So everyone in homicide is obsessed with clearances but according to the book a clearance isn’t a conviction. It’s just someone was arrested for the crime. Whether or not it leads to prison time is besides the point. If everyone’s so obsessed with clearances wouldn’t someone just arrest randos and let the case get thrown out?

Not sure if this is a hot-take these days, but it's one that stuck with me since back in the day reading Sepinwall how he's the least likeable of the bunch and it's supposedly bittersweet he's the only one with a 'good ending.'

However, after my latest rewatch one of the characters I felt most differently about after s4 was Namond Brice. I remember the first few times being quite upset that he out of the four boys ends up with the best situation despite being the biggest shitbird. He's definitely a spoiled bully and not a great kid, but I really think he shows the most growth over the season (perhaps due to Colvin's & Parenti's intervention and the "Special Class.") He's also the biggest victim of upbringing (although Randy may be the unluckiest kid alive).

I'm not here to say he's perfect, the way he treats Dukie (reflecting his own mother's actions) and his general demeanor is that of a troubled kid. Still, he is a kid and I think one of few characters in the show to reflect on themselves and make an accurate assessment. After Kenard steals his package and Michael confronts him and starts beating him Namond just runs away realizing he doesn't have it in him. The next day in a pathetic effort to reassert himself (and restore confidence) he bullies Dukie, Michael defends him, and he breaks down crying. There's a level of self-reflection and realization after this that few characters in the show ever experience which makes me glad for his outcome. He realizes he does not have it in him and does not want to be a corner-boy. Not even D'Angelo got there the way Namond did.

Again, I'm not saying Namond is a great kid. But he may have had the worst situation of the bunch all things considered. De'Londa Brice is one of the worst mothers in the history of fiction. Namond never had a chance of being anything more than a corpse or a convict. And he realized it. Yes, there's a degree of luck there that Bunny saw something in there and was able to evict him from his situation, but I was happy for him.

I guess the other hot-take that accompanies this is that I felt much less sympathy for Dukie this time. He was constantly bullied in middle-school, yet refused to ever try high school? Especially since his home situation fundamentally changed by the end of the season. He began living with Michael, had nice clothes, and had food/shower/etc to avoid most of the bullying. He gave up too easy after overcoming so much to warrant much sympathy, imo. He still could have tutored Bug and gone to HS. Not saying I don't feel for Dukie, but I remember being far more upset by his situation last time than this time.

Thoughts? Are these hot-takes on this sub?

I’m curious about what other people think about McNulty character in relation to the greater themes of the show? In a show that’s about these deep social issues he is such enigma to me. Why does the show begin and end with this guy? Out of all the great characters and stories?

Is the point that the systems of Baltimore view themselves as something greater and smarter than what they are? Screwing over others on the way to help themselves through the lenses of helping others? And he is the same way?

Is it that Jimmy know his open and obvious flaws and does nothing to change? Just like Baltimore Although he does change for a time. so i feel it’s not that

Is it that Jimmy is great but deeply and possibly unchangeable as a reflection of America?

I really don’t understand him which makes me feel dumb but what love to hear why you guys think he is the closest thing to a main character (ofc the city is really the main character but he’s probably the closest)

What are you guy’s thoughts?

Om my first rewatch of the series and just now finished S4 E11 -the one where Bunk and Lester realize the bodies are stashed in the vacants.

I didn't realize it on the first watch through but they ran some smooth interrogation tactics on both Herc and Prez to find the bodies.

First with the classic good-cop bad-cop on Herc where Bunk flips out at him and Lester slides in to soft his ego. Herc is a "simple fuck" indeed

Second with Prez in the classroom after he refuses to give them more information because he cares for the kids. Lester makes a show of buttering up his ego as he pretends to leave and Bunk makes a hail mary play for sentimental nostalgia leading Prez to give them more info.

It was all done so well that I didn't even realize it in my first watch through. Damn good po-lice

late season 2 or early season 3 i believe. kimmy or tosha yelled out loud to the people in a barksdale stash house saying that somebody’s kid was being picked on, when they opened the door to handle it omar and his crew had everyone at gunpoint.

