"The Wire" on HBO

i feel like the layers of reform/education in 3rd and 4th seasons were still present when the s5 layer of media/information was the focus

yeah - that's true... and school - or at least kids' daily lives - was a big part of the narrative throughout

I think S4 was my favorite. I just loved those kids.

Same here - would have much preferred to stay with them more through Season 5 in place of all that fake serial killer shit.

really if they took out the serial killer bullshit and maybe stretched out the season for a couple more episodes s5 would've been just fine.

pretty much, yeah, I even think the fake serial killer plotline could have worked in way scaled-back form. But it just felt like it went on and on and pushed things off the rails to me.

s4 is good but i never ever get the urge to watch it again, whereas 1-3 i can sit thru quite happily. Then again Prop Joe is my favourite character.

s4 prob too downbeat for my tastes, although it should be.

I read this thread as I was watching the show (earlier this year) so I was ready for S5 to be much much worse than it was

s5 isnt that bad, i think it maybe would have been better if David Simon didn't have such a bone to pick w/ his journalism past? idk

Yeah I watched S5 after hearing how bad it was too - and enjoyed it way more than I expected.

xxpost
I can see your point about the "downbeat" aspects to 4 and, to me, 5 - it was always dark but I did feel a little less engaged with the battle for the streets stuff once Marlo came out on top, just found Stringer and Avon way more interesting as the counter-force to the cops.

But I do get how it made total sense for the arc of the show and its big themes that Marlo would come in to replace them - and he is a kind of great character in his own right too.

i really resented Marlo at first but ended up loving his place in the show by the end

First few episodes of S5 depict a stalled bureaucratic world so thoroughly that this approach can be confused with the show itself being tedious and dull.

Some of the frustration, at least when it was airing, reminded me of Sopranos when's-somebody-finally-going-to-get-whacked conversation around the same time.

i've only watched 4 once or twice, 5 only once. 4 was beyond great but it was heavy, didn't want to just repeat it thoughtlessly.

for me the death of frank sobotka was the first truly powerful wire scene. therefore season 2 is great!

wallace's last scene wasn't powerful?

On a slight tangent: on my second re-watch of S1, Kima's shooting suddenly seems a lot more affected in a trite sort of way, especially the way that Rawls went "I hate ur guts but we're IN THIS TOGETHER MCNUTTY," don't really remember the details of my beef.

Yeah Kima's shooting was when I got invested.

i wonder if it's kind of a counterpart to kima's rushing in to wail on bodie after he hits polk or whoever the alkie cop is. like, things are under control, she's way far away, and she sees it and BOOKS over there so she can get in some kicks and stuff too. more for a kind of performance of solidarity for her fellow cops.

It's pretty amazing in the Wire how even the "good guy" cops don't hesitate to jump in on some massive police brutality when they think it's warranted. Even Daniels wails on that one guy (albeit offscreen)

oh right… what is that, in an interrogation room?

i always think that with daniels that's half a matter of fitting in

yeah I don't remember who. He comes in takes a polaroid of the guy, shows it to him, tears up the photo and locks the door.

Yeah, that was when they got Bird and he's spewing abuse at Kima, and I think in that case it was a lot more personal since Kima is one of his officers.

cutty's story arc is hitting me way harder the 2nd time through

xps re: marlo, yea i haaaaated marlo the first time through, just an unfun hardass who never lets up, but second time around i feel like he's a great character with a really heavy presence, great contrast to avon

xxxp not as much I guess. sobotka's fate was determined in the last second ("your way...it won't work") and he willingly took a risk.

wallace was too much (children killing children) too early (wasn't as invested yet)

Cutty's denoument with Dukie, his line that "somebody out there's able to escape all of this... but I'm not that guy" is just so goddamn sad.

Also that scene where he's running set to Move on Up is amazing.

avon with cutty is gold

I think David Simon saw it a bit like:
1 - Drugs/Police
2 - Work
3 - Reform
4 - Education
5 - Information

I see it like:
1. - The Game (starts off with the murder at the dice game), then there's the chess scene, opponents are dealers and cops
2. - Globalization (you see how the drugs are just a part of the global economy, and how the Barksdale operation gets screwed when their supplier gets busted as part of a larger game)
3. - Capitalism and Reform (this was my favorite season)
4. - Reproducing the Means of Production
5. - Post-modernity (I don't really have a clever theme for this season)

2. - Globalization (you see how the drugs are just a part of the global economy, and how the Barksdale operation gets screwed when their supplier gets busted as part of a larger game)

OTM and prob why I remember so fondly S2 - just blew my mind how they just opened the lens wider to show how the corners were just a speck in the structural big picture. Truly felt that I was watching a political TV show for the first time (and not a show about politics). Also at the time I was working on global shipping policies and I did feel that it was a rather obscure sector that captured a lot of the important stakes of the 21st century economy - the show kinda comforted me in that idea.

4. - Reproducing the Means of Production

nice

been thinking about it a little, i think one of the reasons s2 doesn't appeal to me that much is because there is such a massive cliche in american media of the "eastern european gangster" and despite the quality and depth of the rest of the shows' characters, i just never feel like the greek and his men transcend that cliche. they just aren't very interesting or dynamic characters. i know the greek is intentionally left fairly mysterious in the show b/c that's how his character rolls, but to me, instead of mysterious he just seems to fit the vague stereotype of "eastern european gangster". same for vondas and sergei.

good point - especially in contrast to how sharply observed and rooted in Burns' and Simon's own experiences the street level gangsters, cops, and city hall worlds are

To me, their role is to show how the Sobotka family is completely out of their depth

so i started re-watching season 4, definitely feel like it's the best. there are no false notes, every story in it is magnetic, the boys especially. marlo & his crew are developed so much more. freamon and bunk paired up in homicide flows so well. carcetti bored me in season 3 but the mayoral race is fascinating, watching him so sure he's gonna lose and then it turns. maybe the only thing that's a little over the top is bubbles getting beat on all the time

there's some Omar & Prop Joe gold in 4 too

definitely

omar robbing marlo's card game was pretty satisfying too

just started s4 last nite

had completely forgotten abt dukie :-(

yea...

How could you forget Duquan??

didn't forget. dukie's story was the only one that brought tears to my eyes in the 60 hours of watching this show

that kid was so well cast - all the kids were, but him especially. great performance.

Speaking of heartstrings, the scene where Wallace gets his little siblings ready for school in the abandoned house.

otm

speaking of tears, what about bubs at the end of S4.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/michael-k-williams-cocaine_n_1854966.html

:(

an actor a drug addict, now i've seen it all

(jk it's sad obv. seems like a good guy and glad he's clean)