I don't know that anyone's not-okay with them -- I just think some plot devices go down more smoothly than others!
― nabisco, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 20:11 (fourteen years ago) link
^^^
― mark cl, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 20:14 (fourteen years ago) link
& w/ hamsterdam, they stared developing that in the last episodes of s. 2. they prob took a full 5-6 episodes before it really was a full on drug market. it just seemed a lot smoother.
w/ serial killer plot, it's like 1. mcnulty happy as western district patrol cop. 2. goes back to MCU b/c shit seems good for once. 3. shit's not good anymore so BAM mcnulty invents serial killer plot to get attention to the REAL criminal. it just wasn't done as smooth imo.
i should prob repeat that i have 6 eps left in s5 so it i could be pretty wrong about it once i've seen it all
― mark cl, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 20:18 (fourteen years ago) link
I just think some plot devices go down more smoothly than others!
I'm down with this - it's just a matter of personal opinion which ones they happen to be (duh).
I felt the killer thing worked alright because the first few episodes set McNulty up to be in an unhinged and desperate state of mind. If anything was unconvincing it's the intimacy with which his character defects seemed to be tied to his professional position - never did quite buy the S4 'I'm a beat cop now so everything's A-OK!'
― chap, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 20:24 (fourteen years ago) link
another thing about the hamsterdamn and fake-killer plotlines that was always in the back of my mind - and this may sound really clichéd - but truth can be stranger than fiction. neither story is unbelievable when one compares it to say the news story a few years ago of the astronaut driving across the country with a gun and adult diaper to get some guy she was all psycho about!
― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 20:26 (fourteen years ago) link
for some reason that story made slightly more sense to me when I learned that astronauts wear diapers during launch and re-entry
― nabisco, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 20:32 (fourteen years ago) link
Just bought the box set; will finish breaking bad and homicide and am starting this shit again.
― "I'm smiling. Because that's what i do. I'm always smiling." (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 12 August 2009 20:34 (fourteen years ago) link
i know. but it only makes it *slightly* less bat-shit crazy. there's no pit-stops on your way into high-orbit. the highway, a different story.
xpost
― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 20:34 (fourteen years ago) link
brother mouzone sucked, really stupid character.
― I for one welcome this new Nazi ILX (Local Garda), Wednesday, 12 August 2009 20:54 (fourteen years ago) link
he was based on me :(
― nabisco, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 22:31 (fourteen years ago) link
the only time I felt any sort of warmth for Marlo was when he went over to the condo after Omar fell off the balcony and disappeared. Marlo did this classic double take and said something along the lines of "That's some spiderman shit right there."
― free jazz and mumia (sarahel), Wednesday, 12 August 2009 22:38 (fourteen years ago) link
IRL lols xp
― mark cl, Thursday, 13 August 2009 03:59 (fourteen years ago) link
anyways i just watched what had to be the worst episode thus far in the whole show
― mark cl, Thursday, 13 August 2009 04:05 (fourteen years ago) link
(s5 ep6)
― mark cl, Thursday, 13 August 2009 04:06 (fourteen years ago) link
will post a little more tomorrow but i'll just say that with the serial killer bs the writers seem to have thrown out the window all kinds of shit that they led you to believe in earlier seasons about mcnulty & lester (tho especially lester). ep 6 was just sloppy as hell.
― mark cl, Thursday, 13 August 2009 04:08 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm pissed! more than a little bitter about this tbh, it's like, what happened? tbh tho i should probably just shut up and finish the series
― mark cl, Thursday, 13 August 2009 04:10 (fourteen years ago) link
season five is meta. The whole "what kind of bullshit story do we have to come up with to make people CARE" thing that happens in the police department is an allegory for David Simon's own attitude about his show's relationship to the institutional/social problems it describes. So it's flimsy-on-purpose in a way that is, I think, supposed to be farfetched and slightly irritating.
― Neotropical pygmy squirrel, Thursday, 13 August 2009 04:16 (fourteen years ago) link
in the end it pays off with a couple of excellent comedy scenes imo
― omar little, Thursday, 13 August 2009 04:18 (fourteen years ago) link
in season 5 the first few episodes are ok but a little cartoonish, the middle episodes are the worst shit the show ever did, and the last three episodes are fantastic and heartbreaking. so stick with it mark!
― jerk store (hmmmm), Thursday, 13 August 2009 05:20 (fourteen years ago) link
Even the bad episodes in the middle have some great lines and scenes mixed in.
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Thursday, 13 August 2009 05:24 (fourteen years ago) link
Hamsterdam works in a number of ways - the long setup/introduction, yeah, but experiments with decriminalization are hardly novel in western countries, presumably it will happen somewhere along the line in the US. And most of all because it fits into the arc of the series - solid policy on a human level getting fucked up by the political system.
