Wow, you don't fuck around. I picked up a cheap copy of season 2 the other day and I'm 2 episodes in. So far I'm not feeling the new characters and it's very slow moving. I'm just waiting for the old crew to get back together.

My girlfriend and I are pretty much addicted at this point. We would have gone right into Season Three last night if I'd had them from Netflix, but alas we must wait.

I felt the same way about Season Two for a few episodes, but I definitely got to liking all the new characters about midway through and was very much emotionally involved in their stories by the end.

That duck, that poor duck.

Because everyone seems to be talking about Morgan Freeman right now, a thought. Has it been pretty well-established already that Lester Freamon's character is an homage to the quietly brilliant detectives that Morgan Freeman has played over the years?

I'm pissed.




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How in the fuck do you kill Omar? That's like killing Luke Skywalker or Tuco Ramirez. Fuck this show. It started to go downhill when Bubbs poisoned his friend on accident, and now this. It makes no sense at all. There's really no need to watch the last two episodes. They fucked up bad.

It makes so much sense. Seriously. Keep watching.

it completely makes sense. the idea of an invincible, brilliant stickup artist is pretty laughable and completely hollywood. great story maybe, but not at all realistic. the show was great b/c omar was fully aware that he could get popped any time and by anyone. the perpetrator makes the twist all the better.

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Big time disappointed in the last 15 episodes for the most part. The plot got incredibly far flung and some great characters were killed of for no real reason. Bubs killing his buddy accidentally while trying to kill his robber with tainted drugs? Suddenly the once kick ass Detective Gregs is a pouty snitch? Faking homeless murders? The whole thing started falling apart about 2/3rds of the way through season 4. The montage at the end of 5 was also ridiculous. Daniels as the lawyer and the long time prosecutor as the judge? Omar killed off by a kid? Bullshit. Marlo lives? Herc working for people he once completely despised? Way too far flung and too far removed from the taught, interesting and fairly realistic first three seasons(and halfway into four). You do not kill Omar. That dude was the show. He finishes the show, not some other bullshit. The newspaper angle was especially boring compared to the election and port seasons.

Still, the first three and half seasons were easily top 10 TV for me (not like I'm some tv expert, but compared to what I have seen). I just wish they went in a different direction to finish things out.

i entirely disagree w/ montana. season 4 is one of the most brilliant, and the bubbles storyline there made TOTAL sense, esp


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IF you want bubbles to live; he has to hit rock bottom, and that rock bottom has to be REAL SHIT

This is some remedial philosophy of storytelling here.


1) There are only two options to a character in something like this (or the Sopranos), they live or they die.

2) The death of a character should accentuate how great of a character they are.

3) Death can come at any time, from any direction. This is reality. Shit not going how you plan it is also reality.


If you're really mad about this, you should realize how great a show it is for you to react so strongly to it.

Personally, I found Hamsterdam WAY more unrealistic than the Serial Killer thing. Besides, it's a pretty realistic portrait of the press.

yeah hamsterdam was by the far the most far fetched thing in the show. I wonder if they based it on something they've seen happen before...i'd hope so....

Nice.

Yeah, about four episodes in to Season 3 till the end of Season 4 is where The Wire reached its peak. We might have talked about this before, but the problem with Season 5 is that they tried to cram in too many storylines into two fewer episodes. There isn't that great character development that we've seen in the past, and the new characters don't rise above stereotypes.

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I think Hamsterdamn was more realistic personally. Also, it tied in with the whole Barksdale thing which was the glue of the show. Once Stringer went down ,the show lost a lot of steam IMHO.

Hmmm....there are some people just starting...I guess spoiler tags are in order. Myself, I went through the whole series in about 3 weeks in May.



Certainly, it was still well told, and important to the show.

I found it fairly unbelievable that someone would take the step to create Hamsterdam, but the fact that it went on for months without ANYONE finding out. This is even brought up in the show itself. It only took one pissed off person (or even careless person) to bring the whole house of cards down.

That is pretty close to how I feel too. Season 4 is just so perfect that no matter what, season 5 would pale in comparison. I still think 5 is better than almost anything else on TV, don't get me wrong, but what helped out was for me to think of season 5 as sort of an epilogue to the series.

I understand it's supposed to be a realistic show and the writers take pride in that. Obviously it's why it stands out. However.....




