The Wire Season 3
Feb. 16th, 2013 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakBeing with the APs to get cured of the flu makes for limited internet access but much dvd time. And thus, two seasons for the price of one, while I'm ages behind answering the replies to the last posts, sorry. Will try to remedy. Onwards with the Baltimore saga!
Season 3 had three main plots, the city hall politics, "Hamsterdam" and the Shakespearean Stringer versus Avon tale which I'd been expecting for a quite a while. I found all three compelling and especially appreciate that there were no easy answers provided regarding Bunny Colvin's attempt to essentially legalize drugs for his district. I felt that both the horror - just about every walk through "Hamsterdam", especially the time when Bubbles does it - and the advantages (peaceful times for the rest of the district) were fairly represented, and that Colvin was written and played as a very sympathetic character who at least tries instead of giving up and just thinking of statistics and career advantages without necessarily saying that his solution was viable or right. (Also obviously it was limited and doomed from the get go, as sooner or later the truth HAD to come out.) It's also an interesting counterpoint to what I consider one of the best DS9 episodes, or rather, two parters, Present Tense, in which the establishment of so called sanctuary zones in which the homeless, criminal and mentally ill end up is however presented as a way for the rich to keep any social problems outside their space and basically confined to a prison.
likeadeuce had told me there was Aidan Gillen in the later seasons, and indeed he was, looking more like the first role I'd seen him in, Stuart Allan Jones from Queer as Folk (UK, the original) than his current Petyr Littlefinger in Game of Thrones, and being unlike either. I liked Garcetti, who came across as a believable mixture of self interest and idealism to me. (More about that later.) However, the new character whose story I found most compelling in s3 was Dennis aka Cutty (that's how it's spelled in the subtitles on my dvds anyway, though the characters pronounce it like Lisa Edelstein's character in House, Cuddy, which is confusing), Avon Barksdale's prison pal who gets out early on and has basically the reverse story from the cliché. Instead of trying hard to stay legit only to fall and end up a criminal again, he after a very brief nod to respectability tries very hard to be a criminal again, finds he can't do it anymore, and manages to create a new legit life as a boxing coach in a gym for the community. (This plot in retrospect also prepares several s4 themes; yes, I've also watched s4, but one season at a time, and also, limited internet access to post, see above.) Of course, he lucked out in as much as his criminal overlord was Avon, not Marlo. *shudders* In an s1 commentary David Simon mentions that they tried to give everyone the occasional moment of humanity to make them three dimensional (like the usually vitriolic Rawles helping McNulty after Kima's shooting instead of kicking him when he's down), and for Avon, two of those are first respecting Cutty for walking away and later helping him with the money for the gym. And thus Cutty's tale serves as an optimistic counterpoint to a lot of things going downhill elsewhere.
As mentioned I had expected an Avon versus Stringer confrontation, but I had been thinking of something like a shootout, which in retrospect was stupid of me, because in retrospect it really had to be a mutual betrayal. Complete with a scene that reminded me a bit of the "I know it was you, Fredo, I know it was you" scene from Godfather II, where Michael Corleone, having figured out his brother Fredo had to be the leak, kisses him on the mouth then whispers those words in his ear (and Fredo knows he's doomed). Though because Stringer and Avon are equals in a way Fredo and Michael never were, and both the betrayals and the affection are mutual, the balcony scene is possibly even more powerful. Their fates - death for Stringer and prison for Avon, with the added blow in both cases that they're informed the respective other, the person they care most about in the world, has betrayed them - are also satisfying narratively because what made Wallace's face in s1 to horrible was that in addition to getting shot at the age of 16, he was getting shot by his friends. It didn't escape my notice that Stringer's death was at the hands of two people (Omar and Brother Mouzoune), just as both Bodie and Poot fired at Wallace. For Avon, ending up in prison again, this time without his power or prospect of an early release, with his best friend dead and his sister now hating him because while he hadn't ordered her son's death and found out about it long after the fact, he was morally co-responsible, to me felt as karmic payback not for Wallace but for D'Angelo's fate (hence also that moment where after looking at Brianna's stony face in court he turns again and sees the dead D'Angelo). Much as this plot line was good drama, I'm also glad this was essentially the wrap up for the Barkdale tale, instead of dragging the fall of the empire out for some more seasons; it felt just paced right.
