The Wire

The attention to detail never stops. I just rewatched season 1 on HBO On Demand, season 2 is now available. Next to Avon's office door in the strip club was a sign that told the strippers to keep a certain distance away from the customers. It said "The 12 inch rule will be strickly enforced". The sign was visible several times across a few episodes, and I hadn't noticed the spelling mistake until the last episode.

I can't wait for season 4.

 

RedDragon, nice post. You should post more.




(SPOILERS BELOW)

Dog, I see your point about the Greeks, but I kind of liked the fact that they were mysterious. I think that was intended. Frank and Nick never really knew what they were getting into. They were in way, way over their heads, as evidenced by the look on Frank's face when the guys from Homeland Security showed up (thanks to a tip from The Greek) and made that huge drug bust from one of the containers that was obviously being used to finance terrorism. (The fact that the people in Washington don't really give a shit about drug problems in American cities anymore because of the "War on Terror" is a running theme of the show, referenced repeatedly whenever the guy from the FBI shows up. In season 3, they tap Stringer Bell's phone by telling a judge Stringer's given name is "Achmed.") I think David Simon and Ed Burns wanted The Greeks to be constantly shrouded in mystery. As Spiros says, referencing Nick, when the shit hits the fans, "All he knows is my name. And my name is not my name." "And I," says The Greek, "am not even Greek."

I liked Horse Face, but Ziggy did seem a touch phony at times. I think Ziggy was the way he was to demonstrate how much the world had changed between Frank's generation and his son's generation. Frank, until he got involved with the Greeks, was a hardworking honest man who was loyal to his friends and his union because in his day, you could be rewarded for your hard work. There was enough work to go around, and you could have a life. Not a rich life, but a life. Times changed and Ziggy didn't have the same opportunities, which only made him more lazy, and resent that life more, and resent the fact that his old man was a hero to the men who mocked him ruthlessly.

 

Also, Choosing between Seasons 1, 2 and 3 is like choosing which one of your kids you like best. It's almost impossible, and there are no wrong answers. I was trying to think the other night about my five favorite scenes from The Wire, and this is what I came up with (I think you have to pick scenes when you talk about favorites, not episodes, because the story isn't self-contained like the Sopranos or Six Feet Under.) I cued up some of my favorite eps, which I still have on TiVo, just to quote some of the dialogue for fun.

1. "Ray Cole's Wake," Dead Soldiers, Season 3. -- Whether or not you know the backstory here isn't important. It's still a beautiful scene, maybe one of the best in television history. But the backstory makes it even better. Bob Colsberry was a producer on the show, and one of David Simon's best friends. He died of heart trouble right as they were putting together Season 3, so Simon wanted to pay tribute to him. (He also played Ray Cole, the hapless silver-haired homicide detective on the show.) In this scene, all the cops gather in some Baltimore Irish pub for Cole's wake, and Jay Landsman, the homicide shift commander, gives one of my favorite monologues and eulogies ever, which closes with the entire bar singing along to The Pogues, "Body of An American." The written word simply cannot do justice to it, but here is the text of Simon's send off to his friend.

"We are police. So no lies between us. He wasn't the greatest detective. And he wasn't the worst. He put downs some good cases and he dogged a few bad ones. But the mutherfucker had his moments. Yes, he fucking did. You remember the Mississipi extridition? The arson murders? He brought that case home. And the triple? At the after-hours over on Hudson Street? That was Ray Cole at his best. And Fayette Street in 93. The drug wars. He took a lot of hot corners and cooled them. Yes indeed. He won as much as he lost. Much as any of us. Did he piss off a wife or three? No fucking doubt. I think the last one actually kind of got used to him, thank god. Did he say the wrong shit now and then? Did he bust balls and cheat on his taxes and forget to call his mother and fuck the wrong broad for the wrong fucking reason, every now and then? Who fucking doesn't? Christ. Was he as full of shit as every other sad sack mutherfucker wearing a badge of Baltimore City Police? Ab-sa-fucking-lout-ly. His shit was as weak as ours, no question. But Ray Cole stood with us. All of us. In Baltimore. Working. Sharing a dark corner of the American experiment.

He was called. He served. He. Is. Counted.

Old King Cole."

2. "Omar Little, Witness for the Prosecution", Prologue, Season 2 -- Funniest scene ever. Michael K. Williams sells it so well, right down to the winks and waggling of his tie. Again, you can't do justice to it with the written word, but here is the opening dialogue exchange between him and the assistant DA, who is asking him to testify against Bird in the murder of a state's witness.

