The Wire Thread

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, KMD7 said:

Was watching Sleepers a few weeks ago and spotted Bunk in it as Little Caeser

 

 

 

One of his first starring roles was in the old TV show 'The Equalizer' with Edward Woodward'.

 

I saw a couple of clips of 'Coming To America' from 1988 - both Commissioner Burrell (The Wire) and Gustavo Frings (Breaking Bad) had small roles.

[Em City]

11 minutes ago, KMD7 said:

Was watching Sleepers a few weeks ago and spotted Bunk in it as Little Caeser

 

 

 

 

Very under-rated movie.

[TheHowieLama]

2 hours ago, Section_31 said:

 somewhat surprised once when this girl I used to know

Hehhhehhhheeeheh

[lifetime fan]

Watching this again at the moment, it’s her first time watching and I’d forgotten how much I loved Norman. 
 

Would have been brilliant if he could have been in it more. 

[Section_31]

27 minutes ago, lifetime fan said:

Watching this again at the moment, it’s her first time watching and I’d forgotten how much I loved Norman. 
 

Would have been brilliant if he could have been in it more. 

Yeah he's a boss actor. He's class in Oz and he was good in Luke Cage recently too, which was his last role sadly.

[lifetime fan]

1 minute ago, Section_31 said:

Yeah he's a boss actor. He's class in Oz and he was good in Luke Cage recently too, which was his last role sadly.

Never watched either of those so might have to give them a go when we finish this. 
 

Some of his one liners are brilliant. 

[KMD7]

22 hours ago, lifetime fan said:

Never watched either of those so might have to give them a go when we finish this. 
 

Some of his one liners are brilliant. 

Started watching it again last week and convinced the wife to watch it this time.  We're on season 3 now and the Mrs is hooked.  Her favourite so far is season 2.

Frank Sobotka man, hits me right in the feels every time.  I still want to strangle Ziggy the little cunt.  

 

 

[Em City]

22 hours ago, Section_31 said:

Yeah he's a boss actor. He's class in Oz and he was good in Luke Cage recently too, which was his last role sadly.

 

Don't fuck with Querns.

[lifetime fan]

2 hours ago, KMD7 said:

Started watching it again last week and convinced the wife to watch it this time.  We're on season 3 now and the Mrs is hooked.  Her favourite so far is season 2.

Frank Sobotka man, hits me right in the feels every time.  I still want to strangle Ziggy the little cunt.  

 

 

This is my 10th time, the missus 1st. Like yours she’s hooked and loving it. She’s furloughed at the moment and wants to watch another episode at 2/3 in the morning, I’m having to get up and do 12 hour shifts! 
 

Season 2 has always been my favourite but season 4 has really run it close this time. 

[Karl_b]

10 times! That's some going Lifey. 

 

We've recently put it in the pile for another watch, our third, and I'm excited to get started. I appreciated it so much more the second time around, especially having also read some of the books proceeding and following the series. I can only imagine it looks more and more prescient as the years go by.

[lifetime fan]

4 minutes ago, Karl_b said:

10 times! That's some going Lifey. 

 

We've recently put it in the pile for another watch, our third, and I'm excited to get started. I appreciated it so much more the second time around, especially having also read some of the books proceeding and following the series. I can only imagine it looks more and more prescient as the years go by.

Even watching it this time there’s still little bits you’d never picked up on before. 
 

Greatest telly ever made. 

[Remmie]

I'm always surprised when I read on here about series/season 2 being their favourite as I found it the weakest after 5. But then I'm sure that's more my mistake, so clearly need to watch it again. 

 

 

[KMD7]

6 minutes ago, Remmie said:

I'm always surprised when I read on here about series/season 2 being their favourite as I found it the weakest after 5. But then I'm sure that's more my mistake, so clearly need to watch it again. 

 

 

It's all about Frank and Nick for me Rem, Decent people getting slowly dragged into the game and it overwhelming them.  The actor who played Nick is superb I thought, and I felt like crying for Frank. 

