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The Wire Season 5 - Spoilers


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

dude, totally.

i re-watched it. its probably THE BEST Wire episode to date. Amazing.

Prod - HBO on Demand airs them a week early.

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SPOILER: episode 4

Just watched this. Fantastic episode. The look on Marlo's face in the last shot was crazy.

Other thoughts:
I suppose I can see where the Greek's coming from, but cutting Prop Joe loose just like *snaps fingers*? I dunno. Makes more sense to me if he had just taken Marlo and his gang out of the picture by force. I'd rather deal with someone more stable and reliable like Joe over Marlo anyday.

Man, I can't believe Cheese did his own uncle like that. I thought he was going to inadvertently give Marlo a chance to ice him, not actually let him in the door to do it. That's cold. You don't fuck over your own blood like that, you just don't. Especially not for someone like Marlo.

Great seeing Omar back. I'm glad Slim made it out alive. Always liked that cat.

Mcnulty and Lester are really going to go thru with it, huh? Looks like he used the teeth to make it look like a Hannibal Lecter-style murder. Still seems like a dumbass idea to me. Risking your career and prison time just to get at Marlo sooner rather than later? I don't get it.

Two scenes I loved:
- When Burrell and Daniels were talking in the office, and Burrell picked up a golf club than walked behind Daniels. I could almost hear him thinking something like "Is he going to snap and do me Al Capone style with a golf club? Shit!"

- When Herc implicitly asks Joe what Burrell was like in high school: "Stone stupid." lol
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Bah...and I can't find 4 anywhere on the net. You guys suck more than usual.

Maybe you should look harder. ;)

And don't buy into the hype, it's definitely not the greatest episode ever IMHO. :)

But it was easily the best episode of this season. Not only because of the particular events, but overall, everything just worked as the Wire I loved.

I have to say, I wasn't really feeling it this season until this one, there were a bunch of things that didn't feel right. I don't really know how to explain this, not that they were particularly bad, but they just felt off. This one definitely didn't.

Enough of the newspaper woes, though. We get the point already, please stop hammering us up the head with the same stuff. I understand Simon holds a mean grudge, but the lack of subtlety in that particular theme is getting ridiculous.

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dude, totally.

i re-watched it. its probably THE BEST Wire episode to date. Amazing.

Prod - HBO on Demand airs them a week early.

I know, I was hoping you had found it on the net somewhere though. Particularly after comments like that :P

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SPOILER: episode 4


I just wanted to make a list as to why this is a Top 3 All Time Wire episode, just cuz im still thinking about it.

- Of course Marlo and joe and the end. What Marlo says to Joe, in an almost compassionate tone. "Joe, relax" and then the look in his eyes after chris (who flinches before he pulls the trigger) does the deed.

- Once again Vondous shows loyalty and compassion and is overruled by his mechanical emotionless boss. Loved seeing The Greek again.

- Horse as a homeless person. Fuckin nails season 2 home. Frank Sobotka was a hero.

- Carv becoming a snitch. Shades of his guilt over Randy are evident all over this decision.

- Michael telling his mother "i aint paying you to be my mother." What a great fucking scene right there.

- Omar. "Sweet jesus." Omar is the man.

- Herc seeing marlo in levi's office and then his scene with carv. "You probably thought they should have shit canned me too. yeah, probably."

- mcnulty and friedman. This plot line is coming into place. i wasnt a fan of it at first.

- Rawls and Burrell in their scene together. classic. Burrell actually thought he was a decent commish.

- The political maneuvering of the council pres chick.total Litlefinger coming up.

- Clay Davis reeling after his meeting with the grand jury.

- Kima and the kid. Very nice touch.

- The City desk Chief (whos name now escapes me) being lectured about his language in the news room. Ive worked for a major newspaper and that scene...totally shows the disconnect between the real reporters and management.

- Daniels sitting in this new chair, and the creepy smile he smiles. Achieving what his wife always wanted. A politician on the rise. kind of sad.
There are more, but i got to run.

