"The Wire" on HBO

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.

lady gaga was a friend of meadows iirc or is that a well-worn fact at this stage

lady gaga wasn't in the wire

also a well known fact

her environmental activism is well known, yes

Gaga had a bit as an extra/friend of AJ's

xp

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

― henry s, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 1:00 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it will not

wondering if there would be so much fanfare without the passing of Gandolfini

There would not - but that is not why it will not.

It didn't have the same fanfare of the Sopranos 18 years ago!

I think it most definitely will? Sopranos, Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, those are kinda the big four.

it absolutely will

yeah, the wire was nowhere as feted as the sopranos at the time.

I mean it's the most thinkpiece-friendly show ever made

there will be multiple articles about the cultural impact of weebey.gif alone

I feel like, if anything, the fact that it was less feted than The Sopranos initially was a contributing factor to its subsequent canonisation. For much of its run, it was the "best show you're not watching". By the last season it was "the greatest show ever made, and you never watched it, idiot"

It then really blew up in the box-set era, while still retaining a sort of cultish appeal. Kind of a shorthand for the in-the-know TV viewer: "Oh, you still haven't seen The Wire?"

Now it's firmly established as one of the cornerstones of the golden age of TV, and it's also just an extremely popular TV show that millions of people have watched, loved, and memed

It will be feted