The Wire: Final Season

[Mik 0]

So, I made it through all four seasons.

 

One funny thing I noticed: In the last episode of season 4 when Bubbles tries to kill himself... he's got on an Affliction hoodie, which values at $175.

 

Bubbles depot pays mad money, apparently.

 

Man I'm psyched for this season.

[King Kamala 0]

Interesting bit...I happened to catch the last ten minutes of the half hour special hyping Season 5 and they showed a brief clip of Larry Gillard Jr. (DeAngelo Barksdale) talking about the new season.

 

 

Maybe someone recieves a ghostly apparition this season.

[Mik 0]

He's on a couple of the specials.

 

There are 4 of them on HBO On Demand and they are all spectacular. Two of them show a few clips from the new season.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Interesting bit...I happened to catch the last ten minutes of the half hour special hyping Season 5 and they showed a brief clip of Larry Gillard Jr. (DeAngelo Barksdale) talking about the new season.

 

 

Maybe someone recieves a ghostly apparition this season.

 

Unless I'm wrong The Wire has never done any flashbacks episodes so I doubt it though I wouldn't mind seeing D show up again.

[imajackoff? 0]

Right now, they have a couple of "flashback" clips ONDemand. One is of Prop Joe when he was a kid in 1967, i believe. The other two are of Omar in 1982 and McNulty and Bunk in 2000. Im thinking this season may be flashback heavy, hence the DeAngelo sightings.

 

EDIT: My bad. I didnt realize that those FB clips were already posted in this thread.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I really hope they stuck with the kids in Season 5. Just finished Season 4; it's pretty obvious that Michael and Duquan will be back, but I'm hoping Randy and Namond get some attention as well. The four of them had some of the best character arcs in the whole show in just the single season.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

This isn't a spoiler or anything because it was only a brief flash but in the final HBO preview for Season Five Michael is shown but no sign of Duq, Randy or Naimon. If any of those three were to be written out I'd guess Randy. Duq, last we saw him was slangin' on the corners and I can't see the Bunny/Naimond storyline being given the somewhat-happy ending we got at last season.

 

I bought my brother season one for Christmas and we've been burning through it. One of my all-time favorite Bunk/Jimmy moments is in there....

 

J: You know why I like you, Bunk? It's not because you're good police or anything 'cause you know....fuck that.

 

B: Yeah, fuck that.

 

J: And it's not because when I first started with you I got shown all kinds of cool shit or anything.

 

B: Mmmm-hmmm

 

J: It's because.....when it came time to fuck me you were gentle. And I appreciate that.

 

B: I knew it was your first time so I wanted that shit to be special.

[Guest Warriorfan]

How does everyone think the series will end?

 

I expect it to end in a similar manner to The Sopranos, a few chapters will close but there will be no definitive end to the series.

 

Predictions:

 

1) Omar will Kill Chris and Snoop. That confrontation has to take place.

 

2) Michael will Kill Omar- No one is perfect all the time. Omar will either have a moment of compassion or get sloppy and Michael will capitalize.

 

3) Mcnulty remains Mcnulty- The last scene will be him and Bunk sharing a drink unless...

 

4) Bunk gets killed- I know Bunk is based on a real Bmore cop but I don't know anymore about him

[AmericanDragon 0]

First scene in the premiere is fucking awesome. This season's opening credits song is pretty good too.

[Youth N Asia 0]

I liked the season 1 opening singing the best, it was never as good after that

[King Kamala 0]

My favorite is Season 2 (original version of the song) but I realize that Tom Waits is kind of an acquired taste.

 

 

The hipsters here will agree with me though, amiright?

[Guest Starks]

Solid season opener, similar to the first episodes of previous seasons as it's used to established what's happened in the year since the finale of season 4 and sets the adgenda for the following 9 episodes.

 

Clark Johnson ('Homicide: Life on the Street') as Baltimore Sun editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes is sure to be the breakout fan favourite of the season.

 

Also good to see that Reg E. Cathey (Norman Wilson) is billed as a season regular.

 

I'll be back with broad thoughts on episode 2 soon.

 

 

And funnily enough The Baltimore Sun, which is featured prevalently this season, much like the Baltimore City Counicl and Baltimore School System before it, has come out with a mixed review criticizing the show for it's portrayal of the Sun's newsroom.