This dynamic is honestly one of the most interesting of the whole show in my opinion. Especially in Seasons 3 and 4. Bunk was really about let Omar get sent courtside and be killed before Omar says his famous “a man got to have a code” line.

What about everyone else’s thoughts on their relationship?

I binged the show on and off for the past month and a half... safe to say a rewatch will bring better clarity of mind, specially as its narrative structure and general themes are quite technically complex and far-reaching (I come from a Sopranos background, for comparison).

Nevertheless, here are some assorted thoughts of my first run through the show:

• Overall a really fun, interesting watch with very compelling characters and themes. I'd forgotten I'd been to Baltimore until I watched the show - granted, I don't think I've ever been to either East or West Baltimore...

• The first three seasons are excellent. 4 and 5 tackle themes that while interesting in their own right, feel a little too far removed from what the show originally set out to be. yeah I like gangsta shit and questionably ethical cops navigating their own bureaucratic entities more than political intrigue or the state of the school system, sue me - In all seriousness, the show seems to lose its focus and never quite reaches the same highs. Feels like S4 and S5 should've been its own separate series and given the proper depth of analysis. As it stands, the content in them is expansive but relatively shallow compared to the rest of the show

• Season 2 is, as previously mentioned, excellent. But my God, what awful timing. I suppose it would've been less jarring back when it originally aired as no one would've been able to binge-watch the show... but coming off from Season 1 I'd already grown attached to all the characters and being introduced to an entirely new setting and cast was a really violent 180. It grew on me as the season went on and towards the end I loved it. But I feel like its existence could've been handled better. This season also has the best ending montage of the entire show; it perfectly captures the feeling of the world constantly moving forward, with or without you. Steve Earle's "I Feel Alright" turned into one of my favorite songs :)

• I think Omar as a character is just OK. I do like him overall, but he feels way too powerful in what's otherwise a fairly grounded show. Brother Mouzone is an even more ridiculous character, verging dangerously on caricature. They took me out of the otherwise amazing world-building of the show in some occasions. That said, I think Omar had a perfect ending.

• Stringer is probably one of my favorite antagonists of all time. His character arc is by far my favorite in the entire series. I love how we see him trying to go legitimate and then the show completely subverts our expectations by making it all blow up in his face. There's something extremely compelling about a character who's smart... but just not smart enough. Idris Elba is on his A-game the entire time too. Also has a perfect ending. Seeing him get obliterated gave me an existential crisis lol

• I love the quotes after the intro, especially when it comes from within the world of the show itself ("If animal trapped call 410-844-6286" -Baltimore, traditional)

• Bodie's death was the saddest to me, but I'm not entirely sure why. I think I just really liked the character and wasn't really expecting him to die... at all. No one's safe in The Wire...

• Although I ragged on Seasons 4 and 5, I think they were really interesting in their own right. Even the newspaper stuff. It tackles a world I know next to nothing about and is not commonly covered by shows or movies. Once again, I just wish they were different shows perhaps, and handled by different people who could dig deeper into those themes, something akin to Succession.

• The acting and writing in this show both have really high highs and really low lows, which can be pretty jarring. The main cast of characters is excellent (with special props to Daniels, Stringer, Bubbles, Omar, McNulty and probably some I'm forgetting) but some of the occasional appearances can be more than questionable. Carver stands as the weakest of the main cast to me. But the worst offender is definitely the writing, which relies so heavily on exposition sometimes that it's just cartoonish. ("Hey, remind me again why and what exactly we're doing here?" happens SO many times). Or sometimes a line so outrageous and self-masturbatory that if someone said it in real life, they'd get mocked to death for. At the same time, the show gives us some really amazing lines ("They used to make steel there, no?", "Ain't easy civilizing this motherfucker", "Thin line between heaven and here", anything Rawls says basically, etc.)

Glad I finally got around to seeing the show and hope to do it again soon!

