(Aug. 4, 2024 ● Oslin Pierrette)
Season 1:
Episode 2-
Dang, this show is crazy. That’s some dark stuff. The deceiving cops. The incompetence of many of the cops, and then the sadistic manner in the cleanup of unjust actions by them. Then the dark life of the streets. The heartless manner of it, also the sad reality for the addicts. This is a dark hopelessness for many trapped within these environments.
Episode 6-
Yeah the way this episode starts out, a lot of the entire series I feel can be summed up here. Wallace wakes up in the trenches with a whole bunch of other kids, with borrowed electricity in a random apartment. It’s like what is he supposed to do, there are no other feasible options, he’s just a kid. He doesn’t want to hurt, he doesn’t want to be a part of this, he just wants a way to eat and survive, and these are seemingly the means for him to make his way through. Adopt the way of the dark & evil streets, and you get to live, those are seemingly his options, not that he is a no-good, evil, dirty thug that these people are perceived as. Society has abandoned them, and now it’s either choose to drown in what society and the system has left for you, or go to the way of the streets. The right to have an inner humanity seems like it’s been stripped from him since birth.
So what does this all mean, this is a cat and mouse game, where you don’t see the counterparts that are causing this, and I was like wow, that’s Tom & Jerry. This meaningless chase & survival between a cat & mouse that we continuously watch over and over again. What’s this all for, it just is. What does the cat get when he catches the mouse, he gets a caught mouse, until there is another mouse to catch. But what if they do the impossible, and catch all the mice, then there’s no purpose for the cat, so maybe always leave some mice hanging around, so the cat can always catch it.
That’s what I get from this. What do they feel their intrinsic goal is? To catch the bad guys? What type of incompetent thought process is that? Why not think about why there are bad guys in the first place, solve that crime.
Then this age of surveillance is so crazy, privacy is a thing of the past, no point of feeling like you have it, that it’s your right. Just be a righteous human being, because there is no closet to hide skeletons in, it’s under surveillance.
Episode 7-
Dang, lil man Wallace hooked on the stuff. That loss of innocence of a kid must be demoralizing. You can’t stomach witnessing such heinous evil, especially since your call and decision led to loss of life. They can tell you don’t worry about it, it’s not on you, but you know your phone call got that body. So now he has to resort to numbing the guilt and disastrous feelings he feels inside, probably can’t live with it. Especially since he’s trying to seek counsel, and the answer is don’t think or worry about it, like that humanly possible. He just wanted to sell and make some money to survive, not join in this heinous game.
Episode 8-
It’s a dark world all around. All that stuff many of us used to look up to. You see that it was all wrong. And we glamourize this lifestyle. Yeah this life gets the “respect”, street status, the women, fast money, but at what cost. You lose a lot of your humanity. That respect is mainly fear, and you can’t make human connections when you gotta avoid people, and they have to avoid you, a cold dark world. Especially with the loss of empathy, you can’t carry it, because it brings on guilt, so you have to let it go. Which is an acceptance of hell, and letting go of your soul. So you can’t form genuine stimulation, only surfaceable pleasures. The surfaceable pleasures & quick money don’t last forever, always gotta keep upping it, and you get in darker realms to obtain more and more of it. Then what I saw with the women, you don’t get the women like many of us thought, many of the times the women are getting taken advantage of. Raped, killed, and tossed aside like they were an object of a man’s pleasure, their life was basically disposable. This is an inhumane world, not one to glamorize, one to get away from completely. But instead we have the opposite, communities that bystand, enable, and glamorize this dark heinous hedonistic lifestyle.
Episode 10-
I meant to say in earlier episodes. Bubbles should be getting salary amounts of payment for the information he is offering for the career case they are working. He is a valuable member on the team like the rest of them. So it’s good he’s getting some real benefits as a CI…welp, that might not be happening anymore. But why isn’t he good enough to get salary pay, when he’s offering that value, it’s a direct sign of why Baltimore is the way it is. Bubbles is extremely resourceful, valuable, and helpful. But people like him where he’s from don’t get the opportunity to prove and make something of themselves, even when they evidently have the ability.
Episode 11-
The justice system is an incoherent disharmonious cluster of a bureaucracy. What’s the agenda of the justice system, the justice system isn’t an organization with a goal. It’s more a system of individuals with all different interests and agendas. Which creates all these miscrossing signals, all these different agendas with these chain of commands. The justice bureaucratic system is basically a cluster fuck. That’s where you get people trying to make McNulty feel wrong, you’ll use anybody to get what you want. And it’s obvious he wants justice. He feels the sentiment that if there was a common goal of justice, then that day would be had. But everyone is playing their separate game. They are making sure their relationships are ok, they are ensuring their security in things, there’s a lot of politics at play that interfere with doing the right thing. Then you have terrible egos, like the we want to see dope on the table to send them a message of who we are. That’s how you add to the egotistical bureaucratic cluster fuck, and those are the types of results you’ll get when you don’t put your ego aside to ensure the best results. That’s why you always see cops and different chains of commands yelling at each other, even when you feel they’re doing the exact right thing in the best way. There’s so many different incompetent agendas and interests at play that don’t have to do with justice. This isn’t a justice system, it’s broken justice, and maybe it’s clear corruption. Especially when you’re in a justice system that gotta play buddy buddy relationship political games with blatantly nefarious characters. Then also when you are a cop just trying to be good. You will run into things, like uncounted money. It’s tempting, very tempting. To the point it’s like why not, what’s the problem with taking some of this money. There’s many more for evidence. Then where would it all go, why not just take some for our troubles. And truly it’s going to be hard to create arguments to talk you down from that. But overtime, it can turn you, where you are in it more for self interests than justice. These people are human, it’s going to happen, especially in the state of the world we are at today. Like how hard is it to deny half to your full salary in one swipe sometimes?
With this dumb ego move of, let’s show these people who we are, now the drug dealers and guys in the streets know to go hide in the shadows and corners, lay low, when you had them hot and careless, but now you forced them to know now they must be fully calculated, making this cat & mouse search way more complicated than it has to be.
