OFFICIAL THE WIRE THREAD.. ''The game is the game"

[Master Zik]

Season 2 was so damn whack.


I didn't care much for any of it. All of it could've been summed up in an episode. No need for an entire season.


I didn't care for the dock workers, the Russians/Greeks/Israelis, or how prop joe's dope was coming in.

You must've watched it wrong

The series is completely incomplete without season 2.

Honestly that's one thing I completely disagree with when it comes to S2.

The only thing that came back in to play was The Greek being the main supply and Marlo getting that connect. After S2 was done The Greek or his right hand man isn't caught, they get away fine. Leave town for a while come back a few months later and set up shop somewhere else. To the cops he's in the wind and they forget about him. We learn nothing about him and not much about his right hand. S5 comes in to play it's the same damn **** but this time around the detectives have no clue he's back. They're busy trying to take down Marlo and try to make the best out of nailing Clay Davis and the cluster**** Lester and McNulty created. All we see from S2 in S5 is Nick heckling the mayor, that Russian dude doing his life bid, and a bunch of scenes of Prop Joe dealing with The Greek and then Marlo dealing with both of them. That's it. They don't do anything else. Nothing else from S2 comes back in to play. We don't see Ziggy getting handled in prison. We don't see Nick's situation with his parents or his fan or at work.

Quite frankly they could've wrote it so the Greek left town for good and somebody else fills his void and is the main supply Marlo kills Prop Joe to get to and the season wouldn't have been any different.

And just to be clear again I liked S2 for what it was and what it stood for on it's own. I didn't need to re-watch the series to appreciate it cuz S5 is by far the real blemish of the series.

 

[amesvill88]

Season 2 was so damn whack.

I didn't care much for any of it. All of it could've been summed up in an episode. No need for an entire season.

I didn't care for the dock workers, the Russians/Greeks/Israelis, or how prop joe's dope was coming in.

I felt the SAME EXACT WAY about season 2, loved every single episode of the series but season 2 is by far the most useless, all they needed to do was bring in Carcetti & clay Davis, other then that we could really have done without season 2, it's still a good season just not needed really IMO.

 

[amesvill88]

What exactly don't I get?
They could've deleted the entire season, and no one would've said anything about "man, this story is so incomplete".


I'm convinced people just gas that season up because they think it's the "cool" thing to do.

^

 

[Thats My Word]

Season 2 was OK, not great, but appreciated. There's games beyond the game.

 

[stickmandude]

I was a season 2 doubter myself after the first go-around. However after repeated viewings front to back over the years, I realized the error of my ways. Like others have mentioned season 2 is pivotal to the whole series. Plus the social commentary about the stevedores and the state of America is being seen everyday. A lot of things foreshadowed in season 2 comes back to the forefront of the series.



Difference in mentalities. The Greek in season 2 and Marlo in season 5 :

 

[Chopper]

Agreed 100%. I flat out disliked Season 2 the first time around. it got better the second time around, and by 3rd time I watched it, I thought it was quite good. 

Might have to give the series my 4th spin. Hands down best series I've ever seen. Joint craps all over Breaking Bad. Homeland is damn good though but aint touching The Wire. 

 

[ayzee]

Honestly that's one thing I completely disagree with when it comes to S2.

The only thing that came back in to play was The Greek being the main supply and Marlo getting that connect. After S2 was done The Greek or his right hand man isn't caught, they get away fine. Leave town for a while come back a few months later and set up shop somewhere else. To the cops he's in the wind and they forget about him. We learn nothing about him and not much about his right hand. S5 comes in to play it's the same damn **** but this time around the detectives have no clue he's back. They're busy trying to take down Marlo and try to make the best out of nailing Clay Davis and the cluster**** Lester and McNulty created. All we see from S2 in S5 is Nick heckling the mayor, that Russian dude doing his life bid, and a bunch of scenes of Prop Joe dealing with The Greek and then Marlo dealing with both of them. That's it. They don't do anything else. Nothing else from S2 comes back in to play. We don't see Ziggy getting handled in prison. We don't see Nick's situation with his parents or his fan or at work.

