I want to talk about "the Wire" on HBO

xpost Really? that seems like a lot of interpolation but I'll look at the scene again I guess.

yeah, there are weird contrivances.. sometimes I watch again and things make more sense, sometimes not, though, like back in s3 where avon asks stringer where he's going to be the next day, for no reason. why wouldn't he figure out he was being set up - and he looks like he does realize something is about to happen. for that matter in s2 why would omar believe what stringer said about brother mouzone? that's just stupid

Plus, Bubbles subplot, though heavily telegraphed, was also tragic.

Ugh. Anyone else think that McNulty will disintegrate next season? Does anyone get a happy ending?

This is how I read it. I mean, Michael shot him. You could see his face.

Anyone else think that McNulty will disintegrate next season?

I really hope not. He's doing so well! Why do I care so much?

and Bodie kicking in a cop car window because he was mad at Marlo made absolutely no sense

That scene was outstanding!

The worst thing was that everyone who decided they were going to make an active effort to help someone from the projects -- McNutty, Prez, the foster mom, Cutty, Bubbles, Carver, the special teaching group, Carcetti -- ended up disappointed, dejected, demoralized, or worse. Bunny and Namond is a momentary bit of hope, but we'll see if that lasts.

The show needs to finish with SOME success stories, because while the negative stuff is true to life, good things actually do happen, even in Baltimore.

That's from the website. Michael couldn't kill Bodie because the first killing is supposed to be someone you don't know.
And then Michael does his first killing.
I miss Bodie. He could spit like no other.
Bubbles hanging himself and then being embraced by STEVE EARL!? So fucking classic.
Omar re-selling the stash at 20 cents on the dollar - fucking classic. But now I suspect he will die, and that's gonna hurt worse than Bodie. Nothing hurts worse than Wallace.
So.. where are they going next? I have loved every season, and I guess I'm trying to revive the "The Wire" threads of yore. What's next?
My S.O. says it's the media. So - from corners and poh-leese to the docks to the schools - maybe media is the next step.
I miss Wallace.I miss Bodie.

xpost
yeah I heard that too about season five - the national media are coming in already over the bodies in those vacants so I suppose that's where it starts. I miss wallace and d'angelo. d'angelo was so smart, you know, i also don't quite get why he wouldn't know better than to be that outwardly defiant to avon.. but most of all I miss stringer, which is messed up considering he was the one who had them both killed. he's just way too good looking I guess.

method man in the last ep or so - "shit was unseemly!"
re: shooting the hat off omar's grandmother - "it's hard to get good help."
all the co-op meetings are funny as hell
prop joe - "for a cold-ass crew of gangsters, y'all carried it like Republicans an' shit."
"the chair didn't recognize your ass"
poot - "does the chair recognize that we are going to look like some punk ass bitches out there?"

I don't think that was Michael that shot Bodie. though the kicking in the window sort of did make sense, he punches a cop in the first season just out of the blue, pretty much

well, yeah, Bodie is a hothead, they've been consistent about that. but it seems to me that there's a big difference between punching a cop when you're about to be arrested anyway, and kicking a cop car in front of dozens of police, especially in an episode that's meant to underline how Bodie was a smart guy who understood the game and never fucked up for any old reason. it just seemed like a very roundabout way to put him in McNulty's sights, when there are any number of other more logical/legit reasons he could've been arrested.

mcnulty? everything he touches turns to shit. I feel like the writers love the guy, and I'm sick of him, been sick of him since the first season, I think. why'd they claim to have run out of story for the stringer bell character & yet still have more to say about this guy is beyond me

I kind of feel you on that, although the fact that McNulty was pretty much benched and barely present for most of Season 4 makes me think they don't love him/writing him that much (especially w/ Simon stating emphatically that The Wire is not a cop show all the time and McNulty being the most traditional cop show element in it, they might be kind of embarrassed about him initially being the central character and want to downplay him).

"They got Honeynut Cheerios?"

"I can't WAIT to go to jail!"

