« No Files For You | Main | Old School » More Wire Stuff07 Mar 2008 02:54 pm I also wrote a Current on the Wire's end. I also understand that the final episode has leaked on the web so some folks have seen it. I haven't. No spoilers, please. UPDATE: Also, I agree with Ross about this: "The Wire's greatest story was the rise and fall of Stringer Bell, and nothing's matched it since." I almost wish the great stuff with the kids had just been part of a separate, excellent television series rather than an additional narrative arc of The Wire. Comments (23)
"The Wire's greatest story was the rise and fall of Stringer Bell, and nothing's matched it since." That's half-right. The most interesting thing was the revelation as to why Stringer was only second in command; that is, why Barksdale was properly in charge. (I've not seen a whit of Season 5.) But it was the rise and fall of Stringer that leads to the revelation. 
Season 4 as a separate series? I couldn't disagree more. Part of what gave Season 4 its heft was the backdrop of these young kids growing up amongst what you already know: i.e., you knew exactly where Wee Bay came from and who he was and where Namond was heading, you felt the increasing isolation of Bodie as he became "old" as a late teens corner kid. Plus, Presbelewski's whole arc. These things mattered because of the groundwork. I think without all that you run the risk of a series about inner city school kids that turns into Michelle Pfeiffer starring in Dangerous Minds. I think that Stringer Bell's arc was an extremely satisfying narrative, but Season 4 was a real gut puncher of a season that is better in a fuller sense.
SomeCallMeTim: What, precisely, is the reason Avon was properly in charge and Stringer was properly #2?
Dont tell us darn it..
I seem to be the only one who thinks that the kid stuff was not on par with the first three season, which are clearly the best 37 hours of television ever.
That's nonsense. The Stringer Bell component of Season 3 was not even the most interesting part of that season (that'd be Hamsterdam and its intersection with Carcetti). The resolution of Stringer's arc in season 3 was dramatic and exciting, but not especially relevant to the larger scheme of why this city is so hosed. It was an interesting thought experiment to consider a gangbanger who came to understand the value of stable markets and friendly exchange to his business. But it was somewhat fanciful--Stringer's story doesn't really relate to other characters and how they view themselves and their world, except as a kind of flattened foil. You could have done something similar where a drug dealer gets hooked into ksocial services, goes to law school and becomes a community activist in his spare time. The point was that Stringer was weird relative to his peers because he believed in himself and his brains to be able to reform his world. Seeing his story helped emphasize that he was surrounded by hopeless people, but it didn't really explain why they were hopeless or how they got that way. It certainly wasn't because they were all taking business classes at community colleges and dreaming of a better world, but getting pulled back into the ugly violence of the drug game. The rest of the characters are resigned to that violence as a way of life, and that's a big part of what is fascinating and real about the show--the effects of that pyschological state, of having to always be "street." And so once you get to the 12 year old kids in season 4 and watch them get changed and hardened, only then does the show flesh out its argument about the U.S. inner city in all its depth and intelligence. That's why the kids were far and away the most compelling arc and the most incisive social critique presented on the show by a mile. Randy's final scene in season 4 and his reappearance this season were utterly chilling because it was so wrong and scary and yet so plausible and familiar. To the extent that the show's social criticism is the central component for the argument that the show is the "greatest ever," then season 4 is the best evidence available.
A nice footnote to that Mark Bowden Atlantic article that Matt links to to satisfy his corporate paymasters... Not only is Bowden friends with Simon's real-life Sun editors, Carroll and Marimow (which he admits in the article) ... but Bowden also blurbed a book by Jim Haner, the Sun reporter who Simon has accused of fabulism and who is the basis for Scott Templeton. One big happy family.
It seems I'm a chorus of one on this, but I've always felt that Season Two was far and away the best season... the rest of the seasons (yes, including season 5) are incredible, but season Two reached a pinnacle that the show hasn't gotten back to yet. It's up there with the very best of, well, anything; certainly one of the best seasons of TV ever, in my little opinion.
You guys ever see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? If someone ever came up with a cheap way to selectively remove memories from people's minds, I think I'd wipe out every memory I have of The Wire, just so I could have the experience of watching it all again, fresh.
Well put, MSB. I said this in an earlier post about the show, but the quality of Wire coverage here and at other late-coming prog-blogs (Slate, Salon, Prospect) is generally pretty terrible. I recommend Matt Zoller Seitz's The House Next Door and Alan Sepinwall's What's Alan Watching for more thought-provoking coverage.
but the quality of Wire coverage here and at other late-coming prog-blogs (Slate, Salon, Prospect) is generally pretty terrible. Word. As implied elsewhere on this thread, they've all internalized that asinine Bowden piece so much that it's now the only prism through which they see the show. Sepinwall's blog is absolutely brilliant and puts all of the above to shame. He's particularly excellent at putting this season's plots in the contexts of earlier season, which is sorely lacking from Slate, Matt et al, who can't wait to demonstrate their critical sophistication by being the first to point out that the show has 'jumped the shark' (oh drede phrase!)
