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*Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - Starboy - 07-11-2021
Welcome! Apologies for taking so long with this one but I promise that I was trying to be as thorough with my review as possible. I vastly overestimated how much free time I would have to review an actual show since I was mostly expecting something like a season of South Park or someone to jokingly request maybe reviewing some strange anime as a “haha got ya!” thing but instead I got to finally say that I watched The Wire which is even better. I had seen memes and gifs from The Wire all over the early internet, but I was far too young when the show came out to even ask about watching drug dealers in Baltimore and by the time I was old enough to start watching my own shows, The Wire wasn’t in the front of my mind when it came to what to watch. Thankfully I was forced to watch it now with the charitable donation by @StadiumGambler which is something I had been meaning to do forever, but it is done now and I hope this review doesn’t rustle too many feathers.
Oh and obviously: !!!!SPOILERS!!!
The Plot
With the last review I did, it was easy to really break down the sort of “plot” the Justin Bieber documentary had on him since it was all contained within one movie. This time it’s a full series that many deem as the best show to grace the television screens ever. The league has had its fair share of The Wire influences from different players and users, so I feel that this review should do everything justice within the story. Plus, this series has pretty much a different plot in each story so I’ll go through and break each one down with some of my favorite episodes or moments in each season, some things I did not like so much, and how that season ties into the rest of the story of The Wire.
Season 1:
To begin, we are introduced to the Major Crimes Division’s creation in the show that is taken more as a joke with this seemingly impossible case to close following the heroine business in West Baltimore. Major Crimes is setup with Jim McNulty, Kima Greggs, Cedric Daniels, Herc, Lester Freamon, Ellis Carver, Leander Sydnor, and Roland Pryzbylewski (who is the only one with a nickname pronounced “Prez”). To say that they are up against all odds would be an understatement. Especially when we meet our ring leader for West Baltimore in Avon Barksdale who commands the West side like his own playground and sits on top an untouchable throne. A subtle, and probably intentional physical, setup is that the Major Crimes is given an office underground with a bunch of bad detectives that don’t work or rookies that are still fresh on police work and what it means to be police investigators.
On the other hand, Barksdale’s crew in season 1 is only really shown in the lower tier area known as the Terrace which is where a lot of this season takes place. We are given a look through the Barksdale organization from Avon’s nephew D’Angelo who is having to restart his career in the drug world but is given a chance to prove himself through commanding the Terrace. Everyone seems to be going with business as usual until Major Crimes setups a wire tap on the phones surrounding the Terrace in order to keep track and build evidence to take down Avon and the big men in his crew. However, they never realize just how close they are at all times and even in my favorite moment of the first season, they manage to miss Avon who proves just how tenacious and cunning he really is. In Episode 9 “Game Day”, there is a car chase where multiple police are trying to tail Avon’s SUV after a West Side vs East Side basketball game but the police manage to lose him through confusing streets until Avon drives right past an officer while wagging his finger and slipping right through their fingers.
The season ends with the wire tap managing to come up with enough to convict Avon but as they come to arrest him, the second in command, Stringer Bell, is not taken in. After all, they don’t have enough evidence or a warrant to arrest him and our detectives walk out with Avon in custody. The thing I love about this season is just how natural it all feels. The stakes are perfect, the odds the police have to fight against aren’t some strange Criminal Minds style serial killer that has created a biological strain of anthrax but only wants to hurt the local parks surrounding nowhere Oregon. No, instead you can feel just how real it all is through the aggravating chain of command arguments and the political infighting that slows down police work in real life too (a problem not just native to the 2001 Baltimore we see).
Season 2:
Remember all of the cool stakes and stuff setup in Season 1? Forget about eighty percent of it because you are about to be in for a long one. Season 2 is probably not the direction that the show should have taken, but unfortunately it did. We get introduced to the Baltimore docks as our new setting and the Sobotka family issues, as well as the union, can’t forget the union! The second season was quick to start the case though as a group of girls are found dead inside of a shipping container and police are all over the docks to try and find the people responsible for such a mistake. At first, we have to sit through the same build up we had in the first season, but there isn’t really much flare outside of watching the Sobotka son, Ziggy, be a dumb show off or try to act tough as he wants to get into the drug business or the smuggling that goes on at the docks but nobody respects him.
We also get introduced to our new kingpin in someone only referred to as The Greek who takes a bit to really get who it is due to secrecy and plenty of security measure to keep only the police off his trail since everyone, including the viewer, instantly knows who The Greek is. It does take away some of the excitement of the viewer finding out later, when the wire gets setup to try catching The Greek, that the police manage to confuse him with someone else instead. Ultimately, the season’s version of the wire tap is not just in the cell phones but to check the shipping containers for anything fishy that manages to get “deleted” from the system and they find tons of illegal drugs that create the final arrest, before Frank Sobotka is found dead, killed off by The Greek for trying to open up and reveal the operation to the police and we are left with an open end as the Major Crimes group is put away without Frank Sobotka for evidence.
