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The Wire... Episode 46 and predictions

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by jason_whitlock, Nov 13, 2006.

  1. OK, so the table has been set for Michael to get in debt to Marlo and for Randy to become a target of Marlo's. You have to figure Marlo is gonna ask Michael to lead Chris and Snoop to Randy. My theory all along is that Michael is the new Avon, and I loved how Omar called Michael "just a kid." I still stand by Randy being the new Stringer. Looks like I was wrong about Namond being Wee-bey... He's Deangelo, the kid who is halfheartedly in the game at the behest of his mother. Namond gets killed. How, by whom and for what reason? Not sure. He might factor in when Michael (and Randy) double-crosses Marlo, Chris and Snoop. Maybe Bodie, the real new Wee-bey, kills Namond. When it's over, Michael, Randy, Bodie and Poot (glad he's been sprung) are the new west side power. And Bunk blames Omar for the dead bodies (Marlo, Chris and Snoop). Season 5 is supposed to be about the media. When all the bodies in the vacants turn up at the end of this season, it's gonna set it up for the police department to blame the killings on one crazy mass murderer -- Omar -- in season 5. Turn the unsolved murders red to black by blaming "No-Heart" Anthony's little brother and create the perception that Carcetti's new police force is doing high-end police work, going after major targets. Lester Freamon, Daniels and all the real po-lice will know that the bodies belong to Marlo, but Carcetti and Rawls will want a live mass murderer to give to the media. Why not offer up Omar?

    Yes, I'm obsessed with this show.
     
  2. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Nemond is definitely dead. It's just a matter of when and over what. Michael getting dragged in to Marlow's web is going to be the saddest thing this season. I'm still trying to figure out what purpose Mr. Presbo is serving in all of this. He is going to be a key to what happens the kids. The story has been done so well so far. I can see it taking some major plot twists but coming together in surprising, but really good ways. It is definitely the best show on TV. That would be pretty funny if the police find all of those bodies and start looking for a serial killer, as you're predicting. It would be pretty funny if the new major crimes Lt. and Sgt. end up somehow on it and they wrongly arrest some creepy-looking white dude who looks like a typical serial killer. That didn't even occur to me. Snoop and Chris crack me up, especially Snoop, which is really horrifying. I feel bad for finding their characters likable.
     
  3. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    Chris and Snoop are by far the most cold-blooded characters in four seasons of this show. The fact that they're just willing to kill taxpayers to justify whatever the dilemma of the moment is scares the crap out of me. Even Wee Bay, when he was drugging whores and wrapping them up in carpet after they were dead, seemed to have a softer side (the fish, his son). Snoop and Chris just don't give a shit. It's fascinating. And scary.

    Before I address Jason's theories, let me just say, first off, that the kids this year have been amazing. The actor that plays Michael is just awesome. And heartbreaking. He does so much with just an expression. I remember during the two "Making of The Wire" episodes that David Simon said Michael's character was the hardest to cast, but that he thought Tristan Wilds nailed it. He was absolutely right.

    So I assume we're in agreement that Michael hates his stepfather because his stepfather molested him when he was younger, and he doesn't want that to happen to his younger brother, Bug, correct? Seems to be what they're trying to imply with Michael's speech about "faggots being too friendly and shit" when he was talking about Cutty.

    I know it seems like Namond gets killed, but I think that's almost too obvious. I think Namond is enough of a weasel that he'll survive whatever goes down. I think the message of this show has always been that institutions refused to be reformed, and they often take down the wrong people in the process (see DeAngelo). I still think Dookie or Randy gets killed because I think that would be even more heartbreaking. If Namond dies, we're like, yeah he was a spoiled little shit, and we don't feel that much sympathy. But if Dookie or Randy or Michael dies, and Namond lives, it's devastating. It seems unfair. And that's the message Simon often tries to get across.

    It's amazing how stupid Herc's character is. Poor Bubs.