At first I thought season 2 was gonna be boring because it was focusing on the docks, and we weren’t really seeing Avon and Stringer much, but it turns out the actors for Niko and Frank carry this entire season with their acting, it was so raw and so believable. This season doesn’t deserve any hate whatsoever it absolutely stood on its own, tbh if the entire season was just about Frank and Nick I’d still watch it. 10/10

The script for Season 5, Episode 10 explicitly labels Michael as the new Omar. In my honest opinion though, I feel as though Michael didn’t need that shotgun to appear like the new Omar. I completely understand why that decision was made but I would’ve seen the parallel with Omar even if Michael held a pistol.

What does everyone else think?

Stringer unfortunately took Avon’s words “you need to get with D’s girl” too damn serious. And as Poot said, “it’s a cold world.”

What are everyone’s thoughts on Stringer and Donette hooking up in Season 2?

And recovered properly from his leg injury? One of the reasons the kid even had the nerve to do what he did is because he saw Omar limp like that, which killed the larger than life mythology he had accumulated in Baltimore.

The evaporation of his myth is explicitly shown in the alleyway when all the other kids ran away from Omar, Kenard remained with the cat showing zero fear. This would have been extremely unlikely if Omar was on the hunt while fully recovered.

What do you think?

The scene where they break into Omar’s spot in Season 1 and laugh at the pictures with him and Brandon honestly made me feel bad for Omar. It was almost like watching someone get bullied in a way. Then they burn the van while Omar secretly watches. When Omar later catches Savino in Season 5, I knew he’d drop him. But also at the same time, Omar got himself into what unfolds across Season 1 after robbing one of Avon’s stash houses with Brandon and John Bailey. There was naturally gonna be consequences for that.

(The way Wee-Bey, Stinkum, and Savino broke into Omar’s place is honestly mad funny though. Omar would’ve killed all three of them if he’d been hiding somewhere.)

What is everyone else’s thoughts though?

The Wire is a very good show from a sociological point of view, but it was out from 2002 to 2008.

I wonder what changed in the institutions we're seing in the series. Like what impact had the use of smartphones on the criminals ? How the use of the numeric as changed medias, police, etc...

Yeah, nothing new I’m sure, but I’m fairly recently active on reddit and I’m rewatching for the umpteenth time and holy fucking sheeeeeeeeeeit I hate this piece of shit.

I mean he’s just generally an absolute asshole, but:

- the way he puts Randy’s name out there via Little Kevin
- fucking over Bubbles
- giving it the “you’re talking to a sergeant” to Herc
- “I am the sergeant here” when suggesting to Freeman that orders should come via him

Honestly just everything about this guy annoys the shit outta me.

So yea, no brand new information here, and I’m sure most people agree, but I felt like sharing my rage.

It’s crazy how Namond and D’Angelo’s stories mostly parallel each other. That pressure they had on them to live a life they weren’t truly built for or didn’t want rather. I personally wouldn’t go as far as to say Namond was the new D’Angelo in Season 4 but he was close enough in my eyes. Their ties to Wee-Bey also bring it full circle a little.

What about everyone else’s personal thoughts though?

Clay Davis is a character that easily grabs attention from the jump for, well, sheeeeeittt, reasons that need not be stated.

But upon various rewatches, I've come to love (to hate) the character and all his manipulative, selfish acts that are active and apparent every single time he's on screen. There's always a con, he's always shaking hands with the person he's about to fuck over, he's got excuses or "justifiable" explanations ready ("I could've gotten double from you," he tells Carcetti directly with a smirk after being exposed for his duplicity re: election support), and he's only got his interests to look after making his focus dangerously pointed.

There's no threat of force or grand ultimatums being offered to his victims (who often don't know their role): he weasels his way out of the spotlight, he has connections aplenty and however weak his defenses are when he's potentially "caught," he has a backup scam in phase one before the conversation is over.

The fact that these two psychopaths followed his orders makes me wonder what type of demonic things he had done in the past to earn their respect, fear and loyalty? He’s not a grand strategist like Prop Joe, nor a natural leader like Avon or Stringer, so it must have been pure savage brutality and violence that attracted Chris, Snoop and Monk towards Marlo, and by the time we see him in the show he is no longer involved in the street stuff beyond intimidating leaders of different crews, but we did see glimpses of what he must have been on a daily basis when he executed the honey trap girl or how he confronted the armed corner boys with his bare hands in the last episode.