Note about this season: I will be honest and say that I did not like how this season went and was played with through the rest of the series. Spoiling a little bit for the rest of the plot, but it is important to anyone reading this far that you probably do not need to rewatch season two to get a representation of what The Wire was. I admit that in order to appreciate art that you have to sometimes see bad stuff involved, but this season is slow, boring, and ultimately you will not hear about these big characters again for a long time. The biggest character is Beadie who plays as the dock police officer and the McNulty’s girlfriend at the end of season three and through the rest of the series. The Greek and all of his associates become minor characters that come back at the end of season four and in the early parts of season five but those give just as much information on the characters as season two did.
Season 3:
Now that The Greek has vanished off into the sunset, the writing team managed to come back to their senses and focused on the good parts of The Wire again and went back to the Barksdale versus Major Crimes team again. However, after Barksdale went to prison for a few years, the game and the Barksdale has changed greatly. Stringer turned himself from a money man dealing with the drug money into a step above that with ‘clean’ money through different properties and businesses so there couldn’t be any sort of tracing by police. However, Avon finds this new mindset not to his liking as he finds out just how much has changed through his time out. The once territorial battle for corners, the best setups, and who had the best product were also gone through a group initiative by Stringer and Proposition Joe to gather all the major dealers to fairly split up different products around and to keep the violence down to a minimum. Again, another thing that goes at Barksdale and causes him grief before he goes back to doing his normal gangster stuff and draws both the eye of the police and a vigilante killer that has gotten famous over the past few years in Omar.
The police are trying to find new and better ways to keep up with the drugs but find that it isn’t as easy as last time. Instead, they are having to build up a case against Stringer who only has clean money. Nobody talks to him, hardly anyone comes to see him, and they can’t place anyone dealing drugs around him for probable cause. The big break in the case though comes from a ‘new’ method of communication in burner phones that keep the wires the cops setup useless and the constant mobility keeps them from being caught talking about drugs as well. Another major issue for police in this season? Major Colvin of the Western BPD has essentially legalized drugs in an area know as Hamsterdam where nobody really lives and drug dealers are given free reign. However, this doesn’t keep them off for long as Major Crimes now has much better control under pressure from outside forces and manage to get Stringer’s phone to hunt him down and build up a case where Stringer also reports the location of Avon and his stash house.
However, in one of my favorite parts of this series, Stringer finds out that much more than the police are after him as Omar and one of Avon’s calculating shooters, Brother Mouzone, had followed him to one of his apartment projects to put an end to him. This amazing, tense talk between the three is just perfect and ends with an execution in Episode 11 “Middle Ground” before the team manages to snag up Barksdale again under the word of Stringer before he passed. In the absence of Avon, a new criminal starts to rise in the later parts of this season in Marlo Stanfield who proves ruthless in his approach to taking the old ways of West side gangster work.
Season 4:
A proper setup from last season, and a proper follow up to season four gives us the new West Side under Marlo Stanfield. We get introduced to the scariest characters so far in Marlo’s assassins, Snoop and Chris Partlow. However, over the season break the Major Crimes group from before has lost some of its big players. McNulty has gone on to be a regular beat cop, Carver is now rising up the chain of command and trying to become a better police officer, Daniels gets replaced as the head of the team, Kima now works in homicide, but the biggest change comes for Prez who accidentally shot a fellow officer and was let go. After the taking down of Barksdale, the cases that the team works on are mostly petty drug dealers while Marlo remains “above the law” for a while in this season. Yet, this season focuses on the affect of Baltimore’s drug life on the youth in a middle school as Marlo’s influence increases. In the school, our man Prez ends up getting a new job as a math teacher who quickly learns that teaching is another animal to police work but has the same familiar annoyances of the chain of command cycle.
Outside the school, Marlo has been taking down anyone that he deems against him and hiding them away in vacant houses to avoid the watchful eyes of the police and the Major Crimes team that could build a case against him. Nothing manages to come out of it until Prop Joe gives Omar a location for a high money poker game in which Marlo is taking place. This robbery, as well as one of the old Barksdale boy’s, Bodie, cause Marlo to start leaving bodies out in the streets. A few are random but then the big twist is that Bodie ends up getting killed who we saw grow up from just one of the big kids in season one to dead on his corner in season four. The character storytelling through him and some of the others in this season are absolutely beautiful and you end up feeling the constant changes through this season. The students are all finding names for themselves as Michael leaves school to go under the wing of Snoop and Chris to be one of Marlo’s assassins which ends up scaring his friends at school who recognize just how different he is compared to them who just see the corner lifestyle as something they have to do because of where they live. When the season ends, Marlo is still out there and at large, wanting to truly carve out his piece of West Baltimore for himself while Major Crimes still tries to hunt his trail.