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Killing a character like Omar should only be done in the interest of making the best possible story. Instead, what it felt like was the writers automatically saying "Omar gotta go because we are a gritty real show and this is how it must be". That's fine. But just because you are doing the gritty thing doesn't mean it's a good story or idea. It wasn't. How Omar died was an insult to the entire show and tarnished it IMHO. The best possible comparison would be The Bad killing Tuco Ramirez in the end. The Wire should of ended with Omar whistling down an alley, wether victorious or mortally wounded. That's all there is to it. Instead we get a glamour shot of McNulty saving his homeless man from the contrived and over the top Hollywood style main plot point of season 5. What a fucking joke the show turned out to be. Detective Greggs the snitch? Bullshit. It was a complete and total betrayal of the entire series. They ruined quite a few characters while building less interesting ones (Michael). Yeah, I Get it. Dookie and Michael have "replaced" certain characters and life goes on. That's a rushed, lame, ham-handed cop out of an ending. The entire thing felt rushed out the door and this is evident by the character betrayal.

Bad. just fucking bad.

True

I'm only in the beginning of Season Three, so I haven't been looking at all these spoilers. Just wanted to mention one of my favorite scenes from Season One. The "fuck fuck fuck" crime scene recreation where McNulty and Bunk are communicating using only the f-word. Great great great scene.

Montana, you need to watch this show better. Your opninions in your last two posts make little, too no, sense. They are not based on the characters, but on your own desires for the show's direction.

Omar's death was essential to the shows purpose and function. There is really no good reason for Omar to have lived. He backstabbed too many people, and he had too many enemies. For him to live would be completely unrealistic. How could a loner stick-up-boy who has enemies every which way he turns survive forever on the streets? Realistically, it does not make sense for Omar to live in the least. Likewise both how he died and the momentary mix up at the coroner's office emphasizes how little Omar mattered to the "larger"world. He may have been the star within the world of The Wire, but to most people his life mattered little, and the brief confusion at the coroner brought the viewer out of the world of Mcnulty and Marlo, and into the larger scheme of the things. These people's lives matter so little because they are so self-contained within their neighborhoods, but the purpose of The Wire was to show how despite their distance from "our" lives, that the lives of people like Omar really have a huge effect on our lives.

Greggs benig the snitch was hardly a betrayal, considering the fact that even the fans of the show thought that McNulty's homeless guy crimes were crossing a line, there needed to be some level-headed character that was willing to call McNulty on his crimes. And Greggs makes a lot more sense than Bunk, or any other character.

Micheal's evolution and Dookie's disintegration were natural. They were inevitable since the first few episodes of season 4, go back and watch those episodes, and the seeds of their demise are already being planted. You were either blindly watching those episodes, or hoping that despite overwhelming evidence that these charcters would go in different directions.

Season 5 was hardly perfect, it started out shaky, and the homeless crimes seemed foolish, but it really is not the train wreck you make it out to be. I say, watch it again.. or at the very least rewatch season 4. I'd say season 4 is easily the most critically acclaimed season, and you are probably the first person i have heard of saying anything bad about it.

The real mayor of B-more proposed legalizing drugs a few years ago, yes, and was called "the most dangerous man in America" by the press. And at the end of s3 when the politicos are debating whether to let Hamsterdam continue, and someone calls Bunny or the Mayor the most dangerous man in America, that's the actual former mayor.

So much for that being the most "unrealistic" plot line of the series...

Obviously it goes to the BS faked homeless murders.

I don't really see how that's unrealistic. You couldn't see a similar scandal coming out of a similar situation w/ police budget, modern day media attention, etc? Police do/cover up worse shit every day, some of which gets out in the paper, some which doesn't.

It may not be my favorite storyline the Wire ever produced, but I wouldn't say it's unrealistic.

I think how Omar died was perfect. At that point everyone knew if Omar got the chance to face Marlo and his crew, Omar was going to wipe them out. Instead, Omar got lazy and took for granted a little kid would have the balls to take a shot at him. That's why the show is great, IMO. No matter how much of a reputation you have as a stone-cold killer you may have, screw up once and you're out. Omar fucked up. Plain and simple. No one stays on top forever.

Except for Daniels, the prosecutor, Bunk, Greggs, McNulty, Bubs, etc. Strange that the two strongest characters were killed (Bell and Omar). If the show was realistic, Bubs would have HIV and McNulty would have been in a bad accident due to his drinking, or in rehab. Laying the "realistic" card doesn't mean it makes a better story. The two biggest betrayal of the series and characters in general was Greg's snitching out McNulty and Omar crying and acting all emotional on the streets( something he never did). These characters were forced into these direct betrayals and insane contradictions to fit some predifined element rather than for the sake of telling the best story. Was that even Greggs in season 5? Sure didn't seem like the one Iknew the previous four. And Omar crying like a bitch, walking stupidly among the streets with no real plan? That ain't Omar - it's contrived B.S. to advance their shitty plot line which shit all over the series. As I watched Gregs and much of Omar in Season 5, I wondered wether I was watching the same show.

you have no fucking clue what you are talking about


it wouldn't be "realistic" that the two strongest characters definitely survive. life is RANDOM. thats the fucking point here dude

and um greggs doesnt' 'come out on top.' she remains a part of a corrupt, stifling bureaucracy. just because she doesnt become a total fuckup doesnt = she 'came out on top'

how the fuck can you be wrong about everything.

