The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
You'd think "Carsetti", though.
You'd think "Carsetti", though.
-
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Oh shit, I realise what I may have done. I think the harms are limited, fortunately, but I'm going to steer clear of this thread. It could have been a lot worse.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Yeah, the thing you did spoil was something I spoiled for myself with an inopportune look at Wikipedia. I don't think it made that much difference, it seemed fairly inevitable.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Not 100%, though, because this is The Wire, and the wholly unexpected and dramatically perverse does sometimes happen. So it counts. Bugger.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
I'll probably be avoiding this thread myself from now on, cos I won't have the chance to watch any more Wire for at least the next 8 days, so I should let the Purv crack on with posting his thoughts on the remainder of series 4 (so long as he remembers to mark them clearly, so I don't get spoilered when I play catch-up...)Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Antonio Gramsci wrote:
I am sure you are right about why they chose to pronounce is "Karketti", but Baltimore's Italian population, while not close to Toronto's or New York's, is/was fairly substantial. Baltimore's most famous neighborhood is Little Italy, and there's a neighborhood called Highlandtown which has a strong Italian flavor (it's where Santino Quaranta is from, for all you MLS fans).I think Baltimore is light on wops so it would be quite unusual for anyone to pronounce his name "properly" (i.e. "Carchetti").
The Italian-American D'Alesandro family was also a political dynasty in the city: Thomas Jr was mayor for three terms, his son Thomas III was a one-termer (the glasses-wearing former mayor whom Carcetti consults at the beginning of season 4 is based on him), and his granddaughter is Nancy Pelosi.
That said, Carcetti makes reference to the dwindling numbers/influence of Italians in Baltimore as compared with Greeks and Poles at some point during season 4.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
What's the deal with the, for want of a better word, anglophilia of the Wire? Quite apart from the casting of McNulty, Stringer, Carcetti-sort-of and arguably Freamon they just keep chucking in little lines that I'm sure are there as an in-joke. I mean, obviously there's Cutty's real name but there are others. I keep meaning to take note of them and compile a list or something but I keep forgetting. I got reminded of another one last night, though, while the GLW was playing catchup on Series 4 - in Prezbo's first meeting with the Edward J Tilghman school principal and secretary the secretary makes reference to two other teachers named "Parker" and "Bowles". And there have been a few others in this vein.
What's going on with all this stuff? I mean, it's not slavish anglophilia, as can be seen by McNulty's remarks about Cromwell in Series 2.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
It occurs to me on reflection that it might not be the pronunciation of Carcetti's name that's been anglicised but the spelling. If the Carchettis came over from Italy and got the "ch" in their name pronounced as if in English, they may have altered it to make it clearer (and would have been unlikely to use a K which would have made it even clearer). I think that happens quite a lot.
Half of my ex's extended family had their name spelled Billeci rather that Belleci just because sometime way back when before WWII one of them got a government cheque with that name on it and rather than send it back he just opened his first bank account in that name, and the spelling spread outwards.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Purves Grundy wrote:
I think Cutty's real name, at least, may be pure coincidence. There's a real Baltimore ex-hitman with that name. Wait till you meet Iain "Pretty Boy" Dowie in Series 5, though.What's the deal with the, for want of a better word, anglophilia of the Wire? Quite apart from the casting of McNulty, Stringer, Carcetti-sort-of and arguably Freamon they just keep chucking in little lines that I'm sure are there as an in-joke. I mean, obviously there's Cutty's real name but there are others. I keep meaning to take note of them and compile a list or something but I keep forgetting. I got reminded of another one last night, though, while the GLW was playing catchup on Series 4 - in Prezbo's first meeting with the Edward J Tilghman school principal and secretary the secretary makes reference to two other teachers named "Parker" and "Bowles". And there have been a few others in this vein.
What's going on with all this stuff? I mean, it's not slavish anglophilia, as can be seen by McNulty's remarks about Cromwell in Series 2.
