The king, stay the king.

March 2, 2018 1:58 AM

Revisiting The Wire 10 years on

What Michael B. Jordan Thinks of His Death Scene
All The Pieces Matter

posted by fearfulsymmetry (23 comments total)

I cry every time I watch the Wallace death scene.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:37 AM on March 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

That Wire line about why they let Snotboogie keep on playing ("Got to - this's America, man!") is echoed almost precisely in Simon's latest TV venture The Deuce. When she first begins to grasp the profit potential of hard core video porn, Eileen/Candy says something like "This is America. When did we ever leave money on the table for somebody else to pick up?"

Simon once said that one of his key realisations was that, if you close people out of the legal economy, they'll find their own version of the American dream to pursue just the same - no matter how destructive that version might be. That's what makes this line and its variations so central to his work. I dare say you could find close equivalents of it in Generation Kill, Treme and Show Me A Hero too.
posted by Paul Slade at 6:06 AM on March 2, 2018 [10 favorites]

man, everytime I hear about some ridiculous shit going down in my local Atlanta city politics I'm reminded of the political campaign season in The Wire, how I used to think 'hey tee hee, look at Stringer tryna break into the developers world, they are just too rich and too connected.' and now, as someone impacted by these decisions, who knows people who are directly affected, I'm like "why the fuck are you doing that!!! do you understand how this is fucking over your lower income residents!!! you are a perfect representation of greed-driven antagonists fucking the locals over on the hit TV show The Wire!!! I wish that meant something to you!!!"
posted by runt at 6:26 AM on March 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

I wish it ended 9 years ago.
posted by machaus at 7:31 AM on March 2, 2018

Don't worry everybody, Baltimore politics is still totally awful!

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh says she has not had time to closely follow police corruption trial
posted by josher71 at 7:33 AM on March 2, 2018

I think that I watched The Wire after having seen it praised on the blue, and it affected me deeply; even now, remembering the scene in which Omar and Brother Mouzone walk down the street together gives me chills. The first article above is a bit thin, but I was amused to read that Martin O'Malley still has a hate-on for the series; I think that he got off pretty light (except for Carcetti's affair), but I'm not a politician with presidential aspirations.

Some additional Wire stuff: this attention on the show is also connected to the recently-published oral history, but there's also an earlier oral history online. (It's Maxim, and yeah, I know, but the skeevier aspects of the site aren't on this page.) Also, checking the stories on the blue with the thewire tag, I went back into the thread on David Simon vs. Mike Rowe, and thought that Simon's blog post defending the show deserved another look.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:03 AM on March 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

The Wire is the best television I have ever watched. It was so deep, so touching, so depressing, and funny, and real. I ran into Andre Royo at the supermarket once - I thanked him for being Bubbles. He shook my hand and thanked me.
posted by bluejayway at 9:02 AM on March 2, 2018 [13 favorites]

What Michael B. Jordan Thinks of His Death Scene on The Wire

“To see that end so viciously with his two boys, his two best friends … That death scene is something people always come up to me and talk about and say how they were crying and how much it affected them,” Jordan told Abrams. “Years later. It’s just a testament to the writing and the crazy performance. It was awesome.”

posted by kirkaracha at 9:04 AM on March 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

This reads just like every other Wire retrospective. I don't need THAT much frosting on top of my frosting. A video pop-up ad? Bleh.
posted by Brocktoon at 9:55 AM on March 2, 2018

D'Angelo's "String, where's Wallace?" scene in conjunction with Wallace's scene were an amazing one-two punch.

For the record, however mediocre season 5 was, it doesn't make any difference to the four seasons of individual and collective brilliance that came before it. And season five wasn't that bad, it had some great moments with Michael taking over Omar's position. I've only seen a few episodes since the finale, but they hold up very well.
posted by skewed at 10:03 AM on March 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Fredric Jameson's essay "Realism and Utopia in The Wire" (pdf) is well worth a read; shows the complexity of The Wire's texture and themes very nicely. Also how intertwined realism and utopia are.
posted by sapagan at 11:24 AM on March 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Hey, I'm a fan of Season 5. I guess I'm a sucker for the over-the-top Dickensian aspects.

You telling me you don't love the scene where McNulty gets analyzed?
posted by bunbury at 11:51 AM on March 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm also a fan of S5, and that forensic analysis scene had me howling, especially with McNulty's expression.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:03 PM on March 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I met Andre Royo at the supermarket once - I thanked him for being Bubbles. He shook my hand and thanked me.

I've been having such a shit week that just the idea of Bubbles's irrepressible nature gave me an involuntary squee of relief. Thanks for sharing that. Andre Royo must undoubtedly be a true picture of kindness to have been such a good Bubbles.
posted by ambrosen at 1:13 PM on March 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

I named my last cat after Bubbles. Little furball showed up in my yard one day starving and skinny as a rail, covered in scabs and bruises (the local cat-gangsters were beating him up for being on their turf), overwhelmingly good natured and desperately in need of a home. The clincher was that, until he regained his health, whenever he tried to groom himself he left his darn fur wet and covered in saliva bubbles.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 3:43 PM on March 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

I think we can all agree, pets named after The Wire are the best pets.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 5:21 PM on March 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

I have trouble keeping characters straight so huge ensemble like featured on The Wire is tough for me. Took me two trys to watch the first season but the second time I ended up bingeing the whole thing over a weekend. And then for the next week it took every ounce of concentration I, a white person with essentially no black people in my acquaintance group, had to not call everyone nigger as a replace for dude. The show was an amazingly immersive piece of television.

And Lester's "Pawn Shop Unit" in S1E11 (sceen starts at 17:13) is one of the funniest bits on TV ever.
posted by Mitheral at 8:09 PM on March 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

bluejayway, if you haven't watched Oz, it might be a contender.
posted by porpoise at 9:00 PM on March 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I only just discovered that Michael B Jordan was Wallace last night. Kind of blew my mind.
posted by nevercalm at 12:04 PM on March 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

"For many, the slow pace, slang-ridden dialogue and predominantly black cast rendered it impenetrable..."
Are Americans that stupid and racist? Yeah, on the whole, pretty much. Heaven forbid we enjoy a smartly written, topical, and challenging show about the reality of urban life. From "reality" television to a "reality" presidency. Should anyone be surprised?
posted by AJScease at 4:13 PM on March 3, 2018

Being able to turn on subtitles can make a huge difference in being able to enjoy this sort of media. See also Snatch.
posted by Mitheral at 7:30 PM on March 3, 2018

Guardian: 'It was with season two, which looked at “the death of labour”, that Simon made clear his intention to “build a city”. Otherwise, he told Burns, “we truly are doing just a cop show”. He wanted to show the connecting thread – the wire – that ran between seemingly different organisations and the people who worked in them ... Whether he was exploring police departments, drug cartels, labour unions, the school system, newspapers or city hall, Simon was interested in how the machine worked, or failed to work. If he could explain Baltimore, then he could explain the US.'
(MetaFilter Fanfare)
Consequence of Sound: The five seasons ranked (contains many clips).
posted by Wordshore at 12:03 PM on March 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

What would The Wire be like in Trump's America?
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:13 AM on March 10, 2018 [1 favorite]