Why no love for 3?

Yep.




By the way, I gotta say one of the most fascinating character rises for me was Bodie. Hated his guts first season because of what he did. But then I was really sad to see him go.

I still think Wallace may have been the death that most got to me.

BODIE IS THE SHEEEEEEEEEEEIT

Its not my favorite, but I'm partial to season 2 as my girlfriend works in transportation and deals in ocean containers on dailey basis. It was an excellent insight into the unions as well.

Okay, I'll grant you that aspect of it being unrealistic.

FYI, the 4 story jump was actually 2 stories less than the event it was based on. True event, btw.


Well, I don't think I'd compare with Valcheck. While he provided the catalyst for Season 2, he wasn't integral to it. The editors were in this season. I completely understand their side and the symbolism when they get their Pulitzer. I just felt the whole arc was underdeveloped. Bubble's Reporter was an awesome line but felt disconnected from the whole newspaper line. And that's a shame. I never really got Gus' real motivations for wanting him to go do this. Other than the obvious, that's what journalism is when compared with Scott.

Well, yes, but that's why I consider it to bee the black sheep when looking at the whole series. It's the only season that's virtually entirely self-contained. Granted, they all are to some extent, but it's the only one that really doesn't have much throughout the rest.

I loved Nick Sobatka's cameo. I also loved the Law and Order guy at the bar. Another small tidbit I liked (Can't remember what season it was in) was Rolles at the gay bar. And that's an example of something that didn't need more explanation. Something better left unsaid or unexpanded upon.

Season 2 was also my favorite version of Way Down in the Hole.

If I had to rate those I'd go:

5, 3, 2, 4, 1

City folk out there: read the metro/local section of your paper. It will depress the shit out of you how often the stories of The Wire repeat themselves in real life. I was reading a story yesterday about the ultra-miserable Kansas City school district. They have a new superintendent, hired with much fanfare, and this story was about his plans in place that will unify the curriculum and boost standardized test scores by six percent or more. I punched the paper away from me in disgust.

Reminding me of another awesome tidbit: The Kansas City Star shout out. Of all the papers.....

The season was bookended by two examples of quality journalism: the adversarial piece about the council president & the quid pro quo, and the narrative piece about Bubbles. There were plenty of good people in that newsroom that made good content despite the out-of-town ownership mucking things up. Those two stories didn't feel disconnected to me. Gus' motivation for wanting the Bubbles story was simply being a good editor and having a good idea of what would make a quality story.

I'm not sure what you are wanting to be further developed. You might just be sad that the show is over, heh.



Season 2 wasn't entirely self-contained. We didn't revisit the docks, yeah. But we didn't revisit the schools from season 4 outside of a cameo or two. I don't see the difference.

Plus Nick Sabatka's girlfriend had them tittay's!!!

Season 2 was the original version by Tom Waits.

My order: 1, 4 (best title sequence footage, too. Chilling with the kids' voices), 2, 3, 5

It was a shout-out to Star TV critic Aaron Barnhart, who was an early believer in the show.

I forgot about that.

I'm watching episode 10 of season 4 right now, and holy shit if McNulty's younger son doesn't look exactly like Ricky Rubio.

Oh, ****! What happens at the end of that episode is the most brutal shit I've ever seen on television.

Chris' beatdown of Bug's pops?

Did you ever see Cy Tolliver beat Veronica Mars cross-eyed and lumpy skulled on Deadwood?

I dunno, it just felt rushed and in need of a good 2-3 more episodes to really flesh it out.

Very true.

No, I didn't mean to insinuate that it was entirely self-contained. I consider the fact that we had the 3-4 kids continue their story-line (along with a Neamon cameo) a big crossover. Plus, you still had the mayor as a big player.

Well, Namond and Randy were just one-episode cameos. They had reached end-points in terms of story-telling. What else could Simon & Burns say about them that serves the story? Michael & Dukie had their fates still very much up in arms, as they entered into Marlo's world.

I think Randy could have had a much more fleshed out story. What that would be? I'm not entirely sure but it felt like I could have seen more of his transformation from the kid that knew he was going down for being a snitch to the guy who pushes people down stairs and storms out of an interview. I felt like Carver could have gone and visited him or tried, once again, to take him in. Who knows.

I just felt like 5 was paced differently than the rest. The rest were methodical builds whereas 5 just kinda I'm faking murders, it's going downhill really fast, he's forging articles bam done.


Don't get me wrong, it's not bad. I just thought there could have been more to it.