DA: Would you state your name for the court please?
Omar: Omar Devon Little.
DA: Mr. Little, how old are you?
Omar: 'Bout 29, there about.
DA: And Mr. Little, where do you live?
Omar: No place in particular, m'am.
DA: You're homeless?
Omar: In the wind, so to speak.
DA: And what is your occupation?
Omar: Occupation?
DA: What exactly do you do for a living, Mr. Little?
Omar: I rip and run.
DA: You...
Omar: I robs drug dealers.
DA: And exactly how long has this been your occupation, Mr. Little?
Omar: Oh, I don't know exactly. I venture to say about eight or nine years.
DA: Mr. Little, how does a man rob drug dealers for eight or nine years and live to tell about it?
Omar: (smiling) Day at a time, I suppose.

 

3. "There's never been a paper bag for drugs,” Dead Soldiers, Bunny Charles, Season 3:

Right after Dozerman gets shot, Bunny decides he's sick and tired of doing the same dumb police work, over and over again, and getting the same piss-poor results. So he gives a speech to his men about how things used to be, and why they won't be doing hand-to-hand buys anymore in the Western District.

"Somewheres, back in the dawn of time, this district had itself a civic dilemma of epic proportions. The city council had just passed a law that forbid alcoholic consumption in public places. In the streets, and on the corners. But the corner is, was, and always will be, the poor man's lounge. It's where a man wants to be on a hot summer's night. It's cheaper than a bar, you catch a nice breeze, you watch the girls go by. But, the law is a law. Western cops rolling by? What were they going to do? If they arrested every dude out there for tipping back a High Life, there would be no other time for any other kind of police work. And if they looked the other way, they'd open themselves to all kinds of flaunting, all kind of disrespect. Now this was before my time when it happened, but somewhere back in the 50s or 60s, there was a small moment of goddamn genius by some nameless smokehound who comes out the cut rate one day, and on his way to the corner, he silps that just bought pint of Elderberry ... into a paper bag. A great moment of civic compromise. That small wrinkled ass paper bag allowed the corner boys to have their drink in peace, and it gave us permission to go and do police work. The kind of police work that's actually worth the effort. That's worth actually taking a bullet for. Dozerman, got shot last night trying to buy three vials. Three. There's never been a paper bag for drugs. Until now."

4. “Fuck”, Cold Cases, Season 1. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it. In the first season, there is an episode where Jimmy and Bunk retrace some police work on a murder investigation. It’s a five-minute scene, and the only piece of dialogue is the word “fuck” said in 20 different ways, over and over again by both detectives. To me, this scene more than any illustrates how The Wire is different than any other show on TV. They never, ever hit you over the head with stuff. You don’t find out that Bunk and Jimmy were right about the fact that Wee Bay shot the girl from outside the window, and that the bullet went into the refrigerator, until six episodes later when DeAngelo confirms that’s how it went down. Just brilliant.

5. “Gatsby”, DeAngelo Barksdale, All Prologue, Season 2. – The perfect example of how to foreshadow as a writer without beating your viewer over the head with it. DeAngelo is sick and tired of his family, who have all (including his mother) helped ruin his life, and he wants nothing to do with them anymore. He wants to make a change in his life, to be someone else, but knows deep down that you can’t escape your past. In the prison library, Richard Price is leading a discussion about The Great Gatsby, and DeAngelo tries to sum up Gatsby, but as a viewer, we know that he’s really talking about himself.

Richard Price: Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. Do you believe that?

Random prisoner: Man, shit, we locked up. We best believe that, right?

DeAngelo: He’s saying that the past is always with us. Where we come from, what we go through, how we go through it. All this shit matters. I mean, that’s what I thought he meant. Like at the end of the book, boats and tides and all. It’s like you can change up, you can say you somebody new, you can give yourself a whole new story. But what came first is who you really are. And what happened before is what really happened. And it don’t matter that some fool say he different, cause the only thing that make you different is what you really do, or what you really go through. Like all them books in his library. Now, he fronting with all them books, but if you pull one down off the shelf, ain’t none of the pages ever been open. He got all them books, and he ain’t read near one of them. Gatsby, he was who he was, and he did what he did. And cause he wasn’t ready to get real with the story, that shit caught up to him. I think, anyway.”

Honorable mention: The scene in “Middle Ground”, in Season 3, when Stringer and Avon are sitting on the deck of Avon’s waterfront condo, reminiscing about the time they stole a Badminton set from a toy store in the Inner Harbor, while at the same time, each is torn internally about the fact that they’re about to betray one another. I overuse the phrase “Shakespearian” to describe things in literature and drama, but that scene truly does meet the standard. In an odd way, both men are Othello in that scene, and both men are Iago. Brilliantly done.

 

I love the little moments. In the first episode of Season 2, Stringer tests out some of the young guys by sending them on an out of town run. One of them has never been out of Baltimore and is surprised to find out that they have to change radio stations after travelling a bit. Loved that brief exchange.

