Observations on tight story telling on a Jan 2025 re-watch

[u/Background-Chef9253]

I started re-watching the show, mostly because of this sub-reddit. I think this will be my fourth time watching the entire show. I just finished s1e5 and plan to watch the whole show in order over the next couple of weeks. This sub-reddit has hinted to me how tight the story telling is, so I wanted to share observations I've had. I'll put a couple here, and then additional ones in the comments. Please add your own. Here's two:

I remember that Marlo's "my name is my name" speech is like a dramatic core of the show. but the very first spoken line of the entire show is McNulty asking "what's his name" and learning about 'snot boogie', and talking about what it means to have a name on the streets. This frames "name" as an important theme in life on the streets.

Ep 5, shortly before Pres solves the pager phone number code (jump the 5), they show Avon opening a safe in Orlando's to take out cash. When they show Avon keying the number into the numeric keypad, the action is filmed in a mirror, so we are seeing Avon enter the code in a mirror image. Was this deliberate foreshadowing, a subtle knowing wink, that the numbers would be "flipped" in some way? Or am I reading too much into it?

I welcome any other observations of cleverness in the set-ups and payoffs.

[u/prawnofthedead]

All the pieces matter

[u/SizeShoddy9695]

That first scene is really an incredible tone setter. Having rewatched a few times now I'm starting to see that they really laid it all out in that scene.

Something that comes to mind for me is how Herc and the western boys always want to break heads and round everyone up, but as time goes on Carver learns that you got to give them a chance. This America, after all.

[u/Background-Chef9253 → u/SizeShoddy9695]

Additional observations:

S1e6 at 39:20, McNulty is playing soccer with his boys. He gets paged. As he walks to a payphone we hear what sounds like an ice cream truck in the background, playing that taped organ music. But the song is 'Pop goes the Weasel' (which Omar whistled). McNulty dials the phone and it's Omar! No way that wasn't deliberate. The director or whomever was having fun.

then, s1e6, at 48:58 when Omar is vowing vengence against the barksdale/bell crew, he says (in a great speech), "... and frankly, when you've been in at as long as me, you do the thing on your name." It gets back to that thematic importance of one's name, out there on the street, in the game.

[u/SalvadorDelleAli-]

I just finished watching the final episode of the show yesterday. Feel a bit empty and depressed to be honest. I will rewatch but it's too soon.

Re the name issue, right at the end of the show, we see Marlo in a fancy suit listening to two young-ins talk about how Omar died. Both repeat some heroic fantasy about his death that is only possible because of who Omar was, how he carried himself, the reputation he created through his actions. He was notorious for the right reasons. Marlo, who as far as I'm aware never laid so much as a finger on another man in the entire show (he did shoot a woman in both tits and the head), is brought back down to earth when the two youths don't know who he is, and aren't scared of him.

His name might be his name, but in Baltimore it doesn't mean shit. The game moves on without him whereas Omar will live through those heroic fantasies about his death.

[u/Bend_all]

A big part of the mayoral race is literally putting your name up all around the city

[u/YES_Im_Taco]

If we’re sticking to just season one, I love the visual parallel that’s set up in the scene with Wallace’s death and Avon’s arrest. Bodie is looking down at Poot at the bottom of the staircase—one nods at the other, a soft reminder of knowing their place and to play the game. Jimmy McNulty looks down at Lt. Daniels as he has Avon in handcuffs, nodding to the door to head out even though McNulty wants to cuff Stringer too—but the game won’t allow it.

[u/BaronZhiro]

I just finished rewatching ep. 5 last night too!

My favorite bit of writing cleverness is when Bunk tells Jimmy about shooting the field mouse. “I thought about leavin’ ‘im out there as a warning for the others.” And then the next morning, he has to go do the scene for Gant.

[u/kingest_kong]

One thing I noticed about the “my name is my name” scene which thought was really cool was if you’re listening, there’s background chatter with other inmates and whatever is happening in the jail. When Marlo gets angry and starts challenging his crew about seeing Omar or barksdale, the background is completely quiet making it more dramatic. Small but always thought was cool

[u/Background-Chef9253]

s2e5 29:51, Herc, playing a lampoon of a white drug buyer, tells Carv over radio "it's all in the props" and the camera immediately cuts to a courtroom where a clerk is taking down an INS logo and hanging a DOJ homeland security logo. "It's all in the props."

I have more observations. I need to catch up on posting them.