First, let me second the He's cheating on Beattie... but that's nothing compared to 5.2. He's beating up a dead body, bottle of Jamie's in hand, to stage a serial killer victim. Bunk couldn't watch. Between that and children crying at the murder, I felt a little dirty after watching that. It better pick up...
Episode 5.3 has Jimmy going further faking his serial killer, Freamon giving him advice... Chris and Snoop torturing a blind man. Was the show always this ugly? A few shows (DS9 with Dukat, The Sopranos, even Seinfeld) have written episodes where the writers feel the need to attack the audience and say, You are *wrong* to like these characters. These characters have always been horrible, and you have been blind to that... so we will rub your nose in it. I feel like that's what I'm getting now. It's funny to watch Avon, Spiros, Boris, the diner all come back. Even poor old Cole got a mention. Can't wait to see Omar go on a tear now - clean this town up. No more bodies, my ass.
That's interesting: I see what you're saying, but my reaction was quite different, and quite a bit less visceral. On the one hand, I never liked Snoop or Chris--though I did find them interesting as characters. On the other hand, while his mistreatment of Beattie is painful to watch, overall, McNulty's behaviour in these episodes is just so outlandish that I found it more funny than anything else. I especially laughed at Bunk groaning, "Oooh, you sick fuck!" when McNulty faked the strangulation. To me, it's not so much ugly as blackly humourous. It's like McNulty has finally gone off the deep end, and has transcended ordinary McNulty-ness, attaining a heightened state of cartoonish super-McNulty-ness. In many ways, this season is both his finest, and his lowest hour.
I don't think you were supposed to like Chris and Snoop. The were always stone killers, with no redeeming remorse whatsoever. They are brilliantly drawn characters though. There's a scene with Chris towards the denouement which is gratuitously out of character (you'll know what I mean when you get there).
It talked about in the commentaries. basically with only 10 episodes a lot of stuff was compressed so season 5 misses that Wire slow burn pacing. We have to keep reminding ourselves that the Major Case Unit spent a year on Marlo's crew and got nothing when the Mayor shut them down
They were always bastards, but, short of Chris beating Michael's step-dad to death, they were silent and deadly. They would walk people off into the darkness. Now, they walk into a family home and kill a man, his wife and kids on the strength of a rumour about a comment, children screaming, we see Kima watch the child in some sort of PTSD... it just seems deliberately uglier. Not unrealistic or badly done, but deliberately in your face. Like it wants you to wish for the Barksdale's back. And Chris beating the step-dad... was brutal, but a great character moment for Chris. We see him lose his cool for the first time, because he thinks step-dad is a pedo. It's not spelled out, but it's clear why Chris can't treat it like another piece of business... We got a brief moment of Beattie vs. McNulty in 5.4, and that, again, is almost too painful to look at. For this, and for using these dead people as props in his game, McNulty needs payback. Speaking of the rules of drama, McNulty needs worse than being assigned to the boat - he needs to die, or come close. (reminder - no spoilers!) Then they go and kill Prop Joe - they're killing off all the great characters! I guess season 5 is your chance to clean house... but damn. Bodie, Butch, PJ... r.i.p.
It was the second time Snoop dropped her mask. Watch her face while Chris is beating a man to death before she starts to joke about it.
As far as the 'mask dropping' went, it was bafflement rather than horror. As in why is this fool wasting all that energy?
I was pissed with McNulty's actions too, especially when he started mutilating corpses. I couldn't stand watching McNulty doing what he was doing, but I still really liked the guy and didn't want him to get caught. I was deeply conflicted, which is one of the reasons why I like season 5. Ultimately, I just wanted McNulty and Freamon to solve the case quickly and get it over with before they were both thrown in prison. I didn't agree with their actions, but I liked them too much to want anything bad to happen with them. This led to a bizarre situation where I began to dislike Bunk for not helping McNulty and Freamon even though I agreed with his point of view.
What was the first time? Yeah, I didn't see the "mask drop". I saw genuine surprise, but not shock... I think Snoop is played for straight sociopath. I keep going back and forth on how old she's supposed to be, and how old the actress is. See, I'm finding McNulty unlikable enough that I want to see him slapped down. I'm also imagining a scene where some more evidence comes up on one of the cases McNulty has tampered with - he discovers he's denied some justice and some closure to someone who might have deserved it, and gotten it if McNulty hadn't started playing games. Maybe a family member comes forward, and wants details...? Just saw 5.5, so I think I've seen Omar pull his "spiderman shit" now - but all I really know is, he went out the window. (Don't spoil me, I'll watch the next one in a few hours!) As awful as it's been watching McNulty tamper with dead people, it was worth it for the conversation with the reporter, where they're both lying about getting calls from an imaginary serial killer. Great acting all around there - great moment.