    There has to be some kind of transition between the current kings (Marlo, Snoop and Chris) to the future (Michael, Randy, Namond, Pooh and Bodie). I think Slim Charles (with Prop Joe behind the scenes) ends up running the city after Omar sets up Marlo somehow, and the message (at the end) will be that Michael will reluctantly be on the rise within the Game. Omar will find a way to have Marlo locked up, because he'll keep his word to The Bunk. Lester is going to solve these murders, and Carcetti will be able to take credit somehow. Whatever happens, the beat simply goes on. There's no victories, no hope, no winners.

    Season 5 is going to be, I think, about how the media plays a huge role in the perceptions we have about the inner city. There will be an intrepid, fearless reporter (Simon) who tries to tell the real stories of the street, and he'll be derailed and deterred by incompetent editors who won't listen and can't see the big picture.

    The only thing I'm certain of is that Prop Joe survives, and continues to thrive. I think he might be my favorite character. He's smarter than everyone. Here he is pulling papers from downtown after Stringer's death, he put together the co-op, he started the feud between Omar and Marlo, he turned over Andre to Marlo and Chris when it suited his interests (and got a store and some cash out of it), he gets the best drugs, he never touches a cell phone, and he spends his whole day fixing toasters. Prop Joe is the only guy smart enough to survive in this. Just listening to him change his voice and come up with different names on the phone when he was trying to track down Herc was hilarious.
     
  4. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    Fucking Herc needs to get his ass shot.

    Of course, on The Wire that means he'll be promoted. Bank it.
     
  5. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    That's really good, DD. You are spot on about Prop Joe, but he is a relatively minor character. During that episode, I was thinking that if I came across a guy like that in real life, I would underestimate him, and yet he is a kingmaker.

    I can see what you are saying about the kids--that Nemond (I didn't know how to spell it) survives and someone like Dookie or Randy or Michael, or all of them, buy it. It would make the point perfectly if Michael, who was probably the purest of them (You saw Randy's stripes in the principal's office; Dookie is pure, but given the family that he comes from--they sell the clothes people give him--you'd expect him to fall by the wayside at an early age), ends up being the new Marlo. If that happens, it tells you exactly what the writers think about nurture vs. nature (not that they haven't already made it clear).
     
  6. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    If you think of the series as a critique of America as a nation of hustlers -- no one tries to actually DO anything anymore, just game the system -- then Prop Joe is set up to be the hero.

    That goes all the way back to the second season, with him fixing the toasters.

    Sure, he'll hustle when he has to, cut deals when he has to. But at the end of the day, he's buying for a dollar and selling for two. He doesn't care about his name ringing out, doesn't care about fame, and the co-op is as much his achievment as it is Stringer's.

    Of course, knowing this show, there will be no hero. But I bet it ends with Joe still in business.
     
  7. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    At a party recently, my wife was having a conversation this woman who works at my paper, and the subject of drug dealers came up. This woman -- who is white, comes from money, and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut -- said something to the effect of how we (whomever "we" is, I don't know; she was also talking to a black woman) clearly value life more than "those people," because they CHOOSE to get involved in that kind of stuff when they could really "just go do something else." I didn't hear the conversation -- and my wife isn't the confrontational type, so she just told the woman she was wrong, and got out of the conversation -- but it struck me as some of the most ignorant, racist bullshit I'd ever heard. And this was coming from a very liberal, intelligent woman who writes for a major newspaper. This is why I think they should show The Wire, especially this season, to aspiring Journalism students in college, especially if they think they're ever going to work for a Metro newspaper. To educate their ignorant asses.

    The whole point of Michael seems to be that the Marlos, the Avons, the Stringers, they don't necessarily WANT this life. They do it because they have no other option. Because this kind of shit preys on communities, and it sucks up good, smart kids like Michael and Randy who can't get away, even if they try like hell. In Season 3, Cutty has that conversation with Avon about starting up the gym, and he says something about Avon's boxing career, and Avon kind of dismisses it like, "Yeah, that was another life." You can see that life now in Michael. Avon might have very well been a reluctant participant in this, but something happened, and he left boxing behind forever. That's why I think Michael has to survive. We have to see, and understand, that Avon wasn't a bad kid. He was just sucked up by the system, because institutions are bigger than all of us. They exist only to serve themselves.

