Was Rawls on "The Wire" gay?

[mr.jp]

I think season 1 of the Wire was definitely the best.

AP > What do you mean Deadwood is overblown?

[madmonk28]

My ranking of the Wire seasons from best to worst (but still good):
1
4
3
2
5

[Zsofia]

You didn’t think the docks season was good? I’m not a big fan of 5, though, or 3 for that matter except at the end.

Rome was not in the same league, not at all. I mean, we enjoyed it, but we’re not still talking about it much.

[madmonk28]

I thought the docks season was disjointed from the rest of the city plots. I also thought it was a little heavy handed.

Season 5, I thought what Jimmy did (without giving away spoilers) wasn’t convincing. Also, I thought the Baltimore Sun plot was weak, the evil editors were more cartoonish and less real than hardcore drug dealers, the creator was settling some scores.

Having said that, the Wire is still awesome, even the weaker ones.

[AuntiePam]

@mr.jp

AP > What do you mean Deadwood is overblown?

Noisy and operatic, often complex to the point of convolution. I won’t say that people didn’t talk like that in the late 1800’s, but I don’t think brothel owners in mining camps talked like that. Although I have to admit the dialogue was often beautiful – critics compared it to Shakespeare. Some of the scenes were Shakesperean as well – especially some of Al’s murders, and Cy Tolliver on his balcony in season three, Wolcott murdering the whores.

Now that I think about it, those things were what drew me to the show in the first place. I think I’m just still pissed at how it ended. If Milch hadn’t been so ambitious, we might have had a fourth season.

Never mind!

[BKReporter]

@madmonk28

I thought the docks season was disjointed from the rest of the city plots. I also thought it was a little heavy handed.

Season 5, I thought what Jimmy did (without giving away spoilers) wasn’t convincing. Also, I thought the Baltimore Sun plot was weak, the evil editors were more cartoonish and less real than hardcore drug dealers, the creator was settling some scores.

Having said that, the Wire is still awesome, even the weaker ones.

I thought the fifth season got a lot of little things right about the newspaper business. And the industry certainly has no shortage of douchebag managers like those who were on the show. But I agree the whole conflict with Templeton was really too black and white. You had the wise, can-do-no-wrong Gus going up against the evil, know-nothing editors. And making stuff up is about the worst offense you can accuse a journalist of committing. Even the most boneheaded manager isn’t just going to blow off suspicions that one of his reporters is engaging in such behavior, even if said reporter is a major kiss-ass like Templeton.

[Zsofia]

The newspaper plot is so stupidly black and white, no pun intended. The show was better than that. It lacked all subtlety and thought. Plus, you know what’s wrong with newspapers? Not reporters who make shit up or dumb editors - complicated factors. You know, like we learned about with the docks and the schools and the police force and all.

[AuntiePam]

Do you think Simon simplified the newspaper story line because he thought we wouldn’t understand it? That the average joe wouldn’t know how things work?

[madmonk28]

As others have said, the newspaper story was to black and white (and read all over?). Avon Barksdale was more sympathetic than the editor at the Sun. Avon killed people left and right, all the editor did was be a kind of pompous dick. Also Gus was saint like. Every other person on the show was deeply flawed, except the heroic Gus who wakes up in the middle of the night to correct copy. I think Simon was so consumed with revenge on the Sun that he lost sight of the soul of the show.

[Tamerlane]

@BKReporter

You had the wise, can-do-no-wrong Gus going up against the evil, know-nothing editors.

Of course the main writer’s counter-argument is that Gus also screws up by missing all the big storylines throughout the year. It’s a little weak as a counter-punch ( Gus is too much the white knight ), but it does add another a layer.

[Fuzzy_Dunlop]

@madmonk28

I thought the docks season was disjointed from the rest of the city plots. I also thought it was a little heavy handed.

My biggest problem with it was that it seemed so far from season 1 and I didn’t know how the show worked yet. I think a lot of the Wire fans had the benefit of a nearly unanimous chorus of people saying it was an amazing show but watching it from the beginning, I spent a good portion of the season worrying about where the show was going. If I watched season 2 again I’d probably realize it was much more like the other seasons than I thought, but at the time it felt a lot different than 1.

@madmonk28

Season 5, I thought what Jimmy did (without giving away spoilers) wasn’t convincing. Also, I thought the Baltimore Sun plot was weak, the evil editors were more cartoonish and less real than hardcore drug dealers, the creator was settling some scores.

The newspaper characters, good and bad, were downright Dickensian.

