The Wire
Season 1, Episode 13: Sentencing
Finally the day has come when Avon Barksdale gets put away in jail. About a dozen or so of Avon’s men also get sentenced and put away. However many of the dealer’s sentences are not nearly what they should be. Avon has a really good (and annoying) lawyer who really does not care that his clients are pretty dangerous criminals. Another person who doesn’t seem to care that the people they are surrounded by are dangerous men is Avon’s sister, D’angelo’s mother. For her, family is everything no matter what they do. The Barksdale family is extremely loyal, more loyal than the cops are to each other in the police department. D’angelo, however, is willing to severe his loyal ties in order to start over. When given the choice to give up Avon and Stringer and the whole drug ring for his freedom and a chance to start his life over, D’angelo was seriously considering taking it. Personally, I really wanted him to, but unfortunately as he explains, he has grown up in the game, and so as much as he wants to get out he can’t. D’angelo may be free of the game while in jail, but in no way will ever be free like Omar, who helped the police in return for his freedom.
Another major plot point that happened in this episode is that Kima is awake! Kima, continuing to be the character ever does not want to choose the “easy” way and possibly wrongly identify her second shooter as Weebay, despite all of the other evidence the police have against him. Kima also isn’t sure if she wants to stay a cop after she recovers. Her girlfriend says it isn’t worth it, and although McNulty doesn’t want to see her go, he tells her to choose whatever she thinks is best. He does agree with her girlfriend though that getting shot twice and going into a coma isn’t worth it.
Both Kima and D’angelo were faced with very difficult life questions this episode. “Is it worth it?” We’ve seen that D’angelo picks to stay with his family even if he doesn’t think it’s completely worth it to stay in the game. We don’t know what Kima is going to pick yet, but I am very curious to find out!
Season 2, Episode 1: Ebb Tide
The start of season 2 is like a whole new show. Everyone has new positions since the Barksdale case ended, but it doesn’t mean the characters themselves have changed. McNulty as found a new case in his position off the docks and has already made sure he gets to work on it. The docks is definitely going to be the new courtyard for this season so we’ll get to see a different messed up side of Baltimore. The docks appear to be less into drugs and more into smuggling goods, which makes sense since they are in the perfect position for importing and exporting.
Meanwhile, we do get to see what is going on back with our favorite drug dealers. Stringer Bell is running the show, and it is obvious he has definitely learned some things from the Avon bust, and so he has his men followed to make sure they are reliable and trustworthy. We also get to see how extensive Stringer’s network is since the boys go from Baltimore to Philadelphia, and Stringer goes up to New York City. He is definitely treating the drug ring more like a business and less like a drug ring in my opinion.
Season 2, Episode 2: Collateral Damage
McNulty is at it again! Apparently one murder case is just not enough for him, and so now he has made sure that the the thirteen dead girls from the shipping crate fell under his jurisdiction. It’s really sad to see how the port detectives really just want to write the dead girls off as cargo, just like how they wanted to write off the girl found by the bridge as a suicide. The people who are supposed to be serving and protecting the city should not be lazy when it comes to crime, especially since nobody else (besides McNulty) is going to investigate these cases.
We also get a look at how prison life is for Avon, D’Angelo and Weebay. Avon is supposed to try to make amends with D’Angelo, as he should in my opinion since D’Angelo essentially gave up his freedom for him. Weebay is also having a difficult time. Among the people on his murdered list is one of the Correctional Officer’s siblings, so needless to say Weebay’s prison life is less than ideal (despite it still being prison.) I love how he had a a fish tank in his cell, and I love how the show has these little continuities thrown into other episodes. A very intriguing part from this episode was when Weebay was explaining to Avon why he is getting treated differently by the CO, and Avon couldn’t even recall the CO’s sibling that Weebay murdered. I feel like that either means Avon has ordered his crew to kill so many people that he honestly cannot remember all of them, or it means that Avon doesn’t see the importance in knowing every person he has ordered his crew to kill. Either way, it was slightly amusing in a dark way that he couldn’t remember the CO’s sibling and I thought it also showed how self-centered Avon really is. Yes, he will look out for his crew, but he only does that because they are also a reflection upon him.
Assignments
For my three assignments this week I chose to do assignments from the Mashup/Remix, Design, and Visual categories. Here the products of these the assignments and the link to their respective blog posts about the processes that I took to complete them.
Mashup/Remix: Mashup Children’s Book–
Design: Lyric Typography Poster–
Visual: Colorize It–
Daily Create
9/8/14 And the light at the end of the tunnel, is the light of an oncoming train. Tell us what happened just before this moment…
"Finally," she thought as she saw the light at the end of the tunnel from the oncoming train. She looked at her watch. It was 8:50pm. She had been waiting for nearly 45 minutes for the train to come past her vantage point. Pressing lightly on the button on her wrist, she made the hood of her speed suit extend over her head to get her red hair back and out of her way. The ground began to rumble as the train came closer to exiting the tunnel. "I hope this mission is quick," she mumbled out loud, "I have a math test tomorrow." She quickly pulled out the Kimmunicator and asked, "Wade, what's the sitch?"
9/10/14 Make a Lune Poem of an Ordinary Act
9/12/14 Make a themed montage video.
