I’m Glad you mentioned Hamsterdam. This is what my ear heard, but I fought it might just be an accent or whatever that caused the mispronunciation of Amsterdam. After all this time I can finally say that I wasn’t hearing things!
As for the Colvin -Burrell - Rawls issue and how Colvin could have laid the blame at Burris and Rawls feet… I guess we’ll never know. But if you remember , Burriss had his enemies at the mayors office. They wanted him out. I doubt it would have taken a lot to get Royce’s staff to choose to believe he was aware of it, Rawls was also a back-stabbing SOB concerned about moving up only. It doesn’t stretch the imagination to believe that each guy would say what he needed to get his own butt off the hook. But the show didn’t have unlimited time to delve into this, and letting Colvin take the hit wrapped up the season nicely.
It was the drug dealers and buyers that called it Hamsterdam, because they misheard it. Kind of like Justin Bieber saying Sixteenth Chapel on Letterman.
My take on Colvin’s reluctance to keep fighting is sheer tiredness. He’s been in the bearpit of the BPD his entire working life, has reached the realisation that despite everything he’s done his city’s stuck in a spiral of drug-fuelled violence and he just wants to get out. Fighting Rawls and Burrell might work or it could just bring down the careers of all his proteges for no real gain. So he just took the hits and walked away. Certainly when we see him last (with Naimond as his adopted son?) he seems one of the few characters to be at peace.
As for Rawls, I also liked the way his orienation was made clear and not really brought up again. Whether a deliberate choice by the writers or not it worked for me. Rawls’ isn’t defined by his homosexuality, he’s a policeman who happens to be gay.
In season 1 was there any reason for Wallace to think he wouldn’t be in danger if he returned? OK maybe he’s just a stupid kid or what not but having talked to the police surely he knew his days were numbered.
Your opinion is wrong. It clearly derives from one of the low-level street dealers mishearing the word “Amsterdam.” “Hamsterdam” is what he thinks is being said, likely because he never heard of the city in Holland.
I think he was just too innocent. He knew he hadn’t snitched, so he figured everybody else would know it too, that they’d trust him. These people were his family, in his mind. He’d worked it out, come to terms with what happened, and was ready to get back in the game. He didn’t see himself as dangerous to the Barksdale organization so he didn’t think they’d see him as a danger either.
I agree with this. There are all kinds of strategies one can think of, in retrospect, that he might have used to protect himself and his people. But in the end, Bunny Colvin is a great cop, and a leader dedicated to his people – he is definitely not a politician. If he was a political thinker at all, we never would have seen Hamsterdam in the first place.
Herc says it will be “like Amsterdam” (where drugs are legal) and the dealers don’t hear him correctly and/or misinterpret his accent, and repeat it as “Hamsterdam” or “Hampsterdam.”
Similarly, when Bodie is arrested after Hamsterdam is shut down, he accuses McNulty of “contrapment.” He’s not being clever. He just doesn’t exactly know the right word.
Actually, the name of the episode that introduced the drug free zones was titled “Hamsterdam” S3E04
RE: The Rawls is gay plotline…I agree that the show did great things with characterization by just showing something once and never going back to it. Another example would be Chris Partlow’s entire backstory in S4 that was revealed in one scene with little (if any) dialogue.
I think that’s a reference to Big Chris’s killing of Michael’s stepfather, who it’s implied has molested Michael and his brother in the past. Chris’s frenzied attack is very different to the cold-blooded way we’ve seen him discharge his duties in the past, making it seem likely that he was a victim of abuse as a child as well. All this is revealed in a very economical way and never really referred to again later.
Not only that, but when Michael asks Chris and Snoop to get rid of his father, Snoop asks “What the fuck he do to you?” In response, Michael doesn’t say anything, just gives them an angry look and keeps quiet. It’s clear right then that Chris has a pretty good idea why he wants his father gone, and says, “Alright, we’ll take of it boss.”
I actually disagree with this. Snoop seems pretty surprised at Chris’s wild rage, and when he finishes beating the guy to a pulp and then walks away, Snoop says, “Damn. You didn’t even wait to get the motherfucker in the house.” She looks at him in amazement, as if she doesn’t know why he went so crazy.
