Zigg is very irritating, I'll give you that.

But this thing about blue-collar guys being dressed like they're in the 70's? I don't get it. Blue collar types don't follow trends or have a lot of $, which I think makes the way the stevedores are dressed authentic. I never once thought about how they were portrayed, because I bought it. It's not like they put Tom Cruise in a crane, or anything. But maybe you know more about fashion trends than i do.

I too, think tattoos and the 'biker' look is cliche, but there are bands like the Allman Brothers and Govt Mule that would disagree with what you and I think. I actually think there were a real band, but I'll check.

And maybe you had sympathy for Zigg, but I never did. Was very glad how he turned out.

But as for the production design and character development-- I just don't get where you're comin from. I mean they film all the episodes in B-more, for crying out loud. You do realize that they probably got pressured to do it in a place like Canada or something to save money, right?

From nj.com:

"• The band playing at the stevedore bar is The Nighthawks, who enterprisingly put a banner with their website on it in the background of the shot. "

So I guess they weren't a 'fake' band.

I just didn't like season 2 as much. I don't feel the characters were adequately established, and there were just too many moments that left me rolling my eyes back.

I got HBO when season 2 was airing and repeatedly passed on the Wire because of what struck me as a depressing union corruption storyline. Season 3 got me hooked and I came back to watch 1 & 2 after season 4. Two still ranks next-to-last. Maybe because I grew up in a town with a struggling shipyard. And I fucking hate unions.

Man, I love Season 2. Could be my favourite. Either that or 4.

How come?

That's the funny thing. I'll defend SImon to the death, but actually, Season 2 is my least fave. Too much Ziggy, and I tend to find the whore murders kind of boring. But with all u guys going on about Season 2, I've been trying to revisit the 'docks' and see what I might have missed.

i liked season 2 quite a bit. the extraordinary thing is that i didn't find any of the newly introduced characters either likable or unlikable. but i appreciated them as characters, especially since the acting was so good

didja know that the nick sobotka character's real name is pablo? and that clay davis's first three roles were in 'cagney and lacey', 'gremlins 2', and 'goodfellas'?

SHEEEEEEEEEEEE...ittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

Clay was also in a Law & Order or two.

Yet another link in the constant Levinson/Wolf trade-in factory.

I just watched the first episode of Season 1. I'm pretty confident I'll be doing the whole 5 pretty compulsively. Clearly, this is very sharp writing.

In the public sector anyway, where virtually all working conditions are codified ad nauseum, 99% of the time unions are nothing but a means for a handful of professional hardcases to advance their self-interests & PACs while manufacturing dissatisfaction and fomenting divisiveness. All in the guise of championing the noble working man/union puppet.

Not to mention their propensity for strong-arming weak-willed politicians into lopsided, absurdly unrealistic MOU's behind closed doors that literally (see Vallejo) bankrupt public agencies

I, too, fucking hate unions. And I'm a pretty "liberal" guy

NTM the thing I hate most about unions-- they seem to always be protecting the job of someone who should really be fired.

do you anti-union folks think they should be made illegal?

No, just decertified by the people paying dues.

He's the doc in Goodfellas during the coked out paranoid helicopter chase that Ray Liotta didn't look so good. I think he gave him some Xanax or something. I remember seeing that and thinking it was pretty cool-- dude looks the same.

Good call. I forgot that I myself, had pointed it out to the Mrs. She couldnt' believe it either.

Goddamn that's some serious movie game shit, there.

so there's a course on this show at harvard now. gotta say, sure beats berkeley's 'the poetry of tupac shakur' course

This is the third course on this show I've heard of so far--UW-Madison has a faculty seminar, and here at UW-Milwaukee where I work, one of the history professors is teaching a graduate seminar based on the show.

My final test in American Studies had me compare The Wire and The Godfather, specifically, the sense of community and culture being destroyed by the crime and corruption within them.

Yeah, the US economy has really been humming along in the near-total absence of unions. Complaining about corruption in unions is about as bankrupt as wanting to eighty-six capitalism because of Goldman Sachs.

Let's face it: this country worked for the greatest number of its citizens when the balance of ownership/management was weighed against that of the rank and file. Since the early eighties this country has slid into a shit sink it's likely never to emerge from, largely because it has crippled labor.

Corruption in unions has only gotten worse as the few scraps that supply-side has left them are being fought over tooth and nail. My guess is that if unions expand in membership, accountability will rise. It's not like it hasn't happened before in this country.

