“With whom do you wish you could have played a scene?” — question for cast members of The Wire

Back in 2014, during The Wire marathon on HBO, I started tweeting to cast members a simple question:

“With whom do you wish you could have played a scene?”

After all, there are so many fabulous actors on The Wire, and many never got to do a scene together, despite so many cast members — regardless of season — becoming friends or at least friendly off camera.

I grouped all of the responses in a Storify file, but unfortunately the site closed down and the post is gone. So I’ve re-configured them here, in order in which I received them, and I’ll keep this post updated if and when I get more.

Best,

Jack

Four reasons why it’s not “The Wire” without Season 2

Frank Sobotka, I.B.S. local 1514.

You can’t spell “The Wire” without “Sobotka” — An examination of Season 2 

by Jack M Silverstein (@readjack)

“You’re a Sobotka.” 

“Fucked, is what I am.”

Season 4 would have been too late for Season 2.

When a new chapter of The Wire was born in 2006, 21 months after the end of Season 3, two significant story threads were already in motion: the simultaneous rise of Tommy Carcetti and Marlo Stanfield.

There were also changes for McNulty (now manning a beat in the Western), Cutty (now running his gym), Prez (out of BPD and pursuing a new and then-unknown career) and Daniels (a newly-minted major) that a new season would naturally address.

Chester and Nicholas Sobotka. (screen shot from HBO)

Season 4 needed to feel like a continuation of Season 3. The reason the fresh batch of school characters felt like a continuation rather than a departure is that the school story folds easily into the others.

Carcetti’s first administration-defining choice revolves around the school budget; Marlo helps corrupt Michael and doom Randy; Cutty interacts with all four boys at the gym; Prez teaches all four.

That wasn’t the case in Season 2. After spending 13 episodes learning names, faces, personalities and backstory of close to 30 characters, this unruly little show about Baltimore did (seemingly) a 180 and introduced a (seemingly) unaffiliated set of characters in a different part of the city.

For people who don’t like “the docks,” the complaints tend to echo how Fruit felt about Hamsterdam: “Why you gotta go and fuck with the program?”

January 26, 2011: And in the end.

Time to Settle Accounts

January 26, 2011: And in the end.

I first spotted In Cold Blood on Ric’s shelf last April, just before I took the train to Phoenix. I knew Truman Capote from my mother’s love of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and then as a name I’d picked up in the history of journalism and non-fiction narrative, and finally from the 2005 film with Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I loved that picture’s depiction of Capote and his work; as Ebert wrote: “The film… focuses on the way a writer works on a story and the way the story works on him.”

All the pieces matter: analysis, essays, and anything else on The Wire

Wood Harris and Idris Elba starred in Season 3, the epic season of The Wire.

I have posted a few items on The Wire here at the readjack.com blog,  referencing  it in my blog intro and covering it in a February 2008 essay. Now, as I have done with my Iran and Bulls coverage, I would like to pool all of my favorite Wire material into one spot. This one. So here we go.

**UPDATED JULY 26, 2015**

Please send me other essays/videos/links that you don’t see here. Either drop a link in the comments or tweet me and I’ll add ’em in. Thanks! –JACK

The Godfather of Television

Following the thread: how The Wire became a cinematic masterpiece

February 29, 2008

It doesn’t take McNulty and The Bunk to figure out why The Wire is so damn good.

“We’re building something here, detective. We’re building it from scratch. All the pieces matter.” –Freamon

My true introduction to the The Wire came with a man in a wheelchair.

My dad and brother discovered the show last October when HBO re-ran the entire series; I’d been in and out of the house, catching an episode when I could. My family loved it, and while I thought the show was excellent, it did not have its hooks in me. That changed with “All Due Respect,” the second episode of Season Three.

Alan Sepinwall, NJ TV critic and master of “The Wire” (SPOILERS)

“Got to. This America man.”

—Snot Boogie’s friend

Valchek v. Sobotka. Who knew where that would end?

 

With everything happening in Iran, and then Michael Jackson passing, I would like to mention something that makes me happy. New Jersey Star-Ledger television critic Alan Sepwinall is back at it with his episode by episode writeups on The Wire, one of the great cinematic experiences of my life.