This week’s open “Wire” thread. Up for discussion:
Omar. I mean…Omar. Where was last week’s chatty Omar girl helper, the same one who helped him hit Brother Mouzone? She’s always in such a good mood, right before she pulls her big gun. I don’t think she was the one hit last night. Anyway, I think of her as Omar’s Harpy.
And I told you Major Bunny was the one to watch.
I think the theme of last week’s episode is the same as many other “Wire” episodes, i.e., Middle Management Sucks. The bosses yell at you and the troops are no help either.
Take it away.
greg said on October 4, 2004 at 2:31 pm
what did you think of the overall tone of last night’s episode? The Wire always flirts with heavy-handed sentimentality — but its great execution usually keeps it many cuts above the typical hard-boiled police drama, or The Bad News Bears, or Police Academy. But Rawls’ never-ending soliloquy last night when he was dressing down that one lieutenant? Or some of the other dialogue and “symbolism” throughout? (Like the kids play-acting the shooting right after it occurred…) Suddenly, it was like the Oliver Stone version of The Wire last night…
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Nance said on October 4, 2004 at 3:24 pm
Well, this was the Dennis Lehane episode, and I’ve always found him to be more heavy-handed than not. The part that shocked me was the wake in the bar — can you do that with an actual corpse? Having watched “Six Feet Under” and learned all about leaking bodies, I wonder.
But I wasn’t bothered by the stuff you mention. I’m more interested in where we’re going with this Garcetti guy.
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ashley said on October 4, 2004 at 3:30 pm
The most inconguous bit last night was the bit about the death of Bob Cole on the stairmaster. Of course, this was a thinly veiled tribute to the man who played him, Bob Colesberry, who was also the show’s Executive Producer. The whole bit was something straight out of the original Homicide book. It didn’t really fit in with the flow of the overall story line, but Simon certainly wanted to do a visible tribute to him. Note the “drug wars of ’93” reference to Colesberry’s work on “The Corner”.
Upon my second viewing, I noticed something about who capped Omar’s accomplice. It was NOT one of Stringer’s boys; it was Omar’s male accomplice. Note how the wound was to the front of the head: as they were running to the car, shooting without looking, he shot without aiming, and capped her in the forehead. This could have some interesting results, along with the fact that Bunk is investigating it as though she were a civilian. And Omar’s waiting outside the funeral home does not bode well for Stringer’s crew.
Omar has always been a popular character for the street kids to emulate, as the Robin Hood of the Western. I don’t think the kids play acting was any different than what we’ve seen before, as the kids always wanted to be the guy with the biggest gun. You don’t see any of the kids trying to be Stringer?
Rawls is just doing what Rawls always does. He’s probably the least well developed character, but he’s probably an accurate portrait of typical DepOps. He has to make an example or two just to show who’s boss. The interesting part is how Bello was Bunny’s confidant and co-conspirator. In Simon’s other work, I believe that Landsman (the man, not the character) was another of those who actually did propose legalizing drugs.
I have no idea where they’re going with the Carcetti character.
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ashley said on October 4, 2004 at 6:10 pm
Here’s a good Wire FAQ from Salon and David Simon:
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2004/10/01/the_wire/index_np.html
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Laura said on October 4, 2004 at 8:16 pm
Just a tip from a well-placed source. You can’t know who writes what in this series, for better or worse. Although someone gets the teleplay credit, it’s a collaborative effort and, as Richard Price said, everyone gets Simon-ized.
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Nance said on October 4, 2004 at 8:40 pm
Perhaps our well-placed source can comment on the verisimilitude of that shootout scene in contemporary Baltimore. It seemed positively…Iraqi.
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ashley said on October 4, 2004 at 10:49 pm
Maybe Ed Burns had something to do with a bit of that writing: http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=47110&hlotslinks.
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Nance said on October 5, 2004 at 4:56 am
Ash, you can stick links in these comments. You have a PhD, so I know you can. Thanks for the extra reading — you’ve been doing your research.
OK, so I take it back about Lehane. Was that Omar’s Harpy who got plugged? I’d hate to lose her.
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ashley said on October 5, 2004 at 12:43 pm
Man, that whole a href stuff is just too technical…
Ok.
I think it was “Omar’s Harpy” that got offed, because in the previous link, Ed Burns tells Lahane that you never see someboy get capped by their own crew when they shoot backward over their shoulder. The article states: “Lehane decided to use that, killing off one of the show’s major characters”.
So she’s probably the only one in Omar’s crew that could remotely be called “a major character”.
BTW, I’m getting most of these external wire links from the old
Homicide: Links on the Sites page. There’s even an article where Simon
plugs his own acting skills.
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Laura said on October 5, 2004 at 3:40 pm
Such shoot-outs do happen and there was once a horrible bit of slang for civilians who got caught in the crossfire — mushrooms. I covered the funeral of a 10-year-old boy who was killed while playing football. Another child, no more than 3 or 4, was shot dead in the barber chair where he was getting his birthday haircut. A colleague once found herself in the middle of such a shooting while reporting on something else. And so on.
So, yes, Tosha was killed by “friendly fire” if you will. Which I would have totally missed if not for Ashley’s post here. However, I’ve been cautioned that, as detail-oriented as the show is, not every detail matters.
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