    On a side note, and this is where I feel a small connection to the show, you can see why athletics can be so important to kids growing up in places like West Baltimore. Maybe Michael doesn't make it, and maybe there is far more despair than there is hope, but there are coaches out there like Cutty (and teachers like Prez) who manage to save a few kids with sports and school. There's no larger uplifting message on The Wire, obviously, but there are small victories occasionally, and I think Cutty and Prez represent some of that. As a sports writer, it's kind of a cliche to write the "sports saved this kid from the streets" story, but sometimes, that's absolutely real.
     
  8. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    Great point, DD.

    Sports might be the only thing that keep them off the corners "until the cuffs actually fit..."

    Doesn't mean it works out, because the game is bigger than all of them, police included. But it might be the only thing that gives them some semblance of a childhood.

    It could be the difference between being Avon and Chris, for example.
     
  9. here's why i think namond gets it.... wallace, deangelo and stringer all died because they were only in the game halfway. their hearts weren't in the game.

    randy is a civilian and he's a kid. he's a stoop kid. his body turns up missing and all of a sudden it's a redball situation and there's all kinds of heat on marlo. prop joe will explain this to marlo. killing randy will be really bad for business. randy's death is gonna have to look like some sort of exotic accident. marlo will ask michael to play a role in it.

    dd, good stuff.... but i think a lot of obvious stuff happens on the wire. they just tell the obvious in a very compelling way. you could see wallace's murder coming, but when bodie and poot pulled the trigger it had me in tears.
     
  10. Chi City 81

    Chi City 81 Guest

    Forget Herc. That uniform cop (the one who took the money from Randy and the DVDs from Bubs) pulled some shit in Episode 47 that has me hoping he gets his ass kneecapped -- soon. :mad:
     
  11. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    Herc is worse, man.

    Bubbles is a man of his word. To leave him out there to take that beating like that...

    I knew it was coming the minute Kima said Herc's name, but I was entertaining the notion that the random passing cop car would have been McNulty, who always doubles back to save a friend (random Rounders reference).

    Letting the Mick throw that guy a beatdown on behalf of Bubbles would have been a perfect way for McNulty to revert back to his true character.
     
  12. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    Good observations, all. Great thread, as always.

    There are only three episodes left this season, and since HBO has already green-lighted season 5 (unlike at the end of Season 3, when Simon thought that might be it), I'm not sure we'll get the resolution we want to some of these stories. I'm not sure the kids will spill over into next season, but I'm not sure anyone is taking the fall for all these bodies in the vacant row houses either.

    Zeke, great point about the differences between Chris and Avon. It would be kind of easy to make Marlo an ex-basketball player or something, another cliche', but that's not really how it works in real life.

    Jason, I agree about Wallace. His death was heartbreaking, and tough to watch, even though you knew it was coming. It made you see Bodie and Poot in a whole different way, too. But in some way, haven't we already seen that story line play out? I'm not sure Michael plays a role in taking out Randy. It seems then like The Wire would be repeating itself. But on the other hand, maybe that's the point. These situations keep repeating themselves, and the players involved are irrelevant.

    It's interesting that you mention a red ball murder. We haven't really had one in four seasons, even though its the main plot line running throughout the book Homicide. Would be an interesting way to kick off Carcetti's term as mayor. Would Randy's death be large enough to be considered one? Honestly, I don't know. Even stoop kids get killed, and the sad fact of it is, when they're black and they live in places like West Baltimore, there is not nearly as much heat on public officials to solve the crime.

    It seems like they're setting things up to make you think Daniels might be the police commissioner, but putting a competent man in charge seems to go against everything the show stands for. On the other hand, Cedric and Rhonda did have that conversation where they talked about the city turning the corner. And Ed Norris, who plays the bald homicide detective on the show, WAS the Baltimore city police commissioner in real life, so maybe it's not too much of a stretch to think that Simon and Burns could put the right man in charge for the final season.

    This show is so complex, and has so many layers, I'm freaking fascinated either way. I love the beautiful, tiny details, like Chris and Snoop talking about the Baltimore radio station DJs, and Bunny Colvin playing Billy Holiday in his car. I wish this show could go on forever. It's a book you read and you can't wait to find out what happens, but when you finally get to the last page, it's so powerful, but you're also overcome with sadness because there's no more pages left.
     
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