Though it also creeps me out how much I like this show in which I'm more or less rooting for a sociopath serial killer. Except, it doesn't actually creep me out. Creepy.

I've had a lot of practice cheering on charismatic murderers at this point . The only time soulless Angel was ever on screen and I wasn't rooting for him to kill someone was when he had Willow by the throat in "Innocence."

No thoughts on the penultimate Wire of S4?

It's the first episode I saw!

Our new cable deal now gets HBO and so I decided to jump in randomly with the TiVo.

I didn't realize it was the culmination of so many arcs, so for a first time viewer let me just note: (1) Whoa! Very intense; (2) Whoa! Bringing the bleak; (3) Surprisingly easy to follow the story considering I don't know anybody's name or history.

But shit...kids beating down on kids. Evil mommys of the pink christmas tree. Clearly doomed techie kid with one last act of helpage. Good mom burnt to a crisp. Good cops thwarted for finding bodies, but then getting the go-ahead on a purely political power play. Big lumpen asshole cops taking the heat on themselves. Good boxing coaches missing the memo on the cold hard facts of the street today.

Whoa...and I thought I was being brave jumping into Season Two while they were all Cop with Glasses, Tough Woman Cop, Hottie Aussie Cop(English+ Faux Balmer comes out vaguely Aussie at first. McNutty's voice is greatly improved since.) That was a heavy intro, Hecubus. It took me forever to keep the cornerboys straight, and it's shockingly easy for me to start talking like one and wanting to tell somebody who'll be all "Wtf?" to "Holla at me later, a'ight?' (pulls out orange couch for the Bot) They don't *all* hurt that much. Only Wallace, and maybe Ray Cole's wake...oh, and Frank Sobotka...you'll run away, now, right, bunk?(But something about Frank connected me to something...ancestral or something. That won't happen to everyone. I don't think.) My mother doesn't get it. Especially with the weeping. But it's also really hilarious. Honest. George brings the pain cause he's all about the kids. But he also wrote that thing about the guy that invented McNuggets that I still laugh at, because iirc the phrase "clowny ass" figures in somewhere.

Who's the cop pulling out the nails? Lester? He's got the gravitas going for him.

Lester Freamon, Major Crimes' Yoda. Unjustly confined for12(?) years to Evidence Control for pissing off the bosses.(he knows the years months and days, but I think I fucked it up) Currently enjoying a phenomenal comeback, which he is risking by doing his damn job. Makes more making doll furniture anyway.(Which is how he survived hanging with the drunks and burnouts he used to work with.)

I want this actor to play Derek Strange, but SLJ is more famous and probably will.
Very cruel reassigment at BPD...they ask you where you want to go, and do the opposite. Lester said if he could get outside and talk to people, he could deal. So they stick him in a windowless room with bloody shirts. Sometimes I think The PTB did that to me too. "Well, Officer, you're about to be reincarnated. Any thoughts?"

"As long as I can exercise every day, I'm game."

Bwah ha ha.

Fuckin' bosses.

Erika's right: that is a heavy place to jump in. My first episode was the last of S2, another heavy one, from which I learned: a) I had no idea what was going on and b) I needed to find out, immediately. Luckily Season 1 had just come out on DVD.

>12(?) years

Oh, come now, Mrs. Simon. That's 13 years... and 4 months.

And 11 days. My brain is a strange place. But "I got poetry in me." anyway.(Or maybe he would find correcting my canon mistakes erotic...with all due respect he's got no problem with the sound of his own voice, does he?) OK, so it was an even bigger waste for Lester and Baltimore City than I thought.

Did everyone know Dennis Wise is a real person? I met his wife Malika in cyberspace while she was promoting his novel.(Which he can't, being in Supermax in Yuma...One thing about being in prison in Yuma, you probably can't tell it from being out of prison in Yuma.) I thought this was good if a bit crowded, the way a Simon finale always is. I bet they have to pull them from his hands to fend off that attack of "Just one more thing..." that seems to break out. A moment of silence for our man Bodie, to whom I've always been very attached despite his not being...cool and menacing like Stringer Bell or Omar, nor childish and needing protecting in manner of the 'Fayette Mafia'. But I think that's why I'm so fond of him(that and that way he had of being deep by accident) but when I started watching "The Wire" I was under the impression that I was entering a very alien environment...with time I found we all have our Games, but at first Bodie's Everyguy manner helped me feel comfortable on the street. I don't even know the actor's name...when I see him in Hershey's commercials I say "Hey! Bodie." He does good work. I think the moral is that when our institutions fail, our best hope is to leave room for the individual to take a personal one-to-one interest. Like if they were really interested in child protection* BPD Sargeant* Carver would seem an excellent choice to take Randy home and foster him...what? They were afraid he couldn't pass the background check? Kinda didn't expect Namond to get the best shot, since he was such a smartmouth in school, but that's kind of how it rolls in the Simonverse. You never know who will get the redemption(Not that I'm counting Duquan out completely, or Randy either, poor little victim.) I spent the whole "Corner" thinking Gary would straighten out before Fran, but Fran got clean and Gary O'D.

TastyKake: I really think Simon believes in humanity still, because I think Bubbles is the heart of the Wire-verse, messed up and addicted and all(I'm not sure if I held off posting cause y'all would think that crazy or if some smart-mouthed Austin cocksucker would tie me to my desk to write about it. I was touched that Bubbles even affected Landsman.

Some episode, huh?