 

 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/...0,3409351.story

 

'The Wire' loses spark in newsroom storyline

 

By David Zurawik | Sun television critic

December 30, 2007

 

Writing about the past four seasons of HBO's The Wire has been one of the great pleasures of this job. But reviewing the fifth and final season, which begins next Sunday on the premium cable channel, is more of a mixed blessing.

 

It's not that the series has suddenly taken a drastic turn away from its epic and compelling exploration of life in a downsized Millennial America. Steeped in a dense and seething urban sociology, the Baltimore-based series is still one of the most daring dramas in the history of the medium.

 

Hardcore fans will find much to like in Season 5 - thanks to a greatly expanded role for rogue detective Jimmy McNulty and an intensely focused performance by Dominic West as the troubled Baltimore cop.

 

But while the police story line has never been stronger, the first seven episodes made available for preview contain nothing that matches the emotional power and sociological insight of the show at its best - namely the classroom scenes from Season 4.

 

The complicating factor for me is that creator David Simon turns his lens to the media this season - with a particular focus on a fictionalized version of The Sun newsroom. (Though some scenes were shot on Sun property, the paper did not review the scripts or have any involvement in the production.)

 

Whether I praise or pan Simon's made-for-TV version of the paper, the fact that I work for The Sun means I am likely to be mistrusted, if not damned. So be it - I am not the first journalist to write about matters involving his or her own paper.

 

And the newsroom scenes are the Achilles' heel of Season 5 - with mainstream entertainment sacrificed to journalistic shop talk, while fact and fiction are mashed up in the confusing manner of docudrama.

 

There is greatness in the seven episodes, especially when the series leaves the newsroom and returns to the streets. The scheming and showdowns featuring such larger-than-life characters as Proposition Joe Stewart (Robert F. Chew), Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector) and Omar Little (Michael K. Williams) have the scope and thunder of a Sam Peckinpah Western.

 

Simon didn't invent the idea of the urban landscape as a new American frontier. But starting with HBO's The Corner, he was the first not to reduce all people of color on that landscape to one-dimensional stick figures and then demonize them.

 

As the season opens, Omar has left Baltimore for sunnier climes, while Marlo schemes and Joe tries to hold his shaky drug co-op together. There has never been a cast of TV villains as multi-textured, menacing and engaging as this.

 

One reason they are so fascinating is that Simon made viewers see them as human beings - and, in some cases, even care about them.

 

Meanwhile, life is worse than ever at the cop shop. Baltimore's calculating mayor, Thomas Carcetti (Aidan Gillen), has cut the department's budget to the bone in an effort to cover his promises of more money for city schools. As a result, police are operating without overtime - and, in many cases, without cars and radios for some officers and detectives.

 

Angered by such diminished circumstances, McNulty is drinking and carousing again. Before long, he is totally off the rails and headed down a dangerous road of deception and lies - that will bring him into league with an unscrupulous reporter at the dramatized Sun.

 

Time and again, momentum is lost as the story shifts to the newsroom. Part of the problem involves the way Simon populates the city room with several non-actors.

 

Two of the first Sun staffers that viewers will see are played by former Sun columnist Michael Olesker and former feature reporter Laura Lippman. They look like two people stuck in cement before the camera mercifully leaves them behind. (Lippman is Simon's wife.)

 

Ed Norris, the former Baltimore police commissioner who plays a homicide detective on the series, is not an actor either, of course. But he has a natural energy and raw anger that are in perfect sync with the dominant sensibility of the series.

 

Other former Sun staffers with speaking parts include Scott Shane, now with The New York Times, and William F. Zorzi, who is a writer on the series. Zorzi's role is much larger than his onscreen talent.

 

Beyond Simon casting on the friends-and-family plan, there are other - more serious - problems with the newspaper story arc.

 

The best thing about the narrative is that it stars Clark Johnson as Augustus "Gus" Haynes, a no-nonsense city editor. Johnson, who was superb in his understated depiction of Detective Meldrick Lewis on NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, enlivens every scene in which he appears.

 

But Simon, who is so skilled in creating multifaceted characters elsewhere in the series, makes Haynes a one-dimensional figure without flaws. He is a repository of all things good when it comes to big-city newspapers - things that the series claims have been mostly lost in devotion to the bottom line by media corporations.

