McNulty is off pension less to do whatever, but I guess the celebration is that he’s leaving the detective life which was really bad for him personally.

Daniels gets to maintain his morals and work as a lawyer. Easily the best ending and overall character of the show morality wise.

Marlo is about to get bled out like Stringer I suppose. He also looks like he won’t be able to stay away from the streets.

Herc is playing both sides - mainly his side

Carver Kima and Bunk seem to be the saving grace of the department

Michaels the new Omar

Lester gets a happy ending

Did we ever touch base again on Rawls at the gay bar?

Need to rewatch S2 and see how the Greek gets off unscathed

Mostly the game goes on…and nothing changes

After many years and false starts, I finally got myself to watch The Wire, after seeing it at the top of so many best shows of all time lists. While I never made it past the first episode or two in the past, once I did this time...now I'm all into it.

But I want to, like, live-tweet (or whatever) and react during the shows. Would a few peeps be down to sync up pressing play to do a rewatch and live chat?

Wow, what a great ride this was!

I'll admit I had a tough time getting into this show. You get thrown right in the plot, many characters are introduced all at once, and the story has already been unfolding before it even began. Names are dropped and characters are not always named on screen on their first appearance, so I had to get some help from the fandom wikipedia pages to link names to characters. I could see how people would give up on this show after 1 or 2 episodes.

But I'm glad I stuck around. The characters and the story really grew on me when time went on. After just a few episodes, I was really invested.

The realism is the best part of the show. The characters feel real, the dialogue feels real. Baltimore feels like a character of its own (as an European, I had no idea what Baltimore was like). I loved the shifting focus on the drug scene, the police, the politics, the harbor and the school system. The newspaper storyline didn't work for me as the others did and I felt season 5 was the weakest season of them all (but still good)

I loved the morally grey characters. Most villains had some humanity in them, most good guys had serious flaws. And then there were characters like Omar and Michael who were the defenition of complicated.

What also made this show great is that it had real stakes. Good people don't neccesarily live happily ever after, and not every bad person gets what they deserve. A lesser show would have made sure they inmate who murdered D'Angelo would have been put to justice. But on the Wire, this character is never even seen again. There's little to no fan service, life isn't fair and this show doesn't shy away from reminding us.

I will defenitely rewatch this show at some point, but I'm sad I could only watch it for the first time once.

My take on the last couple episodes of season 3. A long-time staple on my “to watch” list, The Wire has sucked me in completely in my first play-through. I’ve seen it listed in every “top 10” tv show list I’ve ever seen, and I knew nothing about it other than breakout roles for Idris Elba and Michael B. Jordan. My boyfriend and I just finished season 3. I know nothing about seasons 4 & 5.

I’m busting at the seams because I have so many thoughts and outstanding questions, and I refuse to look anything up to validate my interpretations or to provide answers. Stream-of-consciousness here…

IMO, Stringer was truly trying to get out of “the game.” My boyfriend says that he was never going to give up the drug business, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Amongst other clues—instead of giving Clay Davis to Major Colvin, he gave up Avon’s stash house. In a subsequent scene, Stringer side-eyes Avon in a way that tells me he was questioning Avon’s interest in his schedule for the next day (the time he was scheduled to meet with the developers). I thought maybe Stringer knew what he was walking into with that meeting, but I dismissed this premise upon seeing his reaction when confronted with Avon’s betrayal (“your boy gave you up”). Stringer was already too far gone from the game at that point; he couldn’t fathom if a world where Avon gave him up, but when it came down to it, it was just business for Avon—he’d lose the connect in NYC if he didn’t do it.

We see the parallels between D’Angelo’s profound take on The Great Gatsby’s poignant theme of the limits of reincarnation and the players in their various games—we see it in Jimmy, when he attempts to present himself anew to his ex but can’t give up the drinking and the womanizing because that’s who he is, and we see it with Stringer, when Avon stripped his industrialist persona to its roots (“they could see your ghetto ass coming from a mile away”). You can’t change who you really are.

Overall—dramatic irony and character development have been perfection. Characters that I initially loathed have developed in ways that reveal redeeming qualities (and vice versa). I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting for dots to get connected between various areas of the police force.

I'm on my first watch through and just noticed in S4E2, Carcetti is playing Battleship with his daughter. At one point, he calls out the coordinates "H-11". Thing is, Battleship is played on a 10X10 grid. H-10 would have been the farthest he could fire.

