I’m trucking along with the same set of Baltimore cops and politicians and a few new characters. All told, I finished three seasons of The Wire in the last twelve months. That’s about 36 hours of video all consumed on my iPhone, mostly on airplanes. This show does not need a big screen.
Who needs a big screen and sound system for a thoughtful, detailed police drama like this? I save a lot of energy by just lighting the pixels on a 3.5 inch display. And it’s unrivaled in it’s convenience. I have a bottom-of-the-line Kindle, and the iPhone is even more convenient than pulling that thing out. In fact, the movie viewing experience on the iPhone is better than the book reading experience on the iPhone.
I like this show a lot because it’s packed with great stories. Jam-packed. On top of that, as it bounces between all of these stories, you get treated with bouts of wry humor, political commentary, and moving moments in such volume that you can’t turn it off. Well I can, because it’s so convenient to fire it up again.
** INSIDE BASEBALL **
As I watched this season, I jotted down great moments. Here are my top moments from season three. If you don’t watch the show, this post and these moments are meaningless or contain PLOT KILLERS, so you may want to leave. Sorry.
Episode three:
Well, McNulty’s here in spirit anyway.
Pryzbylewski, referencing Kima and some surly comments she made about shifting the focus from Barksdale drugs to homicide. It was just a simple comment, similar to what the funny person said at your staff meeting this morning, but it came from a virtual recluse with some personality problems.
Episode four:
You put fire to everything you touch McNulty then you walk away while it burns.
Lester. It needs no explanation.
Episode five:
Is you takin’ notes?
On a criminal $*&#ing conspiracy.
Stringer, who’s putting his MBA to work. He’s running a strategy session with local drug lords in a hotel conference room. He has coffee in the back and is using Robert’s Rules of Order, so one of his henchman figured he should take the minutes. Stringer reacted appropriately.
Episode six:
The Bunk speech to Omar. Blew me away.
Episode eight:
The talk between Rhianna and McNulty with 22 minutes left about D’Angelo’s suicide. Intense.
Then there’s Stringer’s death. I’m not sure what to make of it. McNulty’s reaction and the path it sets him on seem to bode a distinctly different type of show for season four. Is the Marlow/Barksdale story line dead? Are we going to have more political intrigue versus gritty street crime?
We’ll see.