Eve's Marathon Diary: Sometimes Things Just Gotta Play Hard

[Primetimer]

The body count skyrockets as your Marathon Diarist hurtles through the second half of The Wire's first season.

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[Slovenly Muse]

Glad you're enjoying the series! Wallace's death was definitely one of the hardest moments to get through. I know the "chess lesson" scene in Ep. 3 seemed ham-handed at the time, but in the perspective of the season as a whole, it becomes quite deftly prophetic, and actually continues to be so throughout the rest of the series.

 

My favourite moment of the second half of the season, though, that's an easy one. I love this show, and my first time through it, my inner dramatist was near-catatonic with ecstasy. My inner feminist, however, was more cautious. Because as "The Sopranos" unfortunately taught us, there is a fine line between portraying a culture of misogyny, and participating in it. I was not sure exactly how well "The Wire" was going to walk that line until the magnificent scene where D'Angelo's girlfriend, obediently standing by her man despite the detectives' efforts to turn her, was brought down to the morgue to see the body of her friend and colleague, discarded in a dumpster by very people she was protecting, and realized exactly what she truly meant to the Barksdales and their crew. What women in general meant to people like that. And she agreed to put her own safety on the line to help take them down. Holy shit, was that ever satisfying! That was the moment when 100% of me became totally on board with the show and what it was doing.

[Misstify]

Favorite moments of the 2nd half:

"Where's Wallace?  Where's the boy, String?"

…and the crushing moment when you realize D'Angelo's mother is going to flip him back to the Barksdales' side.

 

Moments of humor:

--Santangelo consulting a psychic;

--Lt. Daniels meeting Day-Day at a party: "Mostly I just go by Lieutenant."

--Finding out that Bunk played lacrosse

[Beadie]

I loved the montage at the end of the season finale. Can't pick a particular moment from it, but the collection of clips just summed up all the situations and ironies so well. Also loved all of the scenes with Lester and Shardeen, watching that relationship develop.

Also D'Angelo's conversation with the police when he agrees to flip was so honest and wrenching. Made it that much harder to see him later realize he had no way out and end up having to take the hard time.

Edited January 23, 2015 by Beadie

[alynch]

My favorite thing on the show was always the parallels (as long as they weren't being too heavy-handed with them). Carver's description of how he got called into Burrell's office and was asked to betray his own crew is eerily similar to the scene we saw of Bodie getting called into Stringer's car and being asked to kill Wallace.

Rawls's "You are a gaping asshole" monologue to McNulty remains one the series best moments.

"Maybe we won."

All of Bubbles's scenes with Steve Earle were also tremendous.

One of my favorite funny moments was when they had Shardene count her paces in Avon's office so they could calculate the dimensions. She reports her paces and Herc gets out a notepad and starts trying to write out the math, only for Prez to calculate it all in his head in a couple of seconds.

And it can't be said enough, Dee's scene in the interrogation room with Bunk & McNulty is one of the best scenes in television history. It's so cathartic to see him just unburden himself like that after watching him all year basically trying his best at pretending.

[Constantinople]

It may not be the most important point in the larger scheme of things, but I cannot believe Herc scored higher on the sergeants exam than Carver.

[marceline]

McNulty's visceral reaction to hearing things go wrong with Greggs over the wire was phenomenal.

[Kel Varnsen]

It was the fallout of Kima's shooting that cemented in for me the fact that Stringer was secretly a dumbass who was just pretending at being smart. I mean he knew that Orlando had just gotten out of jail, and shouldn't really have any money? So why did he think he had the ability to make some kind of drug deal with Barksdale lieutenants?