This was another great season that really does give a lot and I’m glad that it is the longest one. School shows need more “Baltimore” in them because the high schools in some shows feel too much like private schools where everyone lives perfect lives. Not saying that I really relate to the middle school in this show, but this does show amazing behind the scenes stuff that teachers go through with their students and the staff above them. Plus there is a lot of redemption in this season that comes from many different areas that makes you hopeful for different characters or terrified for others.
Also, SSSSHIIIIIEEEETTT
Season 5:
The school focus of last season only made this season even harder to really stomach. Newly elected Mayor Carcetti decided to cut the police budget in order to raise funding in schools which has obviously gotten results, as we see later in the season with Namond giving a speech about the AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa, so you want to be happy for the students that managed to get better from season four while the police are finding it difficult to get cases done. The bodies in the vacant houses managed to get all uncovered after a nail gun connection from last season was made and fully carried out, but the police lab can’t work all of the cases and even runs into trouble of their own with budget cuts when an intern mixes up blood samples from the scenes. However, McNulty crafts a plan in order to get money for police work to bring down Marlo for good by inventing a serial killer in Baltimore through unsolved homeless murders. Using the money given to the case and tech, McNulty gets the help of Lester Freamon who uses everything to track down Marlo while McNulty hunts down this red ribbon killer.
Marlo in this season starts to see the downsides to having all of this power, and finds he has little friends once he calls for the execution of Prop Joe in his own home. All of the other dealers become wary about dealing with him, but have to since he has control of the product now. Trouble comes for him with Omar who seems to have the jump on him as he works his way through connections to end up in a shoot out with Snoop, Chris, and Michael who is officially in the group there. Omar gets away with a bad leg injury but goes around calling out Omar before getting snuck up on by just some kid which…irks me, but they did what they did. Either way, Sydnor in Major Crimes manages to crack a tracking code for Marlo and his crew and they get to bust up the gang for good. Despite the happy ending, the leak on the serial killer being fake manages to become common knowledge with the higher ups and the Marlo case almost gets tossed for the illegally obtained tap. Thankfully it doesn’t, but at the cost of McNulty and Freamon who have to walk the plank and leave Baltimore PD for good. As they ride off into the sunset, we are given a look at how everyone ends up in the end with Kima and Bunk working cases right back in Homicide, Daniels is leaving the force, Carver is given a promotion, and the biggest surprise of all is Michael has now turned into a young Omar after taking down Snoop for trying to kill him because he asked too many questions against Marlo.
A fitting end to the series that brought plenty of excitement ends with life essentially carrying on. Police work never ends in Baltimore and yet, The Wire does.
The Characters
I think one of the strongest things that this show has is the acting and character writing through the entire show. Even in season two, there are realistic characters that have actual goals and wants that go beyond just what the script says. Everyone gives it their all without any phoning it in stuff or some strange work here or there. One thing I read about a writer with his characters is that they sometimes “get away from you” where they end up taking a life of their own. I know it’s a little different in acting but here, you can tell that the actors sort of molded into their characters and you can understand all of them, to a point. It might be hard to really grasp how a Baltimore street corner heroine dealer or a brutal police officer can be, but I really think that if you watch them enough that you can feel like you’re inside the story even if you have never been to Baltimore before. The best character in my opinion is Bubbles who is a heroine addict through most of The Wire and is an informant against the Barksdale crew early on, but he starts to turn his life around in the end and his speech at the rehab group in season five is such a satisfying moment after watching him struggle with his life up to that point and he even manages to make amends with his sister in the end which is even better.
Closing Thoughts
And that’s The Wire! Apologies for how long it had been since the last review but if you knew that the review was over The Wire then it might make more sense. This show definitely made its mark on television and I can say that this show definitely still holds true at some parts even despite the outdated technology used. The actors in this show have all gone on to do amazing movies and shows out on their own and I’m sure the work here has kept them going. Rating wise, I would probably give this show a 8.5/10 which is a lot based on most shows I have seen. The second season really took a knock on the score but the fourth and fifth season managed to keep things interesting and even warranted the hour long episodes each time. Plus, this show gets a special bump for not having one of those dumb scenes in modern detective shows where the smart character rattles off some basic science stuff about osmosis and the totally cool lead character snaps, saying, “English please??” For that, I thank the writers of The Wire for not being the ones that started that trend and instead focused on making the best show possible. I know there are also things I might've missed, but I did my best to summarize everything I could remember after watching. Thank you for your patience and now I have two more things to review.
