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So I managed to finish all of The Wire, and now I have lots of thoughts and feelings!
The Wire
There's way too much to talk about considering how many different characters and storylines were going on each season, let alone across the entire series, and I definitely don't have time to get into my feelings about every specific thing, but I'll try to get to most of the stuff I had feelings and thoughts on, and please let me know if there's anything I missed you want to talk about, since I'd love to discuss the show more!
(There are definite major spoilers for the whole series, so if you haven't watched the show yet, don't read on! All you need to know is that I loved the show and would highly recommend it to anyone, just be sure to give it a little while to grow on you, because it is a slow build, but it's really just excellent once you get into it.)
Anyways, it definitely took almost the entire first season for me to get really into the show, but by the time I had finished the show, I was definitely in love with it. The funny thing is, in retrospect I think season 1 might have been my favorite??? Either season 1 or season 4, but season 1 had the Barksdale crew, which I liked as a whole more than Marlo's people, and lots of characters I loved weren't dead yet, so I don't know. But seasons 1 and 4 were definitely at the top for me, followed by seasons 3, 5, and 2, in that order. But, I mean, even though season 2 was my least favorite by far, I didn't hate it or anything. I just really didn't give a crap about the dock stuff at all. Ziggy was annoying, and I know he was supposed to be, but he was just hard to watch for extended periods (although his rampage at the end was really excellent, and definitely one of my favorite moments of that season), and Nick bored and annoyed me, and Frank also bored me. Frank's death was probably one of the least affecting for me of all the deaths over the course of the series? Even though a character like Stringer had probably done far worse things comparatively than Frank, I took Stringer's death so much harder than I took Frank's. And it didn't help that most of the season 2 characters and stuff with the docks weren't brought up again later in the show. The only character that really played a significant role later on was Beadie, who I did really love and was glad she stuck around. And The Greek ended up playing more of a role in season 5, I guess, but it was still fairly diminished, and the show definitely spent more time even during season 2 on Frank, Nick, and Ziggy than the Greek and Vondas (…I think that was his name, but I'm relying on memory here).
It's hard to know how to organize this post because there is just so much to talk about. I guess we can go to characters, starting with those introduced from the beginning (I mean, not all of them, of course, just the major ones). First, cops/police dept:
-I really loved Kima from the start, and watching her relationship with Cheryl dissolve over the course of the seasons was really sad. I did like seeing her reconnect with the kid in season 5, but I felt like as a whole, her arc kind of fizzled at the end? She seemed to be focused on less during seasons 4 and 5, which was disappointing to me.
-Jimmy… I don't know. He was just so messed up. I love Dominic West, and he was great, and there were times I loved Jimmy, but he was just too self-destructive, and even in season 4 when he was being good, I could just feel that the other shoe was going to drop eventually, and boy did it in season 5. The season 5 stuff was pretty hard to forgive him for. Similarly, I really loved Jimmy/Beadie in season 4, but in season 5 it was just too hard to take because he was treating her so terribly. It seems like the finale was suggesting they were back to being in a good (or at least okay) place, with her sitting next to him and resting her head on his shoulder, but I'm still not sure how long Jimmy would last past that being good again. But idk. As I said, there were times I liked him, though!!! His friendship with Kima was actually one of my favorite things, and him sitting shell shocked in 1.10 with her blood on his hands utterly destroyed me. Just, how torn up and guilty he was about that and just ughhh. I really loved their friendship.
-Carver ended up being one of my favorites by the end of the series, which was really surprising considering I didn't care for him in season 1. But his arc ended up being really wonderful. I really started liking him in season 3 when he got what Bunny was trying to do and the fact that even after Hamsterdam failed, he clearly learned from it, and still respected Bunny (and called him boss in season 4!!!!!!), and how he started getting to know the kids on the corners better and the whole thing about not needing to chase them because he knew where to find them, and ugh idk I just got so many feelings for him by the end of the series, so I was glad that he got a pretty happy ending by the show's end.
-Prez was another character that I kind of hated in his very first episode just because he seemed like an idiot and a bad cop and I had no use for him, and then he was stuck in the office not going into the field and able to work the code and proved to be a great investigator, and I really grew to love him. And then in season 2, when he was so nostalgic for the detail and bragging about it to his father-in-law, and he was just so good at what he was doing. And then season 3 happened and I was utterly destroyed by him accidentally killing the police officer. I was worried that would be it for him, so when he popped up in season 4 as a new teacher at the school, I literally gasped in shock and happiness. I was glad that he really kind of found his calling in season 4, and while there were a lot of moments in season 4 where I was cringing because you could see how he was not handling things well and the kids were walking all over him, I loved seeing his gradual progress, and I just really love where his arc ended up. My only disappointment was only seeing him the once in season 5, but I guess I should be glad that he at least got a happy ending considering how this show is not one for happy endings overall.
-Lester I really loved in early season 1, but the whole thing with… I don't remember her name, Shardene? Maybe? The girl D'angelo was dating who was spying for them and then Lester ended up dating, it just… rubbed me the wrong way that they got together because she was kind of in a vulnerable position there, and it felt too much like taking advantage of her to me, and… idk. I don't think the show intended that to be creepy at all, but it felt creepy to me. And then of course helping Jimmy in season 5 with his crazy serial killer thing definitely lessened my opinion of him.
