The Wire Appreciation Thread

[GoGo Yubari]

You realize that he's saying that he thinks they're good, effective villains, right?

[King Ellis]

And YOU realize you're talking to Ruki, right?

[Dynamite]

Is Stringer a villain? I never really thought of him that way when I was watching the show. A lot of his actions could be considered evil, such as:

Killing off D'Angelo, for example

but I felt The Wire did a great job in making him a three dimensional character rather than just 'the bad guy'.

[GoGo Yubari]

I would definitely consider Stringer a villain. A very well-realized, three-dimensional one and nothing compared to later characters, but his motivations were pure self-interest.

[King Ellis]

No one who attends community college can be evil!

[GoGo Yubari]

No one who attends community college can be evil!

[MalaCloudy Black]

There's definitely one question missing in this thread:

WHERE THE FUCK IS WALLACE?

Re: Wallace (spoilers just in case~)

That was another sort of emotional moment in the show for me. Wallace's descent into drug abuse, and then Poot and Bodie being assigned to kill him.. that was pretty rough stuff.

[Josh]

And now, here's the scene that first made me realize, "Shit, I'm hooked and can never turn back."

From Season 1, Episode 4 (WARNING: Very NSFW):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN5eYFH8HZ8

[TheSqauredCircleMessiah]

Stringer is definitely a villain. He's a drug dealer, orders people killed, uses violence as a mean. He wanted to be above "the game" and had that Michael Corleone in him that he wanted to be legitimate, but his dealings with Clay Davis in season 3 show him that he could never make it in that world.

[C-MIL]

Watching Season 2.

They killed D'Angelo?!

You fucking kidding me with this shit?

[Josh]

Yeeeep. That's a hard one to watch. In a good way, if that makes sense.

[King Ellis]

And now, here's the scene that first made me realize, "Shit, I'm hooked and can never turn back."

From Season 1, Episode 4 (WARNING: Very NSFW):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN5eYFH8HZ8

[Josh]

Tremendous.

[C-MIL]

Finished season 2. The second half picked up quite a bit. Looking forward to...

Omar versus Stringer.

[Skummy]

Finished season 2. The second half picked up quite a bit. Looking forward to...

Omar versus Stringer.

The culmination of that is one of my favourite scenes in the whole series, and a rare instance where it gets all cinematic and "epic" rather than the usual gritty realism, and it's so, so worth it. Fantastic episode.

Omar in general is superb, and plenty of people have said that whenever the writers were criticised for making Omar a little too OTT, or unbelievable, they would point to one of the two real life guys Omar was based on, and how they actually toned him down for the show. Even better, one of the "real Omars" is in the show.

[GoGo Yubari]

Season 3 spoiler

On a show like The Wire you can only really do a scene like Omar and Brother Mouzone's standoff in the alley once. But what a fucking scene it is.

[Skummy]

Season 3 spoiler

On a show like The Wire you can only really do a scene like Omar and Brother Mouzone's standoff in the alley once. But what a fucking scene it is.

One thing the Wire does so well is not dwell on things that other shows would make a huge deal out of. Omar vs. Mouzone could easily have been a series worth of material...but it didn't need to be. It did exactly what it needed to. The same can be said of some deaths, which just seem to occur almost randomly, and with little to no build-up; because that's how death is in real life. Not everything happens according to the story.

The only times the Wire really falls into TV cliché, for me, are Omar vs. Stringer - but that just works so beautifully that it's easily forgiven - and D'Angelo's chess speech in Season 1, which is just a cringeworthy, heavy-handed analogy completely at odds with the rest of the show.

That said, a lot of people criticise the final season's McNulty storyline for being too unbelievable and cartoonish, but honestly, I'd go with "Hamsterdam" as the only time it really stretches suspension of disbelief, and then the rest of that season is so strong it doesn't really matter.

[ruderrocket]

Season 3 spoiler

On a show like The Wire you can only really do a scene like Omar and Brother Mouzone's standoff in the alley once. But what a fucking scene it is.

One thing the Wire does so well is not dwell on things that other shows would make a huge deal out of. Omar vs. Mouzone could easily have been a series worth of material...but it didn't need to be. It did exactly what it needed to. The same can be said of some deaths, which just seem to occur almost randomly, and with little to no build-up; because that's how death is in real life. Not everything happens according to the story.

The only times the Wire really falls into TV cliché, for me, are Omar vs. Stringer - but that just works so beautifully that it's easily forgiven - and D'Angelo's chess speech in Season 1, which is just a cringeworthy, heavy-handed analogy completely at odds with the rest of the show.

That said, a lot of people criticise the final season's McNulty storyline for being too unbelievable and cartoonish, but honestly, I'd go with "Hamsterdam" as the only time it really stretches suspension of disbelief, and then the rest of that season is so strong it doesn't really matter.

I do agree that the chess speech in season 1 was a bit heavy-handed, but I thought it actually worked pretty nicely. I thought that the acting was strong enough to excuse any shortcomings in the actual speech, and when I think about it, I can buy that D'angelo found the chess analogy to be some deep shit. Plus, "unless they some smart ass pawns" is one of the best Bodie moments in the entire show.

Edited August 22, 2012 by ruderrocket

[TheSqauredCircleMessiah]

Season 3 spoiler

On a show like The Wire you can only really do a scene like Omar and Brother Mouzone's standoff in the alley once. But what a fucking scene it is.

One thing the Wire does so well is not dwell on things that other shows would make a huge deal out of. Omar vs. Mouzone could easily have been a series worth of material...but it didn't need to be. It did exactly what it needed to. The same can be said of some deaths, which just seem to occur almost randomly, and with little to no build-up; because that's how death is in real life. Not everything happens according to the story.

The only times the Wire really falls into TV cliché, for me, are Omar vs. Stringer - but that just works so beautifully that it's easily forgiven - and D'Angelo's chess speech in Season 1, which is just a cringeworthy, heavy-handed analogy completely at odds with the rest of the show.

That said, a lot of people criticise the final season's McNulty storyline for being too unbelievable and cartoonish, but honestly, I'd go with "Hamsterdam" as the only time it really stretches suspension of disbelief, and then the rest of that season is so strong it doesn't really matter.

I do agree that the chess speech in season 1 was a bit heavy-handed, but I thought it actually worked pretty nicely. I thought that the acting was strong enough to excuse any shortcomings in the actual speech, and when I think about it, I can buy that D'angelo found the chess analogy to be some deep shit. Plus, "unless they some smart ass pawns" is one of the best Bodie moments in the entire show.

You have to remember, D'Angelo's chess speech was maybe 3 of 4 episodes in, the show was still finding it's voice then. Plus, it does plau in to the larger theme where they consistently showed how all aspects of the City (cops, the street, politicians) all were basically the same and all those seasons in basically every season where a corner kid in a classroom and a state Senator are having the exact same conversation.

Plus, according to that oral history of "The Wire," the Hamsterdam experiment was actually tried in Baltimore by the actual mayor who Clarence Roycew is based on.

Glynn Thurman: That whole “Hamsterdam” thing was basically true. I spoke with Mayor Schmoke about that because he was the one that tried it. I said, “What would you do differently if you tried it again?” And he said “I would have couched it – I would have made sure it wasn’t looked at as ‘trying to make drugs legal’ as much as it was trying to attack or address a public health issue.”

[Monkey D. Lars]

I am half way through season 1 and I must say, this show is getting awesomer with each episode