This episode tied the entire season together. i wasnt sold on this season after the first three episodes, but i should have known better.

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Damn. Watched this last night and I was floored. Definitely the best episode of the season so far.

Now I'm totally hooked on the week early format. Next Monday can't get here fast enough.

Certainly the best episode of the season. Thus far they've gotten progressively better from the premiere, and I hope the trend continues.

"just relax.... " DAMN.

I have to agree that this week-early format is great.

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Okay, fuck it, this is a spoiler thread, I'm not encasing my text in a big spoiler box, though I'll be as vague as I can. Be forewarned.

Definitely agree with the sentiment that this was the best episode of the season, although it's got some fierce competition if you want to put it as the best epi of The Wire to date (I think it would make top 5). Of course there's the end scene. The way The Wire deals with death is always creepy, and the theme of Marlo and Chris both calming their victims before their deaths makes it even moreso. I remember a review of "Schindler's List" I read once where someone talked about how in other movies dealing with mass carnage, the body counts are meaningless because the characters being killed had no humanity to begin with, but that Spielberg was an expert at giving his characters life before death, and thus making it seem like it was an actual human life ending on the screen. So too it is with The Wire.

Another theme I noticed with the death is that, as with Season 3, the death of a major player on the street is counterbalanced with the firing of a major player in the police department. In S3, Stringer was assassinated by Omar and Brother Mouzone for his double-dealing and deception; the next episode featured the firing of Bunny Colvin for much the same reason (the creation of Hamsterdam behind the backs of Rawls and Burrell), so paralleled that they gave them the same "final" line: "Get on with it motherfu..." Both "killings" were sudden, harsh, and remorseless.

Similar parallels existed in this epi; both characters removed were leaders unable to adjust to the styles of people that emerged as higher on the totem pole, and both were comforted at the moment of death.

Still, though, for me the best scene of the episode was the one that took place outside of Levy's office between Herc and Prop Joe, with Herc reading from the paper:

Herc: "Carcetti finally dumps Burrell."

Prop Joe: "Irvin was a year before me at Dunbar."

Herc: "No shit."

Prop Joe: "He was in the glee club."

Herc: "You're killing me. I gotta ask..."

Prop Joe: "...stone stupid."

Just one of those great Wire moments that finds laugh-out-loud humor out of unexpected places. I guess I didn't really cogitate how old Prop Joe was. It literally never would have occurred to me that he knew Burrell.

Also, although people are definitely right about the homeless guy that McNulty met being one of the dockworkers from S2 (and that's a wonderful, typically cynical touch for the show), it didn't look like it was Horse (Horse was Sobotka's right-hand guy). To me it looked more like the bearded guy working in the computer room that helped Ziggy out with his car-stealing scam. He was named (something like "Johnny 27" for the number of beers he drank on his 21st birthday IIRC), but I'm not sure, so now I must review Season 2 :)

Also, it only just occurred to me that Michael's mother seemed familiar. In S1, we see Omar hanging out in the community after having robbed a stash, and a woman holding a kid comes up to him. All she says is "Mr. Omar, my check late," and Omar gives her a fix. I could swear that's the same woman playing Michael's mother, and the kid she's holding would be about the right age for Bug.

Finally, Carver's plotline. Carver's come a long way from the co-buffoon we saw in S1 exchanging a glance with Herc in the season closer before stuffing a manicured band of 100's underneath his vest. I'm reminded of Daniels' speech to him in that same episode about becoming a Sergeant:

"A couple of weeks from now, you're going to be in some district somewhere with eleven to twelve uniforms looking to you for everything. There's some of them are going to be good police, some of them are going to be young and stupid, a few are going to be pieces of shit. But all of them will take their cue from you. You show loyalty, they learn loyalty. You show them it's about the work, it'll be about the work. You show them some other kind of game, then that's the game they'll play. I came on in the Eastern. And it was a piece of shit Lieutenant hoping to be a Captain, piece of shit Sergeants hoping to be Lieutenants, pretty soon we had piece of shit patrolmen trying to figure the job for themselves. And some of what happens then is hard as hell to live down. Comes a day you're going to have to decide whether it's about you or about the work."