-Daniels was great, and it was fun seeing Lance Reddick in something considering I gave up Fringe. I don't have a lot of Daniels feelings, but I did go through the show just really liking him overall, and I really loved his relationship with Rhonda (and her individually as well).
-Herc was the only one who I really hated of the cops. He irritated me in season 1, but I feel like he just got worse as the show went on. He was just a terrible cop, and the stuff in season 4 was pretty hard to get over, and I was thrilled that he was fired, but then in season 5 he was still around, and he was even WORSE. ughhhh.
In terms of the Barksdale crew:
-UGH TOO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT STRINGER BELL. I liked him from the start just because, you know, Idris Elba. But then I had feelings about Stringer as a character!!! Everything in season 3 with him wanting to be a businessman and him and Avon falling apart and just ughhhh everything I can't even be coherent about Stringer. His death utterly killed me. I really wasn't expecting it!!!!!! I mean, I guess I wasn't thinking he'd survive the whole series, but I didn't expect it to happen when it did, and it just destroyed me. ugh, Stringer. I'm still mourning him, apparently. Idris Elba needs to be on all the shows.
-I didn't care too much about D'Angelo at the start, but he grew on me as the season progressed, and I liked seeing him sometimes question Avon and stuff, and that scene with him just repeating "Where's Wallace?" kind of killed me. His death was definitely hard to take in season 2, but I was also kind of expecting it.
-Speaking of Wallace, ughhhh Wallace!!!!!!!!! I kind of had a hunch he wouldn't survive the season, but it was still pretty devastating when he was killed. Poor baby Vince.
-I didn't care much for Bodie in season 1 since Wallace and D'Angelo gave me more feelings, and Bodie was the one to, you know, kill Wallace. But suddenly around season 3 I found myself having all these Bodie feelings, and those only grew as season 4 went on. He was one of the last ones standing from the Barksdale crew (actually on the show, at least), so it just made me happy to see him still around when Marlo was taking over. So of course just as I grew to love him, he had to be killed off, because that's how this show works. sigh. Actually I think the first time I ever had any sort of feelings about Bodie was when he got that wreath for D'Angelo in the episode after he was killed off. It was just so great, idk!!!!
-I also have to mention Wee-Bey because even if he wasn't a character I ever cared a huge amount about, that scene in season 1 with him bringing D'Angelo to his place so he can show him how to feed his fish while he's gone had me actually crying laughing. One of the most hilarious things of anything ever. HE HAD THEM ALL NAMED. THEY ALL GET DIFFERENT FOOD. WEE-BEY WHO EVEN ARE YOU. And actually he did give me some feelings in season 4 with that scene with Bunny about Namond, but I'll get to Namond later.
Other various characters:
-BUBBS!!!!!!!! GOD ALL THE FEELINGS FOR BUBBS. His arc is the actual greatest, and I love how earned the ending he got felt. I adored the reporter following him around and writing that wonderful story about him, and that he finally got to walk up the stairs and join his sister for a meal and things were okay and just ughhhh. So great.
-OMAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Omar was one of the few characters I had heard of before I watched the show, but I still wasn't prepared for what an excellent character he would be.
I've discussed season 2 as much as I feel like, so going onto season 3, I really loved the idea of Hamsterdam, even though I knew it would never work, but just… idk, it's closer to my own feelings/views about drugs and decriminalization and stuff, so I couldn't help but hope it could somehow work. The politics stuff introduced in season 3 I also really enjoyed since, as we have established in the past, I am a sucker for anything to do with politics (although I did find the election stuff in season 4 more engaging than the season 3 stuff, which felt more like it was setting up for the season 4 and 5 political stuff). In terms of characters introduced in season 3:
-Oh, Tommy. I wasn't quite sure about him in season 3 because I couldn't tell how genuine he was, but I really grew to like him in season 4 and I loved how committed he was to not juking the stats and everything, so him slowly losing his soul and ending up being just like Royce was pretty sad, even though I figured it was coming. This show is definitely not one for ideals and optimism. But it was fun watching Littlefinger run Baltimore, in any case.
-I really liked Bunny!!! This is not shocking considering I was into the Hamsterdam idea, but still, I loved that he wanted to try something different because he realized what they were doing wasn't working, and I loved his mentorship of Carver. And then season 4!!!!!!!! His stuff in season 4 was also so great, and his relationship with Namond fills my heart with happiness and joy, but we'll get to the season 4 kids in a second. He was another one, like Prez, who I was sorry to not see more of in season 4, but I was still just really happy with his arc, and I'm kind of glad he didn't show up in season 5 if only because I would be afraid that perfection would get messed up.
-Cutty I really didn't have feelings for in season 3 at all? Like, I get the point of his arc, but… it just wasn't that interesting for me to watch tbh. I was glad for him in a kind of… abstract sense that he was able to get out of the game and find his own path and stuff with the gym, but I was pretty meh about his stuff in season 3. But season 4!!!! His stuff with the kids was great. But then I loved all the stuff with the kids and all of season 4, so this is not surprising.
