The narrative that Marlo was really a punk, or whatever and only tough because of Chris and snoop is simply untrue. I’ve even seen ppl try and push the narrative that Marlo was shaken up after killing Devonne lmao.

Throughout the series we see time and time again Marlo prove why he, not Chris or anyone else is the head of his organization. We even see him bark on Chris in jail and Chris does nothing lol. The last scene with the corner boys obviously should be enough to kill the Marlo is soft narrative but here we are.

You don’t have to like his character, but sometimes ppl we hate truly are the person they say they are. Marlo is the gangster yall wanted Omar to be.

I honestly have very little sympathy with his character, he spends every waking moment trying to breath life back into a dying union and job, turning to crime in order to fund it, worse still he drags his nephew into it...he also expects his nephew and son to stay on the docks while knowing it's impossible for either to make any living working that way, he never encourages them to move on to find something better...even that crook dibiago called him on it when he told him the story about his grandfather being a knife sharpener, in fact Nick also called him out when he tells him about ziggy killing the greek, saying "you're his father".

Also the sheer lack of interest in his son is sickening, Ziggy was all over the place in life even a blind man could see it, he was getting no hours, being humiliated left right and centre on the docks and he never once offered an ounce of guidance.

I read a lot saying his actions were noble, how he's some sort of tragic character being burdened with an impossible load doingthe wrong things for the right reasons, I mean id say something if he didn't drag his his family down with him but even without that I have little sympathy with him, he flushed his life and family down the toilet for a job...a job that was on the way out...and as Lester Freamon said to Jimmy "the job will not save you"

The Wire is written so well. There are so many details to the show that can only be written by someone who has actually lived those lives. The journalist, detective/police, the docks and the gangster angles are all very real and comes from a real place.

Brother Mouzone takes me out of this realism. He's a caricature. The way he talks, walks and acts feels like the writers just wanted to put a cool gunslinger with a twist into the story.

From a hitman's perspective he's not very smart:

He sticks out like a sore thumb. His bowtie can be seen from a mile away. The retort would be that this is by design, but I don't buy it at all. He walks around without a worry in the world in a place where everyone has a gun.

He takes stupid risks. When he shoots Cheese, if this was real Baltimore someone would have just capped him there and then. He has no back-up. He brags about his hollow point bullets being "his own design" as if he's an actual gunsmith. Nobody is experimenting with making their own type of bullets in real life. Maybe he is saying this to Cheese just to inflate his mystique, but to the audience it just comes off as inauthentic.

I have 20 years in the military and he really strikes me as a complete amateur... or what an amateur would think a cool hitman would look like. He feels picked out of a spaghetti western or a Tarantino movie, that's not The Wire.

He has a driver who acts like a butler, bringing him newspapers, carrying his books and stuff but not being of any real use. Why?

I can see what they were trying to do, and they did it so much better with Omar. Mouzone would fit better into the Breaking Bad universe where the characters are a bit more "fantastical" but to me he doesn't fit very well into The Wire universe.

Anyone felt the same way?

Many subtle incidents in the show that Marlo was a loud talker and despite his hard exterior has some softness at the core. His character wasn’t as apparently as complex as Avon but subtly very complex. I grew up with people like him. It’s kinda how Mob James explains Suge. Marlo like Suge was very feared but mostly because of the power they had and the soldiers around them.

Avon was a soldier to a fault. He loved the thrill and excitement of the danger and he was the type of OG that would not send anyone on a mission that he wouldn’t go on himself. In fact, he had a “if you wanna get it done right…..” mentality.

Marlo’s ego was cloaked in the security of his enforcers.

When he tells the security guard “you want it to be one way” he was showing out because he knew Chris was about to pull up. Once he saw Chris he bounced. He could have really pressed the guard there but Marlo only wants to intimidate not actually get into personal conflicts unless he is assured someone has his back. He was a typical bully. Not that the guard was going to fuck him up but he didn’t like when the guard stood up to him. On the contrary at the ball game the ref cowered to Avon and Avon told him to stand up for himself and be a man. Avon would have respected the guard where Marlo in typical bully fashion wanted the man to cower because of his “name”. Put a pin in that.