Collicio (sp) is certainly one of the pieces of shit to which Daniels referred, and Carver is certainly making the choice that it's about the work. I'm worried that it'll mean his ass, though, and that his people are going to turn on him. Cops tend not to tolerate cops that rat one another out, and Carver actually going so far as to write him up may be suicide.

Fantastic episode, though, and I think it might only be getting better in the episodes from here to come. The previews for episode 5 looked riveting.

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Also, although people are definitely right about the homeless guy that McNulty met being one of the dockworkers from S2 (and that's a wonderful, typically cynical touch for the show), it didn't look like it was Horse (Horse was Sobotka's right-hand guy). To me it looked more like the bearded guy working in the computer room that helped Ziggy out with his car-stealing scam. He was named (something like "Johnny 27" for the number of beers he drank on his 21st birthday IIRC), but I'm not sure, so now I must review Season 2 :)

Also, it only just occurred to me that Michael's mother seemed familiar. In S1, we see Omar hanging out in the community after having robbed a stash, and a woman holding a kid comes up to him. All she says is "Mr. Omar, my check late," and Omar gives her a fix. I could swear that's the same woman playing Michael's mother, and the kid she's holding would be about the right age for Bug.

Everything that you said was spot on, but felt like I needed to add my two cents here.

1) It definitely was not Horse (that was the very ugly, stumpy guy); it was the guy that you refer to above, Johnny 27 or whoever. Friend of Ziggy, whose main role was 'disappearing' the bins that were being smuggled in.

2) This is a huge catch, and you are completely correct. It's the same woman. Nice one.

While I don't think that this was 'the best episode EVER' of the Wire, it was the best of this season.

The most revealing, and realistic, moment was Burrell's abbreviated soliloquey about how he ended up. "They all think that I'm a hack; maybe I am..." He appeared a bumbling, incapable man, but his point is well taken. While he may not have been perfect, his job was made very difficult by the constant vacillating dictation coming from City Hall. New requests before he could respond to the original one. Doesn't completely excuse the man, but does shed light on his predicament.

The final scene was positively chilling, and imparted for the first time (to me at least) how sick Marlo really is. Bodie was right.

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right, his name wasnt horse. opps.

i did say "probably" the best episodes ever :P . maybe not THE best altho we could certainly debate that. i just loved this episode THAT much.

also please use spoiler tags if you are going to talk about an episode that hasnt aired On Demand yet.

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The final scene was positively chilling, and imparted for the first time (to me at least) how sick Marlo really is. Bodie was right.

Ive watched every episode of the Wire there is. Ive bought all of the seasons so far, (partially to lend them out and make friends of mine finally watch this amazing series) and i have never felt so strongly about something dealing with the series as i do about this: Marlo must die.

I mean damn, the man has no qualms about anything. As Bodie says 'Killin niggas just to'. The attitude with which he destroys everything he touches is just...infuriating to me. Are we even going to have anyone left that we care about on that side of the show? It sure as hell isn't any of Marlo's crew (Michael excluded) Shit, Avon let Prop Joe be. Basketball games with the east vs west theme etc. I know thats just how Marlo is, and how the trade can be but damn, someone shoot that mother fucker and right quick.

Good catch on Johnny 27 being one of the homeless guys. I did not pick up on that at all when watching it last night. Overall a great episode... Even if it is just as frustrating waiting on Monday to see a new EP, as opposed to sunday.

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I dont know, I think Avon might have gone after Prop Joe and the other East Side dealers eventually, and we did see him pushing into new territory during Season 1, but he was working with a far more consolidated and direct rule it seems then Marlo.