Quite frankly they could've wrote it so the Greek left town for good and somebody else fills his void and is the main supply Marlo kills Prop Joe to get to and the season wouldn't have been any different.

And just to be clear again I liked S2 for what it was and what it stood for on it's own. I didn't need to re-watch the series to appreciate it cuz S5 is by far the real blemish of the series.

There are some re-occurring themes in S2 you are overlooking that are essential to the groundwork of the entire series including terrorism, corruption, unions, the working class, organized crime, etc

Here's some good analysis.

One of the signature themes of David Simon's TV series  The Wire  is the idea that where you come from matters, that class and race are, to a large degree, destiny. The first season mostly framed this idea in terms of race, with black drug dealers from the projects often lamenting the fact that being born into this life gives them so few options. The second season drives home that the real issue is class, by translating this theme to the mostly white, mostly Polish working class guys of the Baltimore dockworkers' union. 

In one key scene, union president Frank Sobotka (Chris Bauer) confronts his hired lobbyist Bruce DiBiago (Keith Flippen), contrasting DiBiago's big-money comfort against Frank's own desperation: DiBiago sends his son to Princeton, and says that now the kid can do anything he wants after graduating, a stark contrast against the pathetic life and constant failures of Frank's son Ziggy (James Ransone). DiBiago counters that his own family came from similarly limited circumstances, that his great-grandfather was a struggling working man who wanted more for his own kids, so he made sure they were educated and propelled them towards the better life that has resulted in DiBiago's current success. Frank's not interested in history, though, and he's not interested in thinking so long-term that his great-grandsons might make something of themselves. He wants security — and the dignity of work — for his own kid, something tangible he can see while he's still around.

Frank's story is at the center of this season because he so fully embodies the message that Simon is sending here. Frank is a member of a declining union, working in a harbor that's seeing less and less traffic and thus less and less work for the union members. Repeated scenes throughout the season emphasize how the men of the union come to work everyday not sure if they'll have a job for the day or not. This is particularly true for the younger men, like Ziggy and Frank's nephew Nick (Pablo Schreiber), who are continually passed over for what few jobs there are. They're mostly left to hang around and drink, glowering at the old union hands who tell raucous stories of the good old days. This is a story about obsolescence, about this union — once a powerful political and social force — struggling to survive in a modern political and economic environment that no longer has any respect for the old ways cultivated by the union culture. Frank is trying to adapt — he hires his lobbyist and feeds politicians dirty money he earns by working with the dockside smuggling operation of "the Greek" (Bill Raymond) — but the scene where he tries to charm politicians at a fundraiser demonstrates just how ill-suited the gruff, blunt-force Frank is to the subtleties of modern politics.

Indeed, it's Frank's failure to understand such niceties that more or less kicks off the season's plot. In one of the bitter ironies that runs unstated through the season, Frank comes under investigation not so much because of his genuinely illegal activity but because he dares to purchase a stained glass window at a local church on behalf of his union. It's a point of pride for him, but it's also a point of pride for the high-ranking police major Valchek (Al Brown), who had wanted to donate his own window to the church. Frank's refusal to give in to the politically connected Valchek causes the major to open an investigation into Frank, a frivolous and mean-spirited smear operation that eventually winds up exposing the full and rather surprising extent of Frank's connections to drugs, prostitution and smuggling in the city. Unaware of the investigation, Frank responds to Valchek's harassment by stealing a police surveillance van from Valchek's unit and shipping it around the world, updating the major with Polaroids of the van in various ports. It's the kind of old-school practical joke that Frank and his union buddies might have played in the old days, a silly and stupid prank that here has dire consequences.