Oh, I understand perfectly. The Wire was good, and then randomly went bad.

It's too bad all the other characters prospered and achieved their goals. Just not Bell or Omar.





How can you be an apologist for everything? Just because the first few seasons were great doesn't mean the last one was.

luscious phil's analysis is OTM and i haven't even seen season 5 yet.

and word to the life is random comment ddd.

monty, i don't think anyone so explicity make the claim that you emply, that "more realistic plot choices = "better" plot choices." obviously i think a lot of people would have loved for omar to have lived, but it was the smarter choice because it was the more real choice. it is this authenticity and avoidance of the gradiose that people really admire about the wire. if we were looking for classic shakesperian drama we'd go to the source for our fix (which is exactly why S3 is my least favorite, but that's another story).

There's an awful lot of apologizing going on here for season 5. Like I said, having it "more real" doesn't mean you are telling a better story. How Omar went down is bullshit because it's a gigantic contradiction and betrayal to his character in the previous 4 seasons, just like Snitchy Greggs. These were bullshit moments that had almost nothing to do with the characters in previous seasons and only served to provide a "this is real" meme rather than telling the best possible story. Also, we get the fairly tale bullshit endings of HIV-free 30 year needle addict Bubbs finally going up the stairs, the magic careers of Daniels and his bitch, Mcnultyy bringing his homeless guy home in Disneyland fashion, Bunk and Snitch Greggs workin the case, Bodee's buddy working at foot locker, and don't even get me started on killing off Bodee because the show was running out of ideas. In the end, the writers bought into their own shit too much, and unravelled everything good about the series.

I can go to Mexico and get real donkey sex. Doesn't mean it's going to be good.

how is it a contradiction of 'his character'? In real life, ANY person can die at ANY moment. thats fucking reality. but especially if you are a stickup kid who's been robbing and shooting ppl for 2 decades. Similarly, Greggs 'snitching' is totally the wrong way to look at it ... she was always a responsible, good person and she knew that what mcnulty was doing was wrong. just like bunk - except bunk was mcnulty's best friend, so it made sense that he wouldn't 'snitch.'

5th seasons was my least favorite but the shit you're complaining about is really stupid

Absolutely brilliant review of Season 5 that backs up what I'm saying. Don't click the link if you don't like spoilers:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=34511



The Wire-good/Wire-bad system is a simple but very effective organizing principle, one that has allowed Simon to vent his rage at civic and corporate selfishness without making his show feel like a blog screed. And it’s given him a breadth he wasn’t allowed in his reporting for the Baltimore Sun, or in two nonfiction books. The Wire is his scream therapy. “It is an angry show,” he’s written.

In the show’s fifth season, that anger has gotten the better of him. Much of his rage is focused on the media and the dwindling fortunes of newspapers. For the first time, though, his frustrations start to muck not just with the believability of his characters but with the rules of the peculiar social order he’s invented. One of the central arguments of The Wire has been that, despite various political and economic upheavals, despite all the futility in its world, characters stay relatively constant. Omar never points his shotgun at a citizen; Bubbles remains genial, self-sacrificing, and concerned with fair play regardless of whether he’s using; Freamon, who rode a soul-crushing job on the pawnshop detail for 13 years before earning a position worth his intelligence, takes his time and would rather fuss over dollhouse furniture than get involved in BPD administrative squabbles.

Simon has done serious damage to this premise this year in an effort to make his case against corporate media by giving money—or its lack—such character-morphing power. Money has always been short in The Wire—the angry God who made Simon’s Baltimore may well have first intoned “You’ll just have to do more with less” instead of “Let there be light.” But this time around financial concerns are strangely disproportionate, a wrecking ball that arbitrarily reshapes character. HBO has thus far only made seven of the season’s 10 episodes available to reviewers, and Simon may yet right the ship. But it’s thudding to a close, stuck in a stereotypically TV-like world it’s heroically avoided until now.

ouch....

Cheers for the spolier tags guys.

Only just started S2 of this last night.

I have a hard time believing this show could ever be bad, only varying degrees of good.

PS: So far, Omar's great, but it's all about Bubbles. Maybe that changes in other years, but Bubbles rules the roost so far.

lemme go on the record by saying that i've never been as big of an omar fan as the rest of the universe apparently is. my favorite characters have always been the smart, capable guys that are more or less powerless in their respective situations and yearn to escape to a simple life with simple pleasures. specifically d'angelo and nick.

i don't really think there's that much apologizing going on for S5, just a lot of people voicing that omar's death really isn't the atrocity that you seem to think it is monty. these of course are opinions and we've all got em. some folks thought the decision made sense and some didn't, this is hardly any more complex of an issue than that, despite what that Athitakis may claim.

monty i vote you get over to the grateful dead thread on the music board and we can just make post after post about how brilliant jerry garcia was.

