The Wire Season 5 - Spoilers

[EHK for Darwin]

SPOILER: Marlo Episode 1

Also on Marlo, Prop Joe pretty much offered to 'show Marlo the ropes' last season and the difficulty Major Crimes now has tracking Marlo suggests that he's taken some of the advice to heart. All evidence suggests that Marlo has become a much more sophisticated criminal. And while he won't accept being 'little brother' to anyone and probably wouldn't even accept a 'first amongst equals' position, he does seem smart enough to adopt good suggestions when they're given. And to learn fairly quickly.

And this on demand shit pisses me off. Way to fuck over everyone else HBO. Cocksuckers.

Edit: fuck it, I'm downloading. If everyone and their dog has already seen Episode 2, I might as well too. I've paid HBO's fees for years, they owe me this much.

[Ser Greguh]

SPOILER: S5 E1+2

Okay, so finally caught up on this last night. Interesting start. The Wire always starts a little slow (S4 did as well) as it tends to be written as one single 10-12 hour narrative rather than structured for individual episodes. So there's not much going on just yet, but the threads being opened so far are quite promising.

First, that opening scene was fucking awesome. You gotta love any season that opens on Bunk giving one of his badass interrogation monologues. Also, two episodes, two Bunk quotes. I would totally be okay with the show tagging nothing but Bunk quotes from here on out.

Nice touch: I'm 99.9% sure that we've seen the chick that opened E2 with the NA monologue before, in both S3 and S4. In S3, one of the shows that opened as Hamsterdam was picking up steam featured a bunch of white teenagers cruising through, and that same girl asked for an 8-ball (the dealer tried to make smalltalk, and the girl, scared shitless, said, "No offense, but I'd just like the 8-ball"). In S4, I'm pretty sure the same girl was hanging out in Old Face Andre's just before Omar ripped the place off, obviously a prostitute. Now she's given a nice monologue to open a show. Little details like that help make the show what it is.

BTW, someone asked, and yes, Bubbles' sponsor is HIV positive. We learned that back in S1. "I got the bug. Gave that shit to my old lady."

As for the McNulty development, I totally didn't see it coming, and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. Seems a little over-the-top for a show that has spent its life grounded in realism, but given the themes of the season, it's still a bold decision and I'm confident it can be pulled off. I'm not sure exactly what McNulty means to accomplish with it, other than just fucking with his bosses and giving them unsolvable murders. I don't see how the existence of a supposed serial killer is going to open up the Marlo investigation.

Marlo is obviously making a play to cut Prop Joe out of the good dope, or at least build up the contact for himself should anything unfortunate happen to Prop Joe, which Marlo is certainly capable of.

I absolutely love that Herc is working for Levy now. I wonder where that's gonna go. I could see him either backdooring Levy to help an investigation, or working with Levy to impede one. Knowing Herc, it will probably be whatever he blunders into without knowing it.

Ep 3 is probably about where we see Omar for the first time, given the patterns of the previous seasons.

Clay Davis is going down. The real question is, who is he bringing with him. It certainly looks like Burrell is neck-deep in dirt, and possibly Rawls with him (which raises the question of, if Burrell goes down, does he take Daniels with him out of spite to prevent him from becoming the next commissioner? He certainly could.) The council president chick is probably screwed as well, and it seems possible that Carcetti could be implicated in some of the dirt as well. It's gonna be a shitstorm for sure. Juicy.

I have a feeling that very bad things are in store for Dukie. Even with Michael's backing, the street does not respect him, and he will likely do something rash in response (making him the Ziggy of this season) or have something very bad happen to him.

As for the newspaper storyline, I'm enjoying the new characters, and I especially like the old guy that's like the fountain of knowledge. The bit about "you can't evacuate a person ... well, you can, but that means you give them an enema" had me cracking up. One of my many language pet peeves as well.

Anyway, really looking forward to where it's going.

[Mathis]

SPOILER: Series 5 Episode 2

Good catch on the prostitute. I recognized her from Old Face Andre's store but never realised she was the customer in Hamsterdam. I love those kind of details.

[Commodore]

SPOILER: episode 1 & 2

I agree that the transformation of McNulty wasn't done well. He is sober at the end of season 4, and back to his old ways at the start of season 5. It would have been nice to see the transformation and how it came about.

[aeu]

At this point, McNulty can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned. He managed to seriously piss me off within just 2 episodes, that asshole.

[Third Knight on the Left]

At this point, McNulty can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned. He managed to seriously piss me off within just 2 episodes, that asshole.

This is news?

[The Iceman of the North]

What he did in the second episode goes quite a bit further than what asshattery he's committed in previous seasons.

[Relic]

At this point, McNulty can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned. He managed to seriously piss me off within just 2 episodes, that asshole.

what the fuck did i do??!

its all bunks fault, really. jimmy should have stayed in a patrol car.

[Relic]

commodore-

SPOILER: episode 1 & 2

I agree that the transformation of McNulty wasn't done well. He is sober at the end of season 4, and back to his old ways at the start of season 5. It would have been nice to see the transformation and how it came about.