I hadn't realised till now that Clarke Peters was based over here.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
The reason for the high percentage of British-based actors was it was the easiest (and cheapest) way to find good character actors who would not be known too well to American audiences, and therefore maintain the element of surprise.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Simon gave a great interview about it. It's not that they were British per se, it's that they were great stage actors. Simon recruited from the NYC theatre stages. The guy who was Carcetti may have been one of the greatest political performances ever. He's dead on to many American politicians.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
He's also the only person to have performed rimming on mainstream British TV. I don't know if these two facts are related.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
in the book homicide they refer to the bad old days when guys like dennis cutty wise were dropping victims all over Baltimore and it took years to catch him.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
the names of the two useless cops in the first few episodes of series 1, polk and mahon, are an irish in-joke.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Why on Earth... wrote:
Watching an episoide from season 3 last night, I noticed in the credits that the theme music was performed by "The Neville Brothers".I think Cutty's real name, at least, may be pure coincidence. There's a real Baltimore ex-hitman with that name. Wait till you meet Iain "Pretty Boy" Dowie in Series 5, though.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
EPISODE 5 'ALLIANCES'
Relatively little to say about this one.
It's never pleasant to see a grown man humiliated in front of children, but it happened twice in this episode: Prezbo (by Namond Brice) and Bubbles (by some random druggie and, one step removed, by Sherrod who didn't intervene).
It's fairly clear which way the mayoral struggle is heading, even if I hadn't been spoilered. It's not my favourite storyline anyway, so I just want them to get on with it now.
The best thing about this episode was the kids sitting around the alleyway in the dark, scaring each other (and themselves) by making up ever more lurid fantasies about Chris Partlow being some sort of 'zombie master'. So true to life.
I remember doing that sort of shit myself with my friends, inventing whole secret lives for innocent passers-by, like some old guy actually being a spy or whatever. (Not that the word 'innocent' quite applies to Partlow, but y'know.)
Marlo shaking hands with Prop Joe and joining the co-op is a significant development. Interested to see how that goes.
One thing that worried me in this episode was the slightly showy, un-Wirelike camera work in Prezbo's classroom scenes. It kept whooshing and whirling around his face like the fucking Matrix or something.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Most of us lose our innocence when Santa Claus turns out to be our parents. These kids lose their innocence when brain-controlled zombies turn out to be just rotting dead corpses.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
EPISODE 10 - "MISGIVINGS"
Need to give this a few lines for the above episode name to make itself known to readers. That way, maybe their eyes won't be drawn to the few short lines below.
General observations to kill time:
Back in episode 9 they did their favourite thing of a compare & contrast. This time with the comparison between (a) Colvin getting Namond Brice and the other excluded kids to talk about how they do what they do, with (b) Carcetti sitting in with Freamon, Greggs and the homicide team while they talk about how they do what they do.
Herc is only exceeded in his cretinousness by that goatee-d motherfucker who works with him. His stupidity when confronted with an obviously jokey "Little John-style nickname" would be unbelievable if it wasn't so believable.
You know what I said about there being no jokes in Series 4? Proposition Joe's phone call where he tracks down Herc undercuts all that.
Wire Scumbags? How I asaid that it began and ended with Poot? That was before we saw Merrimow and Namond's Mum.
Open-mouthed "fuck me" moment? Rawls brazenly stabbing Burrel in the back. Stunning.
and so to episode 10.
Firstly, that has to be the most brutal and distressing opening sequence yet.
And to get to the meat of it, the only thing you're left saying after that episode...
...
"Boss"?????????
What the fuck is going on with Michael?Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
I remember doing that sort of shit myself with my friends, inventing whole secret lives for innocent passers-by, like some old guy actually being a spy or whatever.
"She said the man in the gaberdene suit was a spy,
I said be careful his bowtie is really a camera."Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
EPISODE 6 'MARGIN OF ERROR'
I guess I'm posting 'blind' for a while, now that Purv's onto episode 10 already, but I feel the need to record my thoughts for posterity.
So, Carcetti won, but he's already shown signs of corruptability (politically, in his willingness to bribe Clay Davis, and personally, in his very-near-willingness to cheat on his wife with that campaign manager).
The scene at the start, with all the candidates and their running mates ostentatiously doing the happy-clappy thing at the church, really rams home how hard it must be for an atheist to seek public office in the States.
That smear flyer with Carcetti photoshopped next to a notorious slumlord - do American elections really get that dirty? I mean, that blatantly, in-front-of-the-scenes dirty.
I also wonder how often, in real elections, young drug 'hoppers' are recruited to do the flyering. Quite often, I suspect, and neither side would dare make any capital of it because they know it would probably blow up in their own faces.
