without major changes to the track, without a few switches, it's gonna keep going back and forth the same route. The schools continue to be poor and underfunded, undervalued, and just plain ignored. The police continue to bust guys trying to make a buck on the corner. The drug syndicates find a way to recover, to replace, to restart their business. The newspaper continues to shrink, to lose value in our society. The unions and docks continue to die. And when you think about it, aren't most of the intentions of our characters purely ego? Avon wants war because he doesn't want to lose face on the street. Lester wants to best Marlo because he doesn't like being beaten, same with McNulty but with Stringer. Gus is about the integrity of the newspaper at some level, but he also has his pride as an issue. The closest I can think of characters that are selfless in their pursuit are Kima and Carver. Kima never invested much of her ego into the job, but she IS invested in the job. Carver starts out having to kick rear end and take names, and then he realizes he's part of something bigger, more impactful. It's no different on the street side either. We talk about how "The Wire" is a study of institutions etc, and I think a great job has been done in the recaps to highlight the human element of how the plot moves forward. However, I don't think we've really talked about how human pride and ego is an effect on institutions. How it affects them and allows them to change. The stat juking? The politics in the police force? It's all out of ego/self survival. Hell, Colvin begins to reject that and understand his place in the institution but ultimately, his pride is his downfall. He has to prove himself right, and it turns into a liability in the form of Hamsterdam. Sorry, it's just frustrating to think of the pride of man as factor in these decisions that affects thousands, if not possibly hundreds of thousands, and to know that, well, that's how it works.
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Nov 11, 2013 10:07
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Frostwerks posted:Where's Wallace, String? He was the lead for Fruitvale Station, I think he's doing OK.
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Jan 6, 2014 22:24
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Ainsley McTree posted:Somebody stabbed Slim Charles http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/dc/2014/08/03/dc-police-man-stabbed-at-dc-cafe-asia-club/13544593/ And I just got to season 3 on my annual rewatch. Glad to know he's OK though. It's fun to rewatch this on my own after the thread last year. I find myself looking more and more for the little things.
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Aug 3, 2014 22:13
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nuzak posted:Yeah, she's not Chris, but she completely owns the scenes she's in. I think when you know her actual background it's even scarier. While Snoop was an exaggeration, she was a hitter years before The Wire. In fact, she shot a girl down and the girl's mom was pissed that Snoop had the role she did because the mom felt it promoted Snoop's actions.
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Aug 6, 2014 13:54
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