Episode 12-
Man they didn’t have to do my boy Wallace like that. But it’s sad though, what else did he really have? He was institutionalized within those projects, he knew nothing outside of those blocks for his whole life. He couldn’t get acclimated outside of that, it wasn’t freedom for him, even though it provided him safety outside of the heinous lifestyle. He was mentally trapped and institutionalized inside those projects. You can’t just escape that, it’s a mental destruction, and leaving that environment is not the escape you think it is. It’s dark when you see someone view that lifestyle in the projects as home. He got mixed up in the wrong thing, the only thing that would provide him survival. Basically being born with this inevitable demise. Then he was killed by his homies he’s known since young. That’s the way of the streets and what it asks for. And what his homies felt they had to do, now they have to carry that deep dark heinous burden. You killed your homeboy. You’ll never be the same, never forgive yourself probably. And now you fully accepted the dark sociopathic humanity of the streets, locked in, lost his soul. And why, because he was right there with Wallace, no other option, either drown or choose the streets.
Yeah this is the typical distrust that the streets bring. There ain’t no love and trust in the streets. It’s hyper individualism, decisions made for self interests. And some of those interests involve flipping on your partner sometimes, breaking those illusion codes of the street. But it’s always been this way. Where yeah the highs of the street can be great. But then there comes those times where you get in states of hyper paranoia. This quick money lifestyle ain’t so desirable anymore. Highly undesirable stress every second now. On constant high alert, your brain can’t handle all that, you’re going to go into overdrive. Yeah paranoia can keep you sharp, but you can start overthinking and overcompensating and messing yourself up. Then when you’re on top, happy with your right hand man, he’s plotting on your spot, can’t wait until he gets the chance to pop you. The way of the streets is not the way of life humans can live and adopt.
Episode 13***-
That man Dee was talking, spilling all the beans, damn. But that will happen to you when you break. When Wallace got killed, that was his sign. This is not the life for him. It’s not that he’s too weak for it. His faults have just been sinking his humanity he wants to keep. But he’s spilling the whole organization. Then he explains at the end, this is what it is and always will be. He was born into a life of this, there weren’t other opportunities, at least seemingly. This doesn’t just end with an organization bust.
Then after that man just told you, the never ending cycle of the streets, it’s gonna repopulate at some point. When you’re in environments like that, people need drugs, and others need money, and there’s an open market. Society is not gonna come in and help them, the justice system isn’t going to do the justice to resolve their issue. They’re going to keep it the same way, so the cat can keep on chasing the mouse. Everything stays the same, and this is normal. You maybe didn’t truly care about justice, you just wanted a career case to make a name for yourself. Like you don’t care that you made the streets safe for the kids, women, and even men that don’t have to go through that? You’re cheering when you feel you made a career case. What did you change, what did you fix, what did you stop? The reason that there was a criminal organization still looms. The most incompetently ridiculous cat and mouse chase, when you only try to take out the supply, and the demand is still high.
“This why we’ll never win…when they fuck up they get beat, when we fuck up we get pensions.”
There were so many flaws within that meeting with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney. They wanted their help, but for them to help them, it must be some sort of Russian, Colombian, basically foreign drug organization that can be marked as terrorism, or it must be corruption. And there was political corruption. But they would want to use the west side drug lords as cooperators to take down politicians when McNulty and Daniels’ teams want to stop the drug organization. McNulty is calling them fake cops for not wanting justice. But it’s frustratingly all flawed. The politician, drug organization, justice system are all at fault. There are basic issues that those people in west Baltimore and many other impoverished places need solved, that would stop the demand that would lead to violence and destruction, but that doesn’t matter. If that gets fixed, exponentially less of the budget that goes to these politicians and justice system workers will diminish because they wouldn’t be needed as much anymore, rendered purposeless. So maybe for them the cat & mouse insanity game is best to keep as is, their normal. They are all “real cops” which means fake justice.
The Barksdale mom provided some valid points. Why the street & drug game is so important to their family. They wouldn’t have anything without it. They probably wouldn’t even be a family. That’s why it’s so important to her and the family that Dee stays the course. And he would be abandoning his kid that he brought into the world, also putting his family at risk if he just thought about himself and just left. So what viable options does he truly have.
Dang. That’s why it’s a good idea to be running a well organized organization. Now Avon is arrested, but what do you have on him? You can’t really implicate him for anything. Things aren’t in his name, and if he has a decent well-oiled machine team, they’ll stay strong, and do what they have to do for the organization. Which also helps themselves if most stay loyal.
Can’t even lie. I respect Stringer’s hustle and game. He the real deal.
Season 2:
Episode 1-
Like I said, there’s no mouse to chase, their purposelessness will come. Like Joker iterates, he’s nothing without his Batman, a viable enemy. Where they can go on this cat & mouse chase. The game is the game, and they’re hooked on it. Like look at Kema, her girl is happy she can come home safe after giving up street police work and staying behind the desk paperwork. But Kema feels this life isn’t about being safe, it’s not meant for her to play it safe and deny what truly stimulates her. I don’t think it’s about doing monotonous cat & mouse chases, but they’re hooked on it. But I will say if they just shifted their agenda, the right path could be there, they have the heat for it, that’s neither here nor there, because that probably won’t happen, but it’s guaranteed and she feels it too, that her life shouldn’t be safe behind a desk.
This season is starting slow for me. I rather it stay in the Baltimore projects. I didn’t start watching it for this by the dock criminal cases. But I’ll see if I’ll stay. Just not my vibe.
Episode 2-
Bruh this is not what I signed up for. I want to see Baltimore projects mfs, not this stuff.
Episode 3-
Yeah, I wasn’t doing that Season. I’m here for the Baltimore projects. Not that other BS, I’m sorry.
Season 3:
Episode 1-
Ok they got back to what I like. Real Baltimore. Now let’s see how this story builds. That gentrification is crazy though.
Episode 2-
The Baltimore Warzone, bodies dropping. The risks of the streets are insane, especially in that warzone climate where bodies are just dropping like pawns, what is the mindset to stay in that climate, isn’t there a feeling of, that can be you, like just be analytic about it.
I really liked how they got in the redundancy of being a cop. I’ve been on the force for these amount of years, and the same crimes have been happening over and over again, with no slow down, or the conditions have gotten more destructively and chaotically worse. I can’t just be a blind cop that just has the mindset of we’re fighting the good fight, what if we’re part of the issue? If conditions have gotten worse since I’ve become a cop, what does that say about me? Yeah that can just be the laws of nature, but also maybe our police work hasn’t been effective, and isn’t an efficient way to stop crime.
Episode 4-
Just a reminder this is a never ending hamster wheel. It is what it is. The infinite cat & mouse chase.