And then season 4, which, so much love, if you couldn't tell by this point. It was actually probably the most depressing season for me by the end, but ugh, idk, it was just so great to me. As I said, I liked the politics stuff better in season 4, and the kids!!!!!!! I might as well just get into the characters now:
-Namond was probably the kid I cared about the least from the start, but idk, his arc was so great to me in the end. I love that he wanted to try to be a corner kid and follow his dad's path and his mom was pushing him, but he just wasn't that guy, and I loved how Bunny's class really did make a difference for him. AND THEN BASICALLY BEING ADOPTED BY BUNNY UGHHHHHH. ONE OF THE FEW STORYLINES ON THIS SHOW TO END UP JUST COMPLETELY FILLING ME WITH HAPPINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank god at least one of those kids got a happy ending.
-I don't even know where to start with the other kids because it just brings me pain and sadness!!!!!!!!!! I guess Michael, which… ugh, my heart. His arc was so perfect, but so painful to get through. I somehow didn't call that him being molested by his step dad was why he was so wary of any potential male mentor figure, but the second it was revealed it seemed so obvious, and I loved how little comments like him asking the other dude if he was also going to the boxing thing before agreeing and not letting Cutty drive him home alone and just everything idk. It all fit together and made all the sense and was so devastating. AND WHO KNEW THAT TRISTAN WILDS COULD ACT, GOD. I hope 90210 is canceled this season so he can move on to something where he can actually use his acting skills, because they are wasted on that show. But yeah, I really loved him, and I loved his slow transition to joining Marlo and then becoming the new Omar by the end of season 5. Such a perfect arc.
-Randy!!!! God, things could've ended so much better for Randy if not for stupid Herc, ughhhhhh. I kept hoping Carver would somehow adopt Randy (or become a foster parent, whatever) in season 5, even though I know this is not that type of show and that wasn't going to happen. But ugh, his brief appearance in season 5 killed me. Oh Randy.
-AND DUKIE, GOD. I think that was the worst ending for me, because Dukie was so smart and could very clearly do anything he put his mind to if he had been able to stick with high school and not drop out. He could have really made something of himself. So seeing him scamming Prez in the finale and following the path of his parents into drug addiction was just so devastating. Hopefully he will be the new Bubbs and things will turn out okay for him in the end, but even if that's like… the optimistic/happy way that storyline could turn out, it's still a long road to get to that point.
-I know Marlo was actually introduced in season 3, but he didn't feel like he had as much of a presence until season 4. I… didn't really have feelings about Marlo for most of the show because he just felt like much more of an obvious bad guy or villain than the Barksdale people??? We just didn't really get to see more sides of him, and, like… I know that's the point of his character, he's pretty much just pure drug culture and doesn't know anything else and all he cares about is wearing the crown and playing the game, so like… I can like his character from that aspect, but I never sympathized with him in any way, so I just didn't get invested in him like I did with a lot of the Barksdale people. The one time he did really give me feelings was at the end of season 5 when he was asking what was being said about him and was like "MY NAME IS MY NAME!" That was such a great moment, ugh.
-Snoop never really got much to do, and I always kind of wanted to know more about her, but we didn't get much. Chris was one of the only people with Marlo that I sympathized with at all in any way, mostly just for how he kind of mentored Michael and clearly had something similar in his past as Michael did with his stepdad.
Season 5 was not my favorite, as I mentioned, but there were things I liked about it. I know it got a lot of criticism for the press stuff and that it was just David Simon and whoever trashing their old bosses and idk, whatever, I don't really care. Taking it out of whatever context, I thought it was a pretty natural inclusion for the show considering the focuses the other seasons had had, so it worked for me. The serial killer thing was fairly difficult to believe at some points, although it did lead to some excellent humor at times, like Jimmy being aware how full of shit Scott was when he was talking about the phone call. As for the new characters, I don't have much to say about them, so just a few quick things: I liked Gus, but it was so obvious that we were supposed to side with him and he was just so obviously right that I didn't end up caring too much about him. I liked Alma and wished we had gotten much more of her. Scott was a huge ass, and the fact that he won a Pulitzer makes me want to punch things, ughhhhhh. At least he ended up feeling sick about it when Jimmy told him that it was all a lie. …what else was there, I can't remember a this point. Season 5 went by way too fast!!!
Other things I couldn't fit anywhere else:
-I LOVED THE CREDITS SO MUCH. I somehow didn't notice in season 1 at all that the credits were composed of images from the season as a whole, so they weren't just random stock footage or anything, but I started picking out which scenes images came from during season 2, and from then on it was always just so fun finally seeing the scene where one of those images came from and seeing the context and the meaning of it. And I loved how the theme song changed each season. I mean, it was the same song, but how the style of it changed. I'm not sure which was my favorite, either season 2 or 4 I think? Season 1 was probably my least favorite, although it's hard to remember now.
