"The Wire" on HBO

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.

xxp mad men def has the shows it's so frequently associated with lapped in terms of great women.

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.

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.

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.

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

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, January 13, 2015 10:33 AM (7 minutes ago)

This is ridiculous. So many 1d characters in sopranos and mad men!

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 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

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

there is that one russian guy, boris.

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.

sometimes i think people are a lot less dimensional than people who consume a lot of drama think

Yes.

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

I'm only two seasons through the Sopranos but it's basically a sitcom

sometimes i think people are a lot less dimensional than people who consume a lot of drama think

yes!

how well do you get to know people when they are working anyway

also cmon fuckin bubbles and his AA arc

Sad that for Shakes none of the charactesr on the Wire approach the finely drawn intricacies and inimicable shading of Paulie Walnuts

yeah no doubt

xp

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

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

lol dayo you get it

Paulie is a great well-drawn character fuiud

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.

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

i'll always remember the sopranos' subtle depiction of a closeted gay mobster

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg76/JimmyMarkum/gayvito.gif

I envy all of you for whom every sexual encounter is some sort of Richard Gere bodice ripper

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

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.

not every single one!!!

"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!!

LOL @omarlittle. That subplot was so weak.

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

otm

mad men has so many dead zones such that it's so exciting when something interesting actually happens

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?

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.

dude, Andre is just Andre, you are confusing him with Fat Faced Rick

who in the wire has sex that's not, like, horny screwing or extramarital gray area sex or big power-dynamic stuff

Daniels iirc

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!)

Fat Faced Rick had an issue w/the liquor board and he is later part of the New Day Coop

Names of not-pictured-in-show characters on The Wire are some of my favorite details in the show. Shorty Boyd, Eggy Mule, etc.

oh yeah rick and andre are pictured, forgot

"Eggy Mule" is an amazing street name.

There's also No Heart Anthony (Omar's brother).

iirc, Eggy Mule caught a nickel off some feds on a pistol. Or was that shorty boyd.

Wait, I think Eggy Mule cleaned his whole act up.

fat faced rick is forever in my memory bc he once said, "you harder to find than my fat wife's cunt" to stringer bell

shorty boyd cleaned his act up i think

shorty boyd is a character from The Corner

Avon: So what you tellin' me we weak ?

Slim: Boss, I reached out to Black Donnie.

Avon: Okay, spit it out, man.
Listen, stop fucking double talkin' me.

Slim: Black Donnie said
he ain't having any of it.

Said Brother Mouzone
put a hex on all of us.

Avon: What 'bout Peacock ?

Slim: Peacock went and hired
out with some Dominicans.

Avon: What about Eggy Mule ?

Slim: Eggy locked up.
Caught a nickel with the feds for a pistol.

Avon: How 'bout Shorty Boyd ?

Slim: Shorty Boyd went and cleaned his whole ack' up.

Avon: ...

Slim: Yeah, I know. Fucked us all up.

Avon: What we got ?

Slim: Soldier you sent at us, Cutty, he gonna work out
but the rest of them dudes,
I dunno.

Avon: A-ight, listen big man, you about to earn your fuckin'
keep around here right now.

You go out, you get Cutty
and get the best of the rest
and put a hurtin' on Marlo.

I want my corners.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 27 June 2008 05:21 (6 years ago) Permalink