Just polished off season four last night. I liked it a lot, but it wasn't my favorite. Truth be told, I like my Wire with more gritty police work, a bit less mayoral politics, more Omar, and for God's sake, a drunk-ass McNulty.

It looks like season five is headed in this direction...yay.

Season 4 had the cleanest, most predictable arc. Everything started moving towards a positive conclusion about halfway through the season, there were fewer changes of direction in the lives and storylines, so it was pretty clear how things were going to play out. You never wonder if Lester's going to find where the bodies have been hidden, you know that Bubbles' efforts to get back at his antagonist are going to backfire and torture him, so you just wait for the outcomes to resolve themselves.

Season 4's all about how individuals are confronting themselves and their future -- the institutional prerogatives and responsibilities that dominated the characters in the earlier seasons are all channeled into the mayoral election, which is pretty conventional stuff compared to the baroque cops vs. gangsters vs. gangsters scenarios seen before. Plus there's the focus on the kids, who have more individual stories and more fluid connections to institutions, and that gives more of a sense of characters moving on their own trajectories than what we're used to from the show.

Season 5 is going to be fucking ruthless. Can't wait.

The MayorofRockNRoll wrote:

sharko wrote:bo-ring cra-po-la

Oh you just hush. You just shut your dirty little mouth, shut your dirty little mouth, shut your dirty little mouth.

Oh sure, you're entitled to your opinion, and to your right to express it

but you just shut that dirty little mouth of yours

shhh shhh...wha..? What did I say? Shhhh....

I'll do that.

After you blow me with that minty fresh mouth of yours.

Love,
S

sharko wrote:bo-ring cra-po-la

if the wire is boring crapola, then please let me know what isn't.

I'd love to see it, cause it must be phenomenal. PHEEEENOMINAL!

sharko wrote:

The MayorofRockNRoll wrote:

sharko wrote:bo-ring cra-po-la

Oh you just hush. You just shut your dirty little mouth, shut your dirty little mouth, shut your dirty little mouth.

Oh sure, you're entitled to your opinion, and to your right to express it

but you just shut that dirty little mouth of yours

shhh shhh...wha..? What did I say? Shhhh....

I'll do that.

After you blow me with that minty fresh mouth of yours.

Love,
S

I'm allergic to shellfish, especially crabs.

Season 4 was my favorite, perhaps because I could identify with it a bit more, having taught 4th grade in south central LA.

I was actually surprised at how similar the 8th graders in the show were compared to the kids in my class. Although none were dealing drugs, they were definitely concerned with the same things, such as candy, clothing, the opposite sex, etc.

It was also extremely dead-on how the kids would react differently to different teachers. However, one thing that was way off and unrealistic was the amount of support prez got from from the principals. Where I was teaching, I was on my own. I had to deal with discipline all by myself. If you sent a kid down to the office, the principals would send them right back. And if you even questioned this policy a bit, you would only make your job more difficult as they would put more kids with discipline problems into your class and remove the well behaved ones.

Simon says the wire is about institutions and not crime etc., and that makes sense. You kind of get a sense of it, with colvin and the resistance from the "puzzle factory," but it is even more stifling than that. There was nothing about the usual adversarial relationships you have with parents, very little about feeling completely powerless to do anything to help these kids and absolutely nothing about the adversarial relationships you have with other teachers.

For instance, I never had a janitor clean my room. During xmas break, another teacher stole my books. There were several teachers in the school who had tenure and just collected a pay check and let the kids run around the school with no supervision. Every teacher was supposed to have a teacher's aide who was a student in college studying education. My teacher's aide? Was a person with mental retardation from the neighborhood.

You also can never take a day off. 1. there are no substitutes available for your school as no one wants to work there. If you do miss work, your class will get dumped on another teacher for the day. If you do manage to somehow line up a sub, it will be a disaster as the kids will take liberties with the sub.

One day there was a mass murder in the neighborhood and they locked the school down, with helicopters flying overhead for hours. I went home that night and watched the news. There was no mention of it at all.

I'm allergic to shellfish, especially crabs.

Well then dinner's on me. And please let me order for you. No,no- it'll be a surprise...

So good. Probably the best TV show ever.

How else could I have learned:

In Chicago, one might say

"I ain't goin' to jail over this shit."

But in Baltimore, you say

"I ain't goin' to jail behind this shit."

Also: The odd use of "Police" as a proper noun.

"He's stone police", "I was a police."

Oh, and when Bodie and that other guy drive out of the city and Bodie learns that other radio stations exist outside the city by stumbling across Prairie Home Companion - that was genius, but became Nobel Prize Genius when he was still listening to it much later.

Soooo good

-r

Anyone catch those shorts that are up on HBO demand? There fuckin cool. There like these three one minute shorts that deal with a few character's past. There is a young Prop Joe selling tests in school, a young Omar and the first time Bunk and Mcnulty met.

eephour wrote:Anyone catch those shorts that are up on HBO demand? There fuckin cool. There like these three one minute shorts that deal with a few character's past. There is a young Prop Joe selling tests in school, a young Omar and the first time Bunk and Mcnulty met.

Man, hopefully that'll be a DVD extra whenever season 5 decides to come out.

I just now finished season 4. I'd say that, yeah, it took a little longer to hook me because the plot involving mayoral politics initially seemed to be weighing things down and slowing things, plotwise. Until you get further into the season and it just makes it that much richer.

Still, things were at their most interesting when the kids and the education system took the forefront.

Fuck...I guess season 5 is supposed to be the last season. At least you know it ends before it starts sucking.