At this point, as Valchek gets Lieutenant Daniels (Lance Reddick) to assemble a new squad to investigate Frank, the show flirts with formula as most of the first season's cops return to work with Daniels, dually investigating Frank and the deaths of a cargo container full of European women who had been shipped through Frank's port for the sex trade. The assembling-the-team segments early in the season come off as a warped mirror of the first season, though, since they're not getting together for the high-stakes drug operation of the first season but for what amounts to a personal vendetta. The fact that the operation eventually exposes some very shady activity only reinforces the bitter irony at the core of the show: it's only at the impetus of a petty and insecure ******* that some real policework gets done in the city, almost accidentally, and certainly incidentally for Valchek, who gets more and more annoyed the more his squad discovers large webs of crime around Frank rather than focusing solely on the object of Valchek's wrath.

As in the first season, Simon, along with co-writer and ex-cop Ed Burns and a regular stable of HBO directors, weaves together all these different plots and characters to provide a portrait of the ways in which cops and criminals act as part of an overarching social structure. The drug plot from the first season continues to percolate in the background, too, with the machinations of Stringer Bell, Avon, Omar and others eventually tied into the main plot by the end of the season. As in the first season, things that seem innocuous or small-scale turn out to be connected in surprising ways to much deeper societal currents. In the post-9/11 world, the Greek and his international criminal organization are even connected to the FBI, exchanging information and tips for official favors. Part of Simon's vision here is that in the zeal to fight terrorism, the modern national police infrastructure is proving willing to overlook greater and greater domestic evils to win some small victories against foreign evils. Witness the glee of an FBI counter-terrorism agent when he discovers a cache of Colombian drugs on the Greek's tipoff — is this relatively minor coup worth the information he feeds to the Greek, which allows the mysterious kingpin to kill with impunity, and at one point even gives him key information that leads directly to the death of an informer.

More locally, the criminal malaise of the docks is a reflection of economic changes that have these dockworkers teetering on the brink of irrelevancy. Frank is fighting desperately to get new projects started at the docks, but it seems to be a doomed battle right from the start. The politicians smile and take his money, and so does the lobbyist, but it never really seems plausible that Frank is going to get what he wants, and only he doesn't seem to realize it. Others want to build luxury condos in the area, further shrinking the extent of the formerly solid industrial/labor zone, and it's hard to imagine that the big real estate companies won't ultimately have more sway than Frank's declining union, even with all the ill-gotten money he's throwing around. At one point, Frank goes to an informational presentation about new technology that seems like it will largely make dock work an almost human-free occupation. The presenter makes a virtue of the fact that the new setup will reduce injuries, but Frank grasps the unspoken subtext: no one will get injured because almost no one will even be working there.

That's the flipside of the unceasing ethic of "progress" driving this society: there's a constant drive to move forward, with no thought for those inevitably left behind, the Sobotkas of the world. The show portrays the docks as a wasteland in the making, poised between the old way, as represented by Frank's hard-working, hard-drinking generation, and a new way where there's little room for much human presence at all, and certainly not for unskilled laborers like Nick and Ziggy. The dehumanized, mechanized docks of the future are contrasted against the fun-loving older generation, who are always at the bar telling alternately hilarious and harrowing tales of the old days. Their camaraderie and bonhomie in the face of the danger of their profession recalls Howard Hawks Only Angels Have Wings except that now all their male bonding and tough guy posturing takes place in a context where it's clear that this familial, tight-knit spirit belongs exclusively to the past. There will be less danger in the future — no more accidents like the one that crushes one man's leg — but also no more of that closeness and humor, no more of the touching togetherness that's displayed when the entire union shows solidarity for their injured brother, who faces his fate with courage and humor. The younger generation replaces that bold, positive attitude with the bitterness and hopelessness of Nick and Ziggy, the latter of whom is a heartbreaking ****-up who responds to the obvious desolation of his prospects with a casual nihilism, embracing his status as a living punchline.

