The Wire S5- Episodes 4-6 (up to Dickensen Aspect)

[shadowkat]

1. Completely understand why people weren't that crazy about S5 The Wire. Very odd season. At times insanely hilarious, at others deeply disturbing and difficult to watch. Also it lacks some of the emotional impact that S4 had.



*Herc and Carver by far - have the most rewarding and entertaining of arcs. Also their continued friendship...rewards. Herc redeems himself a bit by giving Carver - Marlo's cell number. Because Herc is working for the drug dealer's attorney, Levy now. Ironic that. Also Carver is now the boss - which also contains a level of irony.

*Whoa - they killed Prop Joe. Didn't expect that...although makes total sense. Will miss Prop Joe.
I liked Prop Joe. But as Prop Joe stated - he was caught between Omar and Marlo. One or the other was going to kill him. It was Marlo of course, that dude has no code or a soul.

*Omar! I now know why Omar is everyone's favorite character. His arc is actually the most consistently cathartic. He only kills or guns for the real bad dudes. Any chance he'll be the one who kills Marlo, like he did Stringer?

*McNulty is in deep shit. I don't see how he's going to get out of this. The man is drowning. The Lester/McNulty relationship is interesting. In S3 - Lester inspires McNulty to turn away from the Wire, to get a real life, outside of cop work. He gets McNulty out. In S5 - he enables McNulty's self-destruction - due to his own desire to get Marlo. It's ironic, because they are finally going after the money trail, finally indicting Clay Davis...but Lester is more interested in Marlo now, while in S4 he was more interested in the money trail. Bunk - interestingly enough walks an even line between the two - wanting to solve the crime the old-fashioned, by the book way. The hard way. But McNulty and Lester's fake case gets in Bunk's way.

The fake homeless serial killer case that Lester and McNulty make up with the assistance of a desperate Baltimore Sun reporter, Scott Templeton - begins to take on a life of its own. It is hilarious. Even Mayor Carcietti gets in on the action, pitching the homeless as his new touchstone.
His new cause. Even though he doesn't give a dime towards it. There is no money to give. They are broke. So the whole point of doing it - to get resources to use for the Marlo case, a wire, surveillance teams, etc - is impossible.

McNulty at one point tells Lester - "No offense, but I'm starting to understand why Daniels cringed whenever you opened your mouth. You are a supervisor's worse nightmare! First you tell me all we need is a wire-tap, then it's just a little surveillance, now you want pictures..."

Meanwhile, Bunk goes to get trace analysis on one of the Marlo homicides - from last year, which ironically are the cases McNulty and Lester are also trying to solve, but can't because the lab is backed up with McNulty and Lester's homeless cases.

It's hilarious and satirical, but also painful, because I can't see how Lester and McNulty will get out of it. And I'm worried the only winner will be well Scott Templeton, who I don't like all that much. Rather like Alma Guiterrez.

* The bit on the papers is amusing, and realistic, but also ...a bit slow and frustrating. It doesn't contain the same emotional resonance as the previous seasons. Although will state got a laugh out of the Kansas City Star t-shirt. The KC Star, the Balitmore Sun, and The Chicago Tribune are all owned by the same corporation and were gutted in the 21st Century, and are now pale shadows of the great papers they once were. The Wire depicts what happened to them fairly accurately and it is sad, particularly when you look at the Rupert Murdoch empire. In The Wire they depict how a reporter makes up facts, doesn't check facts, and gets away with it. Why he does it - makes sense.

*I can tell this is the final season - it's pulling all the threads together. We have Nick Sobotke show up and heckle the Mayor about his new waterfront, we see Sergie and the Greeks...from S2 meeting with Marlo, and Avon from S3 setting up the meet. Also, there's a great scene between Elena and McNulty regarding what he's doing with Beadie, and how he's neglecting his sons again.
"She knows, as I did, that she's losing you. Don't do this. You were happy." McNulty is circling back to the man he was in S1...but even more lost and even more chaotic.

S5 McNulty explains why people may not be that crazy about him. It's a tough character arc to watch. Funny at times, but also painful.

*There is a funny scene with Marlo, Michael, Chris and Snoop - all trying to figure out where the heck Omar is. They look up at the balcony - Omar had to have fallen from - which is over 25 feet up. Marlo looks up at the balcony then at his hitmen: "That's some weird Spiderman shit, I can't get my head around that. We lost our shot. Now he's gunning for us." Yeeep.

*Nerese Campbell is going out of her way to stop both Burrell and Clay Davis from taking down everyone...and succeeds. While Carcietti gets rid of them both...but not quite in the way he wanted to.



Yay, the debt ceiling got raised and they passed the bill. (Really there was no other choice. If we defaulted, the global economy would have been flushed down the proverbial toilet and we'd have really seen a return to the Great Depression. Was it great? NO. But it is what it is. The left and the right are basically screaming at each other at the moment. Yeah, I know, what else is new? They've been doing that for 20 years and counting. Hence the reason I tend to ignore politics nowadays. Just not worth raising the blood-pressure over. Can't do anything about the idiotic politicians anyhow.) At least I can stop worrying about that now, not that I was - to be honest?
I was successfully ignoring it.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

The bit on the papers is amusing, and realistic, but also ...a bit slow and frustrating. It doesn't contain the same emotional resonance as the previous seasons.