Like look at dude that got out of jail. He tried the clean route. Tried to stay out of trouble. But he’s damned to no opportunities. There’s really no chance to make a really sustainable or survivable living. So what else do I have left, but to revert back to the streets. I’m not trying to be a bad guy, but I’m not trying to be a drowning one either.
Episode 5-
I like Stringer. I have a lot of respect for him. He’s a depiction of someone who just wants out. He doesn’t want to be a street guy. He just wants out, an opportunity to be clean, straight, and just run business, and this was his only route for it. This is where I lose respect for McNulty. He’s just obsessed with Stringer. I used to like McNulty because it seemed his interest was purely cleaning up the streets and wanting better for it. But he’s just a drunk and addicted to police work for the sake of police work. Stringer is just a dude who’s bringing the people that come from where he comes from, who also didn’t have a chance, he’s bringing them together to turn a new leaf. He’s giving real opportunity. Something the judicial system, or politicians never offer, but always front like that’s what they’re doing. McNulty & Crew want to Stringer down, for what? That’s your best opportunity right there to bring peace to the streets, but they rather bring him down, for the sake of this stupid endless cat & mouse chase, with no solution in mind, it’s a disgusting approach.
That’s why I like that new Officer Bunny. He has a clear vision of what’s going on. He sees this useless cat & mouse chase. And he sees the meaningless efforts to solve it. The useless bulk up officer presence on the street, the just be tyrannical, and terrorize the streets. The insanity mission that will go on decades honestly with no change. Bunny sees how ridiculous it all is. The supply will never stop coming, it’s the law of nature. So policing isn’t going to improve the conditions. Doesn’t seem like it cares to also, they just seem to get their same thrills over and over again. They are also brainwashed in this insanity cat & mouse race. They have like this disgusting holier than thou, for the greater good stance.
So officer bunny’s new approach is interesting. Maybe it will lead to less violence to this inevitable drug trade. Might as well. Let’s see where this innovative approach goes. And because it’s so innovative, it acknowledges the mindless redundant cat & mouse chase, and it’s an approach that’s trying to find a way around it.
Episode 6-
Lot of people are starting to see the fault of their actions. How destructive their actions are. You see Cutty, he doesn’t have it in him anymore. He doesn’t have that thing where he can turn off his humanity, he can’t stomach it. He can’t just see and be a part of the senseless violence. He must have a more mature brain, and he can’t just live out these heinous unjustifiable actions. In his maturity, you see he wants to live with himself.
Then Omar, he’s just getting redundantly senseless, violence for the sake of it. And you see he’s being glorified by the kids for his weaponry skill, and influencing that into the youth, adding to a continuous cycle.
Then you see Avon, things are going smoothly, there’s a way out that doesn’t cost bodies, violence, and criminality. But all Avon knows is streets. When the world can be much bigger and vaster than the streets, he just wants his corners, and wants to enact violence to get them, risking lives and manpower. He’s denying Stringer’s clean efforts to expand beyond the streets, and not having to dabble into that. Avon is institutionalized. Again, another reason I have a growing respect for Stringer. You see he was about black pride. You see that he didn’t want the streets, it was just an opportunity to expand beyond it. He has a sound head on his shoulder.
This Bunny project where it’s drug dealing enabled zone is weird. But you see the violence is doing much better. People are comfortably going outside. So interesting to see.
Episode 7-
Legalize drug system? Bunny’s system finally gets caught, but he buys more time. But to be honest, if you bust it, the corners and violence goes back to the same old ways of destruction. This organized legalized drug route seems like the best alternative. This episode was like watching the animal channel, non derogatory of course. When you shift someone out of their habitat into a controlled one, you just watch how nature shifts with it. But honestly this is the best route, legalized drugs, I’m not saying it’s the answer, but you see answers within it. You see an opportunity with the lower levels of violence and crime, you can actually create initiatives and systems to help correct this system. Start giving people the opportunity and a way out with this controlled legalized drug system. Work with the community, with the goal of instead of the insane mission of removing the supply, when the demand still remains, and supply reoccurs like nature always has done. Work with the community to stop the demand, where the supply becomes useless, and also give opportunity to the people, just try to bring them together to try to create something that can improve the community.
Episode 8-
Wow, so exactly what I said should happen when reviewing last episode, actually happened this episode. Seeing the future in this legalized drug system. Instead of looking at a grand plan to wrap them all up, which would inevitably turn everything back to normal, same old crime and destruction. Now they are putting care and effort into the community, seeking an answer that will change this whole community for the better. Including these new services for healthy drug intake & I believe prostitution, since they are inevitable, it’s better to acknowledge the inevitable and work with it, then to believe in the impossibly insane to wipe it all out. Also you saw elements of usefulness and purposefulness. Getting those guys on the computer and seeing how useful they are. These aren’t some no good thugs, these are humans with no opportunity, that gotta make something outta nothing, and the streets provides that. Then you have Cutty, who’s been searching for something but could never find it, lost without any direction, and that can easily send you back to the streets, to stop the bleeding of it all. But he was able to find something in his backyard wheelhouse, boxing. He’s able to do something he loves, and use it to better the community. That’s an exponentially euphoric positive. Somebody saw it in him and gave him the opportunity and resources, now he can take a lot of angry kids off the street, and focus and relieve their anger in the boxing ring, while teaching them discipline. Changing the course of many kids’ lives, that might’ve just come up dead in the streets, years in jail, a soulless dealer or something of that sort. But now we can create systems to give kids and others something positive to live for. Give them hope and opportunity. This is how you create prosperity for a community that’s crime ridden, not old fashioned police work, but care and investing resources & services into it.
Episode 9-
There’s truth to the saying, see what happens when I try to do good, y’all want me to do bad. Bunny is trying to get this boxing program put together. He has to go through this redundant bureaucratic system. Bureaucracy, where we make the possible, impossible. You’re just sent through this rigmarole of nothingness, where you come out with zero concrete answers, sent to this abyss of confusion. Then what happened, “did you use my name”. You need some connections and relationships to bypass the rigamarole of the bureaucracy, enforcing this classism, you need to know someone to have a chance and opportunity, unless you’re stuck in your situation. Because this bureaucracy is basically impossible to maneuver with its inefficient system.
