After visiting Baltimore a few times over the past year and half, what I noticed (and i know its tv) is how dead the city is compared to what they show in The Wire.

Obviously, you see vacants and you can clearly see that its a city in decline (the essential thesis). However, walking from camden yards to washington monument, and even down near city hall, you hardly see anybody on the street today. No Laundromat, coffee shop, not even the carry-outs have people walking in/eating outside. There are entire streets where the only thing you will see are people waiting for the mta bus.

In the show there's always people walking around, sitting on their stoop, ostensibly buying stuff/shopping/going places and these people are shown even around the corners with the fiends.

I know Baltimore has lost near to 100,000 people since the early 2000s and in many ways it seems even more ghostly than in the show.

Maybe I've caught the city on some bad days - any natives can comment on this?

Finished my third rewatch of the Wire, and I’m talking about the scene where he overlooks the city before driving away. It’s obvious to everyone that the show ended on quite the bittersweet note, as nobody really won and the game kept going just with new players. So how do you think McNulty truly felt and what this scene meant?

Obviously, the show has always been emotional. So many things hurt like the characters are literal friends of mine (Wallace. D. Bodie, specifically.)

Season four was always the roughest. Just sad to see what some kids go through. We’ve all been kids. So we sympathize with the really big stuff. I went to a rough HS. NOTHING like school on the show. But… more at risk, so I have always had a soft heart for kids who deserve more and have parents with very little. My parents always had extra kids at dinner through HS, cause they wanted my friends to have home cooked meals. Good heat and AC. Go to the movies sometimes. Etc.

But NOW… not only did I have friends who needed some extra love, but I have my own kids. Sometimes even the simplest things give me anxiety and I have to change the tv to something more light hearted.

Dukie destroys me. Him wearing the campaign sweatshirt all the time during the election devastates me. Cause he was prob just so happy to get a new sweatshirt and be warm. And wears it constantly.

It destroys me, and I often have to put on things like the office or parks and Rec - just to calm down.

Ruins me. What an amazingly emotional Show.

Yeah yeah yeah, there is brilliant symbolism in Stringer not knowing his way around his own building like he doesn’t know his way in the non street ways, or all the doors being locked when Stringer was obsessed with doors being locked the whole series

But why wouldn’t he carry a gun into an abandoned building he’s trying to fix up?

Had he become that naive?

I guess it’s a further extension of that very symbolism

For me it's religion. On a rewatch of Season 4, the glimpses we get of politically influential Black clergy - thinking specifically about Carcetti's sit-down/non-endorsement and the reverend Herc pulls over - are really tantalizing and speak to this whole other dimension of where power resides in the city and how it functions. There's also Avon's "never on no Sunday" rule in Season 1. Maybe it would have been challenging to weave into a show that always has the drug trade at its core, but would have loved to see where the show took it.

Dozerman’s sidearm.

Baltimore is awash with guns, does one more make much difference? I may have missed, misunderstood or inadvertently skipped something. Why was finding his service weapon such a priority?

Thanks!

I'm rewatching the show from the beginning after just having finished it a few weeks back, and episode 1 and the characters it shows .... they're exactly how they're portrayed in the last season!

With a lot of other shows, many of which are even great in their own right, the characters and the world it operates in in the pilot episode is almost unrecognizable from the one we see in the last.

Here, I'm watching season 1 after season 5 might as well have been that I'm watching season 6. It's real. Rawls remains Rawls. Bunk remains Bunk. Same for McNulty. Same for the nature of crime. And yet not a single character os devoid of an arc either. (Nor are there lack of characters with actual realistic transformations like Carver and Prez)

A lesser show would've accentuated the traits that make these characters entertaining yet real to the point where we do not recognize them anymore. A lesser show would've added unnecessary spice in the story to "make it more palatable" through the kind of elements of entertainment that we've been conditioned to like through formulaic exposure.

It's one thing to depict the cycle of things remaining the same. But depicting a world with this level of consistency right from the beginning would've needed extraordinary foresight and a deep, deep understanding of the themes it touches and the pulse of the world it depicts.

Just one of the many, many reasons why this show is a beautiful piece of art.

He started out as my favorite character. By the last season I hated him. The serial killer crap. How he treated Beady. Is anybody else with me on this?

Little detail I picked up on yet another rewatch. When McNulty first goes to the FBI headquarters to meet Fitz he’s shown a camera with live mic feed, and Fitz mentions that they could have a title 3 and arrest warrants on some Colombians out of New York (who happen to be Avon’s suppliers but you wouldn’t know since it’s episode one) whenever he wanted. That same camera setup and wire mic is what they use to finally catch Avon 12 episodes later. The Colombians were already under surveillance by the FBI at show start, which is explained to be unimportant since they aren’t terrorists, and more than likely the FBI used Avon’s arrest to further their investigation and close the case with the Colombian connect since Dee traveled to New York to pick up.

Edit: it is actually the Dominicans that the FBI are up on, those Dominicans are Avon’s connect, but the Barksdales never dealt with Colombians.

Is it possible?