"Got to, this is America."

I miss Bodie.

Yeah, but Bodie believes in the code of the street, and Marlo doesn't. Marlo is killing dudes, and Bodie YEARNS for retribution. But he can't do it, because he'll end up vanished. It makes total sense to me. I mean, the McNutty part seems completely arbitrary to me.

I apologize for this shameless plug, but it bears mentioning that I've posted a lot of the music featured in this season on my blog:

http://governmentnames.blogspot.com/

I never got that either. It's like he was making a point out of it.

Bodie was pissed off because he saw Little Kevin taken out of the masoleums. Bodie knew he had sent his friend to death. That's why he erupted. everyone is dying for being a snitch, in Marlo's world. But sometimes being a snitch means uttering one sentence in the wrong place.

Omar is the only sane character. Which means he is going to die.
I love Omar!

i was gonna guess that season 5 would focus on prison but that simon interview says it's the media (and marlo and the greeks according to season 4). i have a feeling mcnulty will be brought back but i hope not, he's been done to death. bunk is so much greater.

wire on bet, sopranos on.. a&e i think? january is going to kick ass

Chris' point was, that's not how it's supposed to be, but oh well, times ain't what they used to be.

from the hbo.com recap:

Unable to convince Bodie to flee, Poot finally runs for cover, passing a young hooded boy - O-Dog, one of Snoop and Chris's trainees - who creeps up to Bodie and shoots him in the head.

After Season 1, I think. He marries a stripper who worked at the Barksdale club IIRC.

i think filming begins march 07

Randy and his foster mom are on Herc. Sherrod's on Herc. Bubbs is still breathing, but he's on Herc too. Dude sold a lot of people out this season.

xpost - totally got distracted for a while there - 2008 is what I read for the next season as well. such a long time! :(

also, I knew the outcome of season three before I saw the whole thing but it still kicked me in the gut. the actors are so great - partic idris elba - otherwise.. considering all the stuff he did.. bell getting shot down wouldn't be as utterly tragic as it is. the last few scenes are just amazingly well played, from when bell meets colvin in the cemetery - that's what happens to reformers - and when he's reminiscing with avon. by then it's too late for things to go any other way, and you can see in his eyes that on a level, he accepts that.
I'm rarely sentimental and all, but it's powerful stuff

http://www.hbo.com/thewire/img/episodeguide/season04/ep49_crew.jpg

But it's not just that it's on Herc. It's specifically on Herc because he randomly saw the mayor receive a blowjob. Otherwise Herc isn't promoted too quickly to Sgt., and doesn't completely effect a toll on the lives of the people he "serves."

And on the flip side, Carcetti is mayor because someone in the projects got hit by a stray bullet; otherwise Royce wins the election.

I'm writing this already and the working title is The Wide.

The word "Happyness" in the title has been intentionally misspelled. This is significant to the film's plot. When Smith's character sees a teacher at his son's daycare center writing the word ... "Happyness" on the outside of the building, he tells the teacher that the children misspelled happiness ... The teacher notes it is not important whether or not happiness is spelled correctly, but if the children have it. These words motivate Christopher Gardner to lead a happier life for his son.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's not important whether or not "happiness" is spelled correctly?! Nonsense like this explains why we're raising a generation of children in America who can't read, write or speak decent English. No wonder this country is going to Hell in a handbasket.

(xpost I saw that about Jada in the news this morning. my office is right around the corner from that school! i wonder if there's any 'Pac was here' type landmarks.)

i'd hate to see Prop Joe die, but I'm kinda surprised he made it out of this season alive, considering all the double and triple crosses he sneaked past people, which were kinda Stringer's downfall.

so, maybe the double crosses are another reason why prop joe is highly likely to get killed? unlike stringer, prop joe is not super ambitious & doesn't want to own the entire city, in his own name - and that's so key to what happened last season. hubris. when avon gets paroled & stringer gives him the keys to that beautiful place overlooking the harbor, says they're making so much legitimate money they can have this stuff in the open and in their own names. that seems to matter nothing to avon - he recalls way back in the past when stringer was into "that black pride bullshit" and wanted to own stores & stringer gives him a look and says something about avon being out looking to get an ak-47 and start warring.