 

It wasn't until I watched it a second and third time that I fully appreciated it. Would have probably had seasons 1 3 and 4 ahead of it at first.  Its up there with them now. 

[Guest]

I think the poll is broken. Click on season 5 where it says 1 and there are nearly 40 names that have voted on it.

 

Mind you, Dave U is one of the names that voted so maybe it's not so much a mistake as a dupe.

[Stouffer]

26 minutes ago, Remmie said:

I'm always surprised when I read on here about series/season 2 being their favourite as I found it the weakest after 5. But then I'm sure that's more my mistake, so clearly need to watch it again. 

 

 

Series 2 stands out because it's noticeably different to the others. I can't put my finger on why but it's my favourite too.

[Karl_b]

I can't see my vote in the poll but think at the time, after one viewing, I voted for Season 4. After a second watch I'd change my vote to Season 2. It resonates the most with me, normal blokes down on their luck, the plight of blue collar life and aspiring to be something "higher". 

[lifetime fan]

7 hours ago, KMD7 said:

Started watching it again last week and convinced the wife to watch it this time.  We're on season 3 now and the Mrs is hooked.  Her favourite so far is season 2.

Frank Sobotka man, hits me right in the feels every time.  I still want to strangle Ziggy the little cunt.  

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Remmie said:

I'm always surprised when I read on here about series/season 2 being their favourite as I found it the weakest after 5. But then I'm sure that's more my mistake, so clearly need to watch it again. 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, KMD7 said:

It's all about Frank and Nick for me Rem, Decent people getting slowly dragged into the game and it overwhelming them.  The actor who played Nick is superb I thought, and I felt like crying for Frank. 

 

It wasn't until I watched it a second and third time that I fully appreciated it. Would have probably had seasons 1 3 and 4 ahead of it at first.  Its up there with them now. 

 

2 hours ago, Stouffer said:

Series 2 stands out because it's noticeably different to the others. I can't put my finger on why but it's my favourite too.

 

2 hours ago, Karl_b said:

I can't see my vote in the poll but think at the time, after one viewing, I voted for Season 4. After a second watch I'd change my vote to Season 2. It resonates the most with me, normal blokes down on their luck, the plight of blue collar life and aspiring to be something "higher". 

Season 2 is my favourite because it shows how fucked the system is for everyone unless they have money. 
 

The game is rigged. 
 

It shows the problems across different parts of the city, different backgrounds, different races...

 

Everything's different but everything’s the same. 

 

Also my ol fella was a docker and I watched him go through the exact same process when I was younger with him ultimately being made redundant and being unemployed for over 12 months. 
 

I guess that makes it hit home even more. 

[skend04]

Finally finished this after a seven year gap, having lost the DVDs during a house move. Such a great show, a real Greek Tragedy if ever there was one where the system keeps on fucking you.

 

Agree with most, Series 5 is the least best as it felt rushed, especially in comparison to the others. Both 2 and 4 are the proper heartbreakers. 

 

One thing I noticed, the scenes aren't actually very long or the editting make them appear that way. Nowadays there's a propensity to dwell or to have pretty long expositions, this show doesn't do that, so even at an hour's run time for each episode it feels like it's flying by.

[lifetime fan]

On 12/07/2020 at 08:34, skend04 said:

Finally finished this after a seven year gap, having lost the DVDs during a house move. Such a great show, a real Greek Tragedy if ever there was one where the system keeps on fucking you.

 

Agree with most, Series 5 is the least best as it felt rushed, especially in comparison to the others. Both 2 and 4 are the proper heartbreakers. 

 

One thing I noticed, the scenes aren't actually very long or the editting make them appear that way. Nowadays there's a propensity to dwell or to have pretty long expositions, this show doesn't do that, so even at an hour's run time for each episode it feels like it's flying by.

The greatest telly ever. 

[lifetime fan]

If anyone wants all 5 series on DVD (not the boxset) they can have them for a tenner to a Milton Keynes food bank charity. 