The only time I remember Marlo putting in work was when he killed Devonne, a woman. SMH. This was his get his hands dirty moment meanwhile Avon out at Lake Trout trying to clean fools up.

The guard showed Marlo respect which gave Marlo even more mental advantage over him. Guard said “I know what you are”. Go back to his “name” which preceded him. Which is why the guard was kind stupid for stepping to him while saying he wasn’t. If you don’t agree just look at the scene where he first confronted Mike when Mike didn’t accept the money. Mike had no fear of him and people will look at that scene as Marlo respecting Mike….he wasn’t. He exhibited typical bully behavior when he saw he couldn’t bully. Mike had that shit in him that Marlo actually respected in an envious way but not as a man type thing like how Avon respected the hell out of Cutty. Avon was no fake tough guy but when Cutty bowed out he respected tf outta Cutty because he knew Cutty was that dude and he didn’t get soft overnight he just didn’t feel the need to be a street dude anymore to validate himself. This is something Avon struggled with so he saw a great strength in Cutty by him giving the game up. Avon envied Cutty like Marlo envied Avon. Look at the scene when Avon and Marlo first meet. lol. Marlo was NOT that dude! Avon was! “SURPRISE”

Marlo was shook of Omar. What they don’t spell out is it’s no way Omar out in the street calling Marlo out and he don’t know it lol. No way. He pretended like he didn’t to save face in the jail scene. “My name is my name!” Fuck your name, what work you put in besides hiding behind Chris and Snoop? He said let people know word didn’t get back to him. Avon didn’t care about petty shit like that because Avon knew he was a soldier and so did everyone else. No one knew that from Marlo they only knew that “Chris and Snoop will pay you a visit”

The last scene was so telling when he rumbled with the young boys. He felt a brief jubilation by not proving he STILL had it but more so that he could get busy on the street level even though he had beat the game already. That scene was a total inversion of why Avon was in prison. Marlo beat the streets and Avon lost to the streets. The difference is one had his respect as a gangster to live off while the other crave for it despite not needing it. The Avon vs Marlo arc is maybe the greatest I have seen.

He was right about everything but yall still said Rawls was right when I made my post the other day. Rawls was a greedy smooth brain who couldn’t see the scope Mcnulty saw

I've just finished Season 1 of The Wire (really intelligent show btw, loving it so please no spoilers lol), but there's something I don't understand.

When Rawls asks where McNulty does not want to go, it seems pretty obvious that he is trying to trick him, and Freamon explicitly tells McNulty that if someone should ask him that exact question, he should keep quiet.

McNulty also stated that he would not want to work at that unit, because the diesel fumes make him sick, but he does not tell Rawls. So how does Rawls know to put him there?

Thanks. It's all in the game, yo.

This is about the 9th episode of the 2nd Season of The Wire titled 'Stray Rounds'.

I've been rewatching the show recently and, once more, I was wondering who the acctress was in the scene at 48:06, the one riding McNulty.

I've done a quick google search and arrived here, where someone claims her name to be 'Miss Lolita Rose', real name undisclosed/unknown, as far as I'm aware. Upon further search, I've landed on an archived version of her now-defunct website, wihch used to be under misslolitarose.com.

A quick look at that page shows us that she was indeed the actress on the show.

Most of that website hasn't been archived and is inaccessible, however the 'Interview' sub-site is still there and we can learn some interesting things from that interview, namely:

Lolita: That's alright honey, you can daydream about me all you want." (Giggles, & winks) "My family had a beautiful ranch in the rolling hills of Wyoming. I was born on "April 1st. & that's not a joke, it's true. It makes it real easy to remember my birthday. 1986. I was raised there. we had farm animals, and grew crops.. I just LOVED it. Is there some hansome gentleman out there who wants to take me back to the farm?? (laughs)

If this interview is to be believed, which we shall assume it can, since it was hosted on her own website and most likely transcribed by either the actress herself or her web admin, she is currently 37 years old.