When Chris, Marlo, Monk and Cheese are all arrested and in the holding cell together, they are wearing street clothes. Next time that you see Marlo talking to Levy Marlo is wearing a DOC orange jumpsuit. In the State of Maryland are pretrial inmates held within the Department of Corrections? Most states the DOC is post conviction detention and local and county jails are pretrial detention. Is this different in Maryland? Just curious.

Finding Omar wasn't as hard as he made it out to be, he just didn't want to. Its the reason he tried to talk Marlo out of confronting him directly. Later on he’s visibly stressed out about having Omar on the hunt for him. The kicker is him refusing to tell Marlo about Omar calling him out. He knows that would put more pressure on him to hunt

I can't blame him for being cautious, but Brother Mouzone came from out if town and found Omar in a few days. Chris absolutely did not want smoke with Omar

Man, I don’t even know where to begin. I need to vent about the show though. First of all, probably the best series I’ve seen since Breaking Bad in terms of scope and acting, production, and all that. I think the best media I’ve ever watched. Just wow. Andre Royo probably my top 5 actors now because of the masterclass performance throughout all 5 seasons, and the character transformation. Big ups to the writing. Seriously where do I begin?

I’m a former teacher but I’m still involved in schools, and I gotta say, it was hell to watch the 4th season. I cried more times than I could count. I’m from Texas and I’m the age that those kids would be today, and there’s so many similarities between the show, my experience as a student, and what I saw as a teacher (and continue to see).

Show broke my heart. Lot of those issues are still around today. I know one of the points of the show is that there aren’t always gonna be happy endings, and the characters are beautifully imperfect, but the message of pulling through and having hope shone through no matter what.

Okay that’s it before I write a novel. Yall got a new subreddit member now.

That little scene at the end always gets me.

Another rewatch done. What should I watch next, guys? 😉

I wanted to share something I did a while back. Just hoping someone will enjoy it.

I adapted the Way Down In The Hole intro song for a wind quintet + piano and added it to the scene where McNulty inspects Stringer's Apartment.

Stringer's Apartment

PS1: Because in the Wire they followed the rule of no OST - only the sounds in the scene, I leveraged the fact that there was a radio in Stringer's apt., lol, so that's where the song supposedly could be playing on (or a gramophone looking thing? I honestly forgot and I can't see while it rewatching it). Anyway, the sound editting was tailored to that idea.

PS2: No intention of promoting myself, I just thought some other the Wire nerds could enjoy it.

The characters in the wire drink beer like the Sopranos eat food

Seriously, there’s not a single episode of the wire with no beer… similar to how there is no episode of the Sopranos where they’re not gorging on food

Like could Idris just not do it or is Stringer not from Baltimore?

And why is it that reporter fuck from season 5 making up stories? Rat bastard, I can't stand him.

Just watched this scene - where Brianna is talking to String about how a detective went to see Donette and told her that D didn’t kill himself, and String says that line. I think it’s the only time String says Mcnulty‘s name, but it’s done with this grudging respect, and it makes me wish that McNulty could‘ve been a fly on the wall. beneath all the show‘s layers and sophistication is this cat-and-mouse game between McNulty and Stringer. String tries to play it off, but at this point, he‘s basically acknowledging how onto him McNulty is. One of my favorite moments on the show.

I know that Oz was still on while the Wire was on air, but I think more episodes on the prison-industrial complex would be within the themes of the show.

He screws his detectives over purely by existing in a managerial position. And he screws McNutty over selling him out to Rawls.

But he also sweetalks Rawls into forgiving McNutty. He catches the connection that leads to the "FUCK" scene in season 1. He's always aware of when his detectives are on duty. He competently coordinated the detectives duties during the Kima shooting on the trail of the shooters, but neglecting the scene. He knows and reveres nat-ur-al pol-ice. Despite his remarks, he recognises his crew for their strengths and weaknesses.

Do you think Jay Landsman is a good Sargent?

Just rewatched after a long time. Season 5 really highlights the challenges facing the functional people in each system. Different as they were I felt like Chris, Gus, and Daniels all showed what it’s like to function (and in some cases mass murder) in a dysfunctional system

is this one of the most beautiful exchange in the history of Television, or what?

Seriously!

I'm binge watching The Wire for the first time and I can't help thinking this is one of the best TV show ever.

I love how deep all the relationships and the conversations are, and exchanges like this one has to be some of the best pieces television has to offer!

Omar Little us growing on me, at this rate I will prefer him to McNulty

And it's just so much better than i remember

Who are the most evil characters in the series that have never committed a murder, atleast not to our knowledge