Of course, the Barksdale empire isn't the only thing falling apart. 'Tis the season where McNulty manages to piss off Lester and Daniels both, realises there really is no going back with the ex and that Rhonda Pearlman isn't available for the occasional sex anymore because she started an actual relationship with Daniels, finally hears Stringer make an incriminating statement on the phone only to have the guy get shot before he can get arrested, and decides to go back to street level policing at the end; where Kima's relationship with Cheryl falls apart for good, for a variety of reasons, some of which are paralleled with the already ended Daniels marriage (and btw, I'm grateful Marla gets to be a politician in her own right now and isn't vilified for it), and some of which are specific. It occured to me that Kima's unease with the idea and reality of having a family which I spotted in s2 already and which gets really glaring here is something that works, dramatically speaking, quite different in a same sex relationship than if Kima were straight and her partner a man, or conversely if she herself were a male character and Cheryl remained a woman. Because in an m/f relationship where one partner wants to have a child and the other one doesn't (and agrees for the wrong reasons, i.e. feeling guilty, only to find they can't cope with the reality), one tends to side with the woman both if she's the one who wants to have the child and if she's the one who doesn't want it, both for historical patriarchy reasons and for the fact she is the partner who has to deal with nine month of pregnancy and the birth. But if both partners are women, things are far more complicated emotionally. Well, for me at least.
The death of Johnny had to happen, and Bubbles gets a brief window of hope with the next kid he adopts (though alas, I've just seen how THAT ends). Bubbles is an increasingly tragic character, and as David Simon said in an s1 commentary he's based on a real person, it doubly breaks my heart.
Bits and pieces: Dennis/Cutty watching one of Muhammad Ali's legendary fights with the kids in the last episode and the amazed "Ali, he young" from the kids reminded me of feeling a similar visual shock the first time I saw When We Were Kings. Though of course the crucial statement in that scene is Cutty saying that that any man standing so long in the ring should be respected, whether or not he loses a fight, which is basically the attitude the show takes towards most of its characters (whose wins tend to be very temporary).
Not much Beadie Russell, but her brief reappearance at the end was delightful. McNulty asking to get introduced to her kids surprisingly worked for me as an emotional short hand to prepare for the relationship they have in s4.
Season 3 had three main plots, the city hall politics, "Hamsterdam" and the Shakespearean Stringer versus Avon tale which I'd been expecting for a quite a while. I found all three compelling and especially appreciate that there were no easy answers provided regarding Bunny Colvin's attempt to essentially legalize drugs for his district. I felt that both the horror - just about every walk through "Hamsterdam", especially the time when Bubbles does it - and the advantages (peaceful times for the rest of the district) were fairly represented, and that Colvin was written and played as a very sympathetic character who at least tries instead of giving up and just thinking of statistics and career advantages without necessarily saying that his solution was viable or right. (Also obviously it was limited and doomed from the get go, as sooner or later the truth HAD to come out.) It's also an interesting counterpoint to what I consider one of the best DS9 episodes, or rather, two parters, Present Tense, in which the establishment of so called sanctuary zones in which the homeless, criminal and mentally ill end up is however presented as a way for the rich to keep any social problems outside their space and basically confined to a prison.
likeadeuce had told me there was Aidan Gillen in the later seasons, and indeed he was, looking more like the first role I'd seen him in, Stuart Allan Jones from Queer as Folk (UK, the original) than his current Petyr Littlefinger in Game of Thrones, and being unlike either. I liked Garcetti, who came across as a believable mixture of self interest and idealism to me. (More about that later.) However, the new character whose story I found most compelling in s3 was Dennis aka Cutty (that's how it's spelled in the subtitles on my dvds anyway, though the characters pronounce it like Lisa Edelstein's character in House, Cuddy, which is confusing), Avon Barksdale's prison pal who gets out early on and has basically the reverse story from the cliché. Instead of trying hard to stay legit only to fall and end up a criminal again, he after a very brief nod to respectability tries very hard to be a criminal again, finds he can't do it anymore, and manages to create a new legit life as a boxing coach in a gym for the community. (This plot in retrospect also prepares several s4 themes; yes, I've also watched s4, but one season at a time, and also, limited internet access to post, see above.) Of course, he lucked out in as much as his criminal overlord was Avon, not Marlo. *shudders* In an s1 commentary David Simon mentions that they tried to give everyone the occasional moment of humanity to make them three dimensional (like the usually vitriolic Rawles helping McNulty after Kima's shooting instead of kicking him when he's down), and