"The Wire" on HBO

it is preposterous and sloppily written and unpleasant to watch.

It really does feel like everyone behind the scenes got fired and replaced by scabs. Wire season 5 = Simpsons season 50 or whatever.

TBF (and I’m going to probably get blown up for this) I suspect there’s a mildly patronizing aspect to how audiences come down on Seasons 2 and 5 but not on the others, because poor black people in Baltimore have few options and therefore their shitty decisions are just sad, but white and middle-class black Baltimoreans with access to straight jobs ought to know better than to lie, cheat and steal, and so we treat their OTT corruption with less suspension of disbelief. Not a judgement of the characters or their real life analogues, duh; just in how we watch the show.

interesting analysis, I think I like it for season 2 but season 5 has so many other issues making it hard to disentangle

Season 2 is always going to suffer on the first view because it's not the same story and not the same people (or it takes long enough to return to being the same people) - I think there's a lot of people on this thread saying they appreciated it more on a second viewing.

Huh? The Barksdale crew is there (getting its NPR on) from the first episode! (Or do you mean it takes a while for Major Crimes to get together again?)

That and also the focus is more on the new people (because they're new, even if they're not getting more screen time than the old).

It takes longer for the Major Crimes unit to get together in season 2 than in season 1, which is kinda perverse. But also necessary, as I think I've said a couple times at this point.

I think David Simon said that he didn't anticipate people thinking the serial killer storyline in season 5 was unrealistic because they managed to do the whole Hamsterdam thing in season 3 which is so much more absurd, and which people seemed to buy. The whole series is about people trying to go outside of the rules of the systems, and the systems grinding them down; season 1 begins with McNulty breaking chain of command to get at Barksdale. So in that way it fits, with the desperation of it making it more suited for a last season. But I suspect the problem is it gets tangled up into the character arcs of McNulty and Freamon, where it doesn't fit as well. I buy McNulty being so stupid, but probably not Freamon.

there have been crazier municipal experiments than Hampsterdam

Freamon is leading the MCU towards getting Marlo’s organization when the cuts come down, breaking up his team. I think it makes sense for him to see the opportunity in McNulty’s ruse. This is a guy who started dating his stripper informant in S1.

Hampsterdamn has plausible logic and is a good idea
Serial killer has implausible logic and is a bad idea

Also we are given information about Colvin that make this decision believable: he’s incredibly smart, he’s close to retirement and gives no fucks, he’s basically being forced to make the impossible happen as a last-ditch effort by Rawls.

McNulty, on the other hand, sure he’s a stubborn dumb drunk but there is so much risk with the serial killer thing, with so much at stake, and the goal just seems unlikely to happen no matter what that it feels very much not worth any of this, and it’s still hard to imagine him being THIS stupid

Y’all this is exactly the kind of half-baked plot that Ziggy would have hatched, like this is actually Ziggy-level dumb

No way does Hamsterdam has plausible logic. And Colvin not realizing this could hurt his subordinates makes no sense, and only gets a pass because we really don't know the guy at that point, so he might just be callous.

So Colvin is smart and fed up, so it’s plausible for him to do something that will obviously end in tears and recriminations. But McNulty is stupid/crazy and fed up, so it is ridiculous to accept that he would do something that will obviously end in tears and recriminations.

I think you nailed it right above, though, where you indicated your opinion that Hamsterdam is a good idea and the fake serial killer is a bad idea

Yes, tbf I don't think the show ever presents McNulty's idea as anything but a bad idea.

waaaaaahhhh I just finished the season waaaahhhhh

I have to say, I savored the unraveling of serialkillergate more than I thought I would, almost to the point where it made Season 5 kinda-worth-it

FUCK Dukie becoming a user tho, god that was so fucking tragic

also Prezbo with a beard stunned me w his hotness and I was not expecting that and I have no idea how he got SO much hotter w a beard

I still to this day can't deal with Dukie. That knocked the wind out of me. It's just too damn real.

Same. I try to take comfort in the likelihood that, after trying to fend off a bully fiend leads to the accidental and tragic death of a protege, he'll eventually get clean a few decades later.

it was maybe a little too neat that the two friends step into the shoes of omar and bubbles but it was definitely sad and obviously happens all the time in the real world. maybe not everyone hooks up with a horsecart junkman junkie though.

@sleeve -- it's kind of a grind! The concept is great, the construction of season arcs is great, but some of the acting is really bad. There are a lot of people sitting around conference tables talking exposition at each other. The dock patrol cop in S2 existed to constantly have info conveniently dumped on her. And apparently cars full of cops aiming long camera lenses and binoculars at people is something that is invisible to drug dealers even when they're sitting on the street in broad daylight.

BUT! Some of the characters are interesting and the mise en scene and milieu are terrific. I'll make it through to the end. I'm midway through S3. I'm invested in seeing someone hand Major Rawls his ass.

lmao no comment on that last point

lol

:D

"Tell me - where do you not want to end up?"

awww im disappointed whenever anyone doesnt love it unconditionally

It's not easy to do!

It's got a lot of heart and soul, and when the acting is on, it is on.

But man, there also too many dead ducks throughout the series as well.

WmC those are fair points but you gotta get through S4 at least - you're def gonna be rolling yr eyes some on S5

there is def something kinda bootstrappy and unpolished about The Wire but it's part of the charm

Wendell Pierce is doing Death of a Salesman in London this spring, btw:

https://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/death-of-a-salesman

i think ppl compare The Wire to the well-oiled genre machines that comprise a lot of current water cooler type shows and it's more of a ramshackle beast than those tend to be.

? it's a cop show

but it's not a procedural

it is more sprawling than that yeah

Dickensian, if you will

it's interesting to think of it in comparison to non-American shows that have similar premises and construction -- I'm thinking "Spiral" from France, and "Powder" from India

there was also this British show that ran only a couple series in the late 90s "Supply and Demand" that is kinda a proto-Wire and has Eamonn Walker in it, who played Kareem Said in Oz, which was also a proto-Wire show

It doesn’t get lumped together with its mosaic contemporaries like Traffic and Babel, though it shares an ambition.

I finished watching Oz fairly recently, which is itself something of a proto-Wire and features a number of the same actors. I might have to check out Supply and Demand

BOSCH has some faint Wire echoes but that's really only because the cast has included Lance Reddick, Jamie Hector, and James Ransone, plus the politics of Reddick's character moving up the LAPD command chain are somewhat Ced Daniels-ish.

Wondering if, in 3 years time,, The Wire will get the same 20-year fanfare currently being enjoyed by The Sopranos. Hope so!

I'm rewatching the Sopranos at the moment, Michael K Williams turns up as the guy who shelters Jackie Aprille Jr towards the end of S3

im still on season 4 first time round i like to take this stuff at my own pace

Sopranos? It's worth taking your time over!

xxp - re Bosch -- that character is way more sympathetic as played by Reddick than in the books, where the character is white.

like, they kinda grafted some Cedric Daniels onto the book character

xps nah the wire

also worth savouring

yep

JD Williams had a bit part in The Sopranos, part of a crew (hired by Christopher) robbing one of Corrado's trucks in the first season. Also, Michael B. Jordan had a blink-or-miss-it turn as one of a group of kids tormenting a young Tony in a flashback sequence.