The Wire, Season 5 -- Read Between the Lines

I was worried about my take on Season 2... thank god you weighed in.

 

Are you congenitally disposed in some way to being a complete douchebag?

Is it pathological?

 

He's got Simon Cowell for an avatar. Isn't that a hint?

 

Just like I can't make you smarter, you can't make me nicer to the assclowns.

 

You're just chock full of self-loathing, aren't you, Simon?

The first step toward recovery is admitting you have a problem.

 

No way can someone just pick this show up right now.

You gotta start from the beginning.

I just told the wife she does have to watch it with me. Just too many characters. Too many story lines.

There was talk with the newsroom being correct or not. I will say this, the education system from last season was 100 percent on target. Also, education killing a government's budget is spot on as well. I will say though that most governments will not let their schools go $54 mil in debt.

Every police officer I have ever talked with about this show says their side is accurate. That includes a police chief of a town about the size of Norman. It's not Norman, though.

 

A. I'm extremely jealous you have seen the first seven episodes.

B. I'm confident the final three will really turn your opinion around. "The Wire" is always entertaining, but it really isn't until the final few episodes where the entire picture comes into focus. I'm sure in the last few episodes, roles will be reversed and everything won't be as black and white.

C. One question (request for spoiler). Does Randy come back in any of the first seven episodes?

 

Even watching it with you, though, you'll have to spend most of the show explaining who's who, etc. And you'll both miss what's going on. Three seasons in I got Mrs. Irish to start watching. We then watched the first three seasons again, then 4 on DVD together. And now season 5.
She now knows way more about drug dealing than I think she ever thought possible.

 

If you do answer that last question, please do it via PM. Let's keep this thread free of spoilers for episodes that haven't aired yet.

For everyone concerned about how the newspaper storyline will play out, I'll simply ask has this show ever disappointed before? I think it's going to be much different for us as we judge this season because we obviously have so much knowledge about newsrooms.
Alan Sepinwall hits this on the head in his post on the first episode (and, I think, eases any fear about the newspaper stuff being handled poorly).

"Predictably, I've seen some grousing in the press about the newspaper scenes. Some of it's from people who know the real editors that Simon based Gus' bosses on, and feel he's being unfair. More of it, though, is just from fellow newspaper people who know the business well enough to either point out the minor inaccuracies and exaggerations or to assume this stuff is too inside baseball for non-journos to understand or care about. Admittedly, I'm an insider myself, as well as an unabashed "Wire" fan, but I don't see the newspaper stuff as any more inside or inaccurate than the police stuff, or the street stuff. I'm sure there are police contemporaries of Ed Burns who feel he's being rough with people they both worked with, or that he stretches a detail to make his point, but that's the nature of dramatic storytelling, even great drama like this. (My wife works in hospital administration and nitpicks every minute of "House," "ER," etc. for the mistakes.) Not to speak ill of any fellow critics -- I always hate reviews whose fundamental purpose is to show how much smarter the reviewer is than his or her counterparts -- but I wonder if there's really a problem here, or if there just seems to be one because, for the first time, the subject matter is one that the reviewers know as well as Simon."

 

Just saw 52... wow.

I was a little edgy after watching 51, but I think 52 was a major step up, from my perspective, with classic scenes with Dominic West and Clark Johnson (he has a moment that has happened to me a handful of uncomfortable times), plus a great, great blast from the past.

It was nice to be really pissed and sad when the ep ended. That's the way I remember it.

 

Not gonna give any spoilers, but I'll say this about #52: buckle up and get ready to be shocked.

 

At the end of every episode my dad watches with me, without fail, he says this: "This show is depressing. This is why this country needs a dictator and kill off all these (the druggies, the gang-bangers, the corrupt, the incompetent) people. Then, there might be some g.d. order."

Yeesh