Any fans of 'The Wire' here?

[Dodsdomd]

Really want to check this out. Steve Earle plays a character named Waylon. Does he play much of a role in the show?

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Dodsdomd

Really want to check this out. Steve Earle plays a character named Waylon. Does he play much of a role in the show?

I wouldn't say he's that important a character relative to others - but keep in mind this show has an IMMENSE cast. His character is relatively important in the context of one of the smaller storylines and he does a nice job with it.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Dodsdomd

Really want to check this out. Steve Earle plays a character named Waylon. Does he play much of a role in the show?

Earle's character is a recovering drug addict with AIDS who helps run a support group for other addicts. He appears in maybe 1/5 of the episodes, but has relatively more screentime in the latest season.

As Jiri says, the cast is HUGE. In the first season, there's probably 20 "main" characters, and it just grows from there. The storytelling is done so well, though, that you really get to know almost all the characters quite intimately.

I can't recommend this show enough. Just keep in mind that it does start quite slow, but if you stick it out the payoff is immense. The pacing can be glacial at times, but when the action picks up, it's just like watching a season of 24 in the sense that you can't wait to see what happens in the next episode. There's one particular moment in Season 1 that is just a terrible gut-wrenching cliffhanger (I don't want to say what it is because of spoilers, but anyone who has seen it will know the part I'm talking about)

[fatso]

Yes! Glad to see a thread dedicated to this show. There are not enough adjectives available for me to adequately compliment it. Seems like a lot of you feel the same as me... specifically that it is the best show ever made. I would actually rank it on par with other great 'sociological' studies... like Coppola's 'The Godfather' or Hardy's Wessex.

Finally saw episode 5.9 last night. So sad it ends soon... What a helluva ride it's been... The show takes you from laughing at the arbitrariness of chance to near tears at the heartlessness and cruelty of institutions meant to protect, all in a heartbeat.

Also Steve Earle sings the theme song for season 5. So cool...

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

My predictions for the last episode:

McNulty and Freeman get away with it. Too many people have too much riding on the bogus serial killer story for it to be exposed as a fraud. Rawls and Daniels can't speak up lest it look like they were misspending all the money City Hall was throwing their way to catch the serial killer. Carcetti needs the Marlo arrest to stand so he gets his much-needed drop in crime, not to mention he latched onto the theme of homelessness to fuel his campaign for governor. The Sun can't expose it because they're trying to win a Pullitzer based on Scott's reporting of the story (and his phone conversations with the "killer").

However, McNulty is stricken with grief and kills himself. One of the last scenes will be at that Irish bar for a policemen's wake with McNulty's body on the pool table. Lester ends up demoted back to the pawn shop unit as Daniels tries to quietly make the whole mess disappear.

Michael becomes the new Avon/Stringer/Prop Joe/Marlo and ends up running the West Baltimore drug trade. Even though Marlo falls, the cycle begins anew.

Bubs kicks his habit in one of the few positive outcomes for any character, but this is contrasted with shots of Dukie becoming a heroin addict.

Gus exposes Scott's fabrications, but management at The Sun won't take appropriate disiplinary action because they want so badly to win a Pullitzer. Gus resigns in protest (or accepts a buy-out).

The Bunk is still The Bunk.

I agree with most of whatyou said. I think McNulty gets away with it too. The mayor can't afford to expose this because it will jeopardize his run for governer. Daniels can't either because it will ruin his chance at the commisioner's job. Pearlman's on the line as well because she campaigned for the bogus wiretap papers. And I don't know if anyone besides them will be informed about it. Maybe Rawls, but he would be easy to buy off with a package like Berrel got.

I think Keema informs the newspapers after she finds out the mayor/commisioner are trying to burry it because she's still upset about it, but they ignore her as well becase they don't want their Pultizer chances ruined. Gus is the only one that kicks up a stink about it at the papers because he can now prove for certain Scott is lying about everything. They can't fire Gus because he might talk out of revenge, so they just let him keep his job and pretty much ignore him while campaigning hard for Scott to win the Pulitzer.

I don't think McNulty will kill himself though, he's way to naracsistic for that. I say he ends up riding the boat again and Lester goes to the pawn shop unit.

I also don't think Michael becomes the next Marlo. I think that'll be Cheese. Or perhaps there will be a war between the remaining 'counciI' members. I think Michael is a lot more likely to become the next Omar instead wreacking havoc and stealing from Cheese and whats left of Marlo's old crew to make a living. Like Snoop said, he could never be one of them. I think he's more of a one-man-show type of guy.

[nik-]

On a side note. Has anyone seen the Arby's commercial with the 3 construction workers watching the girls walking by. The guy with the Arby's bag that they cheer it as the lawyer Levy from The Wire. I laughed when I saw it.

[@theCBE]

They have a 30 second preview clip on hbo.com right now... little bit of a spoiler, shows a character back we haven't seen this year. I can't wait till the finale, but at the same time its sad because it is such an amazing show. Much better than the sopranos in my opinion.