I watched season three very recently - sort of fast forwarded through parts and have to go back and pay closer attention to all the scenes at police HQ and with Carcetti - they don't tell you a lot about marlo. Stringer tries to talk sense to him about the history of the drug trade in baltimore & what happened to all those guys, and what's interesting is his angle that basically.. the government wants them all out there fighting over scraps and killing each other, so why do it. marlo leaves the meeting and immediately orders chris to go arm their people. I don't know if it's this season or last where another character tries once again to tell marlo what's happened to all the guys who wore the crown (most of them dead) and marlo's response is, now it's my turn.

so, the wire being what it is, leads me to think avon and marlo end up in jail for a long, long time even though they both want to go out like stringer did, and it's stringer and prop joe who get killed because neither of them wanted that.

for instance, what was the truly unpardonable thing about d'angelo's death? that it was ordered or the way it was done? googling on some theory books I used to read.. "in tragic depiction, the act of hanging was given special significance as an unmanly sort of suicide.."

I almost wrote my honor's thesis on the Corey Haim film Lucas but then I ran out of pot.

speaking of tragedy have you seen the interview w/ simon where he describes deadwood & the sopranos as shakespearean and the wire as greek tragedy (w/ the "institutions" as the gods)? might make for an interesting paper.

It was an abuse of power and position, ordered not because D broke the rules of the game, but because Stringer was banging D's girl.

xpost
oh, I love agamben. haven't read in a couple years unfortunately.
that's exactly the simon interview I read, yes. the thing is, it's an interesting jumping-off point, if I were going to do serious academic work I'd start there, but that doesn't mean I believe he's right - for one, my sense is there's something about institutions playing that role in the domain of tragedy that.. hmm. maybe they do. and that's why it can seem so fatalistic. a meditation but not political in the sense that they're pushing to change these things, they're past believing that's possible and every character that tries gets shot down somehow.

there are even more refs on volume 1, inc. wire outro music

But if that was all there was to it, Stringer might've, hmm, mentioned it to someone. True, D might've turned. But he hadn't. My read was that this was merely the pretext. It's been a while though.

http://www.hbo.com/thewire/cast/characters/cheese.shtml

Randy Wagstaff - Having lost his mother to the streets at a young age and having never known his father, reputedly an eastside corner boy who later became a major drug trafficker..

But if that was all there was to it, Stringer might've, hmm, mentioned it to someone
Maybe. don't know. was kind of a catch-22, avon wouldn't do anything to d, but d was cutting himself off from avon and wanted out - like stringer's view of the situation was correct but there was nothing to prove it as d hadn't officially flipped yet. I haven't seen the s2 episodes in question yet.. and d did give a fair amount of information to the police initially, that's how wee-bey got caught in philly.

Can someone point out a rap song that references The Wire? I have been waiting for it to happen, but so far I haven't noticed any.

There are some references that have been made my mainstream rappers (and a ton of cameos by Wire cast members in rap videos), but most of the lyrical references I've heard have been by underground Baltimore rappers (my personal favorite being Profound comparing himself to Frank Sabotka).

I came down and auditioned for Prop Joe. I am sitting in the office with all the other actors and I’m looking around and all these guys are like super models. You know jackets and ties and hair neatly trimmed and leather shoes. I’m like, “Am I in the right audition?” I had a sweat suit on, I’m a big guy, I looked nothing like these guys. Then the next day they said I had the part. A month later I found out that Prop Joe was a real person and that he was handsome and debonair and a ladies man. That explains the other actors, how I got this part, I’ll never know.

hah
things never change, do they.

did chris partlow say anything totally deadpan hilarious this season or am I just imagining that he did?

also, the scene when the boys get bumped out of the way by a bunch of girls at the opening of school.. "man, these b***hes is on STEROIDS!"