-As much as I do really love the show as a whole, the one thing that bothered me is that it never really did much in terms of gender? And, I mean, I know that it tackled a lot of issues, especially racial issues that really don't receive much attention from shows typically, and it's impossible to tackle everything, but idk, it just seemed kind of glaring at a certain point that women weren't really getting any POVs on the show? Like, in season 1, Kima is the only major POV character who's female, and I do feel like the focus on her lessens as the show goes on. There's also Rhonda, but she always felt much more like a secondary or side character and not as major as any of the cops. Season 2 there was Beadie, which was good I guess, although that's still only 1 of quite a few added characters with the docks stuff. Season 3 with the politics and Hamsterdam stuff, the only female presence really was the campaign consultant person, but… she was never given any kind of POV. There were no female POVs added with the school stuff in season 4 other than peripheral characters like that girl in Bunny's class. And season 5 had Alma for the newspaper stuff, who was definitely secondary to Gus and Scott. I mean, it's not that there were no female characters or that they got no focus, and I do understand that both drug gangs and police departments are going to be male dominated. But my issue is more that with each season, they added different areas of focus (i.e. the dock stuff, the political stuff, the school stuff, and the newspaper stuff), and with each added area, the major POV characters that were focused on were all males. Every single one. As much as I utterly adore Prez, we couldn't have gotten a female teacher perspective? It's not that there weren't female teachers or women involved at all, but they were clearly all just very secondary or peripheral characters. It doesn't really detract from my enjoyment of the show, but it does kind of bother me a little? But it's an issue I have with a lot of shows, so it's not alone in that.
-Back on a positive (but short) note, the montages in the finales each season were so great, ugh. I looked forward to them with each finale.
I'm probably forgetting a LOT of stuff, but this has already taken me like an hour to type up alone, so I guess that'll be all. But anyways, overall, if you couldn't tell, I really loved the show, and it's something that I'll definitely revisit and rewatch in the future.
So now that I've finished The Wire, I think I'm going to take a bit of a break from marathoning things for at least a week or two, since it feels like all I've been doing for at least a month or two has been jumping from show to show to marathon, and I end up neglecting basically everything else when I do that. I do still have a lot of stuff I'm going to try to get through this summer (right now my list includes first watches of The Sopranos, Deadwood, Six Feet Under S4-5, Fairly Legal, and maybe Awkward and Teen Wolf because Tumblr is trying to convince me to watch those, and rewatches of Veronica Mars S1-2, The West Wing, and Friday Night Lights S3-5. There's no way I'm going to get to all of those, I'm sure I'll lose interest in getting to some of those in like a month, and there'll be things I check out or rewatch that aren't on that list, but that's what I'm thinking at the moment at least). But for now I'm going to try to finally start my 100 ladies of TV thing.
I did finally watch the first 2 episodes of Bunheads, and I don't have any really in depth thoughts to go into yet, but I really am enjoying it so far!!! It definitely is reminiscent of Gilmore Girls in a lot of ways, but it's different in enough ways that it doesn't feel like it's just go over the same old ground with the same exact characters. Definitely looking forward to more episodes, in any case, and I'm a little in love with Sutton Foster.
My dentist appointment for my wisdom tooth on Saturday went… okay, I guess? She said I definitely don't have any room for either of the top wisdom teeth (only one is actually coming in right now, though), so I'll have to have them both taken out. The bottom ones are already in (I had adult teeth pulled when I was younger, so there was room for them), so at least I'll only have to have 2 out, and she said the top ones are a lot easier to get out than the bottom ones. The one that's coming in doesn't hurt at all and I don't feel any pressure or anything, so she said I can hold off until it starts becoming a problem, so I guess that's… good? I don't have to deal with it right now? But now I'm just going to stress out about it until I get them out. The greatest thing at the moment to me right now is that at least they can put me under and take them out and I don't have to deal with local anesthesia because I have a phobia of needles and the idea of having to get novacaine would really freak me out. idk, it's not the best news, but I guess it could be worse. And at least I can put it off for a little longer.
We've been back to mandatory overtime of an hour every day at work for like a week now, and we're going to 2 hours for the next few days because we're going to be crazy busy, ughhhh. That means I won't be getting home until around 8:30 PM, which is way too late. At least my main responsibilities which were super crazy and busy and stressful the couple weeks before have died down a bit. The end of the month is always the absolute craziest, so it's only going to get worse from here unfortunately (well, until July and things slow down again, of course). I also mentioned I think in my last post that we had had 2 new girls start in April who had stuck around and were good and seemed like they would last, and apparently I spoke too soon, because one of them got let go Tuesday. I don't even know why, but I'm dying of curiosity now. It's definitely something she did and not because we don't need the people. My supervisor just casually mentioned to me at the end of the day that we were down one person, and I was like "??????" and then she told me it was the girl's last day, she had left during lunch, and I was like "Oh, that's too bad," because I got along with her and liked her for the most part, and she was like, "Depends on who you ask," and I was like "Oh." And part of me really wanted to ask why, but I also feel weird about being too nosy about stuff like that? Like, she would've probably told me, and she probably will end up telling me at some point in the future, but… idk, it's different asking why someone got left go when they've only been around for a few days or weeks, but when someone's been there for months and feels like they're apart of the office, it just feels weird. I'm sure I'll find out eventually, but until then I'm going to just have to die of curiosity.
