"The Wire" on HBO

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good point. right down to the zombie/vacant house thing and the fact that the romantic subplot (cutty and the nurse) was completely tacked on.

― lauren, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 14:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Seriously, Dee was my DUDE!

xxxpost!

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 15:12 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't read this thread, because I've only just got to season one episode five

Me too, exactly the same place. Does it stay good through season 2 +?

― Jordan, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 15:14 (seventeen years ago) link

it gets BETTER. season 2 is sort of a "low point" but with a series like this that's a compliment. seasons 3+4 (especially 4) are every bit the equal of season 1.

― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 15:18 (seventeen years ago) link

i think 3 & 4 are better than 1.

― lauren, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 15:19 (seventeen years ago) link

I think season 4's a little overrated but 3's probably my favorite.

Last week I got to talk on the phone with Blake, the music supervisor for the show, and had to resist trying to ask a bunch of questions about season 5 (which he probably wouldn't have been able to answer anyway since I assume he does most of his work in post-production).

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link

did you ask him who's doing the theme for season 5?

― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:13 (seventeen years ago) link

no :(

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:15 (seventeen years ago) link

there's a tom waits version of the theme song floating around somewhere i think. hmm.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:09 (seventeen years ago) link

that was season 2, wasn't it?

― lauren, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link

i must have erased the memory from my mind. i can't stand that dude's style.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah.

That Snoop article is great.

― jeff, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:14 (seventeen years ago) link

tom waits wrote the theme song, it's not a tom waits "version"

― cutty, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I think it's a Tom Waits original, actually... first season was the Blind Boys of Alabama, second was Waits, third was Aaron Neville and the fourth was some schoolkids, as I recall.

― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Season 2 is great! You guys are crazy!

― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Seriously! I might even venture to say I prefer 2 to 3!

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't find the thread where we ranked every single season of the Wire and the Sopranos, but I definitely prefer 2 to 3 now (I think.)

― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, Season 2 may be my fave.

I found a Polish-language (At least it looks like Polish, but I could be wrong) version of the theme song on slsk.

― C0L1N B..., Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Can anyone find that ranking HBO shows thread? GAH I hate the new search engine.

― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:20 (seventeen years ago) link

i love method man: "that shit was unseemly!'

also very happy to see the brief return of kimmie, though for her sake i hope she meant what she said about being retired.

― lauren, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Seeing Frank Sobotka on the "Black Donnellys" hurts me deep. Also, that show sucks.

― jeff, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Jeff on the scrilla.

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:39 (seventeen years ago) link

Man my heart leapt when McNulty thought he spotted Port Authority Cop whatshername in Season 3 and then it wasn't her. I was like "Seasonal Character Returns!! Yes!!" But then she didn't.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:44 (seventeen years ago) link

you mean Beadie? you haven't watched Season 4 yet, have you? I won't spoil how she shows up again.

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah I'm stuck waiting on the DVDs. I guess I could just torrent it, but I've become obsessed with hearing everything over my newish speakers.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:53 (seventeen years ago) link

season 2 lovers be preferring a whiter cast, lol

that snoop article is kinda sad, almost foreboding

― am0n, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:53 (seventeen years ago) link

season 2 lovers be ~~preferring a whiter cast~~

obsessed with the politics of work and capitalism,

lol

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:57 (seventeen years ago) link

ha the other seasons don't touch on that AT ALL

― am0n, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:59 (seventeen years ago) link

</troll>

― am0n, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:01 (seventeen years ago) link

you mean Beadie? you haven't watched Season 4 yet, have you? I won't spoil how she shows up again

Or the last ep. of season 3, even. I haven't seen 4 either.

Oilyrags OTM w/reasons for season 2 love. I think it also has to do with how effectively it metastasized and added nuance to the ideas of the first season. I loved the first season, but it wasn't until the middle of the second that I entered holy-shit-this-is-the-greatest-thing-that-has-ever-been-on-television mode.

Now (or after the third season at least) season 2 looks comparatively shoddy--the ideas and themes introduced are necessary to how the show functions, but adding a different milieu and set of characters who, as far as I've seen, are yet to reappear seems so much less graceful in light of season three (and the Barksdale and police investigation story-lines in season 2) where they're able to the same kind of brilliant expansion while dealing with a set of characters more narratively connected to the first season.

