No, but money gives the gangs power, they get their money from drugs, and the dockworkers were the ones letting the drugs into the country because they needed the money to influence politicians into saving their jobs. Part of the point that The Wire was trying to make was that the current strategies being used to fight the so-called Drug War aren't working. They tried to highlight various aspects of the problem: failures in policing, failures in education, failures in the political system. One of the aspects of the problem was the loss of blue-collar jobs as that was making the import of drugs easier and cheaper than it should be.
Agreed. He's part of some of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the series, for me. "You gonna look out for me Sgt. Carver?" I don't see what one has to do with the other. The show is about various aspects of "The System" breaking down in Baltimore: law and order, industry, politics, education, and the press. The kids in the pit were one aspect, the men in the union hall were another. --Justin
I am now re-watching Season 3... Spoiler: Season 3 ...and once again, I am impressed by the even-handed way in which the show presents the Major's experiment with decriminalizing drugs. The show doesn't try to pretend that this is some kind of panacea. In fact, Bubbles' late-night walk through the one free zone was even more nightmarish than I remember. But it does make a reasonable argument that, on balance, this type of harm-reduction strategy may be a better way to go than waging "war on drugs". I also feel a bit like Nice-Guy Eddie in Reservoir Dogs, who must have heard "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" a million billion *&^%$#@! times, but never realized that the girl singing the song was the one who shot Andy. Spoiler: the night the lights went out in West Baltimore I was shocked when Dante accidentally shot Kim during the gunfight outside the Barksdale stash house. I didn't remember that at all, and I'm not sure how I didn't notice it the first time I saw Season 3.
Didn't Kimmy say... Spoiler: Wire S3 ...something about Dante should stand watch in the alley on their next job so she didn't have to worry about him blowing her head off when he got nervous? ETA: It was Tosha, not Kimmy, who got shot. --Justin
Right. When it went down in the street I wasn't quite sure, but when Kimmy said that line later it was pretty clear. --Justin
Now four episodes into season 2 - it's been a lot of "I'm putting the old band back together..." Did a plausible job of throwing all the old characters back into the mix. Great moment with Kima/Daniels getting the cold shoulder at home, because they're going back to work. Tired of Ziggy. Hope (and it seems like) they're planning his execution, to the delight of the audience. Hope the murders aren't solved by magic, or by someone's crisis of conscience. We've seen that... must keep the faith as a viewer, I guess. Still enjoying, but it's totally the kind of show you want to watch fast, because all the payoff is at the end.
I'm the only one amused by Ziggy? Possibly it was because I first saw the actor in a similar, but more amusing role, though. He's partially based on a real person, fwiw.
I appreciated ziggy because Spoiler: ziggy as much as I hated him, I still felt bad for him in the end. Yeah he was annoying and beyond retarded. But he was still basically a kid, and now he was going to be ground up in harsh prison system he's probably too soft for. I think I hated him right up to the end, but once things started to unravel for him I felt bad. That's one of the things I liked about this show, it challenged my perceptions of people and events.
I loathed Ziggy; he's pretty much emblematic of how the second season is a huge misfire. Spoiler: season 2 His end should be nothing other than cruel schadenfreude, but it's played dead straight with both him and his cousin as a dramatic beat - but a character this essentially unlikeable in every respect cannot wring drama from an audience... and that's in a show filled with empathetic criminals. Basically he's the single worst thing to happen to The Wire.