No but seriously NO it is the good Ed Burns.

capping on snoop for not knowing anything abt baltimore radio.

Someone tell IMDB that.

re: Chris and snoop, is that when he puts on "lean wit it rock wit it"? good stuff.

Ed Burns

Date of birth:1946

Photo Gallery:
http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Events/5468/ChristyTur_Charb_11606731_400.jpg

It is!

i thought the stringer-clay davis exchanges were really well done. it seemed like stringer thought davis was shady too, but he also was out of his element and he knew it. he was trying to cross over and he needed someone to show him how. those were the scenes where he seemed most vulnerable, trying to operate in the straight world and getting shafted.

i also noticed that when avon is getting ready to go to war w/marlo and proudly holding up the couple of grenades he'd acquired it came off a little bit.. pathetic.

He's kind of the young, affluent version of those old people getting sold rip-off land and pyramid schemes when they should know better.

and the young people buying those damn condos for $500K when they should know better (I haven't done this, but some days I drive down Massachusetts Avenue and feel like I SHOULD)

Another funny scene to mention, from S3: The first co-op meeting, with the signs:
"Welcome! New Day Co-op!"
at the suburban Days Inn. In a conference room. With coffee cups and saucers and a selection of danishes.
maybe that's the same scene where prop Joe makes his Republicans comment? I'm sleepy, and can't recall.

Thank you all for thrilling me with all of your posts on this thread. It has really, really made me happy to hear all of your analyses and comments - I didn't have to miss "the wire on HBO" so much!
keep going! Post more!

Didn't Prop Joe tell the co-op that Omar was charging 30% to buy back the heroin, thereby arranging for a tidy sum for himself? I swear I saw some exchange where the number jumped from 20% to 30%, but maybe I'm mis-remembering.

clay davis is interesting that way, because it's like pretty much everyone knows he's slimy, but him being slimy is its own kind of protection. everybody knows he can be bought, that he demands to be bought, but that means everyone can rightly see him as a potential ally. since he's enmeshed in the local power structure, it's easier to just deal with him than to try to go around him. and since everyone knows he's for sale, you've got no one to blame but yourself if you don't pay him enough to make your issues worth his time.

Is he? I thought Poot killed Wallace. Am I misremembering who Wallace was?

Season two rocks!

So...Bodie and Poot shot Wallace. D'angelo was upset about it, so he got fake hanged in prison.
Marlo's gang (the first sign of Chris and Snoop? They're on a motorcycle) shoot a bunch of corner boys, including Poot, but Poot walks away.
Bodie, angered by the random killing of Little Kevin as a snitch, because he (Bodie) told Little kevin to go to Marlo, kicks the shit out of a police car and goes to jail.
On his release, McNutty picks up Bodie, and Bodie is seen as a snitch, which leads to his death, while Poot, begging him to reconsider, runs away.
The morality is that snitching is going to end you up dead.
Even if you don't snitch, it will end you up dead. The suspicion of snitching will kill you.
Go Poot!
Season 2 breaks my heart.
Season 2 reminds me of New Bedford and Fall River.

Nah, wait till season 3! You don't shoot at someone who's walking with his grandmother in front of a church, come on now.

re: season 3, I know dude, I'm saying, if you're one of the guys who does work for string & are somewhat competent at what you do, he's a pretty good boss. the thing with omar's grandmother is partly the guys were incompetent, yeah, stringer told them "go" in spite of sunday truce but didn't know anything about where they were or the grandma being there, and plus, omar was already mostly in the cab..

can't believe I'm talking about it like that but all I'm saying is if bell were running a legit company he'd be a decent guy to work for. tough but fair.