Here's something to keep in mind amid all of the sniping about how this show isn't quite as good as the hipsters would like and therefore sucks. (Did anyone see the gawdawful DC City Paper article about this show a while back? What trash, although that's par for the course for the City Paper.) There was an article on Yahoo a few days ago about the top 10 must-see TV episodes this week, and the Wire finale was #9. Ranked somewhere above it was New Amsterdam, which the article explained is about a NYC homicide detective with a secret--he's immortal!! I mean Goddammit, TV sucks balls compared to what David Simon and co. have wrought in this 5th season, not to mention previous seasons. Since my TV will break anyways in 2009 when HD becomes mandatory, I might as well sell it after the final episode Sunday night, because everything I see after that will just be silly. Even if people don't like the newspaper plot or serial killer plot, recognize how much better the Wire is on an off day than anything else out there. Let's keep some perspective.
agree completely Kevin. reading the crappy coverage at Slate, Salon and here has been quite annoying. In Matt's WireTAP, he makes a ridiculous comment about how he's been dumping on this season because talking about how great it is isn't interesting. I disagree entirely, Sepinwall and Zoller-Seitz's reviews have been much more interesting than the BS criticisms coming from the 'too smart fot the wire' group. Their reviews have revealed some really cool information, such as the foreshadowing of Omar's murder in season 3 (Kenard: "it's my turn to be Omar"), and, by dealing with the big picture issues rather than petty nitpicking, have been far more thought provoking than the same old "this is so unrealistic" critique thats been coming out of the Slate/Salon/Atlantic crowd. Surely, as Simon says, some of their hostility to the show has to do with personal pettiness by guys like Plotz at slate, but some of it also has to do with the fact that many of these reviewers are late to the game, and caught up all at once on DVDs and don't have the patience to let the season unfold that longtime fans do.
Kevin, Good call on Sepinwall--found his stuff this week. I'll have to check out House Next Door. I think it's unfair to lump Matt in with those gasbags over at slate, the clearly less-Wire-savvy commentators over at TAP, or Bowden. I am disappointed that Big Media Matt has essentially adopted Bowden's pretty weak and irrelevant ad hominem argument against Simon (though not surprised, as Matt is a Villager in the making, after all). Still, Matt's generally pretty darn smart and made most of the few useful points in the tapped dialogues. Even though these institutional center-left web periodicals have let us down, I still remain hopeful that a few individuals like Matt can overcome their hopeless surroundings and make something of themselves.
i think its pretty fair to lump Matt in, obviously the Slate commentary sets the standard for petty, vapid commentary, but Matt's aped their points in his WireTap dialogue and hasnt been able to mention this season without making a comment that echoes the stuff coming from the Slate writers. Its a difference of degree, not a difference of kind that seperates Matt from the Slate commentary. He should be called out on it, because I think he's better than that. I read Matt's blog for his polics stuff and seeing him echo the conventional petty media narrative on this season is dissapointing. Better to call him out on it while its only happening in the context of his Wire critique than to let the habit fester and seep into his policy posts.
Once again, I must reiterate, the Bowden piece reduces the show to David Simon and his vision. What of the other writers? Pelecanos, Price, Burns, Lehane, etc. Or the what the actors bring? Or the city of Baltimore itself as backdrop? Now is The Wire perfect? No. But neither are any of Dosteovsky's novels and he is still one of the greatest novelists of the 19th century. The Wire is, simply put, one of the great works of art produced in the US in the last twenty-five years and those hating on the show will come around given enough time.
Once again, I must reiterate, the Bowden piece reduces the show to David Simon and his vision. What of the other writers? Pelecanos, Price, Burns, Lehane, etc. Or the what the actors bring? Or the city of Baltimore itself as backdrop? Now is The Wire perfect? No. But neither are any of Dosteovsky's novels and he is still one of the greatest novelists of the 19th century. The Wire is, simply put, one of the great works of art produced in the US in the last twenty-five years and those hating on the show will come around given enough time.
Whatever... Meanwhile, I hope they didn't blow up Cameron TOO badly - we male viewers need to see that hottie every episode - preferably in one piece with only a few bloodstains. Especially now that we KNOW - from having watched the T-888 do it - that her "mission" is to "marry" John!
A while ago I made the mistake of looking up stuff on The Wire over at Wikipedia and someone posted a bunch of major finale spoilers in all caps. Whoever did that deserves to die.
Kent, that article is great. It reminds me of a time I was talking about The Wire with my parents when I went to go visit them. After about five minutes, my mom asked something like, "wait, so The Wire isn't that new show on E! about celebrities?" I wanted to scream.
Hah! I'm glad it leaked. Serves HBO right for lying with their "See EVERY episode a week early On Demand" promos.
Comments closed March 21, 2008. |
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Heads in the Sand
are you contractually required to give props to that crappy Atlantic piece that set the tone for all the BS criticism of the media plotline and set the tone for the embarassing Slate back and forth?
This was great last night,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87940925
Posted by ml | March 7, 2008 3:08 PM