The Wire
There's way too much to talk about considering how many different characters and storylines were going on each season, let alone across the entire series, and I definitely don't have time to get into my feelings about every specific thing, but I'll try to get to most of the stuff I had feelings and thoughts on, and please let me know if there's anything I missed you want to talk about, since I'd love to discuss the show more!
(There are definite major spoilers for the whole series, so if you haven't watched the show yet, don't read on! All you need to know is that I loved the show and would highly recommend it to anyone, just be sure to give it a little while to grow on you, because it is a slow build, but it's really just excellent once you get into it.)
Anyways, it definitely took almost the entire first season for me to get really into the show, but by the time I had finished the show, I was definitely in love with it. The funny thing is, in retrospect I think season 1 might have been my favorite??? Either season 1 or season 4, but season 1 had the Barksdale crew, which I liked as a whole more than Marlo's people, and lots of characters I loved weren't dead yet, so I don't know. But seasons 1 and 4 were definitely at the top for me, followed by seasons 3, 5, and 2, in that order. But, I mean, even though season 2 was my least favorite by far, I didn't hate it or anything. I just really didn't give a crap about the dock stuff at all. Ziggy was annoying, and I know he was supposed to be, but he was just hard to watch for extended periods (although his rampage at the end was really excellent, and definitely one of my favorite moments of that season), and Nick bored and annoyed me, and Frank also bored me. Frank's death was probably one of the least affecting for me of all the deaths over the course of the series? Even though a character like Stringer had probably done far worse things comparatively than Frank, I took Stringer's death so much harder than I took Frank's. And it didn't help that most of the season 2 characters and stuff with the docks weren't brought up again later in the show. The only character that really played a significant role later on was Beadie, who I did really love and was glad she stuck around. And The Greek ended up playing more of a role in season 5, I guess, but it was still fairly diminished, and the show definitely spent more time even during season 2 on Frank, Nick, and Ziggy than the Greek and Vondas (…I think that was his name, but I'm relying on memory here).
It's hard to know how to organize this post because there is just so much to talk about. I guess we can go to characters, starting with those introduced from the beginning (I mean, not all of them, of course, just the major ones). First, cops/police dept:
-I really loved Kima from the start, and watching her relationship with Cheryl dissolve over the course of the seasons was really sad. I did like seeing her reconnect with the kid in season 5, but I felt like as a whole, her arc kind of fizzled at the end? She seemed to be focused on less during seasons 4 and 5, which was disappointing to me.
-Jimmy… I don't know. He was just so messed up. I love Dominic West, and he was great, and there were times I loved Jimmy, but he was just too self-destructive, and even in season 4 when he was being good, I could just feel that the other shoe was going to drop eventually, and boy did it in season 5. The season 5 stuff was pretty hard to forgive him for. Similarly, I really loved Jimmy/Beadie in season 4, but in season 5 it was just too hard to take because he was treating her so terribly. It seems like the finale was suggesting they were back to being in a good (or at least okay) place, with her sitting next to him and resting her head on his shoulder, but I'm still not sure how long Jimmy would last past that being good again. But idk. As I said, there were times I liked him, though!!! His friendship with Kima was actually one of my favorite things, and him sitting shell shocked in 1.10 with her blood on his hands utterly destroyed me. Just, how torn up and guilty he was about that and just ughhh. I really loved their friendship.
-Carver ended up being one of my favorites by the end of the series, which was really surprising considering I didn't care for him in season 1. But his arc ended up being really wonderful. I really started liking him in season 3 when he got what Bunny was trying to do and the fact that even after Hamsterdam failed, he clearly learned from it, and still respected Bunny (and called him boss in season 4!!!!!!), and how he started getting to know the kids on the corners better and the whole thing about not needing to chase them because he knew where to find them, and ugh idk I just got so many feelings for him by the end of the series, so I was glad that he got a pretty happy ending by the show's end.
-Prez was another character that I kind of hated in his very first episode just because he seemed like an idiot and a bad cop and I had no use for him, and then he was stuck in the office not going into the field and able to work the code and proved to be a great investigator, and I really grew to love him. And then in season 2, when he was so nostalgic for the detail and bragging about it to his father-in-law, and he was just so good at what he was doing. And then season 3 happened and I was utterly destroyed by him accidentally killing the police officer. I was worried that would be it for him, so when he popped up in season 4 as a new teacher at the school, I literally gasped in shock and happiness. I was glad that he really kind of found his calling in season 4, and while there were a lot of moments in season 4 where I was cringing because you could see how he was not handling things well and the kids were walking all over him, I loved seeing his gradual progress, and I just really love where his arc ended up. My only disappointment was only seeing him the once in season 5, but I guess I should be glad that he at least got a happy ending considering how this show is not one for happy endings overall.
-Lester I really loved in early season 1, but the whole thing with… I don't remember her name, Shardene? Maybe? The girl D'angelo was dating who was spying for them and then Lester ended up dating, it just… rubbed me the wrong way that they got together because she was kind of in a vulnerable position there, and it felt too much like taking advantage of her to me, and… idk. I don't think the show intended that to be creepy at all, but it felt creepy to me. And then of course helping Jimmy in season 5 with his crazy serial killer thing definitely lessened my opinion of him.