McNulty said there’s only a few good cops, acknowledging this justice system is just a bunch of players being a cog in the system and not a person of justice. Then for McNulty, he’s just a person addicted to police work. He’s nothing without this cat & mouse chase, and why? Even if he locks up the main players, he goes off to live his life, then what about the community that’s left, he wasn’t concerned for them.
According to cops, 1 cop life is exponentially more valuable than multiple street guys in Baltimore, which is just another meaningless dead body for them.
Episode 10-
The Bunny system might be coming to an end, because of the police and justice system ego. He brings clear data on the reduction of crime, with a large amount of testimony stating a lot of the local natives of Baltimore loving the decrease in violence and crime, that they believe whatever is going on is the answer. But because of this stupid fear of chain of commands, because of this stupid incompetent bureaucratic system of clustered individual self interests, this improvement in the city to them, is a mess that has to be cleaned up, and returned to the old fashion ways of the redundant cat & mouse chase, because that’s how you’re supposed to be policing. Like how do you show people the crime is down, the community is happy and feels much safer, but that news almost gives you a heart attack. It shows you the backwardness of the system, that it’s simply not based in prosperity and being the justice system for the community.
Avon vs Stringer is boiling up. Stringer is really trying to get straight to business, but Avon is bringing that all down, because of his ego and being a true no good thug that is stuck on the streets and that’s it. Avon just wants to be king of the streets. He wants that destruction and dominance, also that street cred, that’s what he values. Which are ridiculous values to Stringer who is trying to build business and get out of the useless streets, Avon is just messing up his relationships with the other street leaders.
It takes time to instill discipline into street kids, a lot of them have an angry at life attitude, rightfully so. They’re coming from the ruthlessness and violence from the streets, they live under lawlessness. So it’s gonna take time and effort to break those attitudes down, you need to offer a lot of grace and wiggle room for them to get acclimated with this new program, and be able to to have discipline for something like boxing. They haven’t developed the mechanism to be disciplined and take orders in such a manner, without being rebellious.
Episode 11-
Damn, damn, damn. They got my guy Stringer, and I was happy Stringer and Bunny got together. I’m like the Baltimore Avengers are about to unite and change the community. I hope the West Baltimore crew collapses now. I want to see the demise of the whole crew, they’re gonna go full street and be self destructive, I see it.
I like how this Bunny drug legalization system is working. It’s starting to grow legs, and now the chain of commands have to truly delegate and see which way to move forward, they have to acknowledge the benefits it brings to the community, because a mass arrest and sweeping up Amsterdam can have detrimental reverberating damage, returning the crime numbers back to normal, and showing old fashion police work, won’t work. Also it’s good to see that maybe the new mayor sees the vision of prosperity, and might run his campaign on it.
Avon Barksdale is wack, no good, dirty thug, he lives for nothing, but the streets. Omar is a meaningless thug as well, a cool action guy I guess, but there’s nothing to him. Stringer was the only guy that was really making movements, like what does Omar even live for? He does nothing.
Episode 12-
Avon, through the loss of Stringer, is starting to see the meaningless of it all, just senseless violence, that should’ve been dropped ages ago. If I gotta kill my brother that I loved, then what are the streets worth then?
Avon’s crew is about to go finish a war with Marlo, but get caught on a wire, and get caught with massive amounts of weapons and ammunition. Avon and his crew are done. And it’s like dang, I know I said I want to see the demise of Avon’s west Baltimore crew, but didn’t expect it all to happen the very next episode.
McNulty goes into Stringer’s apartment, and he realizes he had no idea who he was chasing. Stringer had a lot more to him, and it goes to show, why were you chasing Stringer, what was your goal. Now McNulty is empty without his Batman or Joker, whichever applies to McNulty. McNulty is now empty and tired.
Bunny’s drug legalization plan is coming to an end, the cops start their mass arrest and end Amsterdam. And they revert back to the same old, same old. The destruction and the crime is back in action on the corners and streets, even though local natives were happy that Bunny was able to clear and clean up some streets. Went from moderately safe, to dangerous death zone.
Then like always with the street, the young guns come in and take the OGs spot when they are out the way.
Season 4:
Episode 1-
I don’t know why I stopped watching this for a while, it’s still really good. I get I was a huge Stringer fan, but the show still works without him.
With Avon Barksdale’s crew gone now, the justice system has won. And what are the results? Marlo’s crew has taken over now. And we see a youth coming up now. The youth is secondary succession, when a forest burns down without the removing of the seeds and soil, basically a similar forest is inevitable to grow again. Which means different day, with some different people, with the same exact old shit. And that was a win for the justice system.
The deeply blatant inherent flaw of the justice system. It’s riddled with incompetence, that leaves it inept in making prosperous change for the community. Just a waste of the community’s tax dollars on these useless workers. And I’m not blaming all the workers, but the system renders them useless. The system doesn’t tend to the core issues as to why Baltimore is the way it is. These aren’t just cold hearted criminals that need to be in jail. These are people that suffer the inescapable hell of vicious poverty, no opportunity for nothing different. Trapped in survival mode, so all you see is harsh survival tactics, with people that grew to have cold hearts from the callousness of their environment. Also you see them resorting to their only opportunity to make something of themselves, the streets. There’s no money going into their development and opportunity for something better than poverty they’re forced to accept. So if you give me nothing, I’ll make something within these cold hard streets. And that’s where the money comes into play. You were nowhere to be found when I was stuck in my inescapable poverty hell, and now you’re here with all that budget to take away the only opportunity I ever had, treating me like I’m a no good thug. Look at the system we have that’s supposed to be of service for us.
What are some of the means to clean up the problem? It’s election time, and pick the best mayor for the job. And you see the incompetent rigamarole of this bureaucratic system. I just want to be mayor so I can create great change, and I have to do all this nonsense, taking my time from truly helping the community. Then my campaign budget is being drained in these meaningless alleys. Then you got these other candidates, I don’t know what they even stand for, it’s definitely not the people, something more self serving, when the people need the system to serve the people now more than ever. Then look at the schools with its poor funding, and the stress levels of the teacher and faculty who have to deal with the chaotic effects of poverty in Baltimore. This education system isn’t building anything that can provide these kids any value, no true effort towards development. Just the regular systematic rigamarole.
Let’s see how this season turns out.
