The Wire virgin’s diary – Never confuse dog with dawg

(Season 3, Episodes 1-4)

Another season begins! I’ve really enjoyed the first two seasons of The Wire, and so far I’m enjoying season three as well. Much like season two, the beginning of the season seems to have a lot of focus on character development. New relationships are blossoming, old relationships are coming to an end, and new characters are being introduced. It does seem to be moving a bit faster than season two did, with the police out on the street investigating Stringer Bell right from the beginning.

“Time After Time”

I guess the creative team was ready for a change, because I really wasn’t expecting the towers to come down like they did in the premiere episode. That certainly changes the landscape of the show that we’ve grown accustomed to, doesn’t it?

I loved the scene of Stringer holding a meeting with all his drug dealers using Robert’s Rules of Order. To say that he runs things a bit different than Avon is an understatement.

I’m really interested to see how Cutty’s story is going to develop. It seems like he’s “lost the game,” as they say, and has no interest in the drug trade anymore now that he is out of prison. I’m curious to see how easy it is to walk away from it all, and whether or not Avon will even give him the opportunity.

“All Due Respect”

I wasn’t really expecting D’Angelo’s murder to come back into the series, but it seems like McNulty is on to the faked suicide. That should definitely lead to some interesting places.

A very important lesson was learned in this episode: make sure you never confuse “dawg” with “dog.” This was one of the funnier episodes, but tragic at the same time. The police thought they finally had a big break and it turned out that their “murder” was just Cheese putting down his dog after a fight.

Tommy Carcetti seems like a real slimeball, getting his hands on Burrell. I feel bad for the commissioner and I hope that Carcetti and his scheming doesn’t get the guy in too much trouble.

“Dead Soldiers”

The brutality on the streets of Baltimore continued in this episode. We saw one of Omar’s hold ups go wrong, ending in the death of one of his gang during a shootout. It was good to see Omar take the death so hard. He’s been such a larger-than-life figure until now, this really served to humanize him.

Carcetti was back to his scheming in this episode. I think the scene of him having sex with the woman, who was most definitely not his wife, in the bathroom while he looked at himself in the mirror said it all. This guy loves nothing more than himself. He gives me the creeps.

“Amsterdam”

This episode saw Major Colvin begin his plan to relocate all the drug dealers in his territory. I can’t decide whether his plan is brilliant or insane. I think it may be a little bit of both, but in the end I can’t imagine this is going to end well for him.

I certainly didn’t see the relationship between Daniels and Pearlman coming. I’m glad that McNulty was man enough to realize that it was the right thing not to interfere with things once he found out. After all, I don’t think Rhonda was ever more than a friend with benefits to him.

I think the best part of the episode had to be the huge fight between Freamon and McNulty regarding McNulty’s obsession with taking down Stringer Bell. It was more drama than we usually see from the police, and I think it was a great moment.

So far my favorite part of the season is definitely Cutty and his struggle with finding his place after his trip to prison. I’m eager to see where that story line is going.

Clacked by Bob Degon
on Jan 21, 2009 @ 12:00 EST5EDT