― C0L1N B..., Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Frankly, I'd feel differently about Season 2 if the dockworkers had showed up again at all, I think.

― max, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:12 (seventeen years ago) link

what about the snoop article is foreboding? is she dead?

also, elements of season 2 pop up in the last episode in season 4

― cutty, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Frankly, I'd feel differently about Season 2 if the dockworkers had showed up again at all, I think.

I agree! I'm not saying they should reappear but the season just kind of seems like this weird blemish in a show that otherwise doesn't have to look elsewhere to do what they need to thematically.

― C0L1N B..., Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Colin and Max have made some damn good points. I may have to reconsider my s2>>>s3 stance.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:28 (seventeen years ago) link

"but adding a different milieu and set of characters who, as far as I've seen, are yet to reappear seems so much less graceful in light of season three"

Um the Greeks are still there. They are still providing Prop Joe with the drugs.

― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:42 (seventeen years ago) link

what about the snoop article is foreboding? is she dead?

seems negative about her future in acting, like everything is hinged upon it, chances are slim, etc.

― am0n, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:42 (seventeen years ago) link

I have to say, when she claimed she could play "girly" roles, I was pretty dubious. But who knows?

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 21:54 (seventeen years ago) link

nice race baiting amon

i think season 2 tends to be underrated. i often hear people complain that its the worst season but i found the intrigue behind the whole The Greek crime org. to be fascinating. Season 3 seemed tame in many ways - it was setting up the next season and finishing off the first season, or something.

― deej, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 22:00 (seventeen years ago) link

I think season two is more uneven than the others. That being said the montage in the final episode is one of my favorite things ever. Also I can't think of too many programs about ethnic working class life that get it right. Season two does.

― leavethecapital, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 22:12 (seventeen years ago) link

how do the drugs get in - da dox

who's more than willing to look the other way these days - da guys on da dox

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Right, I understand why, even just practically, we need to know about the docks and that implicitly the Greeks are 'around' for the rest of the show. All I'm saying is that the shift from the second season revolving around the docks to their disappearance from the third seaons (unless you count the "re-elect Frank Sabotka" poster in the montage) is one of the few things on the show that wasn't handled seemlessly. This isn't a complaint or criticizism, I'm just mentioning in relation to ranking the seasons.

― C0L1N B..., Wednesday, 21 March 2007 22:35 (seventeen years ago) link

haha for a second I thought you were saying that Baltimore's big drug connect went through Club Paradox (what people usually mean when they refer to "the dox" around here).

I'd love to know how fact-based the Season 2 storyline is, given how many head shops there are in Greektown.

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 22:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Alex, have you read The Wire: Truth Be Told? It's written by Raphael Alvarez who writes for the show and grew up in a Baltimore steevedor family. I don't think it has quite what you're looking for (making this assumption from the "head shops in Greektown" line) but it has lot of other info on factual bases for events/characters/storylines from the show.

― C0L1N B..., Wednesday, 21 March 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

those head shops (is there more than two?) are more highlandtown i thought

― am0n, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 23:06 (seventeen years ago) link

karmic connection -> the "tibetan connection"??

― am0n, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 23:08 (seventeen years ago) link

WHAT ABOUT PIMLICO

(i just like saying PIMLICO)

― cutty, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 23:15 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah maybe it is more Highlandtown, I've only heard about them second-hand.

haven't read the Wire book, but I definitely want to. in the middle of Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets right now.

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 23:42 (seventeen years ago) link

regarding season 2: the dude i met from the cast told me that pretty much every one of the actors agrees that s2 was a big screw-up. cue drudge sirens!

― modestmickey, Thursday, 22 March 2007 03:04 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno if I'd put too much stock in the opinion of a group of actors who lost a bunch of screen-time in that season.

― C0L1N B..., Thursday, 22 March 2007 03:27 (seventeen years ago) link

well, there was also the totally unrealistic magical reunion of the detail on the s2 case. i mean.. the stuff about the greeks and the dockworkers was important i just think they should've found another way to make a case out of it.. also spent more time on d'angelo, stringer, avon.. especially d'angelo, i miss him. and less time on ziggy, who is like about 20 kids i knew in college and hope to never cross paths with again..

― daria-g, Thursday, 22 March 2007 03:33 (seventeen years ago) link

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