Red, Yellow, & Blue

There was A LOT of this color scheme in the episode. It’s been a while since I’ve seen so much of it.

Red highlights, blue sign & car, yellow shirt.

Red and blue sign, yellow shirt and lines on the road.

Yellow legal pad, blue shirt, red tie.

Yellow & red on the wall, McNulty’s blue shirt.

Lots of red, yellow, and blue here, both in the clothes and the signs on the building.

Red awning, yellow sign, blue logo on shirt.

Red, yellow, and blue diagram.

Red, yellow, and blue present in the signs.

Lots of red, yellow, and blue. Makes the people dressed in all white really stand out.

Red, yellow, and blue on the news coverage banner.

Yellow desk knickknack, blue shirt, red and blue tie.

Red & Green

There wasn’t a lot of red and green in this episode. I’m starting to think that red might be symbolic of the establishment as we often see it in building and man-made things like lawnmowers and cars. The is largely found in the surrounding trees and weeds. I think this could represent the conflict between the nature of things (how the game is played, how drug dealers vs. cops dynamic works, “the program”) and the systems we’re seeing being implemented in attempt to change it (Hamsterdam).

Red lawn equipment and green foliage.

Red brick and green overgrown weeds and trees.

Noteworthy Shots

This shot makes Stringer look very tall. He’s also much more violent and less collected than he usually is. I found this scene to be rather frightening because I’m not use to Stringer being so intense and aggressive. Usually his violence and evil is done in much subtle, less physical ways. I think it’s interesting that he’s wearing a wife beater and jeans when he acts out in this scene, whereas his usual collected behavior occurs when he’s dressed nicely like a businessman.

This shot was so well framed, with Colvin and McNulty on either side of the Hamsterdam guys. For some reason, the lighting on McNulty and his jean shirt unbuttoned a little lower than normal made him look like some western hero.

Reminded me of the phrase “when one door closes, another one opens.” However, in the last episode, when Cutty decided that he was leaving the game, the door was not shut behind him, as if to suggest he’d be welcomed back at anytime and he was leaving by his own choosing.

I like how McNulty is having to crane his neck over Daniels to see. This is a great physical representation of McNulty’s pending exclusion from the group following the apprehension of Stringer.

Here we see the side-view mirror shot again.

The shot gives a sense of power, when in reality a lot of what happened to get and return the gun was not because of the reasons given at this press conference.

Kima throwing the desk organizer in frustration at the end of the episode was not only a great shot, but also a great way of showing how there is no order or fairness to things. She’s throwing something that’s usually used to organized papers and files; order has gone out the window.

Reminds Me Of…

All these shots from Hamsterdam at night remind me of the movie Gangs of New York. The dark lighting, fires in trash cans, and street crime seemed reminiscent of a lot of those shots.

Marlo and the pigeon reminds me of Ziggy and the duck. Of course, Marlo and Ziggy are VERY different characters.