The Wire, Season Two

[BruceH]

I just borrowed the DVD box from the library and zipped through the whole thing in two days. What can I say, every episode watched made me just want to see the next one right away. The change of scene to the waterfront was interesting, it was nice seeing the characters from season one in some new contexts, and it just kicked ass. Great series.

[kinuta]

I agree, if fact I am also rewatching series two, next up episode five.

If anything it's even better than series one.

[BruceH]

Yeah, in some ways it does seem even better than season one. You have to have seen season one first, though, to know the players.

[ghost of miles]

Amazon has Season 1 for $21.99 right now--just ordered it. Season 2 is $27 and likely to end up on my late-breaking Christmas list.

[NaturalSoul]

I just got season one from the library, love it so far.

[jlhoots]

There's supposed to be a new season starting in January.

I don't know if the writers strike will delay it.

[BruceH]

There's supposed to be a new season starting in January.

I don't know if the writers strike will delay it.

Yeah, the fifth and final. Haven't heard about any delay.

[ghost of miles]

Snoop at the hardware store

[HolyStitt]

I love this show.

It hasn't received as much attention as other more popular HBO shows but to me The Wire has had greater payoffs.

[ghost of miles]

TV Report | 'The Wire'

An Actress’s Hard Life Feeds ‘Wire’ Character

By WALTER DAWKINS

Published: October 21, 2006

With her braids, oversize clothes and baseball cap turned to the side, the small, youthful Snoop looks like a teenage boy. With her partner, Chris Partlow, she is the muscle for the drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield. She is a cool, calm female killer who creatively makes enemies disappear with the use of a nail-gun, hiding the bodies in Baltimore’s vacant and condemned row houses on HBO’s much-praised series “The Wire.”

The actress Felicia Pearson, who plays Snoop, has emerged as one of the show’s most compelling characters; Stephen King, in Entertainment Weekly, called her “perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series.”

In a show that is known for authentic characters, the 26-year-old Ms. Pearson has lived the kind of hard life embodied by her character. She was born to two drug-addicted and incarcerated parents and reared in an East Baltimore foster home.

“I was a crack baby,” Ms. Pearson said by telephone from Baltimore. “I was, like, three pounds, and I had to get fed with an eyedropper.” She started selling drugs at 10 and at 14 was locked up for more than seven years after shooting a woman. “I grew up not giving a damn about anything, because why give a damn if you are in a foster home and your parents didn’t care anything about you?” Ms. Pearson said. She added that she had so many drugs in her system when she was born that she was cross-eyed as a child. “Kids would tease me, saying that I’m cross-eyed and don’t have a real mother, and all those kids who said those mean things, I beat the hell out of them,” she said.

She said her life turned around at 18, when a man she called Uncle Loney, a local drug dealer who looked out for her and sent her money in prison, was shot and killed. It was he who had given her the nickname Snoop because she reminded him of Charlie Brown’s favorite beagle in the comic strip “Peanuts.”

“He was my best friend,” said Ms. Pearson, who was an inmate at a women’s penitentiary in Jessup, Md., when Uncle Loney was killed. “When he got shot, I had a reality check and said to myself, ‘Man, you got to get yourself together and get yourself out of here, because nobody’s going to keep taking care of you.’ ”

After earning her G.E.D. in prison, Ms. Pearson was released in 2000. She landed a local job making car bumpers, she said, but was fired two weeks later after her employer learned she had a prison record.

Then, two and a half years ago, while employed at a car wash, she got her big break. At a local nightclub she met Michael K. Williams, who plays Omar, a gay gangster who robs drug dealers for kicks, on “The Wire.” Mr. Williams said he saw that Ms. Pearson had charisma, and he was fascinated with her hard-knock story and thought she would be perfect for the show.

After a meeting with “Wire” producers, Ms. Pearson was hired to play the nail-gun-toting Snoop, despite having had no acting experience. “She just blew me away,” Mr. Williams said. “There was just this beauty in her. When I looked in her eyes, I saw all this pain, but she still smiled and lit up the room.”

Ed Burns, a “Wire” producer and former Baltimore police officer, said: “She’s just a natural-born actor. She came from a very, very tough background, but it didn’t scar her. So she can interpret that background in her character.”

Ms. Pearson said her first day on the set was strange. “Everybody was staring at me, I thought that I was doing something wrong,” she said, adding that she was told not to look into the camera, and to just act natural. “I was like, ‘You want me to act like I was on the corner?’ They were like, ‘Exactly, just be yourself,’ and that’s what I did.”

Mr. Williams loved what he saw. “If you meet her and you talk to her, she is unmistakably Baltimore.” he said. “And the city of Baltimore is the lead star of ‘The Wire.’ ”

There’s nothing more Baltimore than Snoop’s accent, which at times is so hard to decipher that a fan on the Internet Movie Database said she watched her scenes with closed captioning so she could read her words. “It’s basically a Baltimore thing,” Ms. Pearson said. “I say everything that’s in the script, but I put a little twist on it, like the way we would say it in Baltimore.”