that's funny re: new bedford and fall river, you're right. I went to those towns quite a few times when I lived in RI. wonder if the wiseguys are into some stuff up there

overall as great as this show is I still am aggravated by the limitations simon puts on the whole thing with his.. basically conservative worldview, you know? nostalgia for the old days, no hope of real change for the better, reformers get killed or careers ruined. because one way or another things will change. they have to. sure we all hate yuppies in condos, and I'm more than halfway a yuppie myself, but come on - what are people supposed to do? maybe if there were some powerful, politically influential unified sisterhood of strong working women who kept the city running, back in the good old days, I'd be all nostalgic for them too but I'm just not feeling it

although I guess they could name the waterfront property "Yuppietown" instead of "The Grainery," just to avoid adding insult to injury

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=9651

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1941179

!

isn't that true though of an awful lot of cultural discussion? discussions of music, literature, visual art, etc., all presuppose access. some of those things are more accessible than hbo, but not all of them, and in any case probably not very much more accessible to your average inner-city kid. i don't know how those hbo shows could exist without a subscription model; i don't see them being supported either by advertising or public or private grants. and even if simon et al made them all available free of charge to public schools -- which they might, if someone asked them -- it's impossible for me to imagine a public school (or any other publicly funded organization) showing them.

yep

Us and Them has never been clearer to me - I was happy to participate in their world, and equally happy to leave. of course, when four thuggish teen boys walked me to my car to make sure I was safe....it broke my heart a little.
I didn't want to try to be one of those old white adults who think they're really doing everyone a favor by communing with the inner city kids. I didn't try to be any more (or less) "street" than I am - which is zero. I have no street credibility. But then we talked about "The Wire".
And all gaps were bridged, in a way.
I've gone back, a couple of times, to volunteer and hang out. It becomes increaingly obvious that I am the least cool person on the planet - and the kids make fun of me for that. Plus, they make fun of my car.
So, whatever. "The Wire". I'm Prezbo. And I just got hired to substitute teach!

where's holyoke? out 195 past tiverton or is it western Mass? you are so right about the good old boy network running things, so much of new england is rough working class towns and not at all liberal, people confuse liberal for.. well, union workers, catholics, live-and-let-live MYOB attitudes which all tend toward democratic votes but they sure aren't liberal.

if you want to eat crabs, though, get a huge pot of steamed crabs in old bay, a case of beer (natty boh if possible), and a big table covered in paper to sort of keep down the mess. if you don't know how to eat them get a marylander to show you. as far as visiting places from "the wire".. in my experience, just get yourself good and lost somewhere downtown off the jones falls expressway and you'll be right there. I don't think those are good spots to be touristy. but, what about visiting fell's point, visionary art museum, the aquarium.. the real strip club that is orlando's on the show, you could visit that, right? hah

yeah, I have no problem with them ending with 5, but I would be pretty excited if they did that, if only because the biggest latino neighborhood in Baltimore is Upper Fells Point, which is where I live (Orlando's, or at least the exterior shots, also were done there but I guess it was supposed to be in a different part of town). Bmore has a really small latino population, though, at least compared to D.C. or Chicago or most Southern cities, but it is growing.

It just gets more complex the more you watch it. Now I know what's gonna happen, and I can watch S3 (while, hopefully , not falling asleep. My sleepiness has nothing to do with the show.) and see everything.
When my S.O. introduced me to "The Wire - on HBO", it was way before we had HBO, or on demand. I would lie on the couch watching episodes from netflix, I guess. And then watch it again with him! Because I never got it the first time.
It is really hard to figure out the trajectory without repeated viewings.
For me, anyway.
Somebody should watch it backwards, and report to this thread.
or maybe Al is doing that!

My S.O. burned S2 for a co-worker - I think the same coworker who is doing the "Wire" vacation - so she could give it to her dad. Her dad watched it in one sitting! Thirteen hours!
Y'know, so much of the show is about addiction, and yet...watching it is completely addictive, like "get off the pipe! You have been watching that show for thirteen hours straight! You need to stop!!"

or, as Kima said about McNutty, after Stringer's death: "He's acting like he lost kin."