-Daniels was great, and it was fun seeing Lance Reddick in something considering I gave up Fringe. I don't have a lot of Daniels feelings, but I did go through the show just really liking him overall, and I really loved his relationship with Rhonda (and her individually as well).
-Herc was the only one who I really hated of the cops. He irritated me in season 1, but I feel like he just got worse as the show went on. He was just a terrible cop, and the stuff in season 4 was pretty hard to get over, and I was thrilled that he was fired, but then in season 5 he was still around, and he was even WORSE. ughhhh.
In terms of the Barksdale crew:
-UGH TOO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT STRINGER BELL. I liked him from the start just because, you know, Idris Elba. But then I had feelings about Stringer as a character!!! Everything in season 3 with him wanting to be a businessman and him and Avon falling apart and just ughhhh everything I can't even be coherent about Stringer. His death utterly killed me. I really wasn't expecting it!!!!!! I mean, I guess I wasn't thinking he'd survive the whole series, but I didn't expect it to happen when it did, and it just destroyed me. ugh, Stringer. I'm still mourning him, apparently. Idris Elba needs to be on all the shows.
-I didn't care too much about D'Angelo at the start, but he grew on me as the season progressed, and I liked seeing him sometimes question Avon and stuff, and that scene with him just repeating "Where's Wallace?" kind of killed me. His death was definitely hard to take in season 2, but I was also kind of expecting it.
-Speaking of Wallace, ughhhh Wallace!!!!!!!!! I kind of had a hunch he wouldn't survive the season, but it was still pretty devastating when he was killed. Poor baby Vince.
-I didn't care much for Bodie in season 1 since Wallace and D'Angelo gave me more feelings, and Bodie was the one to, you know, kill Wallace. But suddenly around season 3 I found myself having all these Bodie feelings, and those only grew as season 4 went on. He was one of the last ones standing from the Barksdale crew (actually on the show, at least), so it just made me happy to see him still around when Marlo was taking over. So of course just as I grew to love him, he had to be killed off, because that's how this show works. sigh. Actually I think the first time I ever had any sort of feelings about Bodie was when he got that wreath for D'Angelo in the episode after he was killed off. It was just so great, idk!!!!
-I also have to mention Wee-Bey because even if he wasn't a character I ever cared a huge amount about, that scene in season 1 with him bringing D'Angelo to his place so he can show him how to feed his fish while he's gone had me actually crying laughing. One of the most hilarious things of anything ever. HE HAD THEM ALL NAMED. THEY ALL GET DIFFERENT FOOD. WEE-BEY WHO EVEN ARE YOU. And actually he did give me some feelings in season 4 with that scene with Bunny about Namond, but I'll get to Namond later.
Other various characters:
-BUBBS!!!!!!!! GOD ALL THE FEELINGS FOR BUBBS. His arc is the actual greatest, and I love how earned the ending he got felt. I adored the reporter following him around and writing that wonderful story about him, and that he finally got to walk up the stairs and join his sister for a meal and things were okay and just ughhhh. So great.
-OMAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Omar was one of the few characters I had heard of before I watched the show, but I still wasn't prepared for what an excellent character he would be.
I've discussed season 2 as much as I feel like, so going onto season 3, I really loved the idea of Hamsterdam, even though I knew it would never work, but just… idk, it's closer to my own feelings/views about drugs and decriminalization and stuff, so I couldn't help but hope it could somehow work. The politics stuff introduced in season 3 I also really enjoyed since, as we have established in the past, I am a sucker for anything to do with politics (although I did find the election stuff in season 4 more engaging than the season 3 stuff, which felt more like it was setting up for the season 4 and 5 political stuff). In terms of characters introduced in season 3:
-Oh, Tommy. I wasn't quite sure about him in season 3 because I couldn't tell how genuine he was, but I really grew to like him in season 4 and I loved how committed he was to not juking the stats and everything, so him slowly losing his soul and ending up being just like Royce was pretty sad, even though I figured it was coming. This show is definitely not one for ideals and optimism. But it was fun watching Littlefinger run Baltimore, in any case.
-I really liked Bunny!!! This is not shocking considering I was into the Hamsterdam idea, but still, I loved that he wanted to try something different because he realized what they were doing wasn't working, and I loved his mentorship of Carver. And then season 4!!!!!!!! His stuff in season 4 was also so great, and his relationship with Namond fills my heart with happiness and joy, but we'll get to the season 4 kids in a second. He was another one, like Prez, who I was sorry to not see more of in season 4, but I was still just really happy with his arc, and I'm kind of glad he didn't show up in season 5 if only because I would be afraid that perfection would get messed up.
-Cutty I really didn't have feelings for in season 3 at all? Like, I get the point of his arc, but… it just wasn't that interesting for me to watch tbh. I was glad for him in a kind of… abstract sense that he was able to get out of the game and find his own path and stuff with the gym, but I was pretty meh about his stuff in season 3. But season 4!!!! His stuff with the kids was great. But then I loved all the stuff with the kids and all of season 4, so this is not surprising.