Marlo humiliating Herc with that fake drugs pick-up at the railway station was amusing enough, but hasn't he got better things to do? Also, tactically it would surely have been better to let the cops carry on thinking he didn't know they had a spy cam trained on his outdoor lair...
I tell you who I hate: Carcetti's wife Jennifer. She always seems to be in soft-focus. I'm not sure that they actually shoot her in soft-focus, but that's always the way she comes across, with her doe eyes, gentle voice and simpleton smile. No-one's that angelic and trusting. They might as well have Busky Berkeley choirs singing when she comes on screen, and Disney fairy twinkles dancing around her face.
I tell you who I love: Namond's mum, De'Londa Brice. Insisting that her son stays on at school and insisting that he become a street corner drug dealer, and refusing to see any contradiction there. While she sits on her arse in her pimped-out superfly home, paid for by Wee-bey, expecting the rump of the Barksdale organisation to keep funding her lifestyle. And giving the full Jerry Springer guest attitude to anyone who disagrees. What a character.
Slightly depressing to see everyone's favourite dandy highwayman Omar getting arrested by that boneheaded House Of Pain guy, but one trusts that McNulty's misgivings will get him off the hook eventually. The scene with him squaring up to fight with those two giants in the cell was hilarious. What kind of dagger was that he was given? A glass one? Plastic? To escape metal detection, I guess.
You know that Duquan kid? He reminds me of one of my mates at school: a really good kid who for some reason always smelt of shit, and I was the only person who would sit with him in class. I never worked out why he always smelt of shit.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
The photoshopped flier might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but that kind of stuff happens every election, it seems. The examples are innumerable, but generally what happens is mysterious and unattributed rumors and/or fliers get circulated in the day(s) immediately before the election. They tend to target poorer/blacker/less-educated voters (i.e., Democrats), and generally involve some sort of trickery such as lying about documentation needed to vote, or where the polling places are, or about who some prominent black citizens have endorsed.
Here's a relatively recent example from Maryland:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2006/11/md_gop_candidate_recruits_home.php
Ehrlich lost the election to the "real life" Carcetti, Martin O'Malley. The storyline involving the tension between Carcetti and the unnamed Republican Governor in season 4 is largely based on the extremely tense relationship between O'Malley and Ehrlich. Ehrlich has a cameo in Season 4 as a security guard at the Maryland State House, but I don't think you've gotten to that yet.
Although I suppose it could have been smuggled in, I think the knife given to Omar is a shiv, which at least in American English generally refers to a knife made inside prison using whatever materials one can scrounge up. The older guy who gives Omar the shiv is Donnie Andrews, the real-life model for Omar.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Simon (or anyone else who finds US urban politics interesting,) if you have a dvd rental place or an easy way to watch documentaries, be absolutely sure to watch Streetfight.
It is about the 2002 Newark NJ mayoral race between Sharpe James, who's essentially Mayor Royce, and Corey Booker, who is good friends and allies with Barack Obama. It's about the old corrupt guard (James, Jesse Jackson, Rev Al Sharpton,) vs the new and idealistic guard (Booker, Cornell West, Spike Lee.) Much of the political aspects from the Wire are seen very clearly in this.
To answer your question is a flyer like that is not in any way exaggerated. In fact, that's tame as shit. As in to-be-expected level of tame. Usually flyers like that invoke slavery (as in this candidate's family owned slaves) or question the blackness of another candidate (he's not really black) or that they are personal friends with Republicans. As Soc Scrim said, both sides "bring out the base" with the worst and most lurid accusations.
And yes, getting local hoppers to hand out flyers is absolutely par for the course. As Streetfight showed, that's actually quite tame (because at least they live in the city that the election is going on in.)
Please see Streetfight at some point in your life, that's all I ask.
And yes, Namond's mom is outstanding. It's the quisessential domineering "helicopter mom" tale told in reverse. Usually it's the suburban white boy who rebels against his Nazi parent by turning to drugs.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Ah, my confusion about Michael is resolved by the discovery that I missed out episode 9.
Another episode 10 observation (that I don't really think counts as a spoiler):
I'm confused about the timeframes here. They appear to have recast McNulty's children with two new actors who both appear to be about 4 years too old.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
Aren't they Beadie Russell's kids? If I recall, McNulty's kids are teenagers by this or the fifth series.Comment
-
The Wire Series 4 (no longer spoiler free)
The same actors played McNulty's kids throughout the series. Kids grow up fast.Comment
Comment