Two more episodes to go... I had to pause it and walk away when Omar got shot. Still reeling. (so that's why people know Kenard's name) one episode ago, I felt like I was getting too much inevitable stuff, and not enough surprises. This episode feels like things are closing up. McNulty gets a taste of being the boss, while he's handing out overtime and resources. "You can have two days, not three..." and gets blackmailed by a co-worker. Great stuff. McNulty goes to Quantico, and hears about the "killer" - "trouble with authority... feels superior... probably in a bureaucratic or public service job" Played *so* well. Beattie gives McNulty the ultimatum - finally. Kima finally hears it all - and looks like she'll be the one to blow the whistle. I know Simon was a reporter - that's probably why he thinks the newspaper stuff will hold up against the street stuff, but it's really just slowing things down at this point. My guess, City Editor guy documents Liar Reporter Guy's mistakes, bosses don't care and fire City Editor guy. Seems to be the kind of irony The Wire goes for. Freamon's conversation with Davis is clearly loading a storyline for later.... hmm... Threads that looked like they've been dropped for good: - officer Walker - needed payback. - drug lawyer - needs getting. - the Greeks - though that's kind of the point with the Greeks. Good to see Nicky Sobotka and Randy again, if only quickly. And check this out, if you haven't seen it before - Paintball with the cast of The Wire, for charity: http://www.avclub.com/articles/play-paintball-with-the-cast-of-the-wire-this-satu,41925/ and a blog about it - some funny stuff - http://videogum.com/191612/playing-paintball-with-the-cast-of-the-wire-sort-of/top-stories/
Yeah, that was something else. And the impact was reinforced by all the coldly clinical scenes in the morgue, where Omar becomes just another anonymous dead body.
And at the Sun when the decision is made to print a minor fire instead of Omar's death. For his name to ring out any time he walked up to a corner to nobody
Omar is my favourite character, and the manner of his death was shocking, but I can't say that I was too upset by it. Omar had to die, otherwise it wouldn't be The Wire. This was a show that prided itself on realism, but it had a character that could jump out a fifth story window and walk away, or could accidentally rob a stash-house in his pyjamas. For The Wire to stay true to itself, Omar had to die an underwhelming death and he had to become just another statistic. Yeah, I would have liked to have seen Omar take down Marlo and walk off into the sunset to a life of gay debauchery, but it wouldn't have felt right if that had been the end of his character arc. But if I ever meet the actor that played Kenard, I'm going to kick him in the nuts!
And I'm done. Fan fucking tastic. The door upstairs opens for Bubbles. Beautiful. Prez gets a moment with a former student - yay! - but it's not a pretty one. Carver gets more stripes from Daniels, as Daniels walks away (Valchek?!? really?!?) I'm still trying to figure out Herc - playing both sides, is he a criminal mastermind, has he picked a side and helps the other by mistake... or is he just an unbelievable screw-up? You mean with his family? I loved that. McNulty brings the homeless guy home. Excellent. Kima tells Freamon and McNulty what she did, and gets a handshake from both. Perfect. We get a new McNulty (I wonder if they deliberately left Sydnor kind of blank so they could do that with him at the end), a new Omar, a new Bubbles, a new Kingpin (loved watching Cheese get shot). I can't picture listening to all the commentary tracks - not for years, anyway, I'm ODed. Are there any that are particularly good? Now I get to Google the show and click some links - I've been hiding from spoilers for a long time now!
I'd argue that's kinda the point with the drug lawyer too. They stay above the "gangster bullshit" so they can get away with things. They're facilitators, not the ones in the line of fire. I'm glad you finished. What was your final thought on McNulty? At first I was appalled, then I started to treat it as almost black humor. It brought every storyline together, but in an almost absurd way. It also suggested that, in some way, this was the only way things could get done in the city. At the end, almost like with Season 3 with the drug thing, McNulty seemed like he started to realize there were consequences that were too big to justify it. I was kinda hoping that he could end as a patrolman where he was happy, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. But, at least he seemed to end with a happy family life away from all the things that made him both brilliant and self-destructive.
well, after Omar calling him out, I thought he might take a fall. They did end up with dirt on Levy, even if they only used it as leverage. I had a similar reaction. When he had his hands around the throat of a dead homeless person, I was revolted, but later, that plotline started to feel like "Hamsterdam" to me. In the sense that a writer had said, "What if...?" and on that level, it had some great moments. "What if a cop, frustrated by cutbacks, decided to play the media to get his resources?" He'd find himself the new boss, dealing resources under the table, being blackmailed, and probably hating himself for the wasted resources... but getting things done. Again, like Hamsterdam, the show presented two sides of the idea. Though they could have put the screws to Jimmy a little harder ("here are the parents of one of your victims... here's some evidence from one of your scenes... turns out your victim wasn't homeless...) There's the old idea that to get a happy ending, you have to stop at the right place. From the show, you get the impression that McNulty's going to walk away happy and whole, but that doesn't really ring true. What else could he possibly do with himself? What's he going to do the next time he's angered by some organization screwing something up? But still, I like to picture him happy with Beadie and her family, done with police work, getting old calmly and happily. I think part of the early problem was, the logic by which strangling a corpse becomes resources to investigate a drug lord, those leaps made his actions seem hardly justified in any way. Later, when things played the way he predicted, then there was an argument - you could see both sides of the thing. Without agreeing, you could at least understand the justification. And the show makes it clear, when Kima, Freamon and McNulty all shake hands, that even the characters can see each other's positions. Everybody seen this - the 100 greatest quotes from The Wire? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sgj78QG9Bg Anybody got any other favourite on line "The Wire" resources?
I remember Bunk's from episode 51 mostly because I rewatched the show with you. The second special featurette about the entire series is worth watching. For what its worth isaih Whitlock/Sen Davis agrees with me about Snoop's reaction to Chris's killing of Bug's father. The first featurette is about the death of the newsroom.