Here arises the potential problem. According to Wikipedia, episde 9 of season 2 was released on either 27th of July, 2003 or 3rd August the same year.

Whichever the case, according to this website, if we submit both Lolita's birth date, as well as the airing date of the episode in question, we get an answer that Miss Lolita Rose, on the date this episode has originally aired on TV, was 17 yrs, 3 months, & 26 days old.

Since we are only talking about the release date, we also have to take into account that filming such a long series also obviously takes a long time, so she could've even potentially been even 16 years old, depending on when exactly that particular episode was shot.

Personally, I very much doubt that the director could've made such a blatant mistake hiring her and not knowing her age. On the other hand, I suppose it is also possible that Miss Lolita Rose could've been using a fake ID at the time, artificially 'boosting' her age in order to start working the night clubs earlier (since she mentions her dream has always been to be an adcult actress/exotic dancer, as mentioned in said interview).

So what now - has anyone researched or brought this up before? I figure if it was true, then we would've heard about various accusations by now, especially given it's already been 2 decades since the show initially aired.

If he truly wanted to talk to the police and valued his life. Why did he come back to Baltimore. Stupid. If I was in his shows I would never talk to bodie or poot again and live with my grandma. But I could never snitch so I wouldn’t be in his shoes.

I know Bay is a soldier and a fan favorite, but I think the comparisons are forced mainly from them both being the “top muscle” in their organizations.

While that is true, Chris was on an extremely different level. I can even argue Chris(moreso than slim even) was the only goon suitable to become a kingpin.

But even if we take that aspect out of it, and keep it strictly on the murder game, I would still hypothetically have Chris as my loyal muscle over weebay.

May get downvoted but Bay is closer to Snoop than he is to Chris.

I just finished watching all five seasons of this show for the first time ever. It was great until getting a little far-fetched in the last season. Overall, it was excellent though. I feel like the writers did the show a disservice though by making Omar such an absurd character. He was completely unbelievable, just totally ridiculous.

Omar was a snitch from the beginning and even openly testified in court in season two but somehow just kept on robbing and killing everyone with no consequences. He rolls up on these drug dealers who are no doubt armed, especially the ones guarding the stash, and they all cower in fear and just hand over the drugs. Ha, yeah right! Marlo was ruthless and would’ve killed any of his dealers giving away his product like that. Somehow this just keeps happening over and over. Even in season five he’s hobbling around with an injured leg, still killing and robbing. Totally absurd! After he openly snitched in season two, I’m pretty sure orders would’ve been given to shoot this guy on sight. His whole schtick just went on way too long to make it believable.

1- The series starts with Dee on trial for murder. Mcnulty already “knows” the Barksdale connection: his name rings out and stringer is right there in court. Therefore the targets are not discovered thru the wire.

2- the additional layers of people are revealed by bubbles red hat trick. Now in addition to the towers they know the pit is connected as that is where Dee works and all the other ppl were spotted.

3- Mcnulty and bunk do the fuck scene and find the kresson bullet before the wire is up. That matches two other drug murders. When they go to that girls house she is the one that tells them about Orlando’s and how Avon owns it not the wire.

4- McNulty and Kima meet Omar and his crew in the graveyard before the wire is set. When John Bailey and then Brandon are murdered both before there is a wire, they make the connection and get Omar to turn state on bird.

5- yeah the wire gave th saving and the 4 gpacks but Omar killed stinky before they could do anything with it. Same with day day’s money since they had to give it back.

6- they also didn’t need the wire to get the pinhole camera. That was from developing shardene and her mapping out the club for Lester. The pinhole camera gave up Dee’s New York trip. Then Dee gives up the good info. yeah Dee probably only flips because Wallace was killed and Yeah the cops got a bunch of info from Wallace and I think that was dependent on the wire but Wallace was killed before before he could testify and Dee un- flipped on Avon meaning Wallace’s death and that info enter came into play

7- little man’s can of orange slice he dropped after shooting kima would have the closest connection to the actual wire but Lester would have found that without the wire so I’m still counting it. Weebey made that call and they reverse engineered his code based on the hospital page from he weebey got shot in the leg… by Omar who was feeding the cops info. This is the one I’m least sure about but I am doing this mostly from memory since I’m only on episode six current Rewatch.

