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The Wire Final Season

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from: David Plotz
to: Jeffrey Goldberg

Week 4: How Does Omar Find So Many Perfect Observation Posts?

Posted Monday, Jan. 28, 2008, at 5:46 PM ET

Jeffrey Goldberg and David Plotz were online on March 6 to chat about The Wire. Read the transcript.

Dear Jeff,

Not just two—I've now heard from four potty-mouthed journalists who were slapped by bosses. Let's see if Romenesko turns up more.

My wife, Hanna Rosin, chastises me for pooh-poohing your idea that Herc will take down Marlo: She observes that "one thing that happens predictably this season is that everyone switches places: McNulty trades with Bubbles (one addict up, another down); Kima becomes the baby-sitter; Lester goes dirty; Carver switches on a dime from protector to snitch."

We haven't talked about Omar's return. First of all, was that Michael he saw when he was spying from the window? Second, how does Omar find so many perfect observation posts? Isn't that a little convenient? (Remember how he also had a window on Marlo's secret hideout?) And, finally, I want to call out Omar's ambush of Slim Charles, which was a thrilling scene. (Partly because it was filmed as if by a security camera, as Fray poster Isonomist notes.) Slim Charles' brush with death reminded me of a panel I moderated six months ago at a D.C. film festival. Anwan Glover, who plays Slim Charles and is a D.C. go-go star, was one of the panelists. He had that week finished filming Episode 4. He wouldn't reveal anything about the season's plot, but he did say that his character was still alive. Now that we've seen it, I realize he must have been mighty pleased to have gotten through the episode alive—especially when he learned what had happened to fellow cast member Robert Chew.

I've never been dissed by the Washington Post, because I was never good enough to get in the door for an interview. (And then Hanna worked there, so I could blame their lack of interest in me on their nepotism rules.)

Talk to you next week,
David

tv club
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from: David Plotz
to: Jeffrey Goldberg

Week 4: How Does Omar Find So Many Perfect Observation Posts?

Posted Monday, Jan. 28, 2008, at 5:46 PM ET
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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor. Andy Bowers is the editor of Slate V. Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for the Atlantic and the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror. Melinda Henneberger is a Slate contributor and the author of If They Only Listened to Us: What Women Voters Want Politicians To Hear. David Plotz is Slate's deputy editor. He is the author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank. You can e-mail him at . John Swansburg is a Slate associate editor. June Thomas is Slate's foreign editor. You can e-mail her at .
Entry 1: Photograph of Tristan Wilds by Paul Schiraldi © HBO. Entry 8: Photograph of Clark Johnson, Brandon Young, Michelle Paress, and Tom McCarthy by Paul Schiraldi © HBO. Entry 21: Photograph of Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, Jamie Hector, Method Man, and Robert F. Chew by Paul Schiraldi © HBO 2008. Entry 27: Photograph of Lance Reddick by Paul Schiraldi © 2008 HBO. Entry 42: Still of Wendell Pierce by Paul Schiraldi © 2008 HBO. Entry 52: Still of Tristan Wilds by Paul Schiraldi © 2008 HBO. Entry 57: Photograph of Sonja Sohn, Wendell Pierce, and Dominic West by Nicole Rivelli © 2008 HBO. Entry 61: Still of Lance Reddick by Paul Schiraldi © HBO 2008.
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Remarks from the Fray:

I hope Goldberg and Plotz move on to discussing the idea that the press is complicit in allowing the inner-city (especially black inner-city) to decay by not paying attention to the problems that caused its sharp decline. Maybe newsroom characters feel cliched, but shouldn't we discuss how they enter into the "War on Drugs"?

--tsell89

(To reply, click here.)

So far as we've seen most of the newspapermen are indeed stock characters, but that's nothing to worry about. Except for a few leads each season, very few characters have conflicting motives. Think Clay Davis, Mayor Royce, Herc, Horse, Burrell, Rawles, Weebay, Chris Partlow, Snoop, the school administrators, even Marlo.

The strength of the show isn't in the complexity of the characters; it's in the multi-layered coherent vision, the way these somewhat two-dimensional characters all affect one another. Granted, that's a formula for pedagogy, but what saves the show (and not only saves it but really does make it the best show ever) is the one thing that fools everyone into thinking that Snoop, with her paucity of lines and sole motivation of kill-everyone-Marlo-tells-me-to, is a great character -- namely, style.

All the characters have great style, great lines. It's what makes the show fun as well as edifying. And from what I can tell, the newspapermen are going to have as much style as anyone. "Stay hungry. Good things come... when they come." C'mon.

--jamessal

(To reply, click here.)

I don't doubt that the busyness of the first episode had a lot to do with the retards at HBO deciding to cut the Wire from 13 episodes to 10 for its final season but I know Simon will make it work in spite of his bosses stupidity.

As far as Jeffrey's weak defense of the Sopranos, give it up man. The show lost its way after 3 seasons, so the claim that the Sopranos was on longer is not much of an excuse. Of course it is probably true that the Sopranos was a victim of its own massive popularity, while the Wire has been able to stay on course precisely because nobody was watching. Maybe if David Simon had gotten all the money and all the ball licking from critics that David Chase received he would have turned into a hack writer as well.

--sir biff

(To reply, click here.)

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