There could have been more, I suppose. 5 was two episodes short after all. But I'm having a tough time thinking of things that would both fill that time and serve the story. Anything that I think of would just be unnecessary fan-service.

Randy went from sweet, promising kid with an honest-to-god shot at getting out to being an angry, hopeless lost cause. I don't really think they needed to wade much further into that.

All of the seasons were great. In terms of how I enjoyed them, I'd rank them: 1, 2, 4, 3, 5. But if I ranked them on how "good" they were, I'd put season 4 at the top. Season 5 is easily the worst season though.

See, I wanted to see more of that transformation as Randy was one of the four I really cared about. They did more for Neamon than Randy which I thought was sad because Neamon was more of a Colvin story than a Neamon story.

That'd just be fan service, though. As soon as Randy walked into that group home, you knew what his fate would be. His season 5 cameo simply confirmed it. Showing the transformation wouldn't say anything that wasn't already said.

True, I guess.

:hmmm:

I'm telling you, I can think of many scenes that I would have loved to see. But if I take a critical lens to those desires, I come up with nothing that wouldn't simply be extraneous.

Instead of wishing that there was more of The Wire, these days I just lament that there aren't more shows as good as The Wire.

I wanted Omar to raise Stringer from the dead and for those two to become lovers, but we get what we need, not what we want.

:(

So... I'm reading David Simon & Ed Burns' book The Corner, and I stumbled upon a small passage that may give some insight as to why The Wire's theme song is "Way Down in the Hole." From pgs. 38-93:

...In Baltimore, anyone can sell anywhere, so long as there are fiends willing to pay. Now, a drug corner is all about product and name recognition.

"Got orange tops."

"Big Whites. Big white bags."

"Reds. Red tops. Reds make you sparkle. Red tops."

And, as always, "In the Hole."

Black Beauty, a dark-skinned tout know for her hard look, is busy touting today for that crew, which sells heroin under a brand name that has its origin in local geography. Perfectly isolated, the back alley that runs between Mount and Vincent on the south side of Fayette has long been known as the Hole. In service of that brand, Black Beauty walks a tight circle on Mount Street, barking in mindless repetition, like a mating bird left lonesome in the spring.

"In the Hole. In the Hole. In the Hole."

Even just reading this thread brings a smile to my face.

I've seen most of season 1 3 times through, just waiting for my roommate to finish the Finale of Season 1 so I can get to season 2 again. The rest of the series I've only seen once.

I cannot wait til he gets there. Season 2 is this shit.

I was talking yesterday with my friend Stephen, who is the Midwest Region President of Sigma Tau Delta (the international honor society for students of English/Literature) and the two of us are going to organize and present a panel of scholarship on The Wire at next year's Sigma Tau Delta international convention.

Are you going to focus on one theme of the Wire, or just the overall show itself?

Cool. Do you have to be Sigma Tau Delta to submit a paper?

I doubt that the panel will be super-focused on one aspect of the show , though individual papers can certainly be. We just formed the idea yesterday, and neither of us have the papers that we plan to anchor the panel with written yet.

Yes. Depending on how many English classes you've taken you may meet your chapter's qualifications already. Someone on UNI's English faculty will be the chapter sponsor.

I haven't taken any :(

If you have a spare half-hour, read this new, long interview with David Simon that's all about The Wire: http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n12/h...-simon-280.php

$90 on Amazon.com today only.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/goldbox/ref=cs_top_nav_gb27

Damn, I wish I wasn't busy this weekend.

http://movingmountainsnyc.org/paintball2010.php

You mean you wish you weren't busy and had an extra $2500 to drop on meeting the cast of The Wire?

So, I just finished this series. Great stuff.

I still am a bit confused as to what makes Season 4 the "best," though. I've heard that from several people. Maybe it just resonates with them more personally.

Depends on who you ask.

Generally people will choose season 1 or 4.

4 was just amazing because you got to see where the whole street lifestyle begins, with kids. They have to live through shit and it explains why they are as hard as they are when they grow up.

That and the whole mayoral election.

I guess. I really loved Season 3, though. It was probably my favorite. Season 5 was pretty cool to me, too.

I guess my order would be 3,5,4,1,2.

Bumping my favorite thread because tonight, I begin a rewatch.

YES!

Hey, Check out McNulty in that movie "Centurion"... It's not a huge part, but he's great in it. And it's a good movie...