Episode 2-
It starts with the children, save the children. Are we protecting the children? And the short answer is no. Look at the poor examples, look at the extreme lack of guidance, look at their environment. Children are sponges to what they see, what they consume, what is around them. And when you are around poverty chaos, you just become a result of whatever their surroundings are. The only people of status are the street guys, the only ones that visibly are making something for themselves. It’s their only visible option. You never see a viable educational path, because maybe there isn’t one in this Baltimore region. So you just see people not attending school. There’s an extreme lack of development within the youth. They don’t have standard skills a human should equip to regularly operate in society. So there’s nothing, but trouble waiting for them, so that’s all that many look to get into.
Like look at one of the child’s mothers. The kid brings up school. And she and his father talk about how their own child should be operating within the streets. If you’re ushing your child into that, you have failed as a parent, life, everything. Kids like that have no chance, not even the opportunity to understand that there’s different. Then you see other kids just having nonfunctional addicts as parents. Where their only priority is their next fix. No care, nurture, or responsibilities, just their next fix. So that kid is lacking in all of those areas, and has to fend for himself. Doesn’t even have a chance for a clean pair of clothes and to not stink, which is so detrimental as a kid, because everyone knows kids are mean. So they just fall to the waste side of all the unfortunate circumstances.
Then you see why things like this continue. Let’s subpoena some of these crimes within politics. Let’s look into these murdered witnesses. Well, we can’t, because it’s election season, so we can’t really stir up any noise so we can protect our candidacy for mayor. So fudge them stats to be in our favor. And look at that right there. What statistical data are we analyzing, if they’re fudging it to their agenda. If you can just always do that, then it’s for sure being done. And statistical data has now become a big question for being untrustworthy. How are we gonna make change, when it seems like there’s these bigwigs who have a big stake in making sure it remains the way it is.
Episode 3-
Protection of corruption is the way of the world. People in the position of service to the community. Are in charge of the dollars that are supposed to be allocated to the needs of the community. Basically supposed to be there for the community, are there for themselves. And they will protect themselves at any cost, even at the hectic detriment to the community. There’s a case that is being worked on for street violence, but they shut that sector’s power down, we can’t have the mayor look bad. Go tamper and make it hard on any threat or opposition, even if they are there to help the community. Dismantle the community helpers, so we can ensure our positions within these public service positions, that benefits ourselves. Systems are made up individuals, and when individuals think about the individual, collective movement of individualism leads to absurd disaster. A collective movement of thinking about community, we all come together, and create harmony and prosperity, instead of disharmonious disaster, and ensuring our own survival in this survival death zone, when it doesn’t have to be that.
One thing I was aware about is the pseudo construction project they put on, specifically for the distractions of Carcetti’s political office. It just let me know that there may be a lot of pseudo construction jobs going on, for other ulterior motives, besides actually fixing the infrastructure.
How can you progress in education when the educational environment is basically a war zone? So much hectic chaos and violence. You don’t want to be an innocent victim in it all. I can see students ditching school just based on fear. Nothing can get done when there’s no order.
Episode 4-
That only needing to be in school for like two days out of the semester for money purposes is insane, if true. But it sounds like it is true. But some of these kids just don’t feel the need to goto school, and they’re just outside to their own meaningless leisure, deteriorating their development. And just being a menace to pass the time. Hours and hours into many weeks of nothingness adds up in deterioration. These kids deserve and need better.
Episode 5-
You work with the devil, and at some point you get burned. Look how stupid you look when you put your faith in the devil. You can’t stare disciplined workers for years in their face, and intentionally try to sabotage divisions and sectors under the guise of whatever BS you’re trying to peddle. It reeks of corruption and incompetence. It takes patience, resources, hard work, long form investigation to bring down someone like Marlo. And you want to do quick and cheap street sweeps and put cheesy cameras in place, like you’re not dealing with trained disciplined street soldiers. You’re insulting everyone’s intelligence with this intentional incompetence.
Also when you deal in the dark, they can come to light. Now your mayor candidacy is going into putting effort into keeping the dark in the dark. Getting upset with your want of intentional incompetence, and it working too much, and punishing someone else, holding them accountable for your intentional sabotage leadership. These are your actions. This is what you want to choose to put your efforts in. Now you want to get mad when it works, and the truth comes to light. Your dirty shit is starting to leak out and smell awful, this is your foundation. And people are starting to see the truth, not that they already didn’t. But they are starting to see the truth might not work out for them, and they should probably abandon this sinking incompetent ship. If you’re worried about your actions reaching the light, then maybe you should clean your choices for actions up, and go and rectify the flaws you committed in the dark before they come to light.
Then back to the schools. I like The Wire’s concepts for betterment. Like the controlled legalization of drugs that helped organize drug usage, and maintained street violence. They really should be working with The Wire writers and creating actual programs. And they are back with school concepts. When you mix everyone together. Children that actually have a chance to absorb an education with class disruptors, it just makes it bad for everyone. But separating them into certain groups may actually boost education for the people that actually want to participate. And put specialized support into the disrupters. Have a chance to isolate root issues and potentially find solutions. Let’s see if they are able to do that, and if they’re actual real life great solutions to the problems.
But you see, these kids live in inescapable destructive environments. They can’t focus on learning and all these other things. So many kids at such young ages are leaders of the house to points the actual grown ups in the houses are the children’s responsibility. You have to learn that, and offer grace if you want betterment for these kids, understanding their circumstances. So we can find solutions to work with them. Not punish them for the inevitable results of their environment.
Episode 6-
I just think it’s so wild to put your kid into street life. You are a filth of a mother to put that responsibility on your child. You were given the financial opportunity to do more, money that was also for the future of your child. And you spent it on your quick leisure and pleasure that didn’t last long. Now you’re in a financial predicament and making your son pay for your incompetent actions. Always having people do things for you, acting like life is a free ride as a woman, and now resenting your young child if he doesn’t provide that for you, absurdly insane. You don’t care for the well-being of that child. That child doesn’t want to be in the street. He wants to be a kid, and you’re taking that from him, while risking his life. Terrible parents. But this is where these kids come from. People like this just aren’t fit to be parents, but that’s life. This is why we need communities, where one unfit parent isn’t enough to mess up a kid, when you have a community to look after him. We suffer from individualized riddled communities. Where a kid like dookie isn’t looked after by the community. Understanding the shortcomings of his environment, and not helping as a community. But how could they when so many parents of the community don’t even have the means to help themselves.
