The Wire

And I get that McNulty was a rogue cop, and he always went past his superiors to do what was just, at least in his eyes. But the faking murders was a step too far for me as there really wasn't anything just about it. He was annoyed about having to take a bus to a crime scene? The fact he got Lester on board with it was a stretch als, but I guess he also had a history of going against the chain of command.

The Newsroom is the all-time hatewatch. So well made. So corny.

"A doctor pronounces her dead. Not the news."

If anyone doesn't remember this, this episode aired in July of 2012. The shooting took place in January of 2011. They basically wrote themselves into the right side of history through the course of the show.

old school inforooers may recall the time when i could not get my girlfriend into The Wire. she watched about 40 minutes of the first episode and was like "i don't understand whats going on i don't like this" and i was apalled. i questioned whether i could even be with this person. well we've been married for 6 years so i guess i do love her despite her not enjoying a TV show i like.

our TV watching routine is we typically have a "short show" we are regularly watching and a "long show" we are normally watching. the short show is a half hour sitcom we watch while eating, the long show is an hour long drama or reality show of some kind. we just ran out of long show and my wife suggested it was time for her to try The Wire again. Very exciting.

Last night we watched S1E4, "Old Cases". This is the episode with the famous scene where Bunk and McNulty are working the cold case murder of Avon's old girlfriend, perhaps better known as the "fuck fuck fuck" scene where pretty much the only dialogue is "fuck" or "motherfuck" while these two pro detectives figure out the whole murder scene in real time. after the scene my wife asked me to pause it and she said it's possibly the best scene of television she's ever seen.

all this to say i can breathe a sigh of relief that i married the right person.

but more seriously it made me think about the assertion that The Wire, released all the way back in 2001, had to train it's audience how to watch a different type of TV show. When i first tried to watch The Wire with Melody, it was maybe right at the beginning of the prestige TV boom. this was before Mad Men, before Breaking Bad, before Game of Thrones, all shows Melody and I watched together and loved. I think now having been trained by several years of prestige TV, Melody had no problem in focusing on The Wire and taking it all in, appreciating it's uniqueness and the incredibly slow roll out of it's characters.

anyway i'm super excited to re-experience this show with her. there is so much i've forgotten. like it's such a small scene, but last night it was the scene where herc carver and bodie have to wait for the midnight booking after they pickup bodie. this after they've beaten his ass multiple times and bodie escaped from the boy's village, all this bullshit and drama, but while they are waiting they are just sitting around playing pool and bullshitting and talking about sandwiches. they went from mortal enemies to just dudes hanging out who just happened to be on opposite sides of a bullshit war. such a fascinating scene and a trick that The Wire uses a bunch over the course of the series.

Ozark is incredible.

We’ve watched 2 seasons in the last 2 weekends. It’s already one of my favorite shows ever.

i love BSG. excited to see what Esmail does with the new show set in the BSG universe.

Justified is a good one especially if you're not wanting to pay total attention to it. They do well with having both long term and short term arcs with it. As you mentioned, the two leads are fantastic. I think it was itrainmonkeys who made a solid observation that it came out when "prestige" TV was at a peak, and the show was not that. Just a fun time.

Yeah, Mr. Robot was pretty sick, from what I saw of it.

yeah i'm a bit ashamed i've only seen the first two seasons. loved season one but just thought season two was OK. but i will finish the series, i hear it wraps up well.

one other little nugget i loved in the first few episodes. episode 1 mcnulty is asked where he doesn't want to be, and he says the boats.

episode 4 or 5 lester freamon is sharing his story and tells mcnulty don't ever tell them where you don't want to be. good acting on mcnulty's part when you can just kind of see in his eyes he knows he's gunna end up on the damn boats before it's over with.

Going from season one to season two of Ozark I was like "ok I see how they can escalate this" but then they do it like three or four distinct ways and it is just completely out of control. Love it.

Introduction of Prop Joe, if I'm not mistaken?



Fucking love Joe lol.

Probably would have been a good idea to not help police identify you as a heroin kingpin but I'm no Avon Barksdale so maybe I'm fucked up.

Wow for some reason I don't remember her showing up that early in the series.

we are deep into season 2 now. i forgot that season 2 introduces us to a couple great characters that are prominent in season 3: Bunny Colvin and Brother Mouzone. I was surprised and excited when they popped up.

i also forgot the mcnulty "recreating the wreck" scene was in season 2 lol. i thought that was season 5 or something.

poor D'Angelo. of course i respect what he was trying to do but he really should've just played nice with Avon. he could've done his time, gotten out of jail, and then declined any further assistance from Barksdale, try to do something to clean up his life and make up for his past sins. but he had to buck and as a result... damn man.

some end of season 1 stuff that is great: Wee Bay in the box eating sandwiches and copping to all those murders. such an amazing scene. on the flipside the Wallace scene never gets any easier to watch. michael b jordan was such a good actor right from the start. he elevated The Wire and after that FNL.

finally i think the season wrap-up montages are some of the best montages in TV history. that season 1 wrap up montage, my god it's so perfect. really drives home the theme of the show.

season 2 omar testifying against bird also one of the best scenes ever on TV. the way Omar takes down Levy *chef's kiss*. and when somebody in court, can't remember which attorney, asks Omar how he's lived so long in his current profession, he answers "a day at a time i guess".

can't wait for Bubbs to get clean. my wife and i are both sober in recovery and at least emotionally it's the best recovery journey i've seen put to film, excited for her to see that.

finally i forgot how spiro is a scarier motherfucker than anybody in the barksdale crew. guy is a great actor.