seamusk

No kidding. I yelled at the tv: "They ended it there!?" One of my favorite shows for sure. I saw it was on hulu but recently subscribed to MHz Choice and watched it there. I had never heard of it but it's the perfect service for me. Anyhow, another great season. Though crushing loss of a main character. Ugh.

I loved that!

That's disappointing. I haven't watched the pilot yet but will be watching it tonight.

Seems like a good time to move the pilot posts to the pilot thread that is there now. I haven't watched the pilot. I watched the movie last night to re-orient myself. I forgot just how great it is. I know the tv show will make lots of changes to the universe (some for budget reasons and some because it takes place a little later in time), but i'm generally ok with that. Different mediums and budgets require different approaches. Still, I hope this is good. Either way i've got the dvr set up for it.

That closing scene was awesome. Couldn't take my eyes away. I'm pretty sure this last bit is a spoiler. This episode ended with the confrontation with Barlow, not with any of the follow up to it. Having already dropped one spoiler, then you drop a second without tagging it?

yowzer! That's exciting. ETA. It's pretty interesting how they have been positioning these releases. They seem to coincide with network slow downs. Makes sense.

Poor communities, regardless of ethnicity, have always had high crime rates. There certainly have been differences over time. And the growth of the drug industry and accessibility to guns has changed things a lot too. Keep in mind that there are various levels of poverty. There is working poor. There is non-working poor. Also, the high-rise projects are well documented to be particularly problematic. They are rarely built anymore for that reason.

Maybe her smart ass should have listened to her mother, but the reality is that not everyone is skilled at picking a partner. And i'm not supportive of the notion that it was somehow Billie's fault because she was attracted to the wrong man. Sounds like blaming the victim to me. And there are lots of ways that could have gone wrong after they met. In fact, that's a big part of the story. While he was certainly into trouble when they met, the prison system in America is not what it should be when it comes to rehabilitation. It's true that that is the point of judicial appointments, rather than elections. However, as someone who has followed and studied law to some degree, it takes courage to act as this judge did. As much as there was surely pressure to force integration, it takes a lot of courage to make the right decision when an entire town is railing against you. Judges are not always figures of strength and objectivity. It's poverty. Long before there were projects full of African Americans in the 1960s, there were slums full of Irish Americans in the 1860s. And many of the symptoms are the same.

Yes, but many people grow up poor and with good character and still become drug dealers. The fact that some are able to overcome it, doesn't mean they all can or will and it doesn't mean they have bad character. Life is more complex than that. But definitely. The loss of factory jobs was brutal. ETA. What I'm basically saying is that the show presented him as a decent person (and it does have that bias of focusing on good people in the projects mostly). And unless you assume all drug dealers everywhere have bad character, there isn't a reason to assume he has bad character because he is a drug dealer. Possibly it's an unknown at worst I think (based on what was shown).

I figured this is what you meant. I disagree it says much about his character. Being young and poor, your options are limited. The show seemed to portray him as a fairly decent fellow despite his profession. But I get why his character might be in question. I'm very thankful that I didn't grow up poor. Being fortunate has it's benefits.

I hear you, re: the limited profile of the black characters on the show. The show is the story of the political battle for low income housing distribution in Yonkers. Which I think is interesting because it involves very little of the black community. The people calling the shots are largely white, except for the NAACP and their lawyers. And so, to get a glimpse into who is affected in a different way, we get small glimpses of the public housing itself. And that has to be shoe-horned in a bit. It could be portrayed more in depth. We certainly saw that on the Wire. But I also sort of get why it hasn't been thus far. Overall I find it interesting enough as it is, but I do agree it could have been done more in depth. Though I wonder if more time on those stories would lead to more complaints about how little direct influence they have on the dramatic political battle. On that note, it was really nice I thought to see the NAACP lead that march in this episode. It was overdue in the story, but I suspect that was the point, that it was overdue in the political struggle itself. The black community was largely absent from the political struggle, while at the same time initiating it in a way with the litigation (though really the racism that created the segregated housing situation was the ultimate cause).

Yes it did. Yes it peaked at two episodes and then dropped. Then it picked up additional viewers as the season developed. I'm not sure why people want to spin this as a bad thing. Most shows that are heavily promoted premier to higher numbers then where they settle. There is nothing new about that.

I don't know. That's pretty typical for heavily hyped shows to have a bunch of people check out the first episode or two, then have a bit of a drop off, then pick up some additional viewers later on based on word of mouth or whatever.

Maybe you are thinking of Twin Peaks? I didn't realize Prison Break was coming back. I enjoyed that but was ready for it to be done when it ended.

I really liked it. It was very Wire-esque actually. I think the show is quite wonky in a way, but not in a way that is hard to keep up with. And I like the context of the show showing me the people we are talking about on all sides of a contentious issue. I also found the crowd yelling scenes unnerving but I think that's appropriate to the content. I mean, i've been in lots of protest situations and they can be unnerving and difficult. I thought they really got across how much so which will set things up for whatever is next. I can see why this is a limited run series, and probably to stay that way. Once they tell the story of the housing battle, the content for a next series would be more difficult. In any case, i'm enjoying this in bunches. Looking forward to the rest of the series.