Hmm. Spoiler: Ziggy I didn't find Ziggy "essentially unlikeable in every respect"--though he was a pathetic loser, to be sure. I'm trying to figure out exactly what I found likeable about him, and I think it's just the fact that he was so pathetic. My own sense of his Ziggy's character was that he was completely lacking in self-esteem and frustrated by his own weakness and dependence on others. He is absolutely unable to live up to the working-class masculine ideal embodied by men like his father and cousin. Stronger men treat him with contempt: they fuck him over, simply because they can. They have no fear or respect for him at all. And the only way he can get redress is by appealing to men stronger than himself, who also do not respect him. He tries to compensate for this by "fronting" and clowning around, because negative attention is better than no attention at all. But all the while, it seems, his own impotence and lack of self-worth continues to eat away at him, to the point that he refuses free money from Nick. Then, finally, when he actually has a good idea of his own--to steal the cars--he gets fucked over once again. Glekas refuses to honour his contract, because he doesn't have to: Ziggy has no way to enforce it, and will just have to take whatever Glekas gives him. And not only does he refuse to honour his contract--he further humiliates and emasculates Ziggy by beating him up. At this point, Ziggy snaps. I actually found that quite tragic and moving--maybe because I've felt that kind of powerlessness and frustration in my own life, and the urge to lash out that comes along with it.
Yeah. I understand that, actually, and I understand how on paper Ziggy's story could seemed in theory tragic - but Spoiler: Ziggy, S2 Even when rejecting the money or during his one, dizzing, brief moment of success, Ziggy still manages to come off like a tool. His failures come from far more than abstract ideals he needs to live up to and often simply common sense - he screws up obviously by buying that new jacket, even when explicitly told to lay low. He seems petulant and childlike in the way he throws money away, and in his moment of successful thievery, he's blasting music and cheering at the top of his lungs... probably unwise things to do given the circumstances. Simply put even when you could feel sad or happy for Ziggy my dominant emotion remains wanting to simply punch him in the face (metaphorically, I'm not a violent person). This really isn't about reason, it's more about emotional reactions - and I just couldn't bring myself to care about this man the way the series and the characters evidently did. I mean, let's take D'Angelo for a moment. His first appearance is as unflattering as you can get - he's a bit immature, a bit of a clown, and also he casually killed a guy. But over the course of the first season we see a fair bit of character growth and maturity - even if he's easily manipulated by the police early on and later still he's a guy willing to throw a dead hooker in the trash; there's something human in there you can make a connection with. Ziggy never needed to be as serious as D'Angelo, but I do feel he needed a moment where he just came across as a little more than a pathetic clown, a hint that there was a layer beneath that. I kept expecting the series to show me that, but in the end it never comes - even when he kills Glekas he's turned from a hyper emotional wreck to a gibbering, wimpering emotional wreck. Put Ziggy in any situation and he's always a jerk.
I used to be watching one every other day... now I'm watching two or three a day... Highlights recently- I didn't believe D'Angelo was dead until the start of the next ep, when Bodie's shopping at the gangsta's flower shop. Wow. I was sure he'd wake up in the hospital, or someone would find him... wonder how long they shuffle Stringer's guilt back into the deck. "There are no second acts in American lives.".... Omar takes the stand. "You come at the king, you best not miss." Indeed. "Guess it wasn't built for today's rugged modern urban crime environment." McNulty drives Russell home... and walks away. "Long day." Perfect. Kima out on surveillance when Sobotka starts putting the pieces together... don't know if it was intentional, but since I'd watched season 1 so recently, I started yelling at Kima to get the hell out of there. She drives away no problem... am I seeing things, or were the writers really dangling that as suspense? Again, the most sympathetic criminal looks like the one who will fall the hardest. I knew those 14 names in red were going to be McNulty's ticket back inside the force. The net is starting to tighten here... Wonder if I have time for one more episode?
You just touched on two of my favourite things in season two: D'Angelo's death (or rather the scene before it, which is a great epilogue to his own life); and Omar Little's trial scene. That tie, priceless. Or hell, how about that conversation he has beforhand? "Ares. Same dude, different name." Spoiler: Season Four Actually, I really liked him. Sure, like Ziggy, he's failing to live up to a masculine ideal; but I also got the sense - especially during his bonding with Colvin - that he's a fundamentally decent kid. I was pretty happy that things turned out so well for him.