The Wire: Season Two

Jana and I finished watching Season Two of The Wire last week, and I remember Will was curious to see what we thought of it. We really liked it, what a phenomenal show - well written, well acted.

It was like a book you can't put down, we had to keep watching it, even though it was past our bedtime. When people saw us bleary-eyed they'd ask "Baby keeping you up?" And we'd nod, but it was really staying up with Bunk and Jimmy McNulty.

The Frank Sobotka/dock workers storyline was terrific. Chris Bauer, who played Sobotka, portrayed one of the most likeable bad guys recently seen on TV (The Wire has a way of producing guys like that). He was doing the wrong things, but for the right reasons, and you can appreciate that. Pablo Schreiber, a poor man's Ben Affleck, played Sobotka's nephew Nick the same way. A dying union was a fertile source of drama and intrigue to build the season around.

The detective work was once again fascinating, and the detail's failure to land the ultimate prize was excruciating. In the third-to-last episode, as the good guys file the necessary paperwork for a search warrant, the bad guys shred documents and flush drugs down the drain. You want to scream! A very similar finish to the first season, where Avon Barksdale goes down, but if D'Angelo had not listened to his mother, he could have taken down the whole empire, politicians and all.

There were some things I didn't like. Take, for instance, the lapses back into the Barksdale storyline. They seemed forced, and shifted valuable time away from developing the Sobotka plot. At least it appears McNulty and Greggs they will tie Stringer Bell to Proposition Joe in the next season, something I expected to happen earlier in season two. A little too much going on.

Sobotka's son Ziggy was over-the-top stupid, a bit beyond believable. Didn't need to see McNulty's and Gregg's family troubles. The in-prison drama orchestrated by Avon was off-topic too, although it was interesting to see the relationship between Avon and Stringer grow strained.

And our favorite moment: when Prez punched Valchek. I may have actually cheered.

Looking forward to season three.