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All in the Game - The Wire Appreciation Thread


RonL21

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I noticed the West Wing had an appreciation thread, so figured the Wire needed one as well.

 

My favorite season was actually probably season 4 but Im sure most fans would say Season 3, since so much happened in that season.  I also think season two is criminally underrated.  It pretty much is the blueprint for the whole show with showing how the drugs are actually brought in.  I honestly think people weren't ready for the shift after the first season.

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4/3/1/2.         ...5 

 

That isn't to say I don't fucking LOVE 2. 4 was when I came in and it still stays with me as the best written and most in-depth of all the seasons. You have all of the storylines entwining with the lives of the kids (with the political stuff influencing only the periphery of their lives, but still) and it seems to strike home harder than usual. I might be being hard on 5 but come on. The only one I don't own on disc...

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Yeah, 5 felt like I was waiting for something that never came.

 

I will need to dig my discs out and go back through them, Ive never re-watched a full show start to finish but I might just do it for the wire.

 

I could see me doing Seasons 2 - 4 over a couple of weekends given half a chance!

 

Omar Little 4 Life!

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Wallaces death still gets me when I watch it. Also the saga of Bodie was so well written and well executed he went from this wide eyed kid in season one who was totally enthralled in the whole game and believed in what he was doing and the phantom code to this tired grizzled veteran in season four who is slowly starting to realize that the game doesnt mean shit and the new jacks like Marlo dont live by the same code that he was brought up under from guys like String and Avon and that that game is gone.

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Wallaces death still gets me when I watch it. Also the saga of Bodie was so well written and well executed he went from this wide eyed kid in season one who was totally enthralled in the whole game and believed in what he was doing and the phantom code to this tired grizzled veteran in season four who is slowly starting to realize that the game doesnt mean shit and the new jacks like Marlo dont live by the same code that he was brought up under from guys like String and Avon and that that game is gone.

I thought Bodie's story arc was the best arc on the show.  Omar's was really good, but his downward spiral was a little too much for me.  Bodie telling Wallace to stand up like a man before he shot him paired with him standing his ground when his time came made Bodie my favorite character in TV history.  You can say how dispicable some of Bodie's actions were, but you have to give him credit for standing up and walking the walk when shit hit the fan.  The show had so many examples of people taking the easy way out(*cough* Stringer *cough*) that Bodie's refusal to leave his corner when Chris and Snoop came for him stood out as honorable. Even though he was like one of those "little, bald headed, bitches," in the grand scheme of things, on that corner he was a king. 

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Wallaces death still gets me when I watch it. Also the saga of Bodie was so well written and well executed he went from this wide eyed kid in season one who was totally enthralled in the whole game and believed in what he was doing and the phantom code to this tired grizzled veteran in season four who is slowly starting to realize that the game doesnt mean shit and the new jacks like Marlo dont live by the same code that he was brought up under from guys like String and Avon and that that game is gone.

 

It's Bodie's opinion (and Wee-bay's) that Avon and Stringer were different, but there isn't a shit ton to back that up really. Bodie gets whacked out for snitching just like Wallace. The game is the game. Always.

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Yeah, 5 felt like I was waiting for something that never came.

 

I will need to dig my discs out and go back through them, Ive never re-watched a full show start to finish but I might just do it for the wire.

 

I could see me doing Seasons 2 - 4 over a couple of weekends given half a chance!

 

Omar Little 4 Life!

 

Re-watching The Wire doesn't work that way. You will sit down and watch an entire season in huge swaths of time. It has this power that refuses to let you leave it alone. 

 

This talk of Bodie reminded me of McNulty saying to him "you're a soldier", and him saying "definitely". The only reason he snitched is because he didn't have a general worth dying for anymore. But the game is the game...

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I don't wanna linger in this thread because I haven't finished Season 5 yet and don't want to spoil anything (I started it last Winter but I hate to get to the end and have no more new shows to watch so am taking my sweet time).  But of the first four seasons, I'd probably rank them 4 - 2 - 3 - 1.  But, I'm planning on going through and watching the whole thing again once I finish.