Ahhh... the Wire... how refreshing

Not much left for this chap to say, but I would like to make a comment on my favorite character. And as I looked back on my first viewing of the Wire he never resided in my top three... that first spin left a soft spot for Bubbles, Stringer and Omar.

But then you watch again. And you start to notice things. A kid on a corner finds his way to the arm of a couch. The arm of a couch leads to Stringers car - where he reveals that he will do what he needs to do... that nobody is above the game. Skully cap and all, he has his best friend shot down their boy - and like that, he finds himself glued to one of the most heart wrenching scenes in season 1.

Then he escalates, rises into a front row seat at a funeral home. He stands for something important. He represents the underyling theme of the show, growth - but not uphill growth, not even linear growth - growth around a circle. Growth that starts up, then evens off, then heads down and by the time it comes back up for a breath of air you find yourself on a bench with McNulty minutes before the circle is erased.

Preston "Bodie" Broadus, in my opinion, is the most facinating character study the show has. Starting off as a Barksdale corner boy - we see him live the theme of the show. That things don't change. That no matter your place, you grow, live, get hurt, die, and then it repeats... and if the show continued for years on end - we would have seen another corner boy find the arm of a couch, then the front seat of a leather draped Navigator,then on a first name basis with the narc cops and then on a bench in a park with a homicide detective a few hours before he is killed.

It's a circle - and nobody defined this theme more than Bodie. In a show full of characters layers deep - he really ties it all together

well said. while there are a lot of characters i like more than bodie, i feel like a number of passionate wire fans rank bodie amongst their favorites for many of the reasons you just listed. that said, i've only watched the series once and my appreciations probably aren't that of many hardcore fans. fwiw, i find him more interesting (and believable i guess) than omar.

Bodie is top 5, no question.

I think the reason Bodie, more than any other character, grows on people after a second viewing of the Wire is the subtle character arch.. You literally don't know his name the first few episodes of Season 1. You really don't expect him to be a major player at all - even as the seasons progress... he was not Stringer or Avon material... he was a Soldier of the game, and it was just easy to look past his character early on. By the time you realize how great of a role it is, you forget the early stuff.

For me, the second time through was almost as enjoyable as the first.

I loved the show even more on my second and third viewings, and certainly Bodie has become one of my favorite characters, for the reasons you've already stated.

We're well into season five now. It's astonishingly great, but season two is still a weak point, imo.

still love season 2

Heh--I got into The Wire during s3, so it was really surprising, once I went back to watch the first two seasons, to see how Bodie started out. And Omar for that matter--he was kinda dorky at first.

season two just took the drug trade one step higher on the food chain and examined the lives on the periphery, no? ballsy move by simon too. i don't know HBO's track record with regard to canceling series, but in lesser hands (someone without a long-term vision) season two could've torpedoed the show

i'm not gonna watch the series again for years probably, just 'cause i wanna regain some of the feeling i used to get when the end-credit music came on. a feeling i'll probably never get watching a tv show ever again

Season 5 never should have happened.

here we go again

No we don't!


Just agree to disagree!

Does anyone expect him to bring anything new to his 'argument'?

Unless they went back and redid season 5, why would my argument change?

Season 5 basically ruined the entire thing for me. That's a shame because 1-4 was first rate brilliance.

After Bodie, my second favorite character arc is Cutty - soldier/muscle, convict, tries to get back into the game, doesn't work out, opens the gym to help kids, etc. There are bunch of really well done scenes that point out his growth as a character.

This show really rewards a second and third viewing - its amazing how many little nuances are put in that you would never pick up on the first go around

People can click on the previous page of this thread you know.

Boring.

his story arc was just kinda left open-ended, wasn't it?

Repeating the same thing over and over again has worked so well in the past..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sgj78QG9Bg

^Great video. Saw that on Aziz Ansari's twitter feed. It leaves out one of the show's best quotes though: "And, of course, I'm not even Greek"

Was looking for the f-bomb scene from s.1 and came across this:

i bought one of my friends a shirt that reads "re-elect clay davis for maryland state senate." she wore it downtown yesterday and some guy walking toward her goes "sheeeeee-it" and just kept on going. very amusing.

The Wire Monopoly

Awesome article that recasts The Wire as a 19th century Dickens-esque serial novel. Highly amusing. Also functions as a great analysis of what makes The Wire so good. I demand you read this.

When It’s Not Your Turn: The Quintessentially Victorian Vision of Ogden’s The Wire.

damn i wish that actually existed

That article is pretty cool. I liked this passage about Omar:

Pretty great, yeah. Brilliant even.

You lose the game when you land on the "Season Five" section.

'the final cut' ruined the entire pink floyd catalog