What Joe did, by creating the Co-Op with Stringer, was create a crown that could be seized. Before, with Avon, it was simply a bunch of independent dealers, getting their supply from Joe, where Avon got his from the the Colombians out of NYC. To take over the entire city under those circumstances would have involved going to war with each of the other dealers one by one, something that would have taken years to accomplish. Now, with the Co-op, there is a central dealer who supplies everyone, and to take over the entire city, all you need to do is replace Joe as the man the Greeks deal with.

Joe and Stringer did what D'Angelo lamented in Season 1, he made the Game into something that didnt require killing, but it just doesnt work like that. There will be gangsters who rise to the top, guys like Marlo, and to a lesser degree Avon, who want the crown and power more then the cash. The Stringers and Joe's will always lose to them.

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I mean damn, the man has no qualms about anything. As Bodie says 'Killin niggas just to'. The attitude with which he destroys everything he touches is just...infuriating to me. Are we even going to have anyone left that we care about on that side of the show? It sure as hell isn't any of Marlo's crew (Michael excluded) Shit, Avon let Prop Joe be. Basketball games with the east vs west theme etc. I know thats just how Marlo is, and how the trade can be but damn, someone shoot that mother fucker and right quick.

I like Snoop and Chris, despite what the cold-blooded things they've done for Marlo. But that's kind of what makes the Wire as awesome as it is.

Marlo is pretty much an embodiment of the game itself. And it's cold as hell. I'm not sure I'll care much if he dies or not.

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A shout out to my friendly PMer's and damn what an awesome episode. Agree with the general sentiment, Marlo MUST die. And to add one of my own general sentiments, the newspaper shit must get interesting quick or step aside. Missing just about all the subtlety and nuance of the earlier storylines, not to mention boring me to tears comparatively. Right now that storyline has been entirely irrelevant to everything else that's happening in the show. Previews suggest that'll change, but at the moment the show really loses nothing if you cut it all.

Carver's coming of age has been impressive. Really if you take all the characters from season 1, I think he's clearly the one who has changed and matured the most. While not as prominent as other characters, I think his arc is probably the most compelling and interesting in the show...maybe along with Bodie's. And I think those two might have become my favorite characters. (And I hated Bodie for about the first 2-3 seasons) I love how he tried to play Daniels with the piece of shit cop, than when he was spurned he paused, reflected, maybe remembered Randy, and than did what was right.

The scenes in Levy's office were priceless. The initial awkwardness of those 'two different worlds' meeting on the same playing field, than interacting like any other people. Laughed my ass off at the Burrell shit.

And the Council President has finally become a full fledged, real character. And a pretty damned savvy one as well. Interesting.

As for the Greek's, some were asking why they didn't simply go to Joe. They like Joe. Trust Joe. But when it comes down to it, I don't think they particularly care who the king of Baltimore is. So long as he's reliable, competent, and trustworthy. Clearly they had the second meeting so that 'The Greek' could size Marlo up. See if he was somebody they could work with. And what they saw, amongst other things, was that Marlo was young, ambitious, and would make the move on Joe with or without their blessing. And that he'd made great efforts to be a bit more than your random street thug.

So they stood back and let it happen. Maybe they understand the street situation and that Marlo has most of the muscle. Maybe they didn't understand any of it beyond the fact that Marlo was young and hungry. Fact is, if Marlo wins, they still sell their drugs. Marlo loses, they still sell their drugs. They intervene on Joe's behalf and Marlo wins, they create an enemy. These guys are the supply. Big as 'the bank'. They don't deal with that penny ante bullshit. Letting things play out leaves a receptive open market.

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And to add one of my own general sentiments, the newspaper shit must get interesting quick or step aside. Missing just about all the subtlety and nuance of the earlier storylines, not to mention boring me to tears comparatively. Right now that storyline has been entirely irrelevant to everything else that's happening in the show. Previews suggest that'll change, but at the moment the show really loses nothing if you cut it all.

no. you're new to the show, you should sit back and shut up haha. let them do what they have done for 5 years now, in creating the best tv show in the history of tv.

yes i feel strongly about this =P

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I like Snoop and Chris, despite what the cold-blooded things they've done for Marlo. But that's kind of what makes the Wire as awesome as it is.