[Johnlj]

On 14/07/2020 at 21:08, Colonel Kurtz said:

Been years since I watched this so will have to give it another go. Omar was a brilliant character. 

If you come at the king, you best not miss.

 

On a sidenote, it's weird seeing Marlo play football for Arsenal these days.

[Kevin D]

I was reading the article that prompted 2Pac to write "Brenda's got a baby" and, as well as being season 4 on steroids,  there's some real Brother Mouzone shit in there.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/29/nyregion/a-child-mother-in-the-jaws-of-new-york.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1

 

At 12 years old, the New York City girl is already an orphan, a rape victim and a mother. Now, two days after her newborn son was rescued from the maw of a trash compactor, she has become something more -- a symbol of the violence that stalks the young in some corners of this city.

 

"She never had no chance," said a neighbor, who, like most others who were interviewed yesterday, spoke only on the condition of anonymity. "Most of us don't expect her to recover from this. She has gone through too much too young."

 

At 4, a fire killed both her parents, and she passed into the care of an aunt, whom her neighbors in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn described as emotionally unstable. Drugs and alcohol invaded the home, the neighbors said. The girl was consigned to a class for slow learners and faithfully attended each day, perhaps her only triumph in a world where staying in school is a Herculean task.

 

As if to punctuate the disorder of a life as troubled as it has been short, the girl's 21-year-old cousin and adoptive brother, Clarence Perry, was arrested yesterday as he threatened to fling himself off the roof of the housing- project building where they live. He told the police that he was the father of the baby. He was charged with rape.

 

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The girl was accused of putting the infant in a trash chute hours after she gave birth and letting the baby, a boy wrapped in a shopping bag, fall four stories into the compactor. Two maintenance men said they heard the baby's cries just as they were about to start the machine. The baby suffered hypothermia but no bodily injuries, and the young mother was charged as a juvenile with attempted murder.

 

The police said that the city's Child Welfare Administration had taken custody of the infant and the 12-year-old, and that they would be placed in foster care as soon as they left Brookdale Hospital.

 

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The girl has spent most of her life in the gritty streets of Brownsville. Around the storefronts and vacant lots outside her doorstep, crack dealers ply their trade.

Her neighbors, stunned by the news that an infant had been cast into their garbage, awoke yesterday to find Clarence Perry, known to his friends as "Turtle," raving on their rooftop.

"I got up to the roof and saw him there," said Larry Varick, a security guard. "He was saying he had nothing more to live for, that his family was against him."

 

 

Mr. Varick, employed by a security company that hires primarily Muslims, spoke outside Noble Drew Ali Plaza I, the 385-apartment red-brick complex where the family lives.

As he talked, two men started shouting near the front gate. Passers-by scurried for cover and darted indoors.

 

"I'll kill you," a man in a red sweat shirt, held back by two friends, said to another young man. "I'll kill you. Just wait till I get back here. You are dead."

 

The man in the red sweat shirt, identified by neighbors as a member of the Perry family, had apparently become angry when a few men made comments about the abandoned baby as he walked by.

 

"This is all getting out of hand," Mr. Varick said as he watched. "These kids got no parents, no home life, and this is what happens. They go crazy."

 

The girl's aunt, Gladys Perry, has retained a lawyer, and she and the other members of the family refused to speak with reporters.

 

The New York Times is not printing the girl's name. Along with many newspapers, The Times ordinarily omits the names of sex-crime victims and juvenile suspects. Playing Indoors

Neighbors said the girl had played indoors and left her apartment only to go to school. She attended a sixth-grade special-education class every day at the Thelma J. Hamilton Junior High School, at 985 Rockaway Avenue.

 

James Siegal, a teacher who supervises a program at the junior high for pregnant students, said he had not known that the girl was pregnant.

 

"It's totally amazing that she was sitting in the lunchroom yesterday as if nothing happened," he said.

 

"We never saw her out here," said a woman who lives in the housing complex. "She stayed at home. She was quiet and withdrawn. She was a slow girl, but nice."