I think Monty is just as wrong as the people saying Omar HAD to die.

Like the Sopranos, obviously this life requires either getting out or getting killed. But neither really have to be shown on screen.

I, and certainly some others, don't necessarily WANT Omar to be killed. I was certainly disappointed by it, but this is the nature of storytelling.

I wish more of you (or anyone?) had scene THE FALL. It has an interesting take on the nature of storytelling, that I think this would relate to.

1. thats not actually backing up any criticism you've made in this thread

2. im rewatching season 1 right now. omar gets shot in the arm in episode 9 so stfu about supposedly-invulnerable omar

3. the guy writing that review had only seen a portion of the final season

Season 5 was pretty awesome, I thought, but I'm not one of those people that has to find some bullshit to nitpick about everything. I've seen plenty of comments by people that had problems with either Omar dying or the homeless killings or the portrayal of the media (it was mostly media people on this one), but it all made for a hell of a ride. I wouldn't say it's my favourite season, but still a great way to go out - and my DVDs of it shipped today so I can watch it from start to finish.

In other Simon/Burns news, Generation Kill starts off confusing as hell but I am totally addicted to it.

I can't wait to read this thread once I've finished watching all 5 series.

Finished the 2nd series last night. Overall I feel it wasn't as good as the first one and was quite slow moving towards the beginning. It did get a lot better once all the plots started to tie into one another, though. It seemed like the season was almost a prelude to the 3rd, so here's hoping it can reach the heights of the 1st.

i like it when bubbles says 'mcnulty.' kinda sounds like 'mcnutty' sometimes. dude's a brilliant actor, btw

I agree that s5 was the weakest and had rushed storylines, but I would argue that not everything turned up roses for the main characters. McNulty & Lester have to quit the force--they loved being cops and felt they'd done the best work of their careers in going after Marlo. Daniels never really wanted to be an attorney.

Also, Greggs was a hardass at the beginning--which is why she was Daniels' pet. The corrupt congressman gets off scott free--just like in real life. Omar essentially reaped what he had been dishing all those years...yeah it made me sad to see his decline, but he really did go after Marlo without having all his ducks in a row.

Just finished Season Three. Once again, the absolute best TV ever. Once again, that season-ending montage hit me in the gut, even harder this time than the previous two. I never fully realized the possibilities of serialized television until The Wire. The comparison to a novel is absolutely perfect. The detail, in plot and character, is incredible. I'm in love with this show. I don't want it to end. I could watch this cast and these characters forever.

And to think, before The Wire, my only knowledge of Dominic West was from this crap-



Dammit, Hollywood. Learn how to use your actors!

You have obviously missed a true masterpiece.

Do yourself a huge favor and stop watching it at the end of Season 4. Looking back, that was the perfect ending to the series.

I'm finishing season 4 tonight, I've got the last two episodes to go. This is gonna be awesome.

Just got Season 5 in the mail today! Can't wait to finally watch the final episodes of this series.

A little disappointed that I had already heard about the death of Omar but I don't know how it actually happens so at least that will be a surprise.

i honestly don't know how anyone who hasn't watched the entire series can read this thread. i'd be too tempted to check under spoiler tags.

I almost checked hummingbird's just now, I need to stop doing this.

season 5 is a step down but is hardly like DONT WATCH THIS by any fucking means

if you trust montana to recommend rap music, trust his advice on the wire too

Just finished Season Four last night. The show is perfect. I don't know what else to say. This is the high water mark. Everything else will fall short.

I continue to be impressed by how the writers manage to make every character both likeable and unlikeable. And a few of the characters that started out almost irredeemably unlikeable (Pryzbylewski, Carcetti) have become some of my favorite characters. Wee-Bey redeemed himself in the last episode. And Bodie, who I was down on because of what he did to Wallace, really turned into a sympathetic character this season. I was sad to see him go. I even found Partlow a bit sympathetic in the scene where he beats Michael's step-father(?) to death. That man definitely has a lot of shit going on in his head. As always, the end-season montage remains a highlight of the series. Poor Randy. And Dukie.

That look on Snoops face when Partlow was destroying Michael's step father was amazing.

damn! he ain't even get the motherfucka in the house!


just finished S5 last night. i think it starts out strong (first 3-4 episodes are great), but man does it try to wrap too much stuff up too quickly. the last 3-4 episodes are definitely the nadir of the series.

still love this show. can't wait to rewatch it later this year.