(Contains Spoilers) Greatest TV show -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

It took a couple of seasons of "The Wire" for me to stop thinking of him as Kenny. I kind of wanted to re-watch "Oz" but I'm afraid to. It was terrifying enough the first time.

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

OK then. Glad I tried to weigh in.

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

You know I'm just teasing, right?

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

No. You're pretty emotional and opinionated about The Wire.

That's fine. I'll just stick to Dexter threads.

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

Awww...

Of course you want more Bodie

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

Seems like a good place to post this:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jpmoore/the-wire-monopoly-board

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

Funny, my kids think I'm weird because Season Two is probably my favourite one. But then I've always been a sucker for ocean containers and container yards.

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

I say this often, pretty much every single time someone disses S2 on here, but for me, the docks are what signal the show was about a much larger universe. That this was was going to be a show about economics and institutions, not cops and hoppers. Frank Sobatka is one of my favorite characters in the entire series, and there aren't many better scenes in the entire run than the one where Frank is walking out to meet The Greek and Spiros under the bridge.

Plus, Season 2 has "All Prologue" which might be my favorite episode. It has Omar testifying in the Gant trial against Byrd, Bunk trying not to puke in a trash can during a meeting with Daniels, Brianna's scene with D'Angelo where she tries to get him to play ball with Avon, Nick and Ziggy's meeting with Prop Joe ("If it wasn't Serge here, you two would be some cadaverous muthafuckas"), and D'Angelo talking about The Great Gasby with Clockers author Richard Price.

Season 2 resonates that much more when the series is over. It's Shakespearean in the way that Frank is torn between what's right, what's honorable, and what matters between family or brotherhood. One of the questions The Wire wants you to ask is "In what ways would you bend your moral code in order to survive in a world where the churning combine of capitalism is always nipping at your heels?" It's easy for white suburbanites to rationalize it and say that dealing drugs represents some moral failure on the part of the inner city, but when you watch Season 2, you have to examine whether Frank, Nick and Ziggy are really that much different than people like D'Angelo, Bodie and Wallace. As Omar points out in the courtroom scene, what is the difference, really, between someone like him and Maurice Levy?

Season 1 is great because it raises the curtain and sets the stakes. But Season 2 highlights how fate often plays a greater role in our lives than free will does. That's Simon's larger point about the death and decay of an American city. The Harbor becomes a playground for the rich, a grain pier that was promised never arrives, the middle class disappears and men are forced to live outside the law in order to scrape out some form of survival. It's disarming at first because, after connecting with an entire cast of characters on the streets in S1, we're forced to push the restart button and do it all over again. And Ziggy's so annoying at times, it's easy to resent the presence of the dockworkers and just wish we could get back to the streets. But by the end of the season, it's easier to draw a line between characters like D'Angelo and Frank. Or Bodie and Ziggy.

If Season 2 didn't resonate the first time, I encourage you to go back and give it another viewing and think about what it's really trying to say.

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

DD - I think I love you.

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

DD - Your thought on "the scene" with Ziggy? On par with the Season 1 Wallace scene? (I haven't gotten to the end of Season 4 yet nor watched Season 5, so no spoilers because I'm sure something horrible happens to one or more of the kids.)

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

Yeah, that paradox is something I think about often. My grandfather was from rural Kentucky, and he and many of his male relatives made and sold moonshine to make ends meet in the 1940s and 50s. He talked about it with pride until the day he died (in 2008). But if I or one of my brothers or cousins had started dealing marijuana or harder drugs for similar reasons, he'd have disowned us.

 

Re: Greatest TV show ever alert -- The Wire, Season 1 on HBO On Demand

Sorry - just laughed out loud when I read that you are sitting in judgement on what is and is not a great series when you haven't even finished watching it.

So typical.

hahahahahahhahahahaha