The serial killer plotline was just unbelievable too me - it relied entirely too much on believing that beat cops who were involved wouldn't say anything, no one would trace any of the events/calls/etc. back to McNulty, etc..
― ice cr?m paint job (milo z), Thursday, 13 August 2009 05:32 (fourteen years ago) link
agreeing on all the above here; the payoff is worth getting jerked around over.
― BOO LIAR BEN KONOP BOO BAD BOO BEN KONOP BOO (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 13 August 2009 05:45 (fourteen years ago) link
S5’s biggest problem is starting production thinking they were only going to have EIGHT episodes – they totally rush the McNulty recidivism/serial killer nonsense in a way that Hamsterdam had the luxury of not doing – it’s halfway through the series before you know what’s going on in S3 but S5 just kind of throws all the toys on the table and starts bashing them against each other
(second most especially: that the connection between the paper/slimy reporter/McNulty & Lester antics is up and running almost immediately, instead of playing out their own strands and then gracefully, glancingly interconnecting, the way other seasons’ plotlines do. [ie McNutty never even sets eyes on any of the dockworkers in S2 IIRC, Major Crimes barely even become aware of Hamsterdam as a unit in S3 – Herc & Carver do, but they’re working the Western] {etc etc} <brackets are fun>)
― more funny and original than, 'ow you say, a penis (sic), Thursday, 13 August 2009 06:01 (fourteen years ago) link
This is also why the end of S5 works so much better than the rest of it – they managed to get those two extra hours before they get that far in, so everything has a chance to breathe better. Though I could have taken a good 40mins of Norman laughing at the serial killer reveleation tbh.
― more funny and original than, 'ow you say, a penis (sic), Thursday, 13 August 2009 06:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Season 5 definitely felt rushed compared the others ... the newspaper people seemed flatter as characters and were probably the least interesting of the non-cop cultures explored in the show.
― free jazz and mumia (sarahel), Thursday, 13 August 2009 08:20 (fourteen years ago) link
i like some of the newsroom people. gus is great, & alma is just...yea she's pretty cute huh? alma's great. i liked the police reporter guy (twigg) who got the boot. scott sucks tho. am totally hoping this guy falls hard. the newspaper boss sucks too.
but that's part of the sloppiness of S5 again - u have a character like scott templeton or the baltimore sun boss who isn't really likable, interesting, or intriguing at all. all 4 seasons took pains to round out the characters, even the characters u tend to dislike or that impede the main protaganists' shit. burrell is total jerkoff but it's really fun to watch him play politics all the time, rawls is just a spectacular asshole, herc is hilarious & shows all kinds of camraderie w/ carver, etc. sucks that season 5 wasn't able to do that w/ templeton, et al.
― mark cl, Thursday, 13 August 2009 12:55 (fourteen years ago) link
am disappointed at alma's showing in the WIRE BABEZ POLL btw
― mark cl, Thursday, 13 August 2009 12:57 (fourteen years ago) link
sorry to belabor the point everybody, but.... the stupidity of whole serial killer plot strikes me as something HERC would do. make up some bullshit story, run an illegal wiretap, & say the information came from a CI? like that is some fuzzy dunlop-type shit.
lester tho? this is the dude who chewed out mcnutty for trying to work stringer when they was supposed to work kintel williamson, same dude who gave all kinds of speeches about how "the only way we make this case is with a voice on the phone" & how necessary it was for the case to work within the confines of surveillance regulations, etc. like if herc was running this whole plot it might be more believable, but instead it runs counter to all kinds of shit u were supposed to believe about freamon & mcnutty
― mark cl, Thursday, 13 August 2009 13:11 (fourteen years ago) link
people are fluid though - these characters are not a fixed set of characteristics - to my mind that's part of the point, that a fucked up system will drive people to go counter to principle
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 13 August 2009 13:41 (fourteen years ago) link
I'll grant you making herc the total focus for season 5 would be amazing balls move, but freamon and mcnulty were on this trajectory from season 1. also, bunk's reaction when he pulls freamon to steer mcnulty right is priceless. i think where the wire may have failed is not making you cynical enough to believe it might work as well as it did, or that a culture of sloppiness in the dept. would help make this happen.
― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 13 August 2009 17:42 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/used-subtitles-to-watch-the-wire-the-writer-says-thats-just-criminal-1773087.html
just been lolling at the translation section in this silly fluff piece about middle-class daily mail writers who don't understand this new jive talk
Baltimore talk Lost in translation:
*The hopper from Balmer carrying a burner
A child drug dealer from Baltimore is carrying a disposable mobile telephone used by drug dealers to stop the police monitoring their conversations.
