Eve's Marathon Diary: The Fabulists

[Primetimer]

Who's a more offensive fake, the red ribbon killer or EJ?

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[Kel Varnsen]

I have said this many times, but the one thing I never really liked about Gus was that they never really showed that he was a good reporter stuck in a bad system the same way they did with say McNulty or Lester or Daniels. If he had just spent a little more time working with his good reporters, or actually doing his job, instead of complaining and trying to bust Templeton I would have liked him a lot more. I had the same complaint about a lot of those old time reporter guys who did not much more than complain about their company in Season 5.

[Rinaldo]

I think that's a fair complaint, Kel Varnsen. It's part of why I find the newspaper portion of this season less nuanced, less insightful, than The Wire has led me to expect. I don't doubt that there's a worthwhile story to be told there, but for me it didn't get told -- not the way we were told about the streets, the police department, the docks, politics, the schools.

[Latverian Diplomat]

I think if they had had 13 episodes instead of 10, as originally planned, there might have been more nuance. 10 doesn't seem like a lot less than 12 or 13, but man, this whole season seems a bit rushed to me.

[Rinaldo]

People often say that (and it's actually 10.5, the finale being 90 minutes), and I've thought about it. But in the end I don't buy it. It's the whole texture of the newspaper scenes, not their pacing, that's lacking. The Wire was always able, at its best, to convey a lot compactly (and still does in the other Season 5 subplots), but it just doesn't happen here. I know others disagree, but I'll stand by my feeling that that aspect was never fully imagined.

[Jessi]

I believe Season 5 is the weakest because the bad guys (Templeton and Marlo and Cheese) are so one-dimensional. And while many people didn't like Season 2 because they didn't care for the stevedore plot line, I think that season's biggest weakness was the one-dimensionality of "The Greek" and company--the only exception there being Spiros. One of the reasons I could bear with the horrible-ness of the horrible happenings of The Wire is that I believe the show is fundamentally optimistic about humans. The enemy is always a system of some sort and how that system brutalizes people into doing monstrous things. There is so much empathy for people who do awful things and the only difference between the "good" guys and the "bad" guys, that I could find, is not some higher morality, but rather the bodies. The "bad" guys dropped bodies. The "good" guys didn't. I was not emotionally engaged with Marlo or Templeton the way I was with all the other people on that show--including Rawls, weirdly enough. The only reason I can think of for this is because they simply were not drawn with a deft hand. The pigeons didn't do it for me Marlo--you still came off like a boring robot with dead eyes.

[ToxicUnicorn]

The pigeons didn't do it for me Marlo--you still came off like a boring robot with dead eyes.

This is so true.  I could have used even the tiniest glimpse into Marlo's psyche. The pigeons weren't enough.  In fact, my entire understanding of what he was supposed to be about came from what Avon or Prop Joe said about him.  He was pretty much a blank wall, other than that.

 

I still don't really remember who Cheese is.

 

 but I'll stand by my feeling that that aspect was never fully imagined.

I agree with this assessment.  I will even give the benefit of the doubt that some of the newspaper characters had potential.  But so much of the fascination of this show was in the dynamics between the characters, and the messed up ways everyone was connected.  The newspaper guys were very straightforward.  The City Editor guy doesn't like the guy who lies.  The other boss man does like the guy who lies.  End of story.  No back and forth and up and down all the sides of that triangle, the way you would have seen with any other trio.

[uoflfan]

Dear God, I hated that little cockroach Marlo Stanfield. It's so strange to see Marlo's actor, Jamie Hector, killing it as Bosch's partner in Bosch. Jamie makes a much better cop than criminal.

Oh, how I miss my Omar Devon Little. With Boardwalk Empire done, Michael K. Williams needs a new show.

[Mindymoo]

Michael K Williams is going to be starring in a miniseries on IFC this summer. It is along the same lines as last year's "The Spoils of Babylon." Can't wait to see him do comedy/satire.