So my posting has taken a bit of a break due to various parties and hangings out with family and friends over the past week, but now I’m back home and all settled, and ready to make a second post about The Wire (which is actually the topic my first post was supposed to be on, until I wrote it and it wasn’t). I’m kind of glad for the break, because while it interrupted my posting it didn’t do the same to my show watching, so I’m writing this post from halfway through the second season of The Wire, instead of at the end of the first season.
What I want to talk about is the absolute disdain some of the characters in The Wire have for politics and careerism. During the first half of season one I would have said this was just McNulty, but later on Lt. Daniels really stepped up in this department too. I can illustrate what I’m talking about best with this great big quote from McNulty:
If only half you motherfuckers in the State’s Attorney’s office didn’t want to be judges, didn’t want to be partners in some downtown law firm, if half of you had the fucking balls to follow through you know what would happen? A guy like that would be indicted, tried and convicted. And the rest of them would back up enough so we could push a clean case or two through your courthouse. But no everybody stays friends, everybody gets paid, and everybody’s got a fucking future!
This is a viewpoint I share completely, and one of the reasons I love McNulty so much. I’m pretty sure I brought up my hatred of politics in a post about Jerry Kellerman one time, and I think McNulty and Jerry would get along fine. Except for the part where Jerry would be trying to free the guys McNulty had taken down. Hurm, getting a bit off topic, so politics! I hate them, I hate the fact that most people would rather try to do what people in positions of power want in order to assure themselves of a career (which is a word I hate, it makes your current job sound like a more vital aspect of your life than it should be).
The fact that people in The Wire actually stand up to the power structure and try to push for a good case is one of my favourite aspects of the show. The number of crises they come across that could (and sometimes do) undermine their case is so disheartening, but the fact that they (McNulty and Daniels) still try to do good by the case knowing what will happen to them, what did happen to Freamon, makes the show less disheartening but more tragic. They all prove that they’re damn good police, and get punished for it.
I said that having watched half of season two would change this post a bit, and here’s how: In the second season the case really wouldn’t come together if it wasn’t for politics. The reunion of the main characters in a new special detachment only occurs because Major Valchek is pissed about his stained glass window, and he has a great deal of political power at his disposal. Granted the connection between the special detachment and the case (which still isn’t firmly in place where I’m at) comes about as a result of a combination of good police work and McNulty trying to screw Rawls and not because of Valchek, but it’s still his political leverage that gets the gang back together.
So maybe The Wire hates politics, but admits that they can sometimes be inadvertently beneficial would have been a better title for this post.
-Jerk
We’ve taken a few days off to celebrate Canada Day but we’re back in full force with a sad tribute to another fellow Canadian. 
Lastly Raising the Bar is doing a good job of posing questions each week that actually make me stop and consider which side of the fence I’m on. Sometimes I agree with the verdict, sometimes I don’t but this weeks lack of conclusion was both fitting and troublesome. I was left to ask will they bring this story back? I think the way they’ve set it up they almost have to. The question is when and how will it be treated. I think they really run the risk of being monotonous if we have to sit thought the same trial again. I’d like to see quick flashes and the final verdict but not until quite late in the season if not the finale. It would be a good way to wrap the season up into itself. That said I could easily forget that this story ever happened after a few weeks. I’m interested to see what they do.
So I finally got around to watching the final episode of Bones and first I should clarify that I’m not a regular watcher. I’ve seen almost every episode of this past season but I couldn’t even tell you which season that is. I watch for pretty much the same reason that I’d guess most people do, David Boreanaz, but I’ve grown to really enjoy the show in a CSI, L&O kinda way. It’s something you’re glad to see when you’re flipping through the channels but you don’t feel too bad if you miss a few.
Today we’ve got someone who was actually born in Los Angeles, fellow only child 
Wow, ten days in. I’m honestly a little surprised that nobody’s won yet. I’m not sure if that means we’ve been doing a good job or a bad job of picking actors.
I’ve mentioned it before (I think, at least a few times) that I’m something of a really big comic book fan. I love the medium (yes medium, not genre, that’s a pet peeve of mine. It’s like saying ‘you know what genre I like? Movies.’ Anyway) and I’ve been reading them for just about two decades now. Like pretty much every comic fan I started out with superheroes (Spider-Man was my drink of choice) but over the years I’ve spread out, trying all kinds of different genres in comic form. Jumping now but I’ll get back to this.
Back to those different comic book genres. As my web of comicy knowledge grew, I found that more and more of my favourite titles were crime and noir. Books like Powers, Sleeper, Gotham Central, Scalped and Criminal. I started looking into some crime and noir books and movies. It’s easily the genre that I’ve expanded into the most over the past five or so years, and one that many of my favourite comic writers have a deep love for.
The Wire is, as I said, modern noir. Certainly not the Philip Marlow, Sin City type of noir, instead it’s a modern setting, a realistic depiction of police work (they don’t solve all their cases! And they don’t get them one at a time, wrap them up and move on to the next!), and missing any of those classic noir characters. No hardboiled P.I., no sultry and mysterious femme fatale. Instead we just have a collection of very real, very flawed people. What it does have is that sense of inevitiblity. You know things aren’t going to go well. You know McNulty’s career is fucked regardless of the outcome of the case. You know Wallace isn’t going to get back in school. You know D isn’t going to change the game like he wants. You know Bubbles won’t be able to stay clean. All of this you know in your gut but it doesn’t make it any less intriguing watching them reach their fate, hoping they get something better.
Today’s BINGO entry is 
You may have noticed that amid all our BINGO postness there was narry to be seen with regards to the second season of True Blood. That was my bad, but I had a reason and I think it worked out! DoubleBitch said I could have the TB post, but after watching the second season premiere I felt… a little underwhelmed. Less whelmed than I had hopped to be. Some bits were great (such as everything about Lafayette), some showed real potential (Michelle Forbes character, and all the various relationships with said character), and some bits were honestly a bit lame (Bill and to a much greater extent Sookie (and their creepy blood fetish sex scene), and I was pretty apathetic to the most recent murder on the show). Oh and Sookie’s one line dismissing Lizzy Caplan’s character as just some V junkie seemed really out of character to me. Anyway after watching the episode, I felt like I needed to wait until I’d watched the second episode as well before posting.
Well, now I’ve watched the second episode and boy was I right. While the first episode felt a bit lacking, I thought the second was firing on all cylinders. Maybe even some extra cylinders that were just thrown in there for the hell of it, they were firing too. It was brilliantly funny (the triple play of Bill shopping for women’s clothing > the saleswoman hitting on him > Bill being totally gay for Eric was perfect), wonderfully gory (I loved Lafayette’s attempted escape), and even better I enjoyed all the various plotlines. Leaving out the latest dead body was a good move, though I’m pretty sure it will end up being tied to Maryann in the end. Oh and before this episode I could have cared less about Andy, but his line about dancing was great, and following that up by actually showing him dance was amazing! Almost as good a display of bad dancing as 
I’m also really digging that Maryann appears to be some ancient, Dionysus-ish god, I’m really looking forward to finding out where Alan Ball and company are going with that one.
Anyway, BINGO time and today we’ve got 
from the awesome 
To finish off the first week we’ve got he of the creepy pale eyes, 
Jerk
doublebitch
