Season four broke my heart with the adolescent kids. I can’t believe how good they all were in their roles, phenomenal performances.
The one minor scene that always wrecks me is where Bodie is talking to McNulty near the end of the series and says, “I feel old...”
The character is supposed to be a late teenager in that scene, and is already feeling worn out of life he has almost no chance of escaping.
That to me was the big takeaway. Too many things are stuck where they are: people, systems, etc.
As Marlo says, “You want it to be one way, but it’s the other way.”
Okay I’m done fan-boying. Yes, I’m this annoying when I tell my irl friends about the show as well.
I suspect a lot of it flies under the radar because The Wire purposefully used a style that wasn't overly pretty, was closer to verite than visually stunning. But there's some great ideas there. The utter commitment to diagetic sound (barring one scene in the first season). The use of complex camera movements and an Altman-esque zoom to provide a documentary or even voyeuristic perspective.
You could make an argument that The Wire is more innovative in filmmaking than a lot of the typical prestige TV, who simply mimicked Hollywood big budget artistry.
Yes! Was that the one where Avon, String, and Stinkum arrive with the cash bonuses? I am rewatching a third time right now and couldn't figure out why it stood out as somewhat clumsy. It even popped into my head while I was driving yesterday. You've just reminded me, so thank you.
There's also the end of season montages, but I'm a lot more forgiving towards non-diegetic music for montages
Some of the background they give is that the cast and crew didn't think there would be a Season 2, that David Simon wrote Season 5 without Dennis Lehane or George Pelecanos, etc.
https://www.theringer.com/way-down-in-the-hole Now that The Ringer has been bought by Spotify you might have to be a subscriber to listen to it.
Keep going beyond the second season, it gets better, when the lines between the gangs and the government blur
Oh, what a downer that season was. On the other hand, Homeland Season 1 was one of the best bits of television I’ve seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn0ylNZhOJI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2-NkZ8lGsA
And it's still consistent with the "institutional ineptitude of conservative western cultures" (as @ddek puts it above) theme.
It's disappointing, because the season's focus on journalism and public optics was really interesting and educational and in many ways well-executed. But the serial murder stuff just made it kind of goofy.
Seasons 1 - 4 are so good that it's not a big deal, but it seems so rare that multi-season shows stick a graceful landing.
I did the same thing, and I'm not sure why. The first couple episodes are fine in retrospect, but at the time... I just couldn't get into them and couldn't keep the characters straight. When I finally did get over that hump though, it turned out to be one of my all-time favorite series.
That's a mouthful.
Basically you're saying that the cops operated questionably due to or because of the conservative government's inability to effectively fight crime?
> morally ambiguous
No character (save some in S5) is totally black or white. Take Omar, for example. When Omar responds to Levy in the S2 courtroom scene, we sympathise with Omar. When Bunk applies almost exactly the same criticism in S3, we don’t.
> institutional ineptitude
The show covers more institutions than just the BPD. S2 covers traditional economics, S3 has politics, S4 education, and S5 media.
> conservative western cultures
I kinda wanted to say ‘America’ here, but that wouldn’t entirely be true. I’m from Glasgow, a city which has been directly compared to the Wire’s version of Baltimore. Look up the ice cream wars.
These problems aren’t uniquely America’s, but are inherent to all (small c) conservative western cultures. Parts of Europe (Scandinavia, Netherlands) have made huge progress through progressive policy. This isn’t an issue of which government is in power - the US had 8 years of Obama, the UK had 13 of Blair/Brown, and made no progress.
> mitigating the effects of crime
The true victims of the drug trade are the bystanders. However, the war on drugs is fought through virtuous motivation - drugs are bad, impure, and destroy people and society. This motivation omits those most affected by the drug trade, the bystanders. Between street dealing, turf wars, and aggressive policing; the drug trade devastates communities.
The first time I watched it the first few episodes felt a little weak (like a network tv cop show), almost gave up on it but glad I didn't.
Season 2 was good, but I didn't understand why they kept the drug dealers plot on ice. It seemed like filler.
By season 3 it turned into every other TV show where characters are just tools used to express a story rather real people.
I stopped watching a few episodes into season 4 because I couldn't be bothered to care.
I would understand the heaps of praise The Wire gets if it were limited to season 1 (maybe 2 as well), but the reset doesn't seem that good.
But maybe instead I can give you an example of a thing that I hadn’t noticed, but once pointed out, became my favorite thing about the show: the first scene of the first episode of each season is an encapsulation of that whole season’s theme.
(Spoiler) in the first scene of the whole series, McNulty is asking a street kid about another kid, “Snot Boogie,” who had gotten gunned down. The kid explains that their friends had an ongoing dice game, and sometimes Snot would try to steal the money that was on the table. They would chase him down and beat him and go back to the game, and the next night Snot would just do it again. McNulty is incredulous, “if he always tries to steal, why do you let him play? If you keep beating him up, why does he come back?” “You’ve got to let him play. This is America.”
It’s easy to draw the parallel between Snot and the various players of the drug trade, who all play the game, some working their way higher up the ranks than others, but inevitably being beaten down, but they keep playing because it’s the only game in town. But that’s also the cops. Half of the are crooked and the there’s no “exit” and they’re fighting a war that can’t be won. Everyone in this game is Snot Boogie.
The set-up for the second season is even better, and the scene with Snoop and that nailgun... god
I’m going to give the series another watch alongside this podcast that goes through the episodes one at a time. Haven’t listened yet so I can’t vouch, but I’m intrigued. https://overcast.fm/+Zg-euhrSU
I'd tried to watch it a few times, but only a few months ago actually got past the first two episodes. I think it helped that I quite quickly saw it as a morally ambiguous discussion of the institutional ineptitude of conservative western cultures in mitigating the effects of crime, rather than a typical 'good vs bad' cop show.
With that mindset, the possibly-underwhelming finale of S1 is much more effective, and the sudden pace-change in S2 is more meaningful.