And then season 4, which, so much love, if you couldn't tell by this point. It was actually probably the most depressing season for me by the end, but ugh, idk, it was just so great to me. As I said, I liked the politics stuff better in season 4, and the kids!!!!!!! I might as well just get into the characters now:
-Namond was probably the kid I cared about the least from the start, but idk, his arc was so great to me in the end. I love that he wanted to try to be a corner kid and follow his dad's path and his mom was pushing him, but he just wasn't that guy, and I loved how Bunny's class really did make a difference for him. AND THEN BASICALLY BEING ADOPTED BY BUNNY UGHHHHHH. ONE OF THE FEW STORYLINES ON THIS SHOW TO END UP JUST COMPLETELY FILLING ME WITH HAPPINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank god at least one of those kids got a happy ending.
-I don't even know where to start with the other kids because it just brings me pain and sadness!!!!!!!!!! I guess Michael, which… ugh, my heart. His arc was so perfect, but so painful to get through. I somehow didn't call that him being molested by his step dad was why he was so wary of any potential male mentor figure, but the second it was revealed it seemed so obvious, and I loved how little comments like him asking the other dude if he was also going to the boxing thing before agreeing and not letting Cutty drive him home alone and just everything idk. It all fit together and made all the sense and was so devastating. AND WHO KNEW THAT TRISTAN WILDS COULD ACT, GOD. I hope 90210 is canceled this season so he can move on to something where he can actually use his acting skills, because they are wasted on that show. But yeah, I really loved him, and I loved his slow transition to joining Marlo and then becoming the new Omar by the end of season 5. Such a perfect arc.
-Randy!!!! God, things could've ended so much better for Randy if not for stupid Herc, ughhhhhh. I kept hoping Carver would somehow adopt Randy (or become a foster parent, whatever) in season 5, even though I know this is not that type of show and that wasn't going to happen. But ugh, his brief appearance in season 5 killed me. Oh Randy.
-AND DUKIE, GOD. I think that was the worst ending for me, because Dukie was so smart and could very clearly do anything he put his mind to if he had been able to stick with high school and not drop out. He could have really made something of himself. So seeing him scamming Prez in the finale and following the path of his parents into drug addiction was just so devastating. Hopefully he will be the new Bubbs and things will turn out okay for him in the end, but even if that's like… the optimistic/happy way that storyline could turn out, it's still a long road to get to that point.
-I know Marlo was actually introduced in season 3, but he didn't feel like he had as much of a presence until season 4. I… didn't really have feelings about Marlo for most of the show because he just felt like much more of an obvious bad guy or villain than the Barksdale people??? We just didn't really get to see more sides of him, and, like… I know that's the point of his character, he's pretty much just pure drug culture and doesn't know anything else and all he cares about is wearing the crown and playing the game, so like… I can like his character from that aspect, but I never sympathized with him in any way, so I just didn't get invested in him like I did with a lot of the Barksdale people. The one time he did really give me feelings was at the end of season 5 when he was asking what was being said about him and was like "MY NAME IS MY NAME!" That was such a great moment, ugh.
-Snoop never really got much to do, and I always kind of wanted to know more about her, but we didn't get much. Chris was one of the only people with Marlo that I sympathized with at all in any way, mostly just for how he kind of mentored Michael and clearly had something similar in his past as Michael did with his stepdad.
Season 5 was not my favorite, as I mentioned, but there were things I liked about it. I know it got a lot of criticism for the press stuff and that it was just David Simon and whoever trashing their old bosses and idk, whatever, I don't really care. Taking it out of whatever context, I thought it was a pretty natural inclusion for the show considering the focuses the other seasons had had, so it worked for me. The serial killer thing was fairly difficult to believe at some points, although it did lead to some excellent humor at times, like Jimmy being aware how full of shit Scott was when he was talking about the phone call. As for the new characters, I don't have much to say about them, so just a few quick things: I liked Gus, but it was so obvious that we were supposed to side with him and he was just so obviously right that I didn't end up caring too much about him. I liked Alma and wished we had gotten much more of her. Scott was a huge ass, and the fact that he won a Pulitzer makes me want to punch things, ughhhhhh. At least he ended up feeling sick about it when Jimmy told him that it was all a lie. …what else was there, I can't remember a this point. Season 5 went by way too fast!!!
Other things I couldn't fit anywhere else:
-I LOVED THE CREDITS SO MUCH. I somehow didn't notice in season 1 at all that the credits were composed of images from the season as a whole, so they weren't just random stock footage or anything, but I started picking out which scenes images came from during season 2, and from then on it was always just so fun finally seeing the scene where one of those images came from and seeing the context and the meaning of it. And I loved how the theme song changed each season. I mean, it was the same song, but how the style of it changed. I'm not sure which was my favorite, either season 2 or 4 I think? Season 1 was probably my least favorite, although it's hard to remember now.
