Zorral Posted June 3, 2022 Share Posted June 3, 2022 Well, I know Baltimore well, and the whole Chesapeake, Maryland, VA region, and have loads of friends and colleagues there -- lived there for a while. So I always pay attention. The one part of the region I don't know well is -- D.C., and have no friends there either, certainly not at this time. Did know some people in the Clinton years, but not since. In any case this story is the same story of cities and cops and police depts. everywhere in the USA YAY. Every one has multiple Freddie Grays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted June 3, 2022 Share Posted June 3, 2022 If it weren't nonfiction you'd swear Jenkins was a ripoff of The Shield's Vic Mackey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RumHam Posted June 3, 2022 Share Posted June 3, 2022 10 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said: If it weren't nonfiction you'd swear Jenkins was a ripoff of The Shield's Vic Mackey It's been a while, but as I remember even Vic Mackey didn't rob and frame random civilians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briantw Posted June 3, 2022 Share Posted June 3, 2022 2 hours ago, RumHam said: It's been a while, but as I remember even Vic Mackey didn't rob and frame random civilians. Yeah, and it's what made Vic a compelling character. He was capable of being both good and evil, and he actually did care about the job and catching bad guys. He kept moving the line he was willing to cross for personal benefit, but it never got to the point where he was going to just randomly beat the shit out of a civilian and steal their money. Whitaker even delivers a monologue about how the reason Aceveda could never bust Vic was because he assumed that Vic was a bad guy all of the time when that wasn't the case. Jenkins, on the other hand, is a total villain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted June 4, 2022 Share Posted June 4, 2022 9 hours ago, RumHam said: It's been a while, but as I remember even Vic Mackey didn't rob and frame random civilians. Thing is after awhile The Shield narrative became quite "over the top" for me, but I always reminded myself that it's a tv show and creative license for entertainment, yada, yada. And yet apparently, what "We Own the City" teaches me is that the real life story was even darker than what I had assumed was the "over the top" and exaggerated fiction. Life wasn't imitating art here, it was demonstrably worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted June 4, 2022 Share Posted June 4, 2022 14 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said: Life wasn't imitating art here, it was is demonstrably worse. Fixed that for you. No past or past imperfect tense about this stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted June 4, 2022 Author Share Posted June 4, 2022 22 hours ago, briantw said: Jenkins, on the other hand, is a total villain. Thats what came across to me as well, he's not exactly an ambiguous character in that sense haha. Stealing the midget stripper's money might have been the thing that stood out the most somehow. But also them robbing that guy who owed money to drug dealers who subsequently got shot cause he couldnt pay off his debt. I might be forgetting some. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briantw Posted June 4, 2022 Share Posted June 4, 2022 18 minutes ago, Calibandar said: Thats what came across to me as well, he's not exactly an ambiguous character in that sense haha. Stealing the midget stripper's money might have been the thing that stood out the most somehow. But also them robbing that guy who owed money to drug dealers who subsequently got shot cause he couldnt pay off his debt. I might be forgetting some. I got the sense that they intentionally neglected showing much of him with his family in order to make sure he wasn't seen as even a remotely sympathetic character. We really only see him at his worst. Even when he gives that speech about doing things the right way to open the show, they quickly juxtapose it with him breaking the guy's beer bottle for no reason while walking the beat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted June 4, 2022 Share Posted June 4, 2022 I got the impression that Jenkins had gotten fixated on, addicted to cash, always looking for it, and when it was caught sight of, in any context, even in a stripper's g-string, he had to have it. In fact, by then, he believed all the cash belonged to him, was his, and was supposed to be his. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted June 5, 2022 Author Share Posted June 5, 2022 Yeah they do push this narrative towards the end that he especially really believed that he owned the city, and in the same way showing how delusional he was when he got offended they called him dirty and they wouldnt even take on cases on anymore that he brought in. He'd lost sense of reality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted June 5, 2022 Share Posted June 5, 2022 16 minutes ago, Calibandar said: He'd lost sense of reality. IOW, a typical member of the USA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IFR Posted June 6, 2022 Share Posted June 6, 2022 I thoroughly enjoyed this show. Having recently gone through the crucible of Obi-Wan Kenobi, it is nice to see something that doesn't seem like it's written by a lobotomy victim. The writing was excellent, and I thought it did a good job as a meditation on the police culture that facilitates this kind of corruption. Also, all around excellent acting. I thought the structure of the show was a little disorienting and unnecessary, but I found it pretty easy to acclimate to, so that's a minor criticism. I haven't been impressed with many of Simon's non-Wire works (I haven't seen The Deuce yet, and I'm kind of hesitant because I'm not particularly interested in the subject matter). But I found this show to be compelling and entertaining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted June 6, 2022 Author Share Posted June 6, 2022 Coincidentally I am starting the Deuce this week. Like you I have not been impressed by other work that isnt the Wire but I am going to give the Deuce a chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted June 6, 2022 Share Posted June 6, 2022 Well my conviction that Simon's Treme is utterly brilliant, with the exception of the John Goodman, Tulane English prof. As intimately as I knew Tulane then, and the English Dept., and a lot of other Lit depts. in academia, Simon made the startling error of thinking the Liberal Arts had the same cachet in terms hierarchy, effect and attraction they had when he was in college. They world had changed in academia enormously by 2005, like it did everywhere else. Also WRONG was putting the women in those 5-6" stilettos -- that was still in the future. His shows get so much, such as the music bang on, but he generally always gets the clothes wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted June 6, 2022 Share Posted June 6, 2022 This show is the first Simon project that I didn't love, and even so, I respect it even if I felt much of the middle loss the dramatic part of being a drama. But The Deuce and Treme are terrific, loved them both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted June 6, 2022 Share Posted June 6, 2022 The Deuce is the only series of his I didn't watch. I started the first episode -- and I just couldn't, due to it being centered on sex work. Too painful. I really disliked Heroes. Generation Kill was rather marred for me by recognizing from the gitgo that they weren't in the Middle East, where it was to be taking place, but North Africa. The surrounding figures may be Muslim in both places, and wear robes and veils and masks against the sun and the sand in both places, but the styles are so different. So is the desert country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nictarion Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 I still think The Corner is the 2nd best thing Simon has done, but The Deuce is definitely my favorite post-The Wire. Haven’t seen Homicide: Life on the Street. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 Simon didn't do Homicide, but it taught him everything about how to make such a show. Homicide was brilliant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nictarion Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 1 hour ago, Zorral said: Simon didn't do Homicide, but it taught him everything about how to make such a show. Homicide was brilliant. He wasn’t the showrunner, no, but I believe he wrote some of the episodes, and it was based off of his own book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted June 7, 2022 Share Posted June 7, 2022 Don't play wit' me! That was Simon and Burns' book The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (1997), which became a television series, for which he was credited some of the episodes as a writer. For the NBC Homicide series, adapted from Simon's 1991 book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, though he was credited with consultant title, and later producer title for some of the eps, he wasn't a writer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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