Frank sees that the next generation, including his own son and his beloved nephew, is not going to have anything waiting for them, which is why Nick still lives in his parents' basement and is forced to steal in order to have any hope of starting a life with his girlfriend. In a different way from the drug dealers of the first season, Nick has been born into a life that doesn't hold much in the way of prospects for him. He could've gotten out of there, gone to college, tried to find work elsewhere, but that seems like as much a dream to him as it had to the first season project drug dealers. He doesn't have any examples of that happening; the American Dream of bettering oneself always seems so remote and abstract from the vantage point of lower-class and working-class characters like Nick. 
 

The situation of this season perhaps pointedly recalls the Marlon Brando classic On the Waterfront which was similarly about corruption and crime on the docks, as well as the day-by-day struggle of working men fighting for a limited number of jobs. But there's no romantically redeemed Brando character here, no one who actively fights the corruption. And the conclusion is similarly hopeless. As in the first season, the last episode ends with a montage that shows everything continuing as before, the whole unstoppable cycle churning on despite the few minor bumps in the road presented by the police investigation and subsequent tumult.

These endings are perhaps the key to the show's brilliance. Even more than in the first season, when at least most of the major drug players had to pay some cost, there's no tidy wrap-up here, no moralistic coda, no satisfying dispensation of justice. Instead, the drugs continue to flow, new boatloads of impoverished women are smuggled into the country to pleasure rich men, while the men in charge evaporate from view and those few who were arrested are replaced almost immediately by new faces. Most poignantly, this montage speeds up towards the end with whiplash-quick visits to various dockside locales, all devoid of people, crusted in rust, as though the area has already been depopulated, turned into the ghost town it's destined to become.

 

[pftjordans]

bruh....

 

[ohmygosher]

Agreed 100%. I flat out disliked Season 2 the first time around. it got better the second time around, and by 3rd time I watched it, I thought it was quite good. 

Might have to give the series my 4th spin. Hands down best series I've ever seen. Joint craps all over Breaking Bad. Homeland is damn good though but aint touching The Wire. 

 

[Maximus Meridius]

Agreed 100%. I flat out disliked Season 2 the first time around. it got better the second time around, and by 3rd time I watched it, I thought it was quite good. 

Might have to give the series my 4th spin. Hands down best series I've ever seen. Joint craps all over Breaking Bad. Homeland is damn good though but aint touching The Wire. 

 

[ayzee]

Was watching Freedom Writers last night and realized Colvin was in it

 

[coldcity]

Agreed 100%. I flat out disliked Season 2 the first time around. it got better the second time around, and by 3rd time I watched it, I thought it was quite good. 

Might have to give the series my 4th spin. Hands down best series I've ever seen. Joint craps all over Breaking Bad. Homeland is damn good though but aint touching The Wire. 

Two different beasts that shouldn't be compared

 

[do work son]

so much going on i had to get on my laptop to reply instead of mobile

When Bodie got taken out

Why do some dudes feel sad for Bodie?
He killed Wallace, plus he was an ahole in Oz.
Sexually and metaphorically.

 


Why do some dudes feel sad for Bodie?
He killed Wallace, plus he was an ahole in Oz.
Sexually and metaphorically.

He was one of the most loyal characters in the entire show.

he wasn't loyal to wallace.

Wallace wasn't loyal to any of them. he was about to snitch and take everyone down. bodie did what had to be done. there's a code. wallace broke it, bodie enforced it. it's all in the game.

he wasn't loyal to wallace.

Wallace was about to take the whole organization down. Bodie did what needed to be done there. If Wallace wasn't just a kid, I feel like viewers wouldn't have as much sympathy for him.