[PrettyVacant]

@Tamerlane

Of course the main writer’s counter-argument is that Gus also screws up by missing all the big storylines throughout the year. It’s a little weak as a counter-punch ( Gus is too much the white knight ), but it does add another a layer.

David Simon:

The main theme is that, with the exception of the bookends – at the beginning, the excellent effort at adversarial journalism that begins the piece in episode one and the genuine piece of narrative journalism that concludes it, with Bubbles – it’s a newspaper that is so eviscerated, so worn, so devoid of veterans, so consumed by the wrong things, and so denied the ability to replenish itself that it singularly misses every single story in the season.

What I’m loving, it makes me warm all over, is that a lot of the obsession of journalists in the evaluating – I think (Brian) Lowry mentioned it, you mentioned, a couple of others mentioned it as being fundamental to the story – (isn’t that theme) but whether Whiting is as big an a–hole as Valchek, “Is Gus more of a hero than Colvin?,” “Do they have to put suspenders on that guy?,” “I can’t believe any editor would say that,” “Why would Alma drive all the way over there?” I’m loving it. It’s this onanistic, self-obsessed world of journalism – which is the problem. In their heart of hearts, the guys who are running my newspaper and a lot of newspapers, they now cede the territory, the moral and essential territory, of whether we’re asserting for our society, our city, our community.

This was a story about a newspaper that now – on some fundamental basis – fails to cover its city substantively, and guess what – between out-of-town ownership, carpetbagging editors, the emphasis on impact journalism or Prize-culture journalism and, of course, the economic preamble that is the arrival of the internet and the resulting loss of revenue and staff, there are a f–k of a lot of newspapers that are failing to cover their cities substantively. That is the last piece in the Wire puzzle: If you think anyone will be paying attention to anything you encountered in the first four seasons of this show, think again.

In my view that isn’t the end of it, David Simon is being intentionally economic with the truth about S5 and there is something more going on that he won’t give up.

Fwiw, I’m putting somthing together about that now, though it will take a few weeks. It’s pretty left field and some people will think I’m nuts. But it explains things that don’t otherwise hang together as you know they should when it comes to DS.

[madmonk28]

@Fuzzy_Dunlop

…The newspaper characters, good and bad, were downright Dickensian.

There was what I would call a Dickensian Aspect and Fuzzy Dunlop, I hope you’ve recovered after being run over by that truck.

[PrettyVacant]

I’m sure we mostly understand that, by S5, Simon was having a little fun at how that phrase had been used so often by crtics and fans in previous seasons.

[Zsofia]

@AuntiePam

Do you think Simon simplified the newspaper story line because he thought we wouldn’t understand it? That the average joe wouldn’t know how things work?

I know a hell of a lot more about how the newspaper ends up on my doorstep than I do about the longshoremen’s union, or any union come to think of it.

[Voyager]

@joebuck20

I always wondered if the other characters suspected. Landsman did kind of let out a knowing chuckle when he saw the bathroom grafitti. And other character did kind of throw glances at each other when something was said about Rawls that could be construed as a vague reference to his sexuality.

There was one more relevant scene. When Daniels moves into Rawls office he gets a call from someone for Rawls. He has this knowing chuckle which made me think that he suddenly new - or got his suspicions confirmed.

[BKReporter]

@AuntiePam

Do you think Simon simplified the newspaper story line because he thought we wouldn’t understand it? That the average joe wouldn’t know how things work?

Well, the newspaper business really isn’t any more complicated than what the show made the stevedores union or city hall seem. As Madmonk mentioned, I think David Simon had a bone to pick with the Sun and was more concerned with skewering certain individuals (i.e. the editors) than presenting good three-dimensional portraits like he did in most of the other storylines.
Still, as I said before, he did get a lot of little things right, especially in the mix of characters you’re likely to find in an average newsroom and the sort of dedication journalists (other than Templeton of course) have to their craft. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten up at 2 a.m. to correct a potential error like Gus, but there have certainly been instances when I’ve called after hours or even when I was on vacation to make sure I got something right.

[Maserschmidt]

Random responses:

My season preferences in order are 1, 4, 3 and 5 close to each other, and then 2. The newspaper part of S5 started grating on me, but I liked how a lot of things resolved themselves on the street including THE scene in the convenience store. “In-deed.”

Saintliness and revenge are indeed the nature and purpose of Gus. I mean, c’mon…Simon even named him ‘august’. Really. I’m sure I missed a scene somewhere where he’s backlit by a halo.

I always think of Snoop when I pass the power tool section of Home Depot, though I have never owned a nail gun. That’s just some fun writing, folks.

I wish I had registered the name Fuzzy Dunlop.