'Dancing With The Stars' Season 14 Dream Casting
What To Watch On TV This Week
The Wire: Soft Eyes
(S04E02) "I still wake up white in a city that ain't." -- CarcettiLike a lot of people, I watched the first three seasons on DVD. I'm used to overdosing on the shows. Watching them one by one is going to be a painful adjustment, like being forced to put down a good novel every fifty pages for a week. Torture!
A season of The Wire builds slowly, methodically revealing it's characters and theme at a carefully crafted pace. And, watching these, one by one, as they were intended to be shown, only reinforces how powerful the series is. So we've had to wait until the second episode for our first glimpse of some of the show's staple characters.
Glad to see Bubbles, one of the show's quintessential survivors is still pushing his cart of t-shirts and sock for sale and still has the protégé he picked up sometime after young Johnny OD'd. There's a great moment when Prez, now a teacher, and Bubbles in a tie, pass each other and do double-takes when Bubbles takes his young assistant to the school to try and get him enrolled. Dennis (Cutty) is back thankfully too, still working as a landscaper, but keeping his focus on his true passion, teaching boxing to kids without a lot else to look toward in life. The gym has thrived in the past year.
I meant to say which of the new main characters, the middle-schoolers, is my favorite last time, but I like them all: Randy (Maestro Harrell) the young entrepreneur who sell candy and chips out of his knapsack and who's foster mom makes sure he calls her ma'am. Or, Dukie (Jermaine Crawford) the outsider so impoverished even the other kids ridicule him for it. Or Namond (Julito McCullum) who we discover is Wee-bay's son. The fourth is Michael (Tristan Wilds) with whom Namond works out a job-share this week with Bodie, who's budget is stretched and his traffic dwindling.
Marlo again demonstrates his prowess, doling out hundred dollar bills to neighboorhood kids.. "You're name gonna ring out," Marlo's lieutenant tells him. Marlo just nods. He already knows. Marlo so far, seems a vast improvement on the Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell. Last week, when his crew urged him to take out Bodie's entire corner in revenge for a killing, Marlo ordered it held to one assassination, of Bodie's number two man Lex (who started it all by killing Marlo's soldier Fruit or a woman). There's a tense scene in which Marlo confronts Michael -- who refuses to accept his money, and Michael meets his stare. Marlo sees that Michael is not afraid, and is impressed. That's chilling, as Marlo clearly sees him as a potential soldier.
Another great episode. Lester Freamon has taken over from McNulty as the Baltimore Police's number one shit-stirrer and issues subpoenas up and down the corridors of political power. In one of the great parallel plot lines that the series is so adept at, a city counselman uses the same words to describe his acceptance of shady campaign contributes, that Namond uses after taking Marlo's cash dole out: "I'll take any man's many if he giving it away."
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