A question about S3 - the girl who was shot, by Marlo - I must have spaced out about that set-up. (her setting Marlo up for a hit.) Who was it?

After that fell through, Marlo & Co. tracked her down and blew her away.

i stopped at the waterfront hotel bar that was used in homicide the other night. need to get one of their t-shirts that say: WTF Hotel

http://www.citypaper.com/special/story.asp?id=11846

and I know there were groups of Homicide fans that would travel to Baltimore and take a tour of locations used in that show, too. I don't necessarily think it's an across the board bad thing, although there are definitely people who aren't doing it with the purest intentions. but I mean, if I spend the weekend in New York and get a little geeked out at seeing some place that was featured in a movie, maybe even, gasp, a movie about crime, does that make me a bad person? I don't get any thrill out of driving through the hood in Baltimore because, uh, I do it almost every day (and honestly a lot of times if I ever do go past a Wire location, I probably wouldn't even recognize it, because so many vacant rowhouses and alleys and corner stores are interchangeable), but I do get excited if I'm at the movie theater and see Lester Freamon in the lobby.

I was really curious about this so I just listened to a few of the tracks; on "I'm a Hustla" Ab-Liva says "sorta like Avon and Marlo when you set it off."

I sort of want the t-shirt - just because wearing it would be a secret code to other fans. Leading to grocery store discussions of "The Wire", while trying to choose between the fresh fruit options. That would be fun. "Macoun apples or Granny Smith? No, Michael did not kill Bodie. Wow,pears are on sale!? I know, the Prop Joe part is complicated. I miss Stringer too."

Which would lead to heated debates at the deli counter, and a general collapse of grocery store etiquette.

Dookie, Dookie, Dookie. His face is heartbreaking. The kid who plays the role has an amazing instinct for simple gestures and slow, quiet moments. It's a very difficult role - and the fact that he has engaged all of us, so much, is a testament to his acting skills.
I'm never going to get over Wallace, so my heart gets stolen ONLY by certain, flawless performances.
What the fuck am I saying - my heart was stolen the second I watched S1.

Out: Crazy "Deadwood" fans / In: Crazy "The Wire" fans

Yes Herc fucked up - driving the narrative forward and all that. He's easy to hate.
But that's sort of the point - rather than delivering an easy plotline with clearly delineated characters, "The Wire" makes you question the idea of "watching".

I think.
I'm not a media scholar,but i think that the whole point of the show IS to create questions that are not answered simply. or simply answered.

That's probably about 100 xposts - and everyone else articulates it better than I do.
More importantly - do we have to move this thread, or what?

I'm sticking to my corner/sandbox. Unless someone tells me not to.

so - i'm commissioning an artist friend of mine to do up (depending on cost) maybe 12 Victorian-style portraits of characters from the wire.

having a hell of a time narrowing down the list.

STRING

imo the 12 would have to be: mcnulty, bunk, omar, stringer, avon, frank sabotka, kima, lester, carcetti, d'angelo, snoop, daniels

maybe swap one of those out for marlo

that's a good list. fuck marlo, though.

to be clear i was suggesting 12 portraits of Stringer.

i would sub out daniels for bodie maybe

you can't do this w/o bodie

maybe sub out lester or carcetti for bubbs. SOPHIE'S CHOICE.

hahah I was just gonna suggest taking out carcetti for bubbles

oh i totally meant to put bubbles and bodie in there and spaced. obviously this is harder than i was pretending it was.

can you afford to commission 15 portraits y/n?

