The Wire S5 - Episode...1-3

[shadowkat]

Been watching The Wire - S5 - which underlines the frustrating inability to do anything with a lack of public funding. We see it through various points of view, the cops, the newspapers, and the government. It's a real nice critique of the flaws of Capitalism as social policy.


Interesting - they are really making Marlo and his gang, irredeemably evil. Stringer and Avon seemed a bit more well-rounded. But Marlo is a bit...well, mwwhahhahhhah evil. And not nearly as well-rounded a character. Same with Chris and Snoop. Bodie and Poot and Weebay were a bit more multi-dimensional, I think.

There is a hilarious scene with Bunk, Lester, and McNulty in the third episode. Bunk is trying to get Lester to help him with McNulty, who has come up with the insane plan of creating a fake serial killer of homeless people in order to convince the brass to throw money at them - to solve the Marlo Stanfield case. But Lester, who is as frustrated as McNulty, and as "independent" minded, decides McNulty has a great idea but is doing it all wrong - and comes up with a far better plan.

Bunk: WTF Lester? What are you doing!
Lester: Whose going to notice that we've faked a few deaths...and then can't solve them? Or care?
It's just homeless people after all. And they are dead already. Plus it means we can get the wire to solve the Marlo case - all we need is three weeks.
Bunk: You guys are insane. I'm out of here.

Lester and McNulty are very Machiavellian at times. But my heart goes out to Beadie. Ball Buster Jimmy is back with a vengeance...she's losing the man she fell in love with. Yet another link to the addiction theme - which threads in and out of the series as a whole. Also Lester and McNulty's the ends justify the means view is paralleled with Carcietti and Norman's use of the newspaper to push Burrell out of office...and Marlo's attempts to manipulate the organization into linking him directly with the Greeks, so he no longer has to go through Prop Joe.

Also, I agree with Snoop and Prop Joe, Marlo's plan to pull out Omar is not that bright. Prop Joe doesn't want Omar back - leave him be. Snoop - we still have no idea where Omar is, and now we have him gunning for us...this is not a great plan. Considering Omar killed Stringer Bell for just setting him up, I somehow think...he's not going to think too kindly on what they've done to his best friend in the entire world.

I've never seen anything like the Wire on tv before. (No not the Omar arc - seen that plenty of times...it's a popular trope, or the cops/drug dealers - also popular trope, no I mean the exploration of the docks, papers, and schools, along with the inner city politics...and politics within the police force - that's new. Most tv shows on drug dealing/crime either do the whole Breaking Bad/Sopranos/Sons of Anarchy/Weeds/Dog Day Afternoon anti-hero drug dealer trope (which if you watch a lot of American television and films, you've seen quite a bit of by now and let's face it - much like Vampires? There's really nothing new to say on the topic, they've clearly exhausted it), or the whole we must put the bad drug dealers down trope (Chicago Code, Traffic, Law and Order, 21 Jump Street, etc - also nothing new to say about it.) But they don't expand and explore the universe to the degree this one does, or the consequences on that universe. The Wire pretty much examines the whole crime tale in a new way, in that it's not really a cop show or a drug dealer show.

By far the best tv show I've seen. Which is saying a lot.

Comments

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

Interesting - they are really making Marlo and his gang, irredeemably evil. Stringer and Avon seemed a bit more well-rounded. But Marlo is a bit...well, mwwhahhahhhah evil. And not nearly as well-rounded a character. Same with Chris and Snoop.
While Marlo is one of the two characters I unreservedly hate (#2 would be Ziggy!), I felt that Chris' interactions with Michael humanized him a great deal. It was clear that he'd been abused too. And as for Snoop, well she's who she is, an angel-faced killer without an ounce of self-reflection, but she's interesting. Marlo? Evil and dull!

I like s5 a lot but it is a bit problematic. Not surprisingly, because it's clearly the most personal season for David Simon, it's not subtle. The Baltimore Sun was obviously an institution he cared deeply for and the anger over its decline is palpable. I do think his focus on the media is important to complete his examination of Baltimore - the journalists are supposed to be there to make the connections that we've been seeing over the course of five seasons but it's been made obvious that they've been failing at their jobs.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Snoop and Chris do have a bit more depth. Snoop is even hilarious at times. So, I'd agree with that.
Marlo is by far the most one-dimensional character to date. He makes me miss Stringer Bell quite a bit. Stringer was the most complex villain of the drug dealer villains.

(If you hate Ziggy - I recommend you stay away from Breaking Bad, the character of Jesse reminds me a lot like Ziggy in that series. And I agree Ziggy was annoying, although at least he was two-dimensional and only lasted one season.)

Both S5 and S4 are personal seasons for the creators. S4 is clearly Ed Burns baby. S5 is clearly David Simon's. So far the paper isn't bugging me that much. And the whole bit about the paper being gutted does reinforce the general theme about the misuse of funds. Although, I'd have to agree they do hammer you over the head with it a bit. In S4 - it was about the misuse of funds towards schools, here it is the papers, with the on-going theme being the police force and their inability to do their job, and the constant search for power by the higher ups.

[shapinglight]

I liked the journalist characters a lot more than I was expecting, but all in all they don't quite make the impact of the school story in season 4.

I actually found the contrast between Avon's gang and Marlo's very interesting. Avon was a bad guy, no doubt about that, but he had a kind of a code. Marlo just kind of ...blank, and all the scarier for that.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I actually found the contrast between Avon's gang and Marlo's very interesting. Avon was a bad guy, no doubt about that, but he had a kind of a code. Marlo just kind of ...blank, and all the scarier for that.

yep. Bodie states it to both McNulty and Poot clearly. That with Avon - at least you had a family, rules, guidelines, a code. Marlo just kills anyone who pisses him off, regardless. He kills Little Kevin because he thinks he may be a snitch, not with proof or knowledge. It's not like Stringer with Wallace. And later, what bothers Michael, is Marlo has Snoop and Chris and Michael kill an entire family just because somebody heard the guy call him a DuckSuck. That's just psychopathic.

Marlo is just plain evil. I think they went too far with his character to be honest, and he may be the one major weakness that I've seen to date.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

McNulty deciding to fake a serial killer is a great scene - one of the few ever where I actually started yelling at a fictional character (right along with Bunk). "What the HELL are you doing?!?" With everything those two have been through, you know McNulty has just crossed a line when Bunk is that utterly disgusted.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yep, had basically the same reaction - I kept yelling at the tv, what the hell are you doing! Don't do this! (I guess it helps if we remember that McNulty and the gang have been on the Stanfield Wire for more than a year, with no overtime pay, and little aid. Can't get anywhere...and figure if they are just given a bit more time and better resources...It's what Prop Joe told Stringer - boredom kills cops.)

Have to admit, I was less surprised by McNulty's actions than Lester's. That scene where Bunk brings Lester into the room in order to talk some sense into McNulty, and Lester does the exact opposite - is truly hilarious. Poor Bunk - he's utterly disgusted, and his two buds, his best partners have gone nuts!