The Wire | Season One | Episodes 11 & 12 | Full-Length Commentary
Added 2023-04-05 19:01:02 +0000 UTCCommentary for The Wire - Season One - Episodes 11 & 12
This is a watch-along, you need your own copy of the series.
Comments
They didn't take Stringer because the only thing they had tied to him was the Brandon murder and since they killed the only witness (Wallace) they had nothing on him.
M Salam
2023-04-16 14:31:30 +0000 UTCEpisode 12 was written by George Pelecanos, a well-known crime novelist who sets many of his stories in Washington DC. He will go on to write the penultimate episodes of all 5 seasons of The Wire, which are a bit more action-packed (as much as a Wire episode can be) and frequently involve sad endings for beloved characters. Note how Bodie plays the hard gangster, ready to kill his friend on Stringer's orders. Yet when the moment comes he freezes up, unwilling to pull the trigger until Poot yells at him. Then Poot has to take the gun from Bodie to finish Wallace off, more out of compassion for his friend than anything else. Why did Wallace have to die? Because of a strange chain of events that we follow in Season 1: When Omar and Brandon rob the stash house in episode 4, Poot is a witness; Poot and Wallace are at the Greek's arcade at the same time as Brandon; Poot is too intimidated to call Stringer himself leaving Wallace to make the call; Wee-Bey and Bird happen to dump the body right in Wallace's backyard; Herc and Carver listen to Poot have phone sex long enough for them to hear him give up the info about Wallace's guilt over Brandon; the Baltimore PD has no money for witness protection; Kima gets shot, distracting Daniels from going to pick up Wallace at his grandma's, causing Wallace to return on his own; The Police brass force Daniels to raid the main stash house, making Stringer and Avon paranoid enough to kill even their own people to tie up loose ends. As slimy as Maury Levy presents in the show, he goes an extra mile toward full-on conspiracy to murder in episode 12. Though he leaves the room for Avon and Stringer to talk details, he specifically advises them to have a conversation about who should be killed.
james repka
2023-04-06 02:41:54 +0000 UTCThe Wallace scene is a tough one because it is so real, not like a typical gangland hit but children murdering a child. Interesting fact: When the time came to shoot Wallace’s death scene, everybody on set was emotional. Jordan’s mom was there and was crying hysterically as she watched her son die on camera. Unfortunately, her crying became so distracting that Jordan had to ask for her to be removed from the set. “The death scene was very emotional,” Jordan recalled. “I remember my mom being on set, she’s in Video Village and you could just hear her sobbing and crying and stuff like that. It was pretty distracting. I’m like, ‘Ma … Somebody, please just take her off set.’ But it was a good time looking back at it." He got pretty emotional himself though when he came to grips with the fact that the acting experience (his first) was over: By the time Wallace was killed, Jordan had formed a close bond with many of his castmates. He wasn’t sure if he’d get another gig after The Wire, so he was doubly sad when his time on the show came to an end. “It was a sad moment for me, at that point it was just like me leaving my family, just looked at everybody as my big brothers and sisters and I was like, ‘Man, all this has to stop?’ I’m not gonna work anymore?’ But he’s like, ‘It’ll be fine … You’ll be great.’ And then the death scene.”
James Boyd
2023-04-05 22:56:01 +0000 UTCArcs only matched by Chris Moltisanti and a few Game of Thrones characters.
FuzzyDunlop
2023-04-05 22:01:41 +0000 UTCMan, I've seen this show a hundred times. And you just changed my whole perspective on Briana (Deangelo's mom) with one line, and it seems so obvious. "You raised him to want to be a kind person." Anyway, I digress. Can't wait for your reaction to season 2..We used to build things in this country.
FuzzyDunlop
2023-04-05 21:58:17 +0000 UTCWallace was the link to Stringer. Without Wallace they had nothing against Stringer.
SavageDiplomat
2023-04-05 21:41:05 +0000 UTC
