"The Wire" on HBO

yeah glad I'm not the only person who thought Departed was a comedy. running in-joke with my wife is to randomly shout "are you a cawp?!" at each other

The Departed would have been much better if it was just the parts with Alec Baldwin and Marky Mark in it.

i liked Traffic. didn't know there wa a UK version tho! hhmmmm...

Six-part miniseries from the 80s. Spelled with a "k".

leaving work i passed sonja sohn on the street

ws for the ages

at farmers market i saw "santangelo"

My sons (25 and 27) still steadfastly refuse to watch The Wire because...
their parents are into it.
We shoulda shut up about it, rather than getting son #2 season 1 for xmas.
We're considering paying them to watch it.

just started watching this and only about 5 episodes in to season 1, not about to read a 2000+ post thread and don't want spoilers but...

I lol'd hard at the dealin drugs is just like playin chess analogy, really? also the quality seemed to go down a bit after the pilot, and the show's main trick seems to be humanizing the bad guys while taking the good guys down a notch...can't wait for the big plot twists or whatever that I'm sure are coming

appreciate the realism but lol at every payphone being in pristine condition, no doubt thanks to the tireless efforts of verizon to keep this country connected

looking forward to watching the rest of these 5 seasons

chess analogy doesn't really hit hard until the end of season 4 imo

I was lolling more at what a cliche it was, and the straightfaced way in which wallace & the other dude were taking it...like "oh so the pawn...can become a queen..." like jeez come on, can you be any more obvious

I'm with you, dyao. I'm surprised everyone seems to love that scene (I saw it mentioned in a lot of articles around the time of the final season), to me it isn't one of the great moments of the show or anything.

I was totally underwhelmed by season 1. Stick with it.

to be fair that's some pretty profound shit to hear if you're a 16 year old drug dealer

^^see that's the thing; I like how the show in general doesn't underestimate the savviness of the drug dealers, I really liked the scene where Wallace points out Hamilton wasn't a prez, but that scene really felt like the writers talking down to their characters

were talking down

I don't even remember any chess scenes. It should be possible to find other stuff to keep you entertained, if you don't like that bit.

wallace would know about hamilton because he's in school at the time! that's the kind of useless fact they teach you.

i haven't seen the shows in awhile but i recall that scene coming at a downswing in d's fortunes - he's been kicked down the heirarchy to the lowrises. my impression - as i remember it - was that d is trying to impress the lowrise dudes with his worldly wisdom, and maybe even convince himself that he's cut out for more of a thinking man's role than just lowrise enforcer. his spiel is cliched to us, yeah. but i think it gets the point across to his audience. "this guy thinks strategically".

the chess scene is a excerpted as a skit on the soundtrack cd, so clearly someone thinks it's deep. but yeah, it's kind of embarrassing.

tbf gerard manley hopkins would sound embarrassing if you heard it enough times on a sound track CD.

unless it was actually gerard manley hopkins reading it and also composing the soundtrack, then it would be epic 2x

true and true

Obvious and cliche as that chess scene may be, I think it's important not just as an ohhhh. easy analogy way, but in sorting of setting the ground for the drug game narrative they follow. It may be cheesy then, but I think it's more subtly manifest later...

d is trying to impress the lowrise dudes with his worldly wisdom, and maybe even convince himself that he's cut out for more of a thinking man's role

^^^

i own this whole series but my ex wound up with the last disc of the last season, so i never saw the last two episodes. i don't feel real deprived tbh.

???? see them hoos!

what i'm getting at is that by that point in s5 i felt kinda disinvested in the whole thing. in s5 it felt like marlo was still this utterly boring cipher (and that impression wasn't gonna get blown up in the space of the last two eps), mcnulty & lester were being written completely against type, herc & carver were rarely of any fun/interest to follow solo, kima was caught in this uninteresting character loop, and if The Detail was gonna do its thing at all (the group chemistry was among the main reasons i liked the show) it was gonna do it in a severely truncated way.

idk, i just don't really feel like i need to see them unless you're telling me those last two episodes are super stellar or story-resolving in comparison to the rest of the season

theyre not stellar but theyre funny and heartbreaking and resolve lots of storys. its like youve gotten to page 480 of a 500-page book and are like... oh well why bother

i agree that the chess scene is a bit heavy-handed and seems a little contrived. it seemed to me that it's major function was character development - that D'angelo was a thoughtful guy and might be out of place in the drug game.

xp - the last two episodes pretty much just resolve what happens to most of the characters and illustrate the cyclical nature of that society - characters step into roles vacated by other characters.

If the chess scene is d's idea, it's no surprise that a character should come up with a cliché. Writers try to avoid them, but real people don't.

unless you're telling me those last two episodes are super stellar or story-resolving

dude

xp - of course, and there are plenty of cliches that come from the mouths of the characters in the Wire - that particular scene seemed a little incongruous stylistically though.

it's not so much d's delivery of it, but rather that the other two otherwise street smart guys take it hook line and sinker and pretend it's some great apercu

i feel like the writing got better in later seasons, and they started working with the medium more - in terms of editing and structure - to make points/commentary. I want to say, starting around season 3, the show did a lot more parallel construction showing the similarities between the hierarchies and systems of the different groups it was following.

It definitely gets more impressive as it accrues narrative mass. The beauty of later seasons is the precision with which all the intricacies fit together. The first season is basically a superior police thriller.

while we're pointing out flaws can I mention the utter lol that is przyblewski the fuckup making a great insight that his smarter, more competent companions couldn't see

this is foreshadowing.

Prez... The kid's a prodigy.

lol hoos u crazy. last two eps of season 5 are way better than the rest of it, btw.

There's one scene where Carcetti's reaction is hilarious - and should be (if it isn't already) an animated gif

while we're pointing out flaws can I mention the utter lol that is przyblewski the fuckup making a great insight that his smarter, more competent companions couldn't see

― 囧 (dyao), Monday, November 16, 2009 9:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

um thats not a 'flaw' thats called a 'character'

http://www.youtube.com/user/hh1edits#p/u/0/-Sgj78QG9Bg

theyre not stellar but theyre funny and heartbreaking and resolve lots of storys. its like youve gotten to page 480 of a 500-page book and are like... oh well why bother

― max, Monday, November 16, 2009 10:02 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

I have done this many times

I'm also stalled halfway through season 3, not sure if these are related phenomena

http://www.youtube.com/user/hh1edits#p/u/0/-Sgj78QG9Bg

― cutty, Monday, November 16, 2009 6:10 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

did i miss it or did they skip "pinstripe lawyerly affectations"

I'm also stalled halfway through season 3, not sure if these are related phenomena

that is absurd

perhaps edward iii should pitch a slate article about this

did he have hands? did he have a face? yes? then it wasnt us

to be fair that's some pretty profound shit to hear if you're a 16 year old drug dealer

I know that conversation was yesterday, but I find myself very much on Tracer's side about this: what's an embarrassing metaphor to ilxors is not necessarily embarrassing to all, including not only 16-year-old drug dealers but also corporate managers, readers of motivational texts, churchgoers, and really basically 90% of America

that said, as a viewer it's not exactly like some deep stuff, true

I know that conversation was yesterday, but I find myself very much on Tracer's side about this: what's an embarrassing metaphor to ilxors is not necessarily embarrassing to all, including not only 16-year-old drug dealers but also corporate managers, readers of motivational texts, churchgoers, and really basically 90% of America

My issue with it was that it was incredibly close to the content of a scene from the movie Fresh.