That’s why I respect someone like Prez, who sees unfortunate circumstances, and tries to assist. Giving Daquan, I just can’t be calling no human dookie, wild name. But we need programs like that. Kids aren’t eating or have the facilities to shower in some households, and lack other stuff as well. Schools should be safe havens for underprivileged children. Also liked how Prez looked out for Randy. He’s just a kid that suffers from severe peer pressure sometimes. A good kid that gets mixed up in wrongdoings because that’s what his environment calls for. He isn’t involved, just keeps getting mixed up. So Prez was good for trying to save him from getting his life ruined. Will say, he tells too much, he may get killed or something. He doesn’t deserve it, I just see it happening.
Episode 7-
That’s one thing, a lot of these shooters and killers be high. Like they get super high to give them the numbability to go through with these murders. You can’t just be fully aware of your actions full of inhibitions, just shooting people. People would prefer to numb themselves of those inhibition feelings, quiet that voice of thinking about your actions. Get yourself high enough to where you become more impulsive, more reactive, maybe a bit more erratic, intentionally irrational. Shut off my voice of reason, so I can follow my impulsive irrational feelings, a pathology that maybe makes sense in the short term moments, shutting off access to thinking about long term possibilities. The insanity, take drugs to numb yourself of being aware of your actions, but still being the person in the aftermath that has to face the actions you committed. These young kids’ minds and thought process ain’t right, too underdeveloped. But you see them on the street as young as 11 or younger. And it’s just a regular day in the streets.
Episode 8-
That’s the way to do it. Stop trying to enforce a standard curriculum on everybody. It wasn’t written in a universal language and dialect. Some people can’t receive certain information in certain ways. You have to meet them where their minds are at. When you can meet them, you can truly see how their minds’ operate, they actually have resourceful minds and point of views. Tap into their potential, and unleash what they truly have to offer, maybe can turn their direction and path in life, towards development and betterment of themselves. Put care and effort into these kids’ lives.
Like don’t try to appease state mandates, to make sure you’re securing your position. Just doing the bare minimum to make sure they’re passing tests, instead of truly educating them. You get to extremely minimal places if they can just pass the test. You truly get somewhere when they get true educational value, that they can apply to their lives, add to their development. That’s such a huge problem, the staff is usually trying to secure their positions, don’t get out of line, do what you gotta do, to make sure you have a job, instead of fulfilling the job of actually providing the children truly valuable education.
That’s the disgustingness you see on the police force. They’re making meaningless arrests of your everyday people that aren’t a problem to anyone, but victims of this overly-policed environment. These arrests clean up or help nothing, but hurt the people who have fallen as innocent victims to these callous environments and systems. And the police just continue to be a “good subordinate”. You gotta get your police numbers up, so because of this incompetent flaw in the system of needing these numbers up, innocent people have to suffer for the inherent flaws in the system. Putting a bandaid on cancer basically.
Go the extra mile if you want to be a good cop. If you actually want to do good by people. A standard cop will make an incorrect arrest, but will leave it alone, because the clean up job will look bad on the records. So innocent people will have to pay for the incompetent mistake of others. Going the extra mile to ensure right is being done, might get you some disgruntled enemies. Stop going the extra mile, just do the standard is what’s being asked of these cops, what’s expected.
Episode 9-
These kids don’t own the internal mechanism to understand or control their emotions or how they feel. There were no places that would’ve developed that within them. So every feeling is just so impulsive and reactive. No looking within, and truly comprehending and processing of their own emotions. And when you don’t have that, you won’t make any true developmental progress. If you can develop their abilities of internal understanding and emotional control, you can create exponential progress.
It was a great idea to take these kids out of their comfort zone. Yeah it can be scary, and yeah the results weren’t great, but it was just the first time. It takes time adapting to new worlds, and people need to taste and experience that, so it can expand their mindsets. You don’t have to be subjected to such a local mindset, that you don’t ever imagine outside of local lines. You can travel, you can move, you can go to different environments. And that was a big theme of this episode. People who should really leave town, but can’t because Baltimore is all they know. Old reliable is all I know how to operate, where I feel purpose, where I feel home, I don’t know how to operate outside of what I know. And that’s why people need to taste and experience things outside of their own local bubble.
Going to the political side, if you want any true change. Change on the foundation of prosperity and betterment. You have to step away and try to operate outside of the bureaucratic slow incompetence. You have to have a solid blueprint of change you want to see, and implement those actions. And do it independent of the bureaucracy so you don’t get slowed down. Like some people like the current way of the world and how it benefits themselves. So they will go out your way to be a cancer to prosperity for their own benefits. Clean up the cancers, so they don’t spread.
Episode 10-
I just can’t stand bad policing, and it’s like they live for it. Hyped that they get to go on police gang runs, and just start locking people up, even your innocent taxpayers, doesn’t matter. Get them on anything. Parking violations, open drinks, maybe even if they have it in a bag, doesn’t matter. Get the arrest numbers up, it needs to show up in the stats. It’s called juking the stats, making it look like police are actually doing their job, while they’re truly accomplishing nothing. So innocent people have to be victims to these stupid stat padding police work. Innocent people who live their own just as important lives, where their time matters, getting arrested, getting violated, maybe getting their essential property tampered with like a car they need for work. All for some stupid quotas and driving up those arrest numbers. When do these cops look in the mirror and truly evaluate their actions? Saying sorry, my orders come from higher ups, I’m just following orders, saying that doesn’t absolve you from participating in those actions. Your higher chain of command can’t write you a pass for your actions to God, you made the decision to take part. Docile behavior will not be excused by God. Take authority of your decisions on your own. And also truly understand their why for juking the stats. Is there a righteous foundation and reason to their ways for you to be blindly following. Or is it malevolent leadership that you’re following? Sometimes being a good docile obedient subordinate will put you in moral debt that you yourself will have to pay. Before it was for the election, maybe now it’s to make some higher in command look good. But it’s not for the true betterment of anybody. Meaningless broken glass theory work. All these meaningless petty lock ups that innocent victims have to pay for in humiliation, pain, and precious time that they need.
Also that black cop stigma is so weird, not just cops being black. But black cops who are extremely aggressive with other black people. It’s like they feel they have to prove a point, or have deeper seeded inner resentments they’re taking out on other black people. You are not a cop, you are a sadist expressing your resentments behind the protection of a badge. There’s this aspect where many people and cops feel that the badge puts them in this righteous standing, that they’re above humanity and can use this facade sword of judgement at their own will. That badge can’t protect you from God, doesn’t absolve you of your filthy heinous behavior. Your actions will be on review just like every other human. And you will pay your moral debt that you have committed within the infinite cosmos.
