The Wire, Season 1, Episode 11. First Time Watching reaction

[@chidiumeh]

The spoiler is probably the same guy who tries to spoil reactions on other channels watching The Wire. Glad you have someone able to screen the comments.

[@BennyBlancoNL]

I tried to warn them from the first episode. The wire has the worst fans on youtube. Its sick.

[@chidiumeh]

@BennyBlancoNL Most of the ones I interact with are pretty helpful and provide context to each episode. There is one particular moron however who has a habit of revealing future events.

[@richieclean]

​@@BennyBlancoNL so we're just going to diss an entire fan base just because of a few idiots? Ok then.

[@Zseventyone]

28:44 - On Carver and Herc taking the money - They couldn't the first time because there was a specified amount in the bag for the payoff. Here, there is no telling how much there is so they can get away with it.

[@jagwolf8079]

Also, if when they did the right thing didn't matter, then now they don't care.

[@biglu323]

@28:45 - Nah in that particular situation they would more likely get away with stealing . They were the first ones in that room to discover the money so therefore , unlike the last time , they got to it before it was written up and recorded. Plus it’s stashed money and not from the immediate revenue collected and counted right after drug deal which would show up as an actual set number heard in wire taps.

[@NeilLewis77]

"great catch, what was your name again?" "lestor freamon" "and who you with?" "pawn shop unit" the look on bunk and Jays faces. basically saying "ye thats lestor, hes a really good cop but we dont use him as a cop, instead we stuff him in a basement because all our bosses are petty arseholes. and thats why we end up in these sorts of situations in the first place" the levels of writing on this show. two characters share a frustrated look and you get a whole sentance out of it.

[@TheGunship]

@@NeilLewis77 "With a lesser cast, we would be in trouble." - David Simon

[@chriscostelloe8942]

13 years….

[@TheGunship]

@@chriscostelloe8942 And four months

[@LeahB31]

Option: You can give that third party person moderator capabilities to delete spoiler-comments.

[@johnrichards4976]

I'm a bit surprised there has been no recognition of the underlying theme of this season - the that the police and the drug gangs parallel each other. The parallel actions are rarely in the same episode, but it starts in episodes 1 when Avon/Rawls tells D'Angelo/McNulty to put their ass in a chair. Johnny gets beat by the hoppers and Bodie by the cops. Avon makes a point of putting Brandon's body on display, the cops make a show of displaying dope on the table

[@Chris-ImperialAerosolKid]

These comparisons tend to become more apparent as the series progresses.

[@Zseventyone]

Don't spoil, y'all!

[@mo2k638]

Spoil yall

[@watchthiswithjoeandkevin6]

Seriously.

[@BennyBlancoNL]

​@@watchthiswithjoeandkevin6The wire has the worst fans. Its really too bad.

[@thegrimner]

There's a grim subtext to the high energy with which we see the police department mobilize to catch the shooters. It's the kind of zeal and energy and commitment that was sorely lacking when that girl was murdered all those months prior and the first detective at the scene barely bothered to investigate .

[@chriscostelloe8942]

Great reactions guys! Thanks!

[@eltedioso]

The whole sequence at the crime scene is one of my favorite spans of TV, ever.

[@Slateking]

I have the same assessment of Rawls. I think he knows what he’s doing. He is smart, and he knows how to do the job right. Somewhere in the past he was corrupted by the system.

[@chrisb.8758]

Rawls feels like the other side of the coin to Freamon to me. He clearly seems like he used to have some skills. If someone with talent like him doesn’t want to play the political/bureaucracy game, they get buried like Lester. If they do, they become part of the machine like Rawls.

[@laurensb1b]

Any smart person in this system would quickly realize how limited your options are, you either go with the system or fight it. Basically exemplified in 3 smart characters, Mcnulty who obviously wants to fight the system, but at the cost of his career, Rawls who plays the system at the cost of his morals and Daniels who is in between wondering what he really cares about more, doing good work or working his career.

[@watchthiswithjoeandkevin6]

Definitely. Rawls sucks for sure, but he feels like a product of a broken system.

[@thegrimner]

Someone above compared him to Freamon, but I've always compared him to McNulty, myself, and think that's a major part in Rawls's utter hatred for him. Rawls probably sees a lot of himself in Jimmy, Freamon, and essentially everyone trying to bring some competence into the work of being police, but he took the other path and chose his safety over doing the right thing. But he understands what the right thing is, far more acutely than a total hack like Burrell. He ends up being quite a complex and interesting character. He knows what Freamon, Jimmy, and other "moral crusader#" are doing, he even respects them and their motivations, but that understanding and respect end up making him more resentful for reminding him he's an utter sellout.

[@richardkhchang]

Personally, a good litmus test I like to use for quality reactors of this show is how they feel about Rawls. When someone reacts a little too negatively to Rawls and views him as an outright villain, that reaction probably isn't going to be worth watching.

[@lockeforeer]

The response to Greggs getting shot is why you know no cop is really in too much danger when on the street, because they *know* it's not worth this.

[@Slateking]

@@lockeforeer the response to Greggs getting shot is from organized crime. When a criminal gang kills a cop and everyone knows they did it, the police crack down on them. This sounds like a justification for some other political opinion. If you watch the Wire and come away with ACAB, you missed the point

[@lockeforeer]

Stringer embarrassed himself this ep. Took something on without consulting Avon and missed something that to Avon was clear as day.

[@ginapurpura1182]

Great reaction guys! I share your intense dislike of Levy and your assessment of the corruption, overall. I love what they did for Wee-bay’s character. As you said, they humanized him, and we really needed the comic relief of his tropical fish reveal!

[@watchthiswithjoeandkevin6]

This show does such a great job of murkying the characters; the cops have their negatives and the criminals have their human sides. Just great writing.

[@wavonbarksdale3771]

Herc and carver were able to steal because the money wasn’t specified on the Wire. They explained it in episode 9.

[@JenLight]

I get triggered when I see dope on the table on the news cuz of this show 😆

[@andersfrostbertelsen1159]

We never see much of the police commisioner, but It takes a special kind of asshole to make even Burrell seem like a decent guy.

[@LukeIsyourfasha]

This is the episode I started to respect Rawls

[@jayjacobl4667]

jimmy's not a bad dude but him just seeing bubbles as a druggie in that interrogation room sets bubble's character arc back for the rest of the show. but how could he have known he was trying to get clean!

[@TheGunship]

@@jayjacobl4667 Good point, Bubs wasn't able to get his point across, and McNulty was only thinking about the objective - but let's face it, that addict side of Bubs *wanted* him to plunge back into the darkness. It's like Frodo or Bilbo or Gollum with the ring.

[@johnrichards4976]

I grit my teeth every time they call "The Wire" a "procedural". That's a label that was applied by early reviewers that only watched the first 3 episodes that were provided for review ahead of the premier. CSI was the hot drama at the time, so lazy reviewers compared to CSI. Calling this show a procedural is like calling "Moby Dick" a whaling how to.

[@TheGunship]

It is a serialized procedural, where the cases are spread over a season instead of by episode. Of course, the show is much more than that, but it is very concerned with process and procedure, especially in Season 1.

[@watchthiswithjoeandkevin6]

I don't think 'Procedural" is reductive. It just means that technical detail is important to the story. It has certainly been applied to lesser shows than this (most cop shows), but this show definitely has procedural aspects.

[@thegrimner]

It is a procedural, though, at least on this season. It's clearly not all it is, and the label won't always apply in the future, but the wire, the investigation, is the starting point upon which the show expands. Seen as a whole, it's a Shakespearean play, but procedural fits the show for now.