Might be a repost, but Simon's other Baltimore drug scene show was called "The Corner", based on a book he wrote. I recommend both.

baltimoresun.com

More than 30, including 'Snoop' of 'Wire,' arrested in drug raids

Pre-dawn action by city, state, federal agencies targets heroin, marijuana operation

By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun

7:13 AM EST, March 10, 2011



More than 30 people, including the actress known as "Snoop" from the Baltimore-based HBO series "The Wire," were arrested Thursday morning across the city and its surrounding counties in connection with a large-scale heroin and marijuana operation.

Raids were carried out in the pre-dawn hours by agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Baltimore police and a slew of other federal and state law enforcement agencies.

Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, known for her drug-assassin character on "The Wire," was taken into custody at a downtown apartment on a state warrant, officials said.

The actress has a troubled past, having been convicted at age 14 of second-degree murder. More recently, she refused to testify as a witness at a murder trial and was arrested at her then-Northeast Baltimore home.

The arrests are part of a five-month drug investigation, officials said.

1) I'm just now getting around to watching this (finished Season 2). No hyperbole, it's on the short list for best show EVAH.

2) If you haven't read the 19th century novelization of the "F**k scene", I highly recommend it.

http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/2011/0...ury-literature

You'll be glad to know then that season 2 is usually seen as the weakest one.

I absolutely loved Season 2. People think it incredibly slow, but the story telling was out of this world. Just incredible.

I like it, too. I just like the other season's better. But, yeah, I really like season 2 a lot. It's still great. I think I like 4 the best.

Season 2 was one of the best. I usually rank the seasons 4,1,2,3,5.

I'd probably go 1,2,5,3,4.

4 depressed the hell out of me, IIRC.

The tits in Season 2 were great, I still remember them.

That's why its so good. Make a distinction between best and favorite, please. Cuz no way does Season 4 being effective at what it wants to do make it the least-good season of the show.

Don't get your panties in a bunch, I think they did a better job of showing the strife of a local Union leader or the Union itself in Season 2 than anything else they tried to show in the series. I think Season 2 was effective at doing what it wanted to do.

Stinger sighting (and it's on Netflix instant).

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Luthor had a really good first season. I think I started a thread on it, but I get the impression I was the only person who watched it

I really, want to check out The Wire sometime....come on Netflix!!!

I saw the first 3 eps I think. Since its streaming now I'll watch the rest.

Not gonna happen, at least on instant. Queue it up, pansy. ;)

Gold box deal on Amazon...
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BZ5AFU/...2HK4EKP6APFNM8

$72.49 for the complete series

Ordered that, will take 1-3 weeks but $72 a steal compared to the 140 it normally is. Heard good things about this show but never seen it

This struck me as a humorous understatement. Like, "Michael Jordan? Yeah, some people told me he was a good basketball player."

Jesus? Yeah he was semi-influential

I have a friend that watched the first couple of episodes and never watched another because he "doesn't like cop shows".

On the bright side, he's almost caught up on Breaking Bad in about a week and a half.

Your friend is reeruned.

lol....im excited to watch the show and been waiting for a deal to come

the wire has to be the youngest show that I ever ever seen a KID shown murdered on screen. I can't remember a show off the top of my head that would have the balls to show a kid getting gunned down.

The Wire didn't even have the balls to show the act itself. We don't see Wallace get shot, we just see Poot and Bodie do the shooting with the camera facing them.

Watched the first season a little over 2 years ago, then got sidetracked a couple episodes into the 2nd season. I'm about 8 episodes into season 2 now. What a good show. Frank Sobatka is getting investigated for all the smuggling, I feel so bad for him, all the money he is making is going straight to the union employees, their families, or to pay off politicians for things that are good for the port. Going to be sad when he gets caught.

The good news is, he doesn't get caught. The bad news is, I'm not going to tell you.

Oh no, I had a feeling things might go bad with the greeks. I'm going to stay out of this thread for a while until I finish this season at least. What a damn good show.

Brock, that was ****ing moronic.

Yeah, Frank Sobatka's plight is what made Season 2 so good for me. The idea that someone so corrupt can actually be so good tickled my brain real good.

WTF. I didn't say anything of significance.

Anyone with half a brain could figure out what you mean.

Okay. I apologize if I ruined anyone's enjoyment of Season 2 of The Wire.

I guess you are right, still a disturbing scene

You bastard!

Finished season 2. What an amazing show.

Favorite line from the season:

Prosecutor: "Mr. Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for eight or nine years and live to tell about it?

Omar: [slight pause, slight shrug] Day at a time, I s'pose.

Can't wait til Omar gets even with Stringer.

I just started watching this on HBO GO. It seems to be the only series that it can actually stream atm. But on the 4th episode, pretty good so far. A little slow at first but it's keeping me interested.