Also you see what happens when you give a misguided kid a healthier environment. They improve. They’re just in chaotic environments where they will inevitably have to adapt to such environments. They are a result of their environment, and their ways are somewhat needed to combat their environment. You need that extremely tough outer layer, even though it compromises their inner core that makes it so fragile.
Also the education system just like the police department and so many other institutions are number chasers. It’s such a meaningless system when it’s on the foundation of things being an analytic, a number. We only care about these standard examinations and analyzing the numbers of them. So teach to the test, not developing humans to be competent and a value to society. Such meaningless work.
Episode 11-
Budget allocation seems so tedious. Then bureaucratic management seems like a clusterfuck mess. Because with many decisions, you are both making a wrong and right decision, damned if you do and damned if you don’t. While appeasing one sector, you may be hurting another. Especially with something like budget allocation. I just want to do a good job for the community, but I have to manage all those fickle emotions of everyone and their sectors that’s in this system. Couple wrong moves can cause devastating reverberations throughout the whole construct.
Episode 12-
I just can’t stand incompetence. Lester finds a body that’s linked to Marlo, something they haven’t been able to do at all. Then Landsman gets mad, says keep it quiet, don’t go bringing up more bodies. Blatant incompetence, all to save face, keep the numbers low. Do you want to do actual police work, or play this ridiculous number game? Like let me do my work, instead of listening to this no work doing chain of command.
To get punked by some little kid half your size for a pack is wild. Namond is really not built for the streets. That’s a tough life to live, an abrasive mask you’re forced to fit into. He’s not his pops, but when you live with a vile heinous creature that is your mother. Who expects you to be that person, not accounting for the well-being, and the inner core deterioration it takes to be that abrasively violent street person. It’s just a tough life to live, when you know you can’t live up to it. So much resentments and high anxiety can stem from that. I don’t know what to do. If I go home, I’m expected to be a killer if I have to, or a big time drug dealer providing for my mom. Not even valuing my future, not accounting for if I have any long term visions. What a terrible mother. You have to be a sociopathic mother if you can’t empathize and understand the frightening weight with the responsibilities, fate & path you put on your son.
Episode 13-
Great season finale. Marlo gotta go, I agree. There’s no honor amongst thieves, but he’s the devil. He’s just an absent hearted psychopath. No code, dropping bodies left and right for leisure. Even look at him wrong, might have to take a walk to your demise. You can’t operate with someone like that on the streets. There’s no code to that, nothing to keep you thorough, could end up on Marlo’s bad side for some random offenses.
Police really on many occasions have done a bad job by the people they involve in their cases. Got them in extremely tough predicaments based on police lackadaisical effort to protect citizen helpers during their case. Got Randy’s life all messed up. Lost his foster mom and house. And has to rebuild his life with all the burdens and snitch stigmas placed on his back due to police mishaps. Now I have to start from the bottom again basically.
Dang they got Bodie, he was just tired of the malevolent code of Marlo, and fell victim to it. Marlo is a ruthless devil, can’t put your trust in that system. Rules with an iron sadistic fist. Don’t think you have his favor just because you roll with him. Bodie was just a person who didn’t have any option, besides the one he took. Maybe if he had the environment and resources, he would’ve been just as disciplined as he was in the streets, took those leadership attributes and made something of himself. Now look who replaces him, Mike. Mike, another kid who is really a good kid that just wants to do right by his little brother, had to provide so young for his entire family. Just doesn’t really have the option to make something of himself. Has to resort to what he has to resort to just to survive, just to be able to breathe. Just to not suffer in constant agony of the situation of his family. Now that he’s in the streets, he actually can provide a life for his little brother hopefully. No other path does that for him.
It’s great that Namond got his life back, or for the first time ever. Finally has the reality of some normality that isn’t the inescapable survival death zone. He has a chance to make something of his future. And look at his mom’s, disappointed that he’s not on the street hustling to provide a luxurious life for her, a child. His dad came to his senses, and removed her parasitic claws from him, so he can grow up to be his own person, chance to develop into an actual human. Not forced into this abrasively destructive mask his mom tried to force on him.
Season 5:
Episode 1-
I do like how they added the media/newspaper aspect in there. Showing the incompetence in there as well. Hiring more outwardly likeable people, that might not be the best journalists, or even writers at all, rather than your dedicated talented writers.
Episode 3-
I sometimes respect Jimmy’s way of policing and detective work. I want justice, I want what’s right to happen. I don’t care to be restricted to working with numbers in mind, I don’t care about the numbers, that’s what sinks departments. I’m going to do all I have to, to solve these murders, serial killing murders, unjust malevolent murders. All these murders that are on the books, and we’re going to just sit on this, give time for criminals to maneuver freely as they please. Not on my watch. And no one even cares, even in the media department, where I’m lucky if I get small print coverage for these murders. I guess if you’re black in Baltimore, and you end up dead, it’s regular programming, nobodies going to flinch an eye, but if these same casualties happened in other neighborhoods, it would have national coverage maybe. Even in Jimmy’s dirty work, of trying to pin other demographic murders on Marlo, whatever to get the wheels sparked and turning. Get the people to bat an eye, and say hey, this is a cause for worry that needs to be solved. But it is still just another homeless person, it may or may not be regular programming for a different demo of homeless person, but it’s nothing that would cause worry I guess. You have to sensationalize something that will make the people care, you have to put spin on it, use your marketing skills to create a great story.
The same bureaucratic reasons police departments are having issues, maybe some of those reasons are similar to the newspaper and media industry that are forced to shut down many sectors. The advertisers are not giving out as much dollars. Newspaper and media owned the market share, but with the rise of the internet, it diversifies media platforms, more eyes go to the internet, and that’s where the ad dollars are going, and less in paper based companies. But maybe that didn’t have to happen. Companies were run on incompetence. Maybe they relied on catering to the numbers and advertising dollars. And that could’ve watered down their quality. Watering down quality for more ad dollars is a very common practice. But the problem with that transaction, in the long term, less eyes will turn your way, which means less ad dollars, which is dangerous to the business model you were running. You have to maintain your core principles and quality of work, and find out how to be a viable company based on the foundation of the quality of work you offer. Great quality will always attract customers. Keep writing interesting stories and put them front page, despite what advertising calls for. You will prevail at some point. So many companies have gone down that path of watering down their quality, and now so many companies are in danger or have already closed down shop. Artistic integrity must come before everything.