Yeah. I do think it's rather brilliant that the last season of the show doubles back and becomes about how everything we've seen over the last 4 years gets reported, gets forced into a traditional narrative - in this media society, things don't happen until people are told it happens (Marlo isn't an issue and doesn't get funding until McNulty fakes a heartbreaking story around it). That quote about "the Dickensian aspect" has been used in so many lazy write-ups about The Wire, and now here they are spinning it back at the real actual media. I like that. They spend 4 years showing the complexity of it all, and then they show how the final layer is all about ignoring that complexity and spinning a clever, easily understood yarn.

That said, the newspaper story in and of itself isn't all that original - we've seen that story so many times before, as much as the point is worth making.

McNulty in s5 just breaks my heart. (He's not the only one.) All the problems he's had (and inflicted on others - "What the fuck did I do?") all along are coming home to roost, and really, it's as much his own fault.

BTW, I don't know if you're familiar with him, but Bubbles' sponsor in NA is played by singer-songwriter Steve Earle. He's a recovering drug addict, so that's another character who basically plays himself. (He's also really brilliant, even if I don't care much for his version of "Down In The Hole" that's used as a theme song this season.)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

They spend 4 years showing the complexity of it all, and then they show how the final layer is all about ignoring that complexity and spinning a clever, easily understood yarn.

That said, the newspaper story in and of itself isn't all that original - we've seen that story so many times before, as much as the point is worth making.

It's a necessary point to make and clearly outlined and planned long before S5 happened. But, you are correct...it's been done a lot. Too many times, unfortunately. So it feels a bit preachy and trite at times. How many times have we met yellow journalist Scott Templeton who falsifies facts and
spins content? Also the whole faking of the serial killer case does feel a bit over-the-top. Yet, by the same token - I think the point they are making is an accurate and necessary one for the series. It
shows how the papers and media influence what gets done and what doesn't - from the beginning the papers were the specteral presence...lurking in the background. What the politicians feared and the cops tolerated. It's like the education arc - you see little mentions of it from the beginning leading up to S4. Both are required. And I'll give Simon credit for handling both a bit differently than most tv shows have.

McNulty in s5 just breaks my heart. (He's not the only one.) All the problems he's had (and inflicted on others - "What the fuck did I do?") all along are coming home to roost, and really, it's as much his own fault.

In the prior seasons...the infliction felt necessary and not that big a deal. We were more on his side, but here...it's getting out of hand. He's gone too far. But if you remember the earlier seasons and what he did then - you can see him eventually ending up here - if they permit him back into that game. He's an addict. McNulty shouldn't have been allowed back to The Wire or to Homicide.
He's the perfect noir hero...who falls into the abyss time and again, destroyed by his own impotent rage. The only way out - is to let go of the rage and walk away, which he did at the end of S3...but Bodie's death pulled him back again. He can't let Marlo be. Same thing happened to Omar - he was able to break away, but the blind man's death at Marlo's hands - pulls him back again.

But as the Wire shows? There's always going to be Marlo's and Stringer's...when one leaves another takes their place.

BTW, I don't know if you're familiar with him, but Bubbles' sponsor in NA is played by singer-songwriter Steve Earle.

So that's who that is? I wondered. Country-Western songwriter, I think? Didn't know that S5's version of Down in the Hole was his - either. Agreed - don't care for his version of it at all - he doesn't seem to get the rhythm of the song, which is odd. The best versions of that song are S4 (the kids), S2 (Tom Waits), and S1.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

There's always going to be Marlo's and Stringer's...when one leaves another takes their place.

As long as we (as a society) are eager to pay for them, there will always be Stringers and Marlos. One part of the joy of The Wire is the brilliant dissection of why we can't ever choose rationally to stop paying for them through half-hearted prohibition. It's still a choice, though.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Prohibition or no prohibition - they'd exist, regardless as history has shown time and again. There will always be those who obtain their living by hurting, killing, and selling others for their own gain. S2 shows that in some respects, "the Greeks" are selling humans.

If it weren't drugs, it would be something else. To legalize drugs doesn't resolve it, life ain't that simple. As S4 demonstrated so clearly. It's complicated. We aren't willing to pay for our schools, our police force, our sanitation - instead we whine incessantly about high taxes, when in reality our taxes are really low. We want these things - but we aren't willing to pay the price. We scream about the right to bear arms - but whine when a kid comes into a school and kills half the students. We scream that drugs should be legalized, yet whine about paying for the health care for addicts and homeless and those driven insane by the very drugs we think should be legalized. As Bunny Colvin discovers in S4 - the Ministers point out that they have to provide all these needs.

We pay for the Stringers and MArlos - with our own greed. Our own desire to pay more money to go see Joss Whedon in person than say,
a national health care system or a really good public school system.
Or an excellent mass transit system. I'm not saying we should give up pleasure or entertainment, just that there has to be a balance.
The person who makes the most money in the world shouldn't be a talk show host or a movie star or a real estate developer.

[candleanfeather.livejournal.com]

"There is a funny scene with Marlo, Michael, Chris and Snoop - all trying to figure out where the heck Omar is. They look up at the balcony" This scene was inspired by a real story: Donnie (it's also his real name), the man who went with Omar during the attack in the flat and died there, was a stick up man in his real life. He had once to jump out of a five stories high building to escape from a gunfight and survived the fall. Ed Burns arrested him later.