 

Even more hilarious is the fact that Bodie ends up listening to "Prarie Home Companion" on NPR the entire trip to Philly because he doesn't understand why his favorite radio station won't come though anymore.

 

Double down --
A great list. Two more, both episode openers, both involving McNulty:

The series opening scene. I know I've said it before, but it's the entire point spelled out, but, as you said, without beating the viewer over the head.

The essence is that McNulty gets called to a body, and is interviewing a witness.The wintess tells McNulty that the deceased is named Snot Bookie, that he isn't really right in the head, and that most every Friday, when this particular group of guys are shooting dice, Snot Boogie would wander up drunk and want to play. And after a while, he'd get just greedy enough to try and snatch up the loot and run. And then the guys would track him down and throw him a beating for his trouble.

But this week, when Snot Boogie made his break, somebody finally had enough and put two in Snot Boogie's head.

McNulty, in his Irish wisdom, asks the obvious question. If every week, Snot Boogie got drunk and came to play dice, and every week he played for a while and then made a break with the pot, didn't anyone ever have the idea to just not let Snot play?

The kids looks at McNulty like he was from the moon.

"How we not gonna let the man play? This America, man."

Cue theme song. Just beautiful.

2. An almost dialogue free scene, when McNulty wrecks his car at the beginning of the episode, and then, drunk out of his mind, gets back in the car and tries to make the same corner.

He ends up in some all night-diner, ordering breakfast with one eye open.

"Can I get scrapple with that?"
"You can get anything you want..."

Jump-cut to the waitress riding the shit out of McNulty as he bleeds all over her sheets. Priceless.

 

dang double d, and i thought i was the only one who watched the crap out of all them episodes. you know anywhere to find the actual screenplays for the episodes?

a few others: stringer's 40 degree day speech about mediocrity; nick sobotka busting on the white dealer on the old lady's stoop; the cops teaching the transpo cop beattie russell how to tail somebody using the environs; and rawls -- as much as i hate him -- telling mcnulty that the shooting of the short-lived house cat-to-be (don't want to spoil) wasn't his fault.

 

First off, helluva list there, DD. I feel ... out of my league now.

I still think season 3, overall, is underrated. The whole Hamsterdam idea and the speech by Colvin about the paper bag for drugs is just great thinking and even better writing and acting.

And while I agree with you, RedDragon, that the writers have obviously done their research, I think some credit needs to go whoever hired the actors and the actors. It's one thing to have the idea on paper and attempt to tell someone how you want it done. It's a whole other thing for that actor -- pretty much every actor on the show -- to knock it out of the park, especially when we're talking about virtually unknowns.

Season 2, I completely understand why people love it. I enjoyed all the aspects that all of you have mentioned. And I enjoyed the season. But like I said, there just seemed to be something missing, some element that really drew you in during the first season that wasn't there in the second. I think, maybe it's that Frank wasn't as dirty as the Barksdale clan. Don't get me wrong, Frank wasn't doing good things, but it was easier to relate to his situation than it was to the drug thing. And because of that, I don't think it drummed up the same conflicted feelings about him and his family. In season 1, I was genuinely angry with myself for giving a shit about these Barksdale kids, but dammit, I liked 'em. I wanted to see D do well. I didn't want Wallace to die. But at the same time, I knew what they were doing was way over the line. Not really the case in season 2 with Sobotka. I could relate better to his plight, so maybe that made it less compelling to me.

 

Something I didn't quite get from season 2, maybe you all can clarify.
It's kinda spoiler-ific, so...





How did McNulty's FBI buddy figure out the leak was coming from inside the FBI? (something to do with the FAX?)
When he did figure it out, why didn't they find the guy and try to get him to roll on The Greek?
After all, wasn't that guy (Koutras?) directly responsible for Frank Sobotka's death?

 

It was obvious there was a leak somewhere, so when the FBI guy started to send out the internal memo about the case on the FBI web, he thought better of it. Instead, he sent the fax and then called and asked about this particular guy, who was involved but shouldn't have been because he had been reassigned to a different field office.

Why they didn't go after that guy, I have no idea. That's one of the things I was talking about. Seemed as if the season needed like five or six more episodes to tie things up. The ending seemed rush and the storylines ended abruptly for some reason.

 

didn't mean to sleight the actors, dawg. but you're absolutely right. you watch the show and get the "where have i seen him before" feeling. it seems like most of them have been around for while and just haven't gotten their break yet. so they gotta bust their humps to do a killer job in the scenes they have. and they do.

an aside, the scene in season 2 is funny when mcnulty is preparing himself for the prositutes sting and they tell him he should use an accent and he comes up with one from somewhere in the uk (which is probably is real voice), and the rest of the detail says it's not real enough.