Marlo is pretty much an embodiment of the game itself. And it's cold as hell. I'm not sure I'll care much if he dies or not.

You're right. The game is cold, and people taking different things from the story / characters is what makes it great. As to Chris and Snoop, i don't dislike them per se, they are 'soldiers'. Don't really care whether they get out or die or whatever. Marlo though... I mean its not like i didn't see Prop Joes hit coming. Him going at Sergi and the Greeks early on, the only outcome he could possibly have in mind is getting rid of Prop Joe.

Still, it was sad to see Joe go. As it was with Bodie and even back to Stringer, characters i cared for. All I'm saying is, when Marlo dies, i believe I'm going to dance a jig.

Edit: The paper storyline doesn't bother me so much. Nothing really note worthy so far but I'm not disappointed the scenes are there. When word came out that they were going to do this angel this season i was skeptical. Could still work though, and is obviously a passion for Simon. Oh yea, I picked up Homicide: A Life on the Killing Streets by David Simon. It's good enough so far. Some of the scenes in the wire are in the book. The opening scene of this season with the 'lie detector'. A lot of the same stuff, but some interesting stories, and the banter is great as always.

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no. you're new to the show, you should sit back and shut up haha. let them do what they have done for 5 years now, in creating the best tv show in the history of tv.

yes i feel strongly about this =P

The thing is, with the newspaper storyline, they are NOT doing what they have done for 5 years. It's not really that it seems boring or irrelevant, just that there's no sublety or nuance. It's the same shit every frigging episode:

Owners in Chicago and their minions here are the evil and we are undermanned. And we cannot follow the metro lines story because we don't have a metro writer anymore. Yet we are still making more cuts, leaving the work to noobs, who cannot get it done. And we cannot follow the courthouse drama because we have no courthouse reporter. And the good, old guys with good sources are being forced out. And the noobs cannot get it done. And we cannot follow the inside story with the police comissioner because we just forced out the experienced police reporter...Leaving us with noobs who cannot get it done.

Not only they have to show this repeatedly, but they also make the editor guy (I guess that's supossed to be Simon's voice) say "Hey, we cannot follow these because of the buyouts". Repeatedly.... Give me a fucking break. The Wire always treated the audience like intelligent adults, you need to pay attention, pick up clues, read the subtext, etc... But when it comes to this, they behave like they are sermonizing to a bunch of morons.

I don't know if this is the worst storyline in Wire's history (I need to see where it goes to judge that) but it's definitely the worst, most clumsily handled, by far. As I said, Simon's obsessions are really working against him in this particular issue.

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A shout out to my friendly PMer's and damn what an awesome episode. Agree with the general sentiment, Marlo MUST die. And to add one of my own general sentiments, the newspaper shit must get interesting quick or step aside. Missing just about all the subtlety and nuance of the earlier storylines, not to mention boring me to tears comparatively. Right now that storyline has been entirely irrelevant to everything else that's happening in the show. Previews suggest that'll change, but at the moment the show really loses nothing if you cut it all.

I don't think so. IMO, it's interesting to watch a realistic account of how conglomeration of the press has affected the quality of our news. I never really thought about how it played out on the ground, i.e. the paper missing real stories because they don't have enough people staffing the right desks with the right connections. I also think the tension between Gus the editor and the up-and-coming reporter, Scott Templeton is interesting. Particularly since they've made Templeton into a Stephen Glass who falsifies his quotes.

And unlike the schools, this is an issue where the writers have a personal story to tell. I think it'll shape up fine. Particularly since they're clearly going to play some sort of central role in McNulty's scheme with the serial killers (as you can see in the opening credits).

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