-As much as I do really love the show as a whole, the one thing that bothered me is that it never really did much in terms of gender? And, I mean, I know that it tackled a lot of issues, especially racial issues that really don't receive much attention from shows typically, and it's impossible to tackle everything, but idk, it just seemed kind of glaring at a certain point that women weren't really getting any POVs on the show? Like, in season 1, Kima is the only major POV character who's female, and I do feel like the focus on her lessens as the show goes on. There's also Rhonda, but she always felt much more like a secondary or side character and not as major as any of the cops. Season 2 there was Beadie, which was good I guess, although that's still only 1 of quite a few added characters with the docks stuff. Season 3 with the politics and Hamsterdam stuff, the only female presence really was the campaign consultant person, but… she was never given any kind of POV. There were no female POVs added with the school stuff in season 4 other than peripheral characters like that girl in Bunny's class. And season 5 had Alma for the newspaper stuff, who was definitely secondary to Gus and Scott. I mean, it's not that there were no female characters or that they got no focus, and I do understand that both drug gangs and police departments are going to be male dominated. But my issue is more that with each season, they added different areas of focus (i.e. the dock stuff, the political stuff, the school stuff, and the newspaper stuff), and with each added area, the major POV characters that were focused on were all males. Every single one. As much as I utterly adore Prez, we couldn't have gotten a female teacher perspective? It's not that there weren't female teachers or women involved at all, but they were clearly all just very secondary or peripheral characters. It doesn't really detract from my enjoyment of the show, but it does kind of bother me a little? But it's an issue I have with a lot of shows, so it's not alone in that.
-Back on a positive (but short) note, the montages in the finales each season were so great, ugh. I looked forward to them with each finale.
I'm probably forgetting a LOT of stuff, but this has already taken me like an hour to type up alone, so I guess that'll be all. But anyways, overall, if you couldn't tell, I really loved the show, and it's something that I'll definitely revisit and rewatch in the future.
So now that I've finished The Wire, I think I'm going to take a bit of a break from marathoning things for at least a week or two, since it feels like all I've been doing for at least a month or two has been jumping from show to show to marathon, and I end up neglecting basically everything else when I do that. I do still have a lot of stuff I'm going to try to get through this summer (right now my list includes first watches of The Sopranos, Deadwood, Six Feet Under S4-5, Fairly Legal, and maybe Awkward and Teen Wolf because Tumblr is trying to convince me to watch those, and rewatches of Veronica Mars S1-2, The West Wing, and Friday Night Lights S3-5. There's no way I'm going to get to all of those, I'm sure I'll lose interest in getting to some of those in like a month, and there'll be things I check out or rewatch that aren't on that list, but that's what I'm thinking at the moment at least). But for now I'm going to try to finally start my 100 ladies of TV thing.
I did finally watch the first 2 episodes of Bunheads, and I don't have any really in depth thoughts to go into yet, but I really am enjoying it so far!!! It definitely is reminiscent of Gilmore Girls in a lot of ways, but it's different in enough ways that it doesn't feel like it's just go over the same old ground with the same exact characters. Definitely looking forward to more episodes, in any case, and I'm a little in love with Sutton Foster.
My dentist appointment for my wisdom tooth on Saturday went… okay, I guess? She said I definitely don't have any room for either of the top wisdom teeth (only one is actually coming in right now, though), so I'll have to have them both taken out. The bottom ones are already in (I had adult teeth pulled when I was younger, so there was room for them), so at least I'll only have to have 2 out, and she said the top ones are a lot easier to get out than the bottom ones. The one that's coming in doesn't hurt at all and I don't feel any pressure or anything, so she said I can hold off until it starts becoming a problem, so I guess that's… good? I don't have to deal with it right now? But now I'm just going to stress out about it until I get them out. The greatest thing at the moment to me right now is that at least they can put me under and take them out and I don't have to deal with local anesthesia because I have a phobia of needles and the idea of having to get novacaine would really freak me out. idk, it's not the best news, but I guess it could be worse. And at least I can put it off for a little longer.
We've been back to mandatory overtime of an hour every day at work for like a week now, and we're going to 2 hours for the next few days because we're going to be crazy busy, ughhhh. That means I won't be getting home until around 8:30 PM, which is way too late. At least my main responsibilities which were super crazy and busy and stressful the couple weeks before have died down a bit. The end of the month is always the absolute craziest, so it's only going to get worse from here unfortunately (well, until July and things slow down again, of course). I also mentioned I think in my last post that we had had 2 new girls start in April who had stuck around and were good and seemed like they would last, and apparently I spoke too soon, because one of them got let go Tuesday. I don't even know why, but I'm dying of curiosity now. It's definitely something she did and not because we don't need the people. My supervisor just casually mentioned to me at the end of the day that we were down one person, and I was like "??????" and then she told me it was the girl's last day, she had left during lunch, and I was like "Oh, that's too bad," because I got along with her and liked her for the most part, and she was like, "Depends on who you ask," and I was like "Oh." And part of me really wanted to ask why, but I also feel weird about being too nosy about stuff like that? Like, she would've probably told me, and she probably will end up telling me at some point in the future, but… idk, it's different asking why someone got left go when they've only been around for a few days or weeks, but when someone's been there for months and feels like they're apart of the office, it just feels weird. I'm sure I'll find out eventually, but until then I'm going to just have to die of curiosity.