 

The girl was raised in a home that did little to restore the stability lost when she was orphaned, neighbors said. She lived in a three-bedroom apartment with her aunt, her cousin Mr. Perry and two other men in their late teens or early 20's who are either cousins or brothers, police officials said. Neighbors said Gladys Perry had a history of mental problems and had suffered a nervous breakdown.

 

"She grew up around alcohol and drugs," said a close friend of the family, referring to the 12-year-old. "There were many times when she was left alone with the other children. She had no real adult figure in her life."

 

Mr. Perry, the adoptive brother, was in police custody yesterday, charged with endangering the welfare of a minor and with second-degree rape under state laws prohibiting sexual intercourse with girls younger than 14. The neighbors said he had spent most of his time outside the front gate of the housing complex. They described the area as a place where crack is sold and where rival local gangs, the Co-ops and The Young Guns, frequently clash, often with automatic weapons.

 

But the arrival of Muslim security guards three years ago, and a commitment by the owners of the complex to clean the place up, has started to make a difference in the quality of life, people in the area said.

 

Still, a man was killed inside the complex two months ago, shot 12 times. And another man was shot to death there a year ago. Neighbors said he was a major drug dealer who ran his operation out of the complex.

 

Some residents contend that the killing was carried out by Muslims, who scorn the use of drugs.

 

Some Muslims later met with local drug dealers and ordered them to leave the apartment complex, residents said. The Muslim security guards said they do not carry weapons. 

 

"We do not know who carried out the murder," said the manager, Victor Zilber. "All we know is that the drug dealers began to clear out and life improved. The drug dealers do not want to fight the Black Muslims."

 

Under the watch of the Muslims, the girl could walk the corridors of her building without fear, but her home life apparently remained a shambles. When her aunt was absent, the girl had sex with Mr. Perry at least twice, she told the police.

 

They said the girl has asked for the baby.

 

"She wants the baby back," said Sgt. Arthur Stoecker of the 73d Precinct Detective Squad. "In these types of cases, at such a young age, they panic. They are between a rock and a hard place. They don't know what to do."

 

He said the 12-year-old gave birth in the early morning in her bedroom in her fourth-floor apartment and held onto the baby until dawn.

 

"She knew she had to go to school," he said. "It was getting to where something had to be done."

 

The police yesterday were operating on the theory that the child secretly took the baby out to the hallway and dropped it down a four-story chute without telling the other family members. But detectives said they were investigating whether other family members had a role.

 

Ms. Perry told the police that she was away when the child was born.

 

The girl was accompanied by a young friend named Heidi when she delivered, friends of Heidi said.

 

They said Heidi used to meet the 12-year-old every morning at 7:30 to go to school. Heidi had not been found yesterday, but her friends said she was still in the complex, staying in another apartment.

 

Neighbors Are Skeptical

 

Some neighbors doubted that the girl had tried to kill her baby. The police say that the infant was dropped down the garbage chute just before the trash was drawn into the compactor, but the neighbors said the girl had to have been too weak to do that.

 

"She was staggering, holding her stomach, when she went to school," said a neighbor. "She looked terrible. She could barely walk."

 

The girl showed up for class and slumped forward on her desk, telling teachers she was sick, friends said.

 

"She refused to admit that she had given birth once she lost the baby," said a friend of the family. "It was if she could not comprehend it."

 

Gladys Perry seemed less able to fathom the birth than her adoptive daughter. She fainted when she learned, on the evening news, how large the baby was, 6 pounds, 10 ounces, friends who were with her said.

 

"She said she did not know she was pregnant," said a friend. "She was stunned to hear that she had delivered a full-term infant."

 

"From everything we've been able to find out," Sergeant Stoecker said, "no one seemed to know. Even Clarence says she didn't know during the pregnancy. You got to live it to believe it."

"

[Remmie]

Didn't realise John Cena was in the Wire before he got in shape:

 

[KMD7]

 

[KMD7]