Character, story line, plot development, actor – whatever. What didn’t work, in your opinion?
For me, it was Dee, early in season one, when he’s being questioned about Gant’s killing, and he wrote a sympathy letter to Gant’s fictional family.
A couple things bug me. Dee beat a murder charge. Bunk and McNulty know Dee killed that guy in the 221 and they know he’s Avon’s nephew, obviously in the game, so why do they think he’s anything but a run-of-the-mill thug? We know that Dee was upset about the murder, but Bunk and McNulty don’t know. Yet they’re treating him like an innocent bystander, a citizen.
It seems lame that they ask Dee to write the letter and lame that Dee writes the letter. And Larry Gilliard overdid it with the lip quivering, almost crying, etc. He’d recently been schooled by WeeBay (talking business in the car) and demoted by Avon to the low-rises. He should have been on his game with the cops.
The story line was redeemed a bit with the reveal that the photo was of Bunk’s kids, not Gant’s. It showed the detectives weren’t above some subterfuge. But it was a long winding road to get there.
That whole notion of “Hamsterdam”. A ranking cop manages to put this together with the buy-in of all those officers, dealers and druggies and nobody finds out about it immediately?
Selective enforcement policies aren’t particularly unusual. The only real difference in Hamsterdam was that the terms and boundaries of the no-bust zone were explicitly given to the dealers. Kurt Schmoke had endorsed legalization in real life.
As for finding out, remember that the cops on the street didn’t buy in to the real strategy–they thought the whole point was just to set up for mass busts. And given that it was all taking place in a destroyed, largely uninhabited neighborhood within a single precinct–not that much of a stretch. There’s no real reason for any of those involved to go talking about it.
When Snoop was driving Michael with the intention of going somewhere to shoot him, and Michael realized what was happening and said “pull over, I gotta take a piss.” No way Snoop actually pulls over right then and there. Snoop is a cold-blooded killer, she would have made sure she had the upper hand on Michael at all times.
The whole fake serial killer storyline from the last season. David Simon could have made his point about a lazy and corrupt media without resorting to something so fantastical.
And maybe D’Angelo should have been more on his game when he was taken into custody, but watch the First 48. It’s kinda shocking how many murder suspects break down and confess when pressured during police interrogation, knowing the consequences of confessing, but it’s an extremely stressful situation that can break your will.
This, by far. For a series that prided itself on being realistic, Hamsterdam is such a jarring thing to behold. Wherein previous seasons, Simon’s storytelling was more naturalistic when it came to condemning the War on Drugs, with Hamsterdam he completely abandons any pretense of realism. There are a lot of great things that happen in Season 3, but for me, they suffer mightily from being surrounded by the flimsy, transparent drama of Colvin’s absurd experiment.
I’ll also throw in Gus from the newspaper in Season 5, for much the same reason. I don’t know if it improves with additional viewings, but Gus seemed like a transparent stand-in for Simon himself, and a mouth-piece for his criticism of the editors at the Baltimore Sun. I knew coming into the series that Simon had a long-standing grudge against the editorial practices at the Sun, so it was hard for me to see Gus as anything but Simon putting himself into the story.
All of season 2. I don’t know why. I just couldn’t get into it.
It’s been mentioned already, but the fake serial killer was entirely lame…a desperate attempt to give McNulty something to do. Every time the show went to that particular subplot, I’d kind of tune out. And I didn’t buy Lester going along with it either. That made it worse.
Except Omar and Snoop were based on real documented people. Brother Mouzone, not so much. Not that it makes Omar and Snoop any less cartoonish, but it gives a least a whiff of credibility. The fact that both eventually used up their 9 lives by the end of the show only enhances the whiff.
Good point. Especially since Snoop trained him. Was it the opening scene of S4, when we’re led to think that Snoop and what’s his face are hunting Michael? Faked me right out.
I liked Brother Mouzone. They didn’t overuse him, which is good.
By season five, I was more interested in the fate of the established characters rather than caring about new ones, so the whole newspaper storyline really passed me by. It’s been a year since I watched the complete series for the first time and to be honest I can barely remember anything about the newspaper plot.
The problem is the Mary Sueism of Gus’s portrayal (especially in contrast to the portrayal of his bosses, who were entirely lacking in positive qualities of any sort); that was for me the worst part of the series, that all the greys it managed elsewhere turned black and white here.
Because Simon was unable to write himself objectively. With the exception of Brother Mouzone, Gus was the only character in the series who seemed out of place; he was a walking, talking cliché whose only purpose was to uncover Templeton’s fabrications. He had no real flaws. His only failing as an editor was missing the significance of Omar’s death, and he could hardly be blamed for that. If Simon had written himself into the story and kept his most significant blemishes intact, it would have made for an interesting story, but what we got instead was the archetypal crusader character out for justice.
I didn’t find that storyline as sub-par as many people seem to, but I can understand the objections to it. Basically, David Simon had some issues with his bosses at the Sun, and painted a picture of Gus (himself) as an ideal newspaperman getting screwed over by corrupt bosses and plagiarizing reporters. Maybe a little too personal of an attack.
Snoop was basically playing herself. They even used the actress’s real name. I think that character was the scariest in the whole series, and I think that was largely because the actress was barely acting.
A lot of the characters were based on real people. Interesting bit of trivia: Melvin Williams, who played the Deacon on the show, was the real life inspiration for Avon Barksdale.
Hamsterdam didn’t bother me. Like the West Wing, it was a bit of fantasy politics, brilliantly depicted. Unlike the West Wing, reality kicked in soon enough.
I disliked Brother Mouzone, and I think the comparasion to Omar and Snoop is really unfair - those two characters were naturally integrated in the world of the Wire, whereas Mouzone just drove in one day to play the big bad.
The plagiarism storyline has been done better elsewhere (e.g., Shattered Glass) whereas there are arguably more important, though less sensationalist, storylines to tell about journalism which haven’t been explored through fiction.