for Avon, two of those are first respecting Cutty for walking away and later helping him with the money for the gym. And thus Cutty's tale serves as an optimistic counterpoint to a lot of things going downhill elsewhere. As mentioned I had expected an Avon versus Stringer confrontation, but I had been thinking of something like a shootout, which in retrospect was stupid of me, because in retrospect it really had to be a mutual betrayal. Complete with a scene that reminded me a bit of the "I know it was you, Fredo, I know it was you" scene from Godfather II, where Michael Corleone, having figured out his brother Fredo had to be the leak, kisses him on the mouth then whispers those words in his ear (and Fredo knows he's doomed). Though because Stringer and Avon are equals in a way Fredo and Michael never were, and both the betrayals and the affection are mutual, the balcony scene is possibly even more powerful. Their fates - death for Stringer and prison for Avon, with the added blow in both cases that they're informed the respective other, the person they care most about in the world, has betrayed them - are also satisfying narratively because what made Wallace's face in s1 to horrible was that in addition to getting shot at the age of 16, he was getting shot by his friends. It didn't escape my notice that Stringer's death was at the hands of two people (Omar and Brother Mouzoune), just as both Bodie and Poot fired at Wallace. For Avon, ending up in prison again, this time without his power or prospect of an early release, with his best friend dead and his sister now hating him because while he hadn't ordered her son's death and found out about it long after the fact, he was morally co-responsible, to me felt as karmic payback not for Wallace but for D'Angelo's fate (hence also that moment where after looking at Brianna's stony face in court he turns again and sees the dead D'Angelo). Much as this plot line was good drama, I'm also glad this was essentially the wrap up for the Barkdale tale, instead of dragging the fall of the empire out for some more seasons; it felt just paced right.
Of course, the Barksdale empire isn't the only thing falling apart. 'Tis the season where McNulty manages to piss off Lester and Daniels both, realises there really is no going back with the ex and that Rhonda Pearlman isn't available for the occasional sex anymore because she started an actual relationship with Daniels, finally hears Stringer make an incriminating statement on the phone only to have the guy get shot before he can get arrested, and decides to go back to street level policing at the end; where Kima's relationship with Cheryl falls apart for good, for a variety of reasons, some of which are paralleled with the already ended Daniels marriage (and btw, I'm grateful Marla gets to be a politician in her own right now and isn't vilified for it), and some of which are specific. It occured to me that Kima's unease with the idea and reality of having a family which I spotted in s2 already and which gets really glaring here is something that works, dramatically speaking, quite different in a same sex relationship than if Kima were straight and her partner a man, or conversely if she herself were a male character and Cheryl remained a woman. Because in an m/f relationship where one partner wants to have a child and the other one doesn't (and agrees for the wrong reasons, i.e. feeling guilty, only to find they can't cope with the reality), one tends to side with the woman both if she's the one who wants to have the child and if she's the one who doesn't want it, both for historical patriarchy reasons and for the fact she is the partner who has to deal with nine month of pregnancy and the birth. But if both partners are women, things are far more complicated emotionally. Well, for me at least.
The death of Johnny had to happen, and Bubbles gets a brief window of hope with the next kid he adopts (though alas, I've just seen how THAT ends). Bubbles is an increasingly tragic character, and as David Simon said in an s1 commentary he's based on a real person, it doubly breaks my heart.
Bits and pieces: Dennis/Cutty watching one of Muhammad Ali's legendary fights with the kids in the last episode and the amazed "Ali, he young" from the kids reminded me of feeling a similar visual shock the first time I saw When We Were Kings. Though of course the crucial statement in that scene is Cutty saying that that any man standing so long in the ring should be respected, whether or not he loses a fight, which is basically the attitude the show takes towards most of its characters (whose wins tend to be very temporary).
Not much Beadie Russell, but her brief reappearance at the end was delightful. McNulty asking to get introduced to her kids surprisingly worked for me as an emotional short hand to prepare for the relationship they have in s4.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 04:32 pm (UTC)- I don't have the link but hopefully she'll be able to share it --
- Dennis aka Cutty (that's how it's spelled in the subtitles on my dvds anyway, though the characters pronounce it like Lisa Edelstein's character in House, Cuddy I have a mid-Atlantic (though not Baltimore) accent and I don't think I would pronounce 'Cutty' and 'Cuddy' any differently. There's probably a complicated thing about voiced and voiceless consonants in regional dialects that a linguist could explain, but for me I can't think of the sounds being any different.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 09:14 am (UTC)