Can anyone point to anything that would only be resolved substantially the same way because of the wire itself in season 1?

I truly don’t like this guy I’ve had friends tell me I would eventually come around but outside of Season 4 when he tried to turn his life around I can’t stand this POS he’s worse than Stringer for me.

Anybody notice that in S3 Lieutenant Rawls was sitting in the background of the gay bar? Brother Mouzone sent his homophobic right hand man in there to keep a lookout for Omar and the second or third time he goes in Rawls is sitting in the background smiling. Don’t think I noticed the first time I watched the show but thought it was hilarious this time. Great juxtaposition between Rawls the cop and Rawls the man.

Edit: Everybody noticed

Apparently I do not have McNulty's skills...I catch something I missed almost every single time I re-watch.

Here's ChatGpt's response to my question in case you care:

In "The Wire," Anthony Little is indeed related to Omar Little. Anthony, often referred to as "No Heart" Anthony, is Omar's older brother. He is a lesser-known character in the series compared to the iconic Omar, but his background and relationship with Omar are mentioned in the storyline.

Anthony Little's character is significant primarily because of his influence on Omar. It is revealed in the series that Anthony was a notorious stick-up man in Baltimore, a path that Omar eventually follows. Omar's decision to take up a similar lifestyle is partly influenced by his brother's reputation and actions.

However, Anthony's character does not have a prominent on-screen presence in the series. Most of what is known about him is gleaned from conversations and references made by other characters. His story serves more as a backdrop to Omar's character development and as a piece of the larger narrative tapestry of "The Wire," which explores the lives and interconnections of various individuals in Baltimore's urban landscape.

I don't know, I was just thinking about the story and Kima does a lot of fucked up things. First, she tags up with McNulty and goes against the unit's stated target. Obviously that upsets Lester but it doesn't stop her from doing it. Then, she is the one who gives McNulty the idea to go behind Daniel's back and circumvents the chain of command to get Bunny to change their target back to the "right guy". Also, she cheated on Cheryl.

And after doing all of that, she gets all self righteous and rats on Jimmy and Lester. Now I don't know if I disagree with her on that decision because what they were doing was pretty fucked up but still, she was willing to do a lot of unethical shit and for her to rat on "good po-lice" is a little messed up.

What do you guys think? 🤔

Anti-intellectualism usually gets a bad rap. But The Wire doesn’t shy away from showing it, especially through one of its most grounded and beloved characters: Bunny Colvin in season 4.

At the end of the season, Bunny’s school program gets shut down. He’s frustrated, disillusioned. And then that Chuck E. Cheese-looking mf hits him with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnHLfwDPt-k

“What we publish on this is going to get a lot of attention.”

“From who?”

“From other researchers. Academics.”

“Academics?! What? They’re gonna study your study? Ahahaha. When does this shit change?”

It’s such a sharp critique. Bunny sees through the performative nature of it all. He wasn’t trying to write papers or get citations. He wanted to actually help kids. And now the system’s turning it into another intellectual exercise that benefits no one on the street. It fits perfectly in the broader themes of season 4, education and knowladge.

The Wire wears the crown for a reason.

Dude is a disloyal, snitching, backstabbing piece of shit. I have no need for him in this show, I don't feel bad for him ever! All he does is screw his own people over. Whoever wrote this character, I have no idea what they were going for. No matter who it is, if you're a friend, or if you've been good to him, you still gotta worry about him stabbing you in the back for his own feelings. Put his ass back on that Boat to rot!

He's definitely white but he doesn't save anybody. He was kind to Dukie but Dukie still ended up at rock bottom. He was definitely not saved.

Micheal was also in his class and became a professional stick up boy. Randy became a child pushing menace. Who knows what happened to everybody else.

If he had Colvins storyline I'd definitely agree but Prez doesn't save anybody. He makes his class learn a bit more and that's that.