sex scenes in the Wire were all gratuitous nonsense, serving no purpose to the narrative. which was totally not the case with the Sopranos (sorry to keep bringing it up but those poll results make me so mad)
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:32 (nine years ago) link
as to the character thing...idk. for every somewhat caricatured or one-dimensional character (ziggy, the newspaper bosses, arguably marlo) you have prez, or the kids in seasons 4-5, or how grounded michael k. williams makes omar through his acting despite the deliberately outsized nature of the character, or daniels, or carver, or bunny colvin, the aforementioned d'angelo, bodie, etc. etc.
also if you really wanted to you could make "one dimensional" arguments about multiple sopranos and mad men characters.
― i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:32 (nine years ago) link
there is def an undertone of misogyny through the Wire imo, the female characters are all either underwritten or downright horrible
xp
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:33 (nine years ago) link
mcnulty's ending on the show is happier than i remembered, like off the force and off the drink and back home with amy ryan. seems like a pretty good way to end up.
― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:33 (nine years ago) link
you could make "one dimensional" arguments about multiple sopranos and mad men characters.
you could, but there are *fewer* of them, as opposed to like 3 dozen in the Wire
you can say that abt virtually any cable show, even the sopranos quite frankly. i wouldn't say it about either show. though i think the best of the major cable shows w/r/t female character is definitely mad men.
― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:34 (nine years ago) link
misogyny, that is.
mcnulty's problems are based on david simon's marriage self-destruction (pre laura lippman), so there's def bitterness there. but i think about marriage/romance on a whole rather than women. and the way the beadie/mcnulty relationship works out in the end (or daniels/pearlman) seems to indicate the possibility that individual people can figure their shit out even if the overarching things they're part of are kinda fucked, like everything else in the show.
― i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:35 (nine years ago) link
xxp mad men def has the shows it's so frequently associated with lapped in terms of great women.
― i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:37 (nine years ago) link
i just rewatched season 4 and the first few episodes of season 5, and unpopular opinion alert: season 5 is, newspaper editor caricatures aside, really fuckin good.
― i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:43 (nine years ago) link
Season 2 is great because so much huge stuff is set in motion (and ultimately hindered) by Maj. Valchek's personal feud with Frank Sobotka. Feels like real life, sadly.
― Smoothie Operator (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:45 (nine years ago) link
If you think of it as five "acts" it kind of makes sense for the second act to not be the most exciting of them, yet have lots of necessary setup in it.
― walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:46 (nine years ago) link
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, January 13, 2015 10:33 AM (7 minutes ago)
This is ridiculous. So many 1d characters in sopranos and mad men!
― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:51 (nine years ago) link
i remember watching the first few episodes of season 5 and thinking "this is good! why all the hate?" but by season's end it just gets really bad. the serial killer plot and the absolutely dead character of templeton were just awful
― marcos, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:56 (nine years ago) link
also i think i mentioned it somewhere else itt but one of the reasons s2 bothers me is the corny "russian gangster" aspect of the greek and his organization -- even though they aren't russian it just has that totally cliched vibe of unlikeable eastern european criminals as antagonists
― marcos, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 18:58 (nine years ago) link
there is that one russian guy, boris.
― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:00 (nine years ago) link
sometimes i think people are a lot less dimensional than people who consume a lot of drama think
anyway marlo is a psychopath; they're shallow. omar, mcnulty, and carcetti are not ridiculous caricatures. (the guy who plays carcetti is a bit of a ridiculous caricature, and admittedly mcnulty's scenes/plots become redundant except as machinery.) an incomplete list of people i get very emotionally invested in, none of whom are chess pieces except insofar as they are not free: bodie, bunk, avon/stringer, carver, frank, randy, cutty, norman. agree about the sex scenes and the women, tho snoop's p indelible.
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:01 (nine years ago) link
Yes.
― Baruch Olbermann (Leee), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:04 (nine years ago) link
Season 2 is great because so much huge stuff is set in motion (and ultimately hindered) by Maj. Valchek's personal feud with Frank Sobotka.
this is way otm, the shot in e1 of valchek standing in front of the giant window staring up in disbelief+disgust became one of my favorite images in the show when i rewatched it knowing how absurdly consequential this part was
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:04 (nine years ago) link
I'm only two seasons through the Sopranos but it's basically a sitcom
― 龜, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:06 (nine years ago) link
yes!
how well do you get to know people when they are working anyway
― goole, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:06 (nine years ago) link
also cmon fuckin bubbles and his AA arc
― j., Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:08 (nine years ago) link
Sad that for Shakes none of the charactesr on the Wire approach the finely drawn intricacies and inimicable shading of Paulie Walnuts
― 龜, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:09 (nine years ago) link
yeah no doubt
― goole, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:09 (nine years ago) link
true that every sex scene in this is a ridiculous horror
like, to the point where i wonder if they weren't staged and shot ineptly but contemptuously
― goole, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:10 (nine years ago) link
the one thing that is notable about The Wire vs. Mad Men and the Sopranos is that there is a greater diversity in acting styles.