15 portraits of string, i mean.

fuck it, i'm taking out stringer and avon and putting in ziggy and steve earle

ziggy is not a terrible choice and also suggest ban

i am always defending ziggy in wire threads but i mean as a 'one of 12 faces to represent the show' choice he's definitely not a factor

i guess marlo should really be in there but then you'd have his horrible dead eyes staring at you all the time.

gimme one w/ n'amon w/ his fro blown out

thinking a portrait of brother mouzone w/ lamar behind him holding copies of harper's and the nation

i would totes commission a victorian portrait of brother mouzone w/ lamar behind him holding a copy of SPIN's "rap is having its DIY moment" issue

ugh how does some dude not want bubbles in there. though given his taste in tv he;d probably request a 13th of childish gambino

bubbles face looked super fake a lot of the time on the show imo

ugh how does some dude not want bubbles in there. though given his taste in tv he;d probably request a 13th of childish gambino

― regional pug (dealwithit.gif), Sunday, December 4, 2011 11:43 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

he said he forgot bubbles and bodie!

i don't know what fake means. they did a lot of makeup stuff with andre royo's face in the first four seasons to make him look like an addict. bubbs is v handsome in season 5 though.

the make up was kinda weak some of the time

oh i see

idk i'm being a dick for no reason, carry on

but bubbles wouldn't be in my 12

imo the 12 would have to be: mcnulty, bunk, omar, stringer, avon, frank sabotka, kima, lester, carcetti, d'angelo, snoop, daniels

― i already regret not just being 'some dude' again (Mr. Stevenson #2), Sunday, December 4, 2011 10:02 PM (1 hour ago)

get rid of kima and daniels and add bubbs and bodie

there's so many fucking good characters on this show

holy shit guys.

my list:
Omar, Bubbles, Marlow, Bodie, Avon & Barksdale (possibly sharing a larger portrait), Rawls, Daniels, Kima, McNulty & Bunk (if we're putting Avon & Barks together might as well pair these two i guess) and Carcetti.
that's 12 people and 10 paintings.

others i'm considering based on how much money and wall space i have left (in order): Lester, another shared portrait with Snoop & Chris, Bunny, Slim Charles, Prop Joe, D'Angelo, Herc, Pearlman, Carver and Valchek believe it or not.

oh man, slim

that should be Avon and Stringer there. brain fart.

stringer is such a more interesting character than avon that it'd be insulting for him to have to share a portrait w/ avon

i'm so rewatching this over winter break, fuck it

i am doing that as i type.

there are many hours to rewatch!

i loved the duality of Avon & String in season 3 - i'm 100x more committed to keeping them together than Bunk & McNutty.

xpost I HAVE 60 TELEVISIONS GOING AT ONCE, EACH PLAYING A DIFFERENT EPISODE

well get on with it then motherfuckers

^^ saddest moment of 21st-century tv

twice!

well get on with it then motherfuckers

― dr. strongo, Monday, December 5, 2011 1:24 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

^^ saddest moment of 21st-century tv

― dr. strongo, Monday, December 5, 2011 1:25 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

seriously think about this scene like once a week

can we rank our top 5 saddest deaths?

1 wallace
2 string
3 prop joe
4 bodie
5 snoop

easily the saddest part of the whole show is when the one kid becomes a heroin addict

:( i hate this fucking show

xp that would be dook, noob

horseshoe indulge me plz

forget about sobotka

dude like....idk i feel like he is essential for some reason even tho i never really personally connected with him

i think i'll like him more the second time thru tho

ziggy still worst ever

hard to rank the deaths because wallace and to some extent d'angelo getting killed were shocks to me and then i was like, oh this is how this show works all the characters i love are going to die, so i was more prepared. having said that, stringer's death is the saddest to me even though it's a different kind of sad than basically everything that happens to the season 4 kids. also for some reason i've seen season 2 a lot recently and frank and ziggy really get to me. honestly every five minutes something gutwrenching happens on this accursed show.

i love the actor who plays frank sobotka's sad scared defiant face so much.

yeah i mean i feel like wallace is the most "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and the rest are more like "ok i expected that but still"

stringer's hit me hard

ziggy still worst ever

― k3vin k., Monday, December 5, 2011 1:15 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

seriously this is no joke one of the worst characters i've ever seen -- when he goes off the rails and murders ppl for no reason it seemed so unearned

he really reminded me of bad sopranos characters that showed up for like one or two episodes... except for an entire season

even though i love the show and the actors and the writing and all the characters except marlo and i totally knew he was going to die, when they killed stringer i was like I'M NEVER WATCHING THIS STUPID SHOW AGAIN.