Ms. Pearson is now taking acting classes at the Baltimore School for the Arts. “I’m just getting prepared for whatever comes my way, because I know people are saying that this is luck,” she said. “But luck ain’t never come my way, so I’m preparing myself for everything.”

And she said that she has put her troubles behind her. “I did what I did when I was younger, but I am a changed person,” Ms. Pearson said. “My character Snoop on the show is a coldhearted person, but I’m not coldhearted any more.”

Ms. Pearson said she hoped to be an inspiration for others. “I still can’t believe it, because I come from the gutter,” she said. “I hope and pray that someone reads my story, or hears me talk about my story and will be, like, ‘She did it, I will see what my chances are.’ ”

Promo for Season 5

[kinuta]

Last night I finished watching season two for the third time. I'll start rewatching S3 today, then S4 in preparation for the January start of S5. The Wire is brilliant tv with a Dickensian plot complicated enough to stand up to repeated rewatching.

[HolyStitt]

What do you folks think of David Simon's The Corner?

[Harold_Z]

What do you folks think of David Simon's The Corner?

The Corner was great. So is The Wire. Both are extremely realistic and well acted. I know a few people who refuse (can't) to watch either show because of the baggage that either show brings them.

One aspect that I think the show emphasizes but the viewing public overlooks is the portrayal of inner city politics. It sure works for me and for where I live.

[Harold_Z]

What do you folks think of David Simon's The Corner?

The Corner was great. So is The Wire. Both are extremely realistic and well acted. I know a few people who refuse (can't) to watch either show because of the baggage that either show brings them.

One aspect that I think the show emphasizes but the viewing public overlooks is the portrayal of inner city politics. It sure works for me and for where I live.

[JSngry]

Just finished the series...best show ever? Maybe. Definitely one of them. Damn sure one of the most painful.

If this The Corner is on HBO Go, I'll give it...a go, as soon as I get over the Wire thing. Had to wait a week after season 3 before getting started on 4. This shit is painful as hell, and I say that as somebody who's always had a ride home after the game, if you know what I mean. Accident of birth.

Prayers going out for all the Duquans & Randys of the world as well as for all the Bubbss, as well for myself that I never have to run into any more Omars, real or metaphorical, because, all things considered, moral (at best) ambiguity is not something about which I can be trusted to always side with "right".

Play, be played, or, hopefully, get to someplace where there ain't no game. Good luck on that, everybody.

[alankin]

Great show. Just finished re-watching Season Two. My wife is watching it with me this time.

[Guy Berger]

Love this show.

[ghost of miles]

Just started Season 3--amazing show, right up there for me with Mad Men and The West Wing.

[Late]

... right up there for me with Mad Men and The West Wing.

The only show I've enjoyed as much as The Wire — I can't believe I watched it seven years ago! — is House of Cards. OK, and Breaking Bad.

Boardwalk Empire, while not a bad show, pales in comparison.

[.:.impossible]

Has The Wire been released widescreen yet? I read that it was being remastered. Looking forward to seeing it again.

[catesta]

I too have been re-visiting The Wire recently. I'm on Season 3, almost to at the end where Brother Mouzone makes his re-entry.

The show is filled with great characters and I've always appreciated that the writers/producers gave us a lot of show, each show rather than the 47 minutes of bullshit that leaves you scratching your head.

[relyles]

I recently re-watched all five seasons over an intense week when HBO had its Wire marathon. I recorded them all on DVR and then watched them - usually three, four or more episodes a day until I watched every single episode. Still my favorite show of all time. My wife has always refused to watch it with me because it reminds her too much of the correctional facility she has worked in for the past 13 - 14 years.

[Guy Berger]

... right up there for me with Mad Men and The West Wing.

The only show I've enjoyed as much as The Wire — I can't believe I watched it seven years ago! — is House of Cards. OK, and Breaking Bad.

Boardwalk Empire, while not a bad show, pales in comparison.

I haven't seen Breaking Bad yet and I never had much of an interest in The West Wing, but I don't think any of these other shows are as good as The Wire. Mad Men is probably the best of the rest, though overly self-important at times. House of Cards is a guilty pleasure. Boardwalk Empire had its moments but I lost interest after 2 or 3 seasons.

Edited January 23, 2015 by Guy

[erwbol]

I agree this is one of the best shows, but it's hard to like. I hate the world these characters live in. I suppose this show is quite realistic in many respects. I admit I have a low opinion of (gangsta) rap, that nonsense makes me angry. The world of The Wire is populated by a lot of stupid motherfuckers.

[Guy Berger]

I agree this is one of the best shows, but it's hard to like. I hate the world these characters live in. I suppose this show is quite realistic in many respects. I admit I have a low opinion of (gangsta) rap, that nonsense makes me angry. The world of The Wire is populated by a lot of stupid motherfuckers.

One of the biggest themes in this show is that any one of us could be one of those "stupid motherfuckers", given the right "opportunity".