Marlo and his crew no doubt had the best drop on Omar out of everyone in the show with the ambush in Monk’s apartment during Season 5. However, they could’ve easily dropped Omar had everyone been inside the apartment already. Chris, Michael, and O-Dog must’ve been in the building’s hallway waiting because had they been inside already? Donnie and Omar would’ve been dead much faster. Snoop was already in the kitchen but Chris, Michael, and O-Dog should’ve been inside too if they wanted to corner them quickly. Just my own personal thoughts on it as an alternate ambush but obviously that’s not what was intended for the show, especially for Omar’s character since that wasn’t supposed to be his ending. It’s still a great ambush scene nonetheless.

What does everyone else think though?

The AI barrage of media analysis videos has just destroyed the fun of trying to explore themes about big shows like the wire and breaking bad and The sopranos on YouTube.

This is not particularly new news or anything like that but I did see a recent critique of this phenomena on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/EjZrpOvDNWM

Some sopranos creators have been talking about this too because these channels directly compete with people actually doing real work.

And what's most annoying is most of the comments don't seem to recognize it's ai. I suppose maybe some of the comments themselves are from AI bots but it's unsettling to think people don't notice this or don't care.

Especially if they watch the wire you think they would be concerned about the labor market and the value of human beings doing news gathering and doing work.

One that is definitely AI to the point of absurdity is "city of corner". Just absolute drivel.

It would be nice if we could maybe somehow help people see the forest for the trees and maybe have a list of channels that we can confirm are made by actual people. And do not rely entirely or mostly on AI scripts and narration and video editing

I’m rewatching the show now and I’m realising how loyal Bodie was to stringer. I know Bodie’s character is that he’s a soldier so it makes sense he latched onto someone he saw as a leader especially cause he didn’t really see Avon so to him stringer was the king, but it definitely goes deeper with scenes like where Stringer scares him with a shadow box. I’d say Stringer had a soft spot for him but then again Stringer doesn’t have a heart lol

Also I just realised how many shows are about an older guy manipulating a younger guy while they commit crimes

I just completed the full series and I think it topped off my number one show: The Sopranos. I've only watched The Wire one time and it was about a decade ago. After this rewatch, I realize this is probably the greatest series of all time.

I'm wondering what to watch next, something in the category of crime. Do you guys have any recs for me?

Here are my top shows:

The Wire

The Sopranos

Boardwalk Empire

Breaking Bad (including Saul spinoff)

Deadwood

I know I'm probably pretty basic, I'm hoping to get into another series that has the depth storytelling of The Wire, preferably something that is already completed and not canceled.

So to be clear, that means ten acting nominations across five seasons. I'll also add the condition that you can’t nominate the same actor more than once.

Here are my choices:

Season 1: Larry Gilliard Jr (D’Angelo) and Lance Reddick (Daniels)

Season 2: Chris Bauer (Frank) and James Ransone (Ziggy)

Season 3: Idris Elba (Stringer) and Robert Wisdom (Colvin)

Season 4: Andre Royo (Bubbles) and Gbenga Akinnagbe (Chris)

Season 5: Michael K. Williams (Omar) and Isaiah Whitlock Jr (Clay)

For almost two decades this line always puzzled me. I’ve watch this show numerous times and never quite made out what Marlo meant by that… until now.

Was “it’s the other way” Marlo directly telling the
Security guard he was going to be murdered ? If so that makes the line that much colder.

At first I thought he was simply taunting him and being a smart ass, I never put tew and tew together that he was in his own words telling the guard “you want us to have a respectful conversation but instead I’m killing you over this “

I didn’t notice this in first few watches but I think it’s relevant that Marlo just lost money at the poker game and felt defeated which is why he took his anger out on the security guard.

It can’t be about the money thing because Marlo and Chris both saw that as a positive sign and monk seems to be among the same caliber of thinking as both of them so.

What was it about Mike that made Monk just never fully embrace him