horseshoe otm

you guys are wrong about ziggy but i am too lazy to recreate my many ilx defenses of him.

in defense of ziggy:

- huge penis

lol

ok should we even rank wire characters on a wkiw basis or would that be too personal

xp lol DOES NOT COUNT

i mean i we're being that superficial nicky's girlfriend's boobs gotta be in the convo

if*

hmmmmm...

i don't think we re

#1 wkiw wire character is bodie, and this conversation is now over

*adds Ziggy's dong to portrait list*

I MEAN COME ON xxp

also: Bodie's death hit me hardest.

also: wtf does wkiw stand for?!

i don't think we re

#1 wkiw wire character is bodie, and this conversation is now over

― v-shasty, Monday, December 5, 2011 2:31 AM (14 seconds ago)

yah i agree w/ this, tbh feel like ive chilled w/ dudes pretty similar to dude tbh

xo "would kick it with"

ha ha. i see.

Lester all the way.

namond should be a portrait cuz otherwise who represents all the time spent w/ those kids

i think duquan should be the representative kid

yeah i feel bad but i mean of all the eras abt which im sppt to fld bad abt...

could put a few in one. i was considering it; but i never got as into the kids as much as a lot of you guys.

dude like yeah, either namond, michael, or duke are reasonable choices, but given hov's outside career, cmon

think bunny deserves it too tbh

but then i Don't Really Care About Omar so obviously i can't be trusted

you should have one room that's whatever pantheon you settle on and then another room that's just ziggy, scott templeton, the evil jewish lawyer, and brother mouzone, all lit harshly from overhead

why not have some lighter, maybe oil-pastel eccentric pairings, like amy ryan w/rhonda perlman, method man w/clay davis, &c

saddest that prop joe didn't make it, even though it was inevitable.

prop joe def needs a portrait

I've forgotten how prop joe expires, think that will make for a good surprise on re-watching

bodie's death is a dark horse for me for most affecting death, he reminds me of kids I used to hang out with as a kid, RIP bodie ;_;

(just finished the fifth series, halfway through the main ILX thread before it went away)

<I>so, the wire being what it is, leads me to think avon and marlo end up in jail for a long, long time even though they both want to go out like stringer did, and it's stringer and prop joe who get killed because neither of them wanted that.</I>

Good guesses! Except Marlo gets an even worse fate - he gets the future that Stringer wanted.

Haha I still can't do bbcode

ok, I missed something back in season one. who made all those questionable or at least 'of interest' political donations all over town that the detail was looking up? the barksdale organization? if so, how did clay davis pull that scam on stringer later on?

The payoff to this in Season 5 is great: Gangsters meet Clay with Levy in attendance: discreet bleeds of money. Gangsters meet Clay without Levy: vast fountains of money!

ugh how does some dude not want bubbles in there. though given his taste in tv he;d probably request a 13th of childish gambino

― regional pug (dealwithit.gif), Sunday, December 4, 2011 11:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

does this mean you're done fronting on the wire now that you have another show to obsess over as evil hipster snake oil?

lol

should be a painting of all the broads mcnulty banged (campaign manager, waitress, amy ryan, pearlman, honorable mention to the two prosties he got w/via fake (actual?) accent.

wkiw picks: Kimmy and Bunk

watching the second season of damages right now and it's kind of hilarious to have freamon and rawls all buddy buddy on it, playing rich villains.

ok - i've got everything sorted out with the artist and it's a go! wooo!
portraits will be of:
• Bunk
• McNulty
• Stringer & Avon (large)
• Bubbles
• Clarcetti
• Rawls
• Daniels
• Kima
• Bodie
• Marlo
• Snoop & Chris
• Lester
• Omar

dang..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yszXIlfBYsc&feature=related

sweet hell. i had no idea.

"operation usual suspects", cops playing cops