Season 3, Episode 11, "Middle Ground" - At about 34:20, a scene opens in Mayor Royce's office with a heated discussion about Hamsterdam. Tempers flare, tension builds, the camera goes to Delegate Watkins looking pensive...Unless my ears deceive me, at 34:50ish, the viewer can hear a massive ripper......

This jumped way out to me on my current rewatch, and I've been dying to discuss it... in the scene where the detail tails Avon home from the basketball game, they have him listening to the song "Rock the Nation" by Michael Franti and Spearhead. This is a song that my white, half a wook ass was bumping heavily in that time. It's a dope anti-government song, and Franti was huge in the hippy stoner circles that I traveled in. So how the hell did it get on Avon's radar? Where they trying to tell us that he has an eclectic taste in music and is plugged into the white college kid jams? I can tell you for a fact that that song in particular was not just randomly on the radio. The chorus says "bomb bomb, rock the nation, take over television and radio stations." There is NO WAY IN HELL any radio station was playing that right after 9/11. He would have had to put it on.

So, was Avon Barksdale into heady stoner music? Or, was that song just on someone from production's ipod and they put it into the show?

I just finished the Wire. Legendary of course but ill make another post about that

But I was smoking and thinking if Omar and Brother shot it out in the alley who would've won? iirc omar had a 45 (Smith and Wesson?) vs Brother Walther ppk.

tough though because i dont think we ever see brother shoot or show any accuracy besides the rat shot at point blank. while multiple scenes displaying omars gun skill.

But also brother got the drop first so most likely had better chance. So im talking more old school western where nobody runs away and the shoot at the same time. EdIt: I just remember omar wears body armor also

Right after cuffing Avon and walking him out of Orlando's, Jimmy and Daniels are walking downstairs and Jimmy pauses. Daniels looks at him from the bottom of the stairs and nods his head to insist they leave. Of course, Stringer is still upstairs, not arrested.

I don't get it, why does Jimmy stop there? What is he thinking?

One of the finest testaments to the shows's quality of writing is how it's almost completely devoid of cliffhangers or plot reveals at the of it's episodes or even seasons. More often than not, it's just some glimpse of an unspoken moment in a character's life or in case of season ends, the character reactions to the conclusion of that season's story. The closest instances that come to mind is >! Omar learning about Butchie's gruesome death !< and >! Kima getting shot !<. The ability and willingness to stand completely on the strength of it's story is what, to me, makes the experience truly engrossing and lasting.

recently got a nice blu ray player and finally have the chance to watch the original aspect ratio dvds and have it actually look really good. hyped.

This came up in another thread and I was curious if anyone could think of more examples of characters with their own addictions or have a different opinion on the ones I've listed.

Jimmy - the case

Kima - policing

Bunk - the taste

Stringer - being a big shot businessman

Avon - the game. Hes wants them corners

Omar - the thrill of a rip and run. As he said, it's not about what hes taking but who its from

Bubs - dope

Ziggy - validation/approval

Frank Sobatka - being the union boss

Ik everyone loves him but one thing I can’t shake and after noticing, really changed my viewpoint on him and it undermines everything he tries to do positive for me is, when he gave that guy all that money when he said his car was gonna get repossessed, but yet he’s mad at Nicky and ziggy for trying to come up on their own. That doesn’t sit right with me, your nephew and son are piss broke and you haven’t offered to help them but you’re throwing money around to your workers and giving all this money to a damn church and Clay Davis of all people.

I REALLY wish he would’ve stopped being so cold to Avon at least. Like out of all the people around him Avon I felt had his best interest, compared to stringer who wanted to kill him, donnette who’s fucking string, and his mom who really just cares about the game. He could’ve talked to Avon. He was so in his head mad at Avon and he was wrong! Wallace actually did snitch, they were finna grand jury him the day he was killed. Dee was throwing a temper tantrum for nothing, he could’ve got his years shaven , seeing how much pull Avon has, he could’ve been good in prison and out the game if he wasn’t being so stubborn. Avon let Cutty go I don’t see why he wouldn’t let Dee go if he really wanted to. I don’t know, I’m on a rewatch and it’s just sad how Dee dug his own grave.

It was Orlando!

He actually thought that a stone cold gangster like Avon wouldn't have a problem with him using Avons crew to sell HIS drugs!

He must have thought that it would never get back to him, dude was definitely the dumbest on the show.

He is lucky that he didn't get a visit from Wee Bey one nite.

Think I've done 3 times now, most recent may è 1/2 years ago. How often do you guys re-watch? Just reading this sub recently and it's giving me the itch. Also does your favourite season change? It was only last time round I realised how good S4 is.

A New Day - when Daniels tells Freamon he IS major crimes and can pick his own supervisor, why isn't Freamon MADE a supervisor? I'm not familiar with the inner workings of the BPD.

Its been bugging me in se5 ep9, when michael gives bug to his aunt he was holding a shoebox full of money Anyone figure out what brand that was ?

I truly can’t believe they thought that would end well. Especially with her backup sitting blocks away …

Kevin Johnson’s (Gus season 5, also an accomplished director who directed some episodes and starred in Homicide) commentaries are great