The sex scenes with Kima are pretty good tbh
― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:12 (nine years ago) link
lol dayo you get it
― Nhex, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:20 (nine years ago) link
Paulie is a great well-drawn character fuiud
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:22 (nine years ago) link
many xps to marcos: i wasn't bothered by the serial killer plot at all, i thought it was outre but kinda fascinating and bolstered by the anti-institutional cynicism that fuels so much of the show. as for plausibility, it didn't bug me any more than hamsterdam but i know i'm in the minority on that.
― i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:23 (nine years ago) link
yea i thnk the difficulty i had w/ the serial killer plot was freamon's participation in it, just didn't seem to fly w/ anything we previously knew about that character
― marcos, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:25 (nine years ago) link
i'll always remember the sopranos' subtle depiction of a closeted gay mobster
http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg76/JimmyMarkum/gayvito.gif
― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:25 (nine years ago) link
I envy all of you for whom every sexual encounter is some sort of Richard Gere bodice ripper
― rip van wanko, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:27 (nine years ago) link
probably somewhere upthread is a post from me where i express appreciation for the scene of Omar and boyfriend #2 in bed watching a Beecher/Keller sex scene from Oz on tv
― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:29 (nine years ago) link
It's not about whether they depict good vs bad sex so much as that every single one is done in the same terrible jumpcut-to-fast-fucking style.
― walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:30 (nine years ago) link
not every single one!!!
― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:31 (nine years ago) link
"So let me tell you about this show where the lead character is a ruthless capo of a long-standing North Jersey mafioso family...who has to secretly see a psychiatrist in secret because he suffers from anxiety attacks and he doesn't want his friends to know about it"
*Shakey is startled, spills his mug of coffee* Wow... amazing!!
― 龜, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:32 (nine years ago) link
LOL @omarlittle. That subplot was so weak.
― schwantz, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:32 (nine years ago) link
the first half of the sopranos' final season almost made me say "fuck this entire show, fuck you forever david chase." that show has dead zones in it that the wire/mad men/breaking bad really do not, imo
― i'm tellin you it was kenard (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:34 (nine years ago) link
otm
― Free Me's Electric Trumpet (Moodles), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:35 (nine years ago) link
mad men has so many dead zones such that it's so exciting when something interesting actually happens
― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 19:52 (nine years ago) link
who in the wire has sex that's not, like, horny screwing or extramarital gray area sex or big power-dynamic stuff other than omar and brandon and (maybe) kima and her lady?
― j., Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:09 (nine years ago) link
Shakey otm with people feeling like chess pieces at times. And of course, it's by design, what with all the inspiration from greek drama, and the characters comparing themselves to chess pieces in one of the most famous early scenes. There are dozens and dozens of thinly drawn characters in The Wire, because there are dozens and dozens and dozens of characters in The Wire, and most of them are just utterly ordinary. Fat Faced André, Little Kevin, Sharrod, just to name a few from where I'm watching. There's nothing to them. The two first aren't even that likable. But it's still absolutely chilling when André's afraid about the rats in the vacants, or that look Kevin throws at Slim Charles after they put him in the car.
There's nothing special about anybody on The Wire. They're just humans, and most of them are considered worthless in the eyes of society. It's what makes it all so chilling and tragic.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:12 (nine years ago) link
dude, Andre is just Andre, you are confusing him with Fat Faced Rick
― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:13 (nine years ago) link
who in the wire has sex that's not, like, horny screwing or extramarital gray area sex or big power-dynamic stuff
Daniels iirc
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:15 (nine years ago) link
Old Face Andre, is what he's called. Omar just mentioned Fat Faced Rick, got confused. Also, have no idea who Fat Faced Rick is.
(also, the actor playing Andre is named Alfonso Christian Lover, which is an awesome name!)
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:17 (nine years ago) link
Fat Faced Rick had an issue w/the liquor board and he is later part of the New Day Coop
― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:22 (nine years ago) link
Names of not-pictured-in-show characters on The Wire are some of my favorite details in the show. Shorty Boyd, Eggy Mule, etc.
― walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:23 (nine years ago) link
oh yeah rick and andre are pictured, forgot
― walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:24 (nine years ago) link
"Eggy Mule" is an amazing street name.
― Baruch Olbermann (Leee), Tuesday, 13 January 2015 20:27 (nine years ago) link