 

Almost everyone in the newsroom is a cardboard character - in part because Simon writes it like a morality play. Just as Haynes is goodness, the villains are pure duplicity and evil. It is difficult to get involved in the lives of such characters - unlike last year, when poignant classroom scenes led viewers to care about deeply troubled but highly promising teenagers.

 

More problematic still is the way Simon links certain newsroom characters to real-life journalists through words and actions - and then depicts them exclusively in a negative fashion. Simon moves deeper into docudrama when he does that, and The Wire suffers as a result.

 

The docudrama genre, which has come under increasing fire in recent years, combines the look of documentary film with the literary license of theater - giving viewers the sense that what they are watching is true even though facts have been rearranged and actions invented.

 

Beyond blurring fact and fiction and ignoring any sense of proportionality, the genre also telescopes and confuses time. Simon left the Sun in 1995, and his newsroom villains are patterned on editors and a reporter long gone from Baltimore. But Simon presents his story as if it is taking place at The Sun today.

 

Ultimately, the most disappointing aspect of Season 5 is that Simon offers such a simplistic critique of media and their effects on mass consciousness. To say that even the most respected newspapers sometimes have ethical lapses will hardly be news to any HBO viewers who have ever heard of Jayson Blair and The New York Times.

 

Newspapers have changed exponentially since Simon left 12 years ago. When he was in the newsroom, cable TV was still considered new media - and most newspapers were at least five years away from the realization that they would soon live or die by the Internet. The first seven episodes of The Wire have almost nothing to say about the biggest story in newspapers: the vast technological change sweeping through media today. And that is most surprising given how up-to-the-second - even prescient - the series has been about the use of the latest technology by criminals.

 

Perhaps the final three episodes - the ones HBO has yet to make available - will redeem the newsroom story line and form a glorious ending for The Wire.

 

Here's hoping that is the case. Not just for the enjoyment and illumination of its fans, but this writer as well, who has found such delight over the years in celebrating this landmark show.

 

[email protected]

[imajackoff? 0]

My fav part of ep 1 season 5 was McNulty drunkenly searching his pockets to get change for a payphone..... and finding his cellphone.

 

Great show, already kind of bummed that there are only 9 more.

[King Kamala 0]

Wait- there are only ten new episodes this season instead of the usual 12 or 13? Bummer.

[Guest Starks]

Wait- there are only ten new episodes this season instead of the usual 12 or 13? Bummer.

 

Yep, HBO originally offered David Simon and Ed Burns 8 episodes to wrap up the series, they argued that they should get the usual 12-13 episode order, and were thankfully able to negotiate HBO up to 10 episodes due to

 

A) The Wire never once going over-budget in its 4 year run, often coming in under cost estimates (very rare for TV productions)

 

b) David and Ed were set to move straight onto the 7 part miniseries "Generation Kill" for HBO, who given their current thin programming schedule and early rumblings of a writers strike wanted to keep things running smoothly.

 

 

And a work of warning to those people who frequent forums that discuss The Wire, episodes 1, 2 and 5 have been leaked from the reviewers DVD, with episodes 3, 4, 6 & 7 likely to follow in the following days.

 

 

Generation Kill

 

[Lord of The Curry 0]

My fav part of ep 1 season 5 was McNulty drunkenly searching his pockets to get change for a payphone..... and finding his cellphone.

 

Great show, already kind of bummed that there are only 9 more.

 

It's nothing big but if you've seen the episode spoiler-tag your comments before the show premieres.

[C Dubya 04 0]

What is the deal with the premiere? I watched episode 1 last night on On-Demand thinking we had missed the premiere, then searching through it seems they're showing the same episode this Sunday?

[King Kamala 0]

What is the deal with the premiere? I watched episode 1 last night on On-Demand thinking we had missed the premiere, then searching through it seems they're showing the same episode this Sunday?

 

 

For some reason, they put the episodes OnDemand six days before the show airs on HBO. Doesn't make sense really but it's kind of convenient.

