Other cop/detective shows: Yes I have a drinking problem but I am a serious hard-boiled alcoholic. Now look at me taking a sip of whisky while I hold a cynical monologue about the world. Meanwhile Mcnulty:
-Bad news, my fashion king is wearing a shapeless grey polo shirt and an ugly fake leather jacket for half this episode. I can't believe this betrayal. At least his delivery of "Oh what, the customer is always right?!" is perfect.
-On the other hand he's so cute laughing about Bubbles' hats that it's making me sad:
He looks so YOUNG. Just a 16 year old goofing off and trying on silly clothes with his friends 😭
I promise I talk about things besides Bodie's clothes after the cut.
-This scene with Daniels, Valchek, and Burrell negotiating over the fallout of the Towers raid...I never fully follow the police department internal politics, but I'm sure there's lots of good stuff there if you really track it. I do love Daniels very reluctantly saying it was his order. The flip side of anti-snitch culture is taking the hit for your men.
-CHESS SCENE HEYOOOO! An icon for a reason. Dee's lines in particular are The Wire dialogue at its best. The cadence, the phrasing.
-Love that it's Bodie who first recognizes the game as a metaphor for The Game, with saying the king sounds like Avon. He's good at understanding new concepts quickly and applying them! He's so smart!
Hey, that's the name of the blog! 😀
-OMAR!!!! I'm not sure how much I'll actually have to say about him because he's already perfectly fully drawn on screen, but rest assured he is my forever favorite. I'm only the millionth person to say this but MKW is just so unbelievably charismatic. He's barely doing anything in this scene and you can't look away from him.
-I don't know where Bubbles gets off criticizing Sydnor for his undercover clothes being too nice, when he's wearing this beautiful shirt:
Like where did he get that. I want it.
-I started unpacking the Kima "I wasn't about to stay scared" philosophy, its relationship to her enthusiastic participation in the beating of Bodie, and that contrasted with the beating of Johnny, but it got too long, I think I'll make a separate post about it
-Sigh, I forgot how much of this show is about McNulty's sex life. It's nice to have more of Rhonda but I wish she was doing literally anything other than banging Jimmy.
-Also I'm sorry but I find it hard to believe that Jimmy "the only good women cops are lesbians" McNulty can really get a woman off through PIV alone. Or maybe we're supposed to think Rhonda is faking? Hrm.
-I think Bodie is starting to warm to Dee in this episode. He seems to be actually listening toward the end of Dee's "why can't we just sell the shit and stop with the violence" speech (and he's certainly open to that philosophy from String later), he's attentive to the chess lesson, and the banter about paying for the sandwich is more good-natured / friendly than their past dialogue. But IIRC this does not last after the robbery.
-This shot is so pretty, with the sideways light, diagonal lines from the shadows and the guys on the floor, and vertical lines from the walls and Bodie:
Also love Bodie's death glare throughout the scene, he is SO furious at getting taken advantage of.
-My shitty screencaps cannot do it justice but I had to try to capture Carver’s face when Herc returns from medical leave in time for the raid. They are soooooo.....
-The scene of Wee-Bey yelling at Dee for the robbery is 40 seconds of perfection. Hassan Johnson's delivery and hand gestures. Bodie sitting backwards on the chair and showing Dee up with knowing Omar's name (trying to demonstrate that he's a smartass pawn!).
-I like Dee but he has some quality that makes me LOVE watching him get berated and yelled at. It's a certain nepo baby smugness, I guess,
-Wee-Bey's "Now we look like bitches...we got to come back on 'em" followed immediately by the pointless raid...hmm it's almost like much of the violence on this show is more about signaling your strength to the other guys than the actual outcome of the violence. Like it's all a tragic cycle of posturing and protecting your team's image...
-And then cutting from the beating directly to Prez in the office doing crosswords….like yes you can and should take Prez off the streets, but that does not solve the problem because what Prez did was only a particularly incompetent implementation of the approach that really all of them buy in to.
Anyway, next time I get to watch Bodie walk out of juvie :)
