The Wire | Season Two | Episodes 11 & 12 | Full-Length Commentary
Added 2023-05-23 19:01:02 +0000 UTCCommentary for The Wire - Season Two - Episodes 11 & 12
Comments
Brilliant comment. The magic of The Wire is that after 20+ years it is still so relatable today. Which on the other hand is a very sad reality.
Mino BG
2023-05-25 17:31:15 +0000 UTC"We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket." --Frank Sobotka The back-and-forth between Frank and Bruce this season tells a great story about the stakes people are playing for. DiBiago's grandfather went door-to-door sharpening knives. But each generation of his family does better than the previous one. Frank's dad was a stevedore and so is Frank's kid. It's a job that is being phased out by technology and the dockworkers are watching it happen but have no power to stop it. From the pre-credit sequence in Episode 1 with McNulty and Diggins talking about the closed steel plant and sugar refinery to the end, these monuments to industry -- and to good-paying middle class jobs -- loom in the background. The Harbor is being renovated, the grain pier being turned into condos. West Baltimore has whole neighborhoods of boarded up homes that used to be occupied by middle class black (and some white) families headed by folks that worked in those factories. What does Bruce DiBiago do, what is his value? He is a lobbyist, making a six-figure income to hang out at parties with politicians, convincing them to support or oppose issues of his clients. But to Frank, at this point he's just a guy with his hand out, another taker. This assessment by Frank is crude but prescient. In the 20 years since this episode first aired, we see billions and trillions of dollars climbing uphill into the pockets of guys running Ponzi schemes, leading to the real estate crisis in 2008 to the NFT and Bitcoin scandals of today. Jobs go away, but working folk have no one speaking for them. Because they can't afford lobbyists.
james repka
2023-05-25 15:16:05 +0000 UTCYou guys do a great job for first time watchers trying to piece everything together. It takes multiple watches of the Wire to understand how everything connects, and you'll always find new shit that you never realized before. Cannot wait for you guys to watch Season 3. Personally my second favorite season of the Wire behind Season 4.
M Salam
2023-05-23 22:36:07 +0000 UTC