RE: Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - zaynzk - 07-11-2021
Bro my man really just been watching the wire for like 2 months
RE: Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - shadyshoelace - 07-11-2021
![[Image: tenor.gif]](https://media1.tenor.com/images/dc60f2a7374bb188804c78915262417f/tenor.gif)
RE: Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - Starboy - 07-11-2021
(07-11-2021, 08:41 PM)zaynzk Wrote: Bro my man really just been watching the wire for like 2 months
![[Image: Dl1d7zn.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/Dl1d7zn.gif)
RE: Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - StadiumGambler - 07-12-2021
Thanks for the review! I haven't actually seen the show technically lol, but I've seen about 2/3rds of it through YouTube clips. Ridiculous amount of mileage in the show.
RE: Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - MattBake12 - 07-12-2021
![[Image: UnhappyFewAddax-max-1mb.gif]](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/UnhappyFewAddax-max-1mb.gif)
RE: Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - Pat - 07-12-2021
(07-12-2021, 12:53 AM)StadiumGambler Wrote: Thanks for the review! I haven't actually seen the show technically lol, but I've seen about 2/3rds of it through YouTube clips. Ridiculous amount of mileage in the show.
Wait. Hold on a second here.
You've never seen the show, but have seen a bunch of clips on YouTube... So... why did you ask him to specifically review it? Were you waiting for his full-throated approval before you decided to watch it?
RE: Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - StadiumGambler - 07-12-2021
I can't watch it in full even if I wanted to because having to pay money, but again, I've seen a lot of the show through YouTube, including how it ends. I just wanted it reviewed because its cool and maybe a person or two here would see it and like the show too.
RE: Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - Pat - 07-12-2021
Haha makes sense.
RE: Starboy Reviews "The Wire" - The_Kidd - 07-12-2021
I'll add a few details for those that haven't seen the show:
- The higher ups in the police division(Landsman, Burrell, and the 1st commissioner) hate "supercops" and open cases (red tags or something they call them) because it brings federal attention to the state and thus the governor sends Internal Affairs to see if they needs to clean house. That's why there is a big rift with MCU. When Bunny's Hamsterdam gets outed, the embarrassment causes the internal shakeup and for Carcetti to steal Royce's mayoral seat
- In season 1, you'll notice D'Aneglo teaching Bodie, Wallace, and others how to play chess. It is symbolism for the cycle of the narcotics racket and each character plays a role akin to each chess piece.
-D'Angelo has a epiphany of duality after he gets demoted for having the girl killed in the 1st episode. He struggles with the good v evil the rest of the way. He challenges String's authority after Wallace is executed which leads to his death in S2.
- Stringer's pride became his downfall, he swore he had the perfect plan. The perfect rags to riches blueprint. But his penchant to win EVERY battle created too many enemies. He gets all his soldiers arrested because he killed Omar's boyfriend (in response to Omar robbing his stash house) and Omar was willing to testify any story MCU needed from him once they caught some of the shooters from Kima's shooting. He has D'Angelo killed, and Avon wages war in the streets, so String tries to put Avon back in jail. When Avon reveals he knows the Senator is duping him the same way String thought he was duping Avon, String sets Brother Mouzone on a suicide mission when he refuses to kill Senator Davis.
- McNutly has the same pride issue and the same internal conflict, except he lets the evil dirty cop tactics masquerade as being the ultimate top cop. His willingness to bend every rule and find every loop hole gets several people killed or demoted(as is the case with Herc and Carver trying to illegally tape Marlo with a stolen camera from evidence until Carver brownnoses his way back up to Sgt.). In S5, he basically becomes a replica of Belushi and Shakur from Gang Related
- The children reflect the lack of opportunity there is in these neighborhoods. And how fragile trust is, but also how most just need one moment to shine and blossom from that point forward. Chris and Michael create an eerie synergy, Michael is the only one Chris carries emotion for and it makes him realize why Michael is scared of Marlo. Marlo has zero emotion, zero empathy, a soulless body at best, but after seeing Randy, Namond, and Duquan get screwed over by their "family" --- he knows his turn is coming unless he gets under Marlo's wing. Michael is an example of ends justifying the means. And Marlo, believing he could one up the Barksdales, creates the same problems as String but with brute force(unlike the sly, cunning manipulation Bell used) and ends up full circle when he, Avon, Wee-Bey, and Chris are sharing the same prison yard.
- BTW, fun fact --- Season 2 has such a major shift because the City of Baltimore were misled about the project in Season 1. When the show premiered, they were caught off guard about how graphic and intrusive they were about late 80's Baltimore drug boon(which got so bad to a point, they renamed the Bullets to the Wizards) and would not grant many filming permits within city limits for season 2. But after the critical acclaim and fanfare the 1st two seasons received, they let them come back in the city for season 3