SPOILER: McNulty

what do you need to see really? you know how Jimmy was and how he got there. Anger, frustration and ego = Jimmy drinks. Jimmy drinks = Jimmy is an asshole.

[ztemhead]

SPOILER: ep seven or six

gah! I dl'ed one of the latter episodes without seeing them all consecutively. go Omar, fuck Marlo, and the street will get him eventually.

[Analu]

SPOILER: Series 5 Episode 2

Omar is yet to make an appearance but I think its only a matter of time. Marlo is planning something to draw him out. The only thing I can think of is that Marlo will kill Butchie. That will put Omar on the warpath which is what Marlo seems to want.

SPOILER: S5 Ep2

My wife is convinced that the old lady that was shown dead in her bed was Omar's grandmother, poisoned courtesy of Marlo and that's what draws Omar back.

Personally I doubt it, because if Marlo was going to kill her, it would've probably been execution-style, not poison. What do Chris and Snoop know about poison? But she's adamant that it's her, so.... whatever. Better guess than anyone I have.

Other thoughts on the episode:

I don't like what they're doing with Mcnulty at all. I don't know how he thinks portraying the body as a murder and that there's a serial killer on the loose is going to change anything. The police have no money. That's that. And the idea is so ridiculously cockeyeed it's laughable. Two murders doesn't translate to a serial killer. I'm pretty sure it's at least three murders before it gets that label. What's he going to do, fudge the crime scene at one or two more OD scenes? All the shit he pulled in seasons 1-3 were crazy, but they also made some sense to me. This makes absolutely none.

I'm a little bored with the media angle. I know it's going to tie in in future episodes, but right now that's how I feel about it.

Good to see Avon again, but like some, I thought he was way too chummy with Marlo. And how is he still the big fish in prison? He has no money and no pull on the outside anymore. I remember in S4 his sister cutting off WeeBey's wife from getting anymore because she said it was all dried up.

I think Michael is too headstrong and smart to stay long in Marlo's gang and will look for a way out in the future.

All in all, a good buildup episode for the future. Watching the "Sarah Connor Chronicles" right after watching this episode was.... an unfortunate decision, to say the least.

[Mathis]

SPOILER: Avon Barksdale

Avon is an 'authority figure' in prison because most of his old crew is in there with him. Wee-Bey, Bird I think and all those 'soldiers' who were arrested in the weapons depo that Avon set up in Series three.

Thats why he has no money coming in. His organisation is broken, everyone is either incarcerated or gone independent like Bodie did.

[CelticBrennus]

Avon is also likely sitting on a nice little sum of money due to the interest he owned in B&B Enterprises before Stringer died.

[Mathis]

I bet he is regretting giving Brother Mouzone the ok on the Stringer Bell hit. Stringer was the only person who could hold the organisation together with Avon in prison. I never understood that decision. It would make sense if he did it to avenge D'Angelo but that wasn't the motivation. Avon decided to give Stringer up when Brother Mouzone threatened to cut off Avon's connection to NY. But why did Avon need a line to NY?

All he had to do was end his fued with Marlo one way or another and he would get supplied throught the so-op. I suppose he liked his independence...

[Zadok]

I hate On Demand. After 2am on Tuesday and Episode 3 is still not up.

[aeu]

I bet he is regretting giving Brother Mouzone the ok on the Stringer Bell hit. Stringer was the only person who could hold the organisation together with Avon in prison. I never understood that decision. It would make sense if he did it to avenge D'Angelo but that wasn't the motivation. Avon decided to give Stringer up when Brother Mouzone threatened to cut off Avon's connection to NY. But why did Avon need a line to NY?

Hmm...I always thought D'Angelo thing was the final straw that sealed Stringer's fate.

When you say Brother Mouzone threatened Avon, are we talking about the scene in the barbershop? Because to me, Avon has already made up his mind before that talk with Mouzone. The way he acts clearly indicated that.

[Mathis]

I agree that Stringer having D'Angelo killed probably made Avon's decision easy. If Stringer hadn't done it Avon probably wouldn't have given him up. But even so it seemed secondary to me. Avon hadn't decided to kill Stringer. He gave him up only when faced with Brother Mouzone's threat. IIRC at one point in the Barbrer's Avon offers Brother some money to smooth things over and let Stringer off the hook.

[Relic]

SPOILER: episode 4

what an amazing episode. the first top notch episode this season i thought, and myabe one of the best ones this show has seen yet. im not surprised that marlo offed Joe, we saw that coming since he met Vondous (spelling?) last season. Anyone else notice that Horse, one of the dock workers in season 2, is now a homeless man? McNunlty meets him under the highway overpass.

I sense Clay Davis is going to weasel his way out of his current problems right now, but im not sure how. Thoughts?

[SwordoftheMorning]

Holy Fuck! that's all I've got to say. Holy Fuck!

[Dharma]

How have people here gotten ahold of episode 4?

I need to see it!