[Kobasew7]

It's funny, but I live in Maryland and they tape this about 10 minutes from my house in Baltimore. Really a great show, a friend of mine is or was an extra during episode 9 ? i believe..but anyways, glad it has mass appeal, although a violent show and setting, brings in a good amount of cash to the Baltimore area. Baltimore surprisingly has been used alot for good shows, Homocide was taped in Baltimore and the surrounding counties, and HBO did a 6 part mini-series in Baltimore that good a lot of praise and awards called The Corner in the late 90's. Pretty cool but kinda ironic hollywood is really emulating life as many of the areas they tape in are "worse" areas of Baltimore.

[MarchHare]

Homocide was taped in Baltimore and the surrounding counties, and HBO did a 6 part mini-series in Baltimore that good a lot of praise and awards called The Corner in the late 90's.

There's a reason that all of those shows were shot in Baltimore. Both of them (and The Wire) were created by David Simon, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun.

And FYI, the series finale is available on the usual torrent sites. I won't post any spoilers until more people have seen it, but I will say that it was a fantastic ending to the show. I was right about some of the things I predicted earlier in this thread, wrong about others, and in one case, simultaneously wrong and right (you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it).

[JiriHrdina]

Yeah overall you did a pretty nice job of predicting the ending.

Just a perfect series finale. Even got the Prez back in there.

[corporatejay]

That was fantastic, I felt so bad for Dook, that kid tried to make it, and it just didn't work out.

I also love how no matter how hard marlo tries, dude is a thug for life.

[nik-]

I was pretty pleased with the ending, I feel satisfied with how things wrapped up, which is refreshing for the ending of a show. Some pretty good closure to everything and it was nice to see a large chunk of the characters you've grown fond of over the years doing so well.

When Rawls said to McNulty "Just please tell me you're not killing them yourself Jimmy" I laughed pretty hard for a good while.

Truly the best show I've ever watched.

[@theCBE]

Just finished watching it. I thought it was a great finale... I am usually let down by how series end but I was happy with this one. I watched the very first episode of season 1 earlier today and there are a lot of parallels between them.

[Tyler]

I bet all you Wire fans are white!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Tyler

I bet all you Wire fans are white!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

For the past three years, whenever you say “The Wire” white people are required to respond by saying “it’s the best show on television.”

Boy I think I've done that repeatedly on this very site.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Tyler

I bet all you Wire fans are white!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Funny, but unfortunately he's wrong.

White people, by and large, didn't like The Wire. It got horrible ratings by HBO's standards, and David Simon (the show's creator) thinks the mostly-black cast is one of the reasons why it didn't catch on with a larger audience the way The Sopranos did.

There's a really great interview (filled with spoilers, so be careful if you haven't seen the finale yet) with Simon here: http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2008/0...d-simon-q.html

Originally Posted by David Simon

...there was a notion that (HBO) could almost put anything over, that if it was good enough they could sell it to everybody. And I think there was a little hubris in that, because "Check me out, dog. My cast is 60 percent black and my story is all this dysfunction and I'm filmed in Baltimore and nothing makes sense until episode 4. Come get me." I think I disproved the theory that HBO could sell anything to everybody!

[JiriHrdina]

^Boy that is a great interview. Thanks for posting it.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

^Boy that is a great interview. Thanks for posting it.

If you liked that, make sure you read this amazing 12-page article about the series published in The New Yorker last October (it contains massive season 1-4 spoilers, but I suspect most people reading this thread have already seen those episodes).

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...fa_fact_talbot

[Hemi-Cuda]

finally finished season 5 tonight, i wanted to wait until it was done and download/watch it all in one fell swoop. i passed the time by rewatching seasons 1-4, and now having watched the entire series consecutively i have to conclude that this is simply the greatest show ever put on TV, not even the Sopranos can touch it. nothing has even close to the depth that The Wire does with character development. you don't feel like you're watching a TV show, you feel like you're watching a real city and it's stories

[spoilers]
loved the ending though, particularly with how Cheese met his demise. i always liked Slim and that was just the icing on the cake. sad how Omar ended up, but seeing Michael step up and take his place made me smile. rarely do i get so connected to fictional characters, but when both Prop Joe and Omar got popped i just sat there gape jawed and said "Did they just do that!?". it's just too bad that The Greek and co. were able to escape any prosecution, i was hoping for a little more follow-up from season 2 other than the homeless dock worker and Nick Sobatka yelling at the mayor. but overall it's probably the best series ending episode i've ever seen
[/spoilers]

so who was everyone's favorite character? from seasons 1-3 i was sticking with Bunk, but when Norman (Carcetti's assistant) came along i had to switch. funniest character in the show and he had some of the best lines of the entire series. when the **** hit the fan on McNulty's escapade and the mayor et co. started pulling their hair out, as soon as Norman lost it and started laughing i bust a gut. he was the only one who could point out just how absurd the whole thing was. and every one of his scenes from the season 4 election was just pure gold, especially the Clay Davis impersonation

[JiriHrdina]

If you like Carcetti's assistant the same actor was in Oz for a few season and was equally as good.

The Bunk was awesome, as was of course Omar.

But my all time favourite character was Stringer Bell.