 

Who's your favourite underrated character (i.e. not Omar, McNulty, Bunk)?  I have to give honourable mentions to Bunny Colvin who is just amazingly great as the cop actually trying to make a difference who loses it all trying to make things right but the one who probably stuck with me the most is Cutty who I was just immediately taken with and remember actually closing my eyes at times going "No, no, no, Cutty!" because he just seemed like such a solid dude trying to turn things around.  It's at the point now where I'll watch anything and if I spot him I get all excited and shout "Cutty!" like as if it's the same character and he got out of Baltimore, now tending bar (In 'Horrible Bosses').

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I think the way that WEebay got fleshed out in season 4 was great. By showing that he does care about his son's future and listening to Bunny Colvin it added depth to a character that that you knew nothign about in season 1.

 

James

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Ziggy was the best part about season 2 to me. James Ransone has become one of my favorite "that guy" actors on television, and he was excellent as Ziggy.

 

I have to say that one of my favorite characters throughout the series was Cheese, and his death was the best part of season 5.

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Does Prop Joe count as under appreciated?  If so, I vote for the philosophical fat man.  My favorite Prop Joe moment was when Nicky went to his shop to get restitution for Ziggy's car, and Prop Joe said this gem:

 

Who you tellin'? I got motherfuckin' nephews and in-laws fucking all my shit up all the time and it ain't like I can pop a cap in their ass and not hear about it Thanksgivin' time. For real, I'm livin' life with some burdensome niggas. 

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Part of me wishes they would do another season, this one focused on the synthetic marijuana "bath salts" which are currently ravaging Maryland.  Open the series with one of Beadie Russell's children suffering severe brain damage after taking the stuff and the mayor's daughter dying from an overdose, which serves as an impetus for the Mayor to force the BPD to reassemble the Major Crimes unit with McNulty being brought back from exile and for McNulty himself to go after The Greek who is the major smuggler.  The season would not focus poor people in the inner city who are forced to sell drugs to survive, but on middle class and rich kids who take the drugs as part of their irresponsible quest to get high and not on whether it is the fault of society that people do/sell drugs, but on the question of personal responsibility in taking drugs and messing up your life.

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Actually, after just reading about the recent history of Baltimore since 2008, they need to do another season just to reflect how much worse the city of Baltimore has gotten since the show's cancellation: Mayor Sheila Dixon's corruption trial and resignation (Nerese Campbell's real-life counterpart) and the massive budget cuts under current mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (the police department has gotten tons of new funding but 24 community recreation centers have closed).

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  • 2 months later...

 

Wallaces death still gets me when I watch it. Also the saga of Bodie was so well written and well executed he went from this wide eyed kid in season one who was totally enthralled in the whole game and believed in what he was doing and the phantom code to this tired grizzled veteran in season four who is slowly starting to realize that the game doesnt mean shit and the new jacks like Marlo dont live by the same code that he was brought up under from guys like String and Avon and that that game is gone.

I thought Bodie's story arc was the best arc on the show.  Omar's was really good, but his downward spiral was a little too much for me.  Bodie telling Wallace to stand up like a man before he shot him paired with him standing his ground when his time came made Bodie my favorite character in TV history.  You can say how dispicable some of Bodie's actions were, but you have to give him credit for standing up and walking the walk when shit hit the fan.  The show had so many examples of people taking the easy way out(*cough* Stringer *cough*) that Bodie's refusal to leave his corner when Chris and Snoop came for him stood out as honorable. Even though he was like one of those "little, bald headed, bitches," in the grand scheme of things, on that corner he was a king. 

 

 

Bodie was my favorite character as well. I was also a mark for Kenny "Bricks" Wangler on Oz too.

 

Regarding Stringer and Marlo, I read a commentary a while back (can't remember where though) where they compared the fates of those two. Stringer was a guy who didn't really care about street cred as much as his cronies wanted legit power, came close but was really out of his element despite all of his schooling (Clay Davis playing him like a fiddle for example). Marlo was a guy who cared a great deal about his street cred, didn't really care much for legit power but somehow got it anyway; witness him walking out of the party at the end b/c he clearly felt uncomfortable in that world and then just randomly challenging those guys on the street who were glorifying Omar. I thought that was an interesting observation on those two.

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