The Wire Appreciation Thread

[Alex.]

I always loved the kids version of the theme song its my favorite out of all of them. 

I was just watching the Chess scene the other night. It never gets old. 

 

This show never gets old.

[MalaCloudy Black]

 

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Love it. Love it.

[MDK]

For a moment I thought that was Old Herc.

[Alex.]

Bump.

Doing my 4th rewatch of the series first in 3 years. On episode 9 now started last week.

I swear with every viewing this show gets better and better.

[Tyrone]

1 hour ago, Alex. said:

Bump.

Doing my 4th rewatch of the series first in 3 years. On episode 9 now started last week.

I swear with every viewing this show gets better and better.

This. I just bought seasons 1-4 on DVD and I have been so engrossed in them. Honestly, this is such an amazing show. Bubbles' struggles, McNulty's alcoholism, Carver/Herc being shitty cops, Bunny caring about the community + the great character development of the schoolkids in season 4. There are so many layers and every character gets a moment to shine at some point. Plus, the world they create is just excellent where characters disappear for a bit and then reappear and people go from being big characters to just side characters in Baltimore.

[VerbalPuke]

Necro post...

I'm on season 5 of the Wire, this show is fantastic. 

I read a bit of the thread and agree that season 2 was brilliant. It started slow and was a jarring change but it quickly became very compelling. 

Snoop, Chris, and Marlo are fucking evil. Like, Stringer and Avon were ruthless but Marlo is like a total sociopath. I don't know how this concludes so I'm very curious.

Omar is a great character also, total bad ass.

[VerbalPuke]

On 01/06/2017 at 16:30, GoGo Yubari said:

I'm rewatching the series with my dad, who's never seen it before. We just started on season 3 last night and man, that theme song is by far the weakest one. It's not even 24 hours since I watched the first two episodes with him and I'm already hearing the Tom Waits version in my head again when I try to recall that one.

Is Tom Waits version Season 1? Definitely my favorite and honestly should have been that version all five seasons.

[GoGo Yubari]

Tom Waits is season 2, season 1 is the Blind Boys of Alabama (season 5 is Steve Earle and season 4's, my favorite, is just some local kids who were billed as DoMaJe). True to form, I do not remember who did season 3's version or what it even sounds like.

[Skummy]

Season 3 was the Neville Brothers, and it's not great. 

I love the Blind Boys of Alabama version, but I'm a huge fan of theirs in general. 

Tom Waits is notoriously picky about who gets to use his music and how, and apparently he didn't sign off them using his version for series one, but enjoyed the series enough to allow them to use it for series 2 - and then because they'd changed it once, they figured that they would change it for every season.

There's a great story about Tom Waits not giving them permission until very close to the production deadline, and when David Simon managed to get in touch with him, it turned out it was because Waits couldn't operate his VCR, so hadn't been able to watch the tapes they sent him, and had to get his wife to play them for him.

[VerbalPuke]

I've finished the series, unreal. Utterly fantastic show, among my all-time favorites. 

I'll add thoughts in spoilers in case somebody new happens upon the show.

Spoiler

Incredible that it was sort of unsatisfying in how it ended. Marlo gets away with 10 million and Stringer Bells dream, but doesn't want it. Fuck Scott Templeton. Omar's death was jarring and not the blaze of glory a viewer expects. 

But that's the brilliance of it. It feels real. Bad guys get away with bad things sometimes. Or in Omar's case, even the toughest and savviest can be undone by a bit of carelessness and sometimes won't get their revenge. 

The kids end up with bleak futures. Randy is a good kid fucked by the system and hardens up to adapt. Poor Dukie is treated like shit even with being a kind child, he unfortunately becomes a junkie. 

On the other hand, Michael taking on Omar's mantle is a nice touch. Bubbles gets clean and stays clean. Lester, my favorite cop, gets his pension. Cheese gets taken down so there is some justice for Prop Joe. Chris gets life in prison. 

So not all bleak, just realistic.

I'd say my favorite characters were Lester, Ellis (later on when he smarten up), Prop Joe, Frank Sobotka, Bubbles, Cutty, and of course Omar. I liked a lot of characters, really brilliant acting. 

I fucking hate Herc, Marlo, the guy that kept beating up Bubbles, and that cop Tony.

Now I'm going to read this thread. 

[Tigerstyle]

It really is the best you're so lucky to have experienced it for the first time. Wish I could do it with my annual watch ha

[VerbalPuke]

On 09/06/2023 at 11:13, Tigerstyle said:

It really is the best you're so lucky to have experienced it for the first time. Wish I could do it with my annual watch ha

Yea, I'm already thinking about a re-watch. I actually watched season 1 in 2017 or so. I forget what I was streaming with at the time but didn't pick back up until this year.

Kind of glad I did since I can't always find stuff to watch.

I ended up buying Homicide and Corner which David Simon wrote prior to the Wire, so excited to read those. 

Also started watching We Own This City. John Bernthal in a David Simon mini series? Count me in. Also plenty of actors from the Wire in this one.

[Skummy]

On VP's spoiler discussion:

Spoiler

Omar's death is, for me, the most perfect bit of the whole show. On the surface, it seems anticlimactic and entirely random, and after the initial shock that kind of feels right - the real world doesn't allow for semi-mythic figures like Omar, and real murders don't happen in big dramatic set-pieces and movie showdowns, they're short, arbitrary acts of violence. 

But then when you look back over everything leading to Omar's murder, it's actually built to brilliantly, so the show matches that sense of arbitrary and random violence with a real logical escalation, two things that should be almost contradictory.

In season 3, Kenard is one of a group of young kids playing in the park, and he says "it's my turn to play Omar". At that point, even to young kids, Omar is a legendary, heroic figure. When Kenard sees Omar in person for the first time, he sees him limping and injured, and says, "that's Omar?", as if he's been personally let down to see his hero as human and fragile.

He's the only person in the series who sees through Omar's mystique, and sees him as just another body, so he's the only one who could have killed him, because he treats it as just another killing, he's not intimidated into acting differently or trying some grand set-up to catch Omar like his more established rivals. I've seen it suggested that Kenard wanted the clout of being the one to kill him, but I honestly don't think it's even that, because by the time he killed Omar he didn't see anything special about him.

In broader terms, it's the story that's told throughout - there's always been gangs and criminality, but the rules and the old ways are dying, and being replaced by new, more ruthless criminals who don't care about the old boundaries or rules of engagement. Kenard is the new blood, and the world he's growing up in doesn't have room for Omar. 

 

[DMN in the House]

Still the greatest show ever made, I probably do a watch through every two-three years. 

[Jook]

Rewatching this for the 5th time. Watching with my mam, she's never seen it before. Just finished season 4 and I'm devastated all over again. 

Looking forward to season 5, it's nowhere near as bad as everyone says. 

Love the fan service in it too, so many one or two scene cameos:

Nick, Poot, Prezbo, Namond, Randy, Colvin, Avon, Weebay, Johnny Fifty, Sergei, Chardene, Polk, Cutty. Savino too I guess. And that’s off the top of my head, bet there’s more.