*Crew up with corner boys for a re-up
An instruction to form a team of young men who can sell drugs on a street corner when a re-up, or a re-stock package from drugs wholesalers, arrives.
*The G pack
A wholesaler's package of 100 vials of cocaine
*He's a Yo
Police term for a corner boy.
*The civilian's carrying weight
An ordinary person who is neither a drug dealer nor an addict who has been served a custodial sentence.
*The Game
Life of a drug dealer in which the dealer accepts a distinct set of ethics in which even apparently minor transgressions may be punishable by death.
*There's been a humble
An arrest or search of a corner boy on flimsy or no evidence, intended merely to humiliate.
*Stash house
A heavily guarded property in which drugs are stored and cut.
*Those Red tops/blue tops/yellow tops are worth a lot of cheese
The colour-coded vials of cocaine (use to identify quality) are worth a lot of money.
*He's not a fiend, he's slinging
He's not a drug addict, he's selling drugs.
*Walk-around money
Petty cash used by corrupt politicians for the purposes of persuasion on election day.
― NI, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 19:30 (fourteen years ago) link
though the article itself doesnt explain how people like india knight *understand* whats being said merely by seeing it written down
also how do subtitles get written? are they taken directly from a script? do they take into improvisation - what if they can't understand something spoken that isn't in a script?
― NI, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 19:31 (fourteen years ago) link
so I understood most of those, I'm so accomplished
― musically, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 19:50 (fourteen years ago) link
tbh i've used subtitles while watching a few episodes but mostly for the technical language the cops use -- all those acronyms, legal terms, all the steps needed to authorizing wiretaps, etc.
you can pick up most of the street language in the first episode imo.
― mark cl, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 20:07 (fourteen years ago) link
and gahhh those translations are terrible
The hopper from Balmer carrying a burner
when was this ever fucking said on the show
― mark cl, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 20:08 (fourteen years ago) link
some of these don't even seem totally accurate, either. A humble is a charge, not a search ... isn't it?
― free jazz and mumia (sarahel), Tuesday, 18 August 2009 20:39 (fourteen years ago) link
We've just finished the final episode. I'm just here to mark its passing, now I can finally open these threads without fear of spoilers.
*pours Jamesons on dvd*
― Ismael Klata, Tuesday, 18 August 2009 23:20 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm stalled out mid-season 4. Dunno if I'll finish honestly
― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 18 August 2009 23:25 (fourteen years ago) link
season 4 finished on bbc2 last night. it picks up in the second half.
― koogs, Wednesday, 19 August 2009 08:30 (fourteen years ago) link
there are a lot more deaths ...
― free jazz and mumia (sarahel), Wednesday, 19 August 2009 08:45 (fourteen years ago) link
NI it depends if the subtitles are meant for closed captions (in which case it includes notes about audio i.e. "singing in background" "cough" etc) or not - but in both cases paraphrases are common - sentences that barely make sense written down can sound fine while spoken, so the subtitler often needs to simplify
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 19 August 2009 09:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Deaths right up to the last episode! That's THE WIRE PROMISE tm!
― sample rants or ?BURNS?. (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 19 August 2009 20:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Interesting thing I noticed about the show's editing -- seems that no two consecutive scenes ever feature the same characters. I'm sure that's not a device the show invented, but it was interesting to realize what an integral part of the show's rhythm that is.
― the kid is crying because did sharks died? (Hurting 2), Thursday, 20 August 2009 00:38 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah one thing i loved about the show was never being sure which storyline it would cut to next, yet w/ all the different story arcs it never seemed to lumber or get messy
shakey the last couple of eps of s4 are really, really great, you should def. stick w/ it
― The Collected Works of Fun Fun (donna rouge), Thursday, 20 August 2009 00:44 (fourteen years ago) link
I have no idea how you can be in the middle of the series and not be compelled to finish it. It took all my willpower not to take some vacation days and just power through the show, I rationed it so I only watched a few episodes a day near the end, I could have easily watched the whole series in 5 days.
― musically, Thursday, 20 August 2009 01:02 (fourteen years ago) link
I watched all of season 4 in one 24 hour period.
― free jazz and mumia (sarahel), Thursday, 20 August 2009 01:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Season 5 was getting on my nerves, put it down for a while.
― the kid is crying because did sharks died? (Hurting 2), Thursday, 20 August 2009 01:12 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, season 5 can do that. The post-condo shooting scene w/Marlo is classic.
― free jazz and mumia (sarahel), Thursday, 20 August 2009 01:15 (fourteen years ago) link