[BlackFlagg 0]

I believe they did it with seasons 4 because the whole season got leaked...guess they decided to stick with it

[Sideburnious 0]

Looks like the torrents for Season 5 (eps 1,2,5,6,7) have all been pulled from the net. At least from the torrent sites I'm looking at. It's pretty good so far but for some reason I seemed to fly through the episodes. Maybe I'm enjoying them too much.

[Mik 0]

There were a ton of great little bits in this episode. I liked the entire pre-credit bit with the McDonalds and the "lie detector."

 

McNulty hammered again and the prodigal son line had me happy.

 

I like the setup for the year... I wonder if we're going to see an all-out war between the co-op and Marlo. It's possible that Cheese gets hit to start it all off the way he was eyeing up Marlo.

 

Herc works for Levy now? And CLEAN BUBBLES... or should I say Reginald?

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

Fuck, getting back on this makes me want to pick up the other seasons I missed. Fuck. Why do I hate my wallet so much?

[milliondollarchamp 0]

I've definitely seen the photo copier/lie detector used before. Was it in an earlier ep of The Wire, or was it in Homicide

 

Herc continues to bring stupid to a new level. Did anyone notice him saying as soon as he was fired the lawyers came looking fom him? I'm thinking that they recruited him because of his connections to Major Crimes. I can easily see this dumb hump feeding info to Levy.

 

[In Credible 0]

It wasn't in The Wire.

[Mik 0]

Domenick Lombardazzi has said on multiple occasions that he hates his character. I wouldn't be surprised to see him do something scummy.

 

Was Levy even in season 4? If/how/when we see Avon this season is something I haven't figured out how they could work in yet.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

To the best of my recollection Levy was M.I.A in Season Four but I was pleasently surprised to see him back last night and now all the more intrigued with Herc working under him. "It's time I told you something about the expense account" is such a shady line.

 

The photo copier scene had me pissing myself, as did Jimmy almost falling off his barstool while eyeing that chick up and then trying to recover from it. I don't know whether to be happy or sad that he's on the sauce again.

 

Only complaint is no Omar.

[Mik 0]

I think I'm going to go the On Demand route the rest of the season.

 

So...Episode 2:

 

I was really enjoying the Marlo/Avon visit in the jail. But they completely ruined it when Avon flashed him that West Side at the end. Not only was it corny, but the entire demise of his empire was correlated with Marlo taking out what was left of his crew. I just don't get it at all.

 

I also hate Jimmy making up murders.

 

I just really hope that in the first case it's a set-up and in the second case it has a big payoff.

[RonL21 0]

I think I'm going to go the On Demand route the rest of the season.

 

So...Episode 2:

 

I was really enjoying the Marlo/Avon visit in the jail. But they completely ruined it when Avon flashed him that West Side at the end. Not only was it corny, but the entire demise of his empire was correlated with Marlo taking out what was left of his crew. I just don't get it at all.

 

I also hate Jimmy making up murders.

 

I just really hope that in the first case it's a set-up and in the second case it has a big payoff.

My Fav. Part was when Snoop, O. Dogg, the other guy went to go kill the guys on the corner and the guy in the back says "let's do it west coast style and do a drive by" They miss and Snoop is pissed and they get out the car and shoots the one left behind in the head when he's running away and says "fuck them west coast niggas, in BMore we aim and shoot" The way she was pissed when they missed initially was all types of hillarious....

[ZGangsta 0]

Caught the first episode and it's great to see it back, but yeah it's sad to know it's ending. Hell, I'm just happy we got 5 seasons of this show and they get to go out on their terms.

 

Awesome first episode, wasn't disappointed at all. I wasn't sure if I'd be liking the newspaper stuff but I really dug it. Nailing the council president was awesome.

[C Dubya 04 0]

I think I'm going to go the On Demand route the rest of the season.

 

So...Episode 2:

 

I was really enjoying the Marlo/Avon visit in the jail. But they completely ruined it when Avon flashed him that West Side at the end. Not only was it corny, but the entire demise of his empire was correlated with Marlo taking out what was left of his crew. I just don't get it at all.

 

I also hate Jimmy making up murders.

 

I just really hope that in the first case it's a set-up and in the second case it has a big payoff.

 

I have a feeling that Avon is going to try to use the Russian to get back at Marlo for fucking up his crew. He flashed the sign to make Marlo more comfortable.

 

Just a guess is all.