Episode 4-
Dang, they’re gonna do Prop Joe like that. Marlo is a true psychopath, gots to go. Like Prop Joe was your mentor, only told you a smidgen of his advice. He could’ve expanded you to be much more. There was no value to killing him besides your sadistic urge. Marlo just doesn’t get it. He’s a pure parasite that you can’t let metastasize, even if you’re a criminal yourself. He doesn’t have a viable cohabitable code. You could do everything right, and something just might rub him the wrong way as to why he has to get you. I’m hoping for the demise of Marlo.
Burrell had to go, I never respected him. He was a chain of command pet, only really ever cared about his power and rank. In a high position of power, and was hyper worried about his own well-being. But he does have a point. They wanted him to be a good commissioner, but how when the mayor has this agenda and mission one day, and completely changes it another, and another. There was no foundational ground I was operating off, it was all clustered and all over the place, I could never get any real and focused police work accomplished. This position will always go to spoil whoever sits in this seat. The system of the position is flawed from the start. But with that, I still think Burrell did an awful job, he didn’t fight the incompetence, just accepted that it was, and gained whatever benefits he could out of it. So I still don’t respect Burrell.
I’ve always hated Tony. He sucks as a person and at his job. He is just an angry person taking it out on the policing streets. Super entitled, so he doesn’t operate with consideration of how flawed his actions are. So you see the smug arrogance all over him. Then you’re being a menace to society with your hot head self, when you’re supposed to be of service to the people, but he’s just violating them. Maybe the police aren’t obligated to the people, but the people believe police are supposed to be of service to them. After Tony terrorizes the streets, his super entitled self can’t see the blatant fault in his own ways and actions. Some of these cops are so far gone. They are a danger to society in their positions. That’s why it was good Carver held him accountable for his flawed ways. When it was expected even in his blatant flaws, that this would be covered up and spun in a way where he’s clear from consequences. It’s a boys club, blue shield of silence, a no snitch gang code. But Carver sees how this terrible behavior has impacted and affected communities. He sees that it all matters, actions and choices, they reverberate, people have their own entire lives to live. And their actions and choices can completely affect their livelihood, completely alter it as well. Couple of bad choices ruined Randy’s life. And that matters to Carver. Police can’t just operate like they’re consequence free from their actions, they feel and live above the law. So they are careless in their ways. Causing so much destruction that they feel detached from. Leave a trail of destruction, and don’t care because they aren’t affected by the aftermath.
Episode 8-
Dang now they got Omar, show basically over. I don’t really care about this homeless issue arc, and not even invested in Marlo all that deeply at this point. I would like to see how it ends up since I’m right there, but this isn’t the best season.
They still got Omar though, gone from Secondary Succession. The roots have been passed on to the new up and coming youth, they’ve been infected with the same old street mentality, and of course Omar didn’t see that coming. But honestly why was everyone so afraid of Omar all the time, he’s just one person, and now he’s on one leg. The big bad wolf, ain’t so bad, but his name still holds the same weight, rings just the same. Except for that kid who saw through what was now a facade, not a lone wolf, but a gimpy-legged old man, and the kid got him.
Episode 10-
Don’t go telling the truth now, trying to make things right, because then you’ll have to make Everything right. You have to open all the doors. Yeah, Jimmy fraudulently did a lot, but why, because everyone was sitting around doing nothing, when things needed solving. 20+ bodies from one source, and the city was just sitting on it. He had to put spin on fraudulent cases, to get money for the case he wanted to actually work. That story is applicable to a lot of the doings within this system. Like the mayor election, fabricating and putting spin on stories, to boost your agendas within election season. We’re in the age of spin, putting spin on stories to green light certain projects. And from this perspective we can clearly see, if Jimmy doesn’t do that, then that Marlo problem would’ve metastasized to maybe unfixable heights. The incompetence of politics and the system led Jimmy down this path. Now Cedric wants to have his panties in a bunch for what? I just can’t stand, incompetent rule-following Boy Scouts, following incompetent rules. What is your anger stemming from, your status and rank in jeopardy? Because he didn’t do it by the book? The book is flawed, nothing was going to get solved by the book, it has always been impossible.
Cedric is the same guy who later on doesn’t want to acquiesce to the mayor, to go back to juking the stats, that gets mayors to become governors and making others look good as well. Taking shit and making it look like gold, and making this the foundation of police work, the stats. This is how police are brought up, and seeing that makes it clear why the system is so corrupt, incompetent, and broken, the foundation that you stand on is absolutely faulty. So it’s confusing when some are wondering why policing is all in disarray. So for Cedric to understand that, and not understand why Jimmy did what he did, break an insane amount of rules, to get around the insane amount of incompetence, just to get real police work done. Jimmy had his quirks, but he was a no nonsense guy when it came to the incompetence of policing, while everyone else had their panties in a bunch when he didn’t follow incompetent rules. You go follow the nonsense that solves nothing and keeps putting us in this meaningless, empty, solveless cycle. At least I see the truth of why things are the way they are, and that the way we are policing and governing right now will solve nothing, but further these communities in their deep suffering poverty.
Many were right about these aspects though. It doesn’t matter who the police commissioner is, or the mayor. Even if you see them beforehand and as great people who are working towards the benefit of the community. Those positions change you, so many politics you have to jungle and handle. The inescapable incompetence that is asked of you to accomplish. Do this incompetent thing, and do this incompetent favor to benefit you in the future. You just blatantly see, you can’t do clear good work in these positions. They will always be accused of doing a poor job. It’s the system, this bureaucratic system. There is no viable good way to work the system that is riddled with so many incompetent flaws. Honestly, the best way to properly address this, is with truth and transparency. First you need a solid foundation of good to stand on, always upholding you morals and principles. On a foundation like that, you will clearly see faults, it will be glaringly obvious to you. You have to recite those issues to the people, state why in this current system why we will fail as a people. And to affect great change, us as people have to do more than vote and wait for your mayor or president to change your life. But we as a people have to come together in a collective harmonious manner, with common goals of prosperity and human development, then we can create great change, together. But it’s impossible from this bureaucratic mayor seat. And this endless cycle is ridiculous.