As far as Bodie snitching on the Marlo, I felt like it was warranted. Marlo went rogue. He killed little Kevin under false pretense. He was covering up tracks that didn't need covering. He broke the code first. Bodie followed suit. To me, you can liken Marlo to a big corporation. No regard for the little man.

i wouldn't say he broke the code, only because i don't think he had any code. he wasn't loyal to anyone. it was always just marlo chris and snoop. he even took out prop joe. zero loyalty, zero code.

when the barksdales had everything under control, they had some sort of code at least. loyalty was rewarded. they took care of their own. when wallace found the stick up boy, they killed him, and rewarded wallace for the find.

i love how that scene brings up the pawns in a chess game. going back to the first season and the chess metaphor. in retrospect, i feel so bad for bodie because in that first season was asking what happens to the pawn when it makes it all the way down, and it was a parallel to his life and would he move up in the ranks of the crew if he stayed loyal, did his job, and stayed alive. when marlo came around though, it messed up everything. that's why bodie even said, he wouldn't snitch on anyone on his corner, none of the barksdales, only
marlo.

I thought season 2 was good. Can someone express why they hated or disliked it?
Before I watched the wire, various people in the wire threads were saying that season 2 was weak.
I didn't find that to be the case.

On another note:
Season 4 was my fav. season. So many feels.
The feels I felt when you see that corner boy turned scholar giving a speech.
Son...

people don't like season 2 because season 1 you get caught in this huge wonderful storyline with tons of amazing characters. weebey, bodie, string, avon, etc etc etc. then season 2, and it's like you're not even watching the same show.

it was important to the story line like posted in that article earlier, and another part of how the story raps itself up in the end. the greek dude and the other guy were in charge of everything, and they didn't need muscle to do it. "my name is not my name" then season 3 with marlo saying my name is my name. how their mindsets were so different. those guys didn't care for respect, they just wanted to do business. while marlo wanted to be known as the kingpin. and then in the final episode, marlo can't handle being around all those suits, goes out to the corner, and they're talking about omar the legend and have no clue who marlo is. all he was made for was the street.

**** namond. he didn't deserve ****. it should of been dukie staying with lt colvin. not **** *** namond. that ******* gump.

 

[Master Zik]

Bodie did it to himself though. You just said it. He thought he was being loyal but once he started working for Marlo he aint realize he wasn't playing the same game. The writing was on the wall.

I mean Marlo had no good reason to be loyal to a dude that was working for the guys he was just about to go to war with. Son been expendable.

 

[do work son]

I completely agree bodie did it to himself, but I understand it. Wallace snitched on the barksdales, who took care of their own and rewarded loyalty. Bodie snitched on Marlo, who couldn't just killed him out of boredom. That's why bodie said "don't make me live on my knees". They became "extra expendable" under Marlo, if that makes sense.

 

[cato312]

There's no honor amongst thieves. Most of the major characters "snitched"on each other, whether it be to gain an edge or to save themselves.

 

[Mark Antony]

Truth, every single one broke the code.

 

[Master Zik]

Everyone that followed the code at least.

Marlo and Chris didn't cuz they never had to. Didn't betray each other though.

 

[cato312]

This wasn't limited to the street either..

 

[ayzee]

This wasn't limited to the street either..

Was just gonna say this. McNulty was going behind bosses backs within the very first episodes.

 

[cato312]

Was just gonna say this. McNulty was going behind bosses backs within the very first episodes.

Yup.

Rawls/Burrell had their spies.
The Greek and his FBI informant
Carver and his unit calling the paper about Hamsterdam
The court employee leaking papers to Levy
Keema diming out Lester and McNulty to the brass

 

[the 7th mile]

I cried laughing when they had Rawls posted in the Gay club like it wasn't nothing

 

[addict4sneakers]

The deacon is the real life avon. Baffling.

I just caught up on this thread and I wee bey'd.

 

[mr marcus]

Funny thing about it is the workforce is really like this....from retail to corporate

Someone will try to undercut you if the opportunity presents itself

 

[Thats My Word]

Came across this posting about the food on the wire. Read it if you're bored. Hah

http://firstwefeast.com/eat/the-25-best-food-moments-in-the-wire/