http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=24&entry_id=22473#comments

Another vote for Omar. I love me some Omar. He lights up every scene. The whole exchange about his killing his grandma’s crown and violating the Sunday morning truce is classic.

My wife and I own Season 1 on DVD — all the Pandagon posts about The Wire have inspired us to rewatch the whole season, especially since HBO is showing crap on Sunday nights now.

My favorite moment in S3 is when Stringer and Avon are on the balcony reminiscing about when they were kids, getting into trouble and dreaming about being rich and powerful. They both know at that point that the relationship is coming to an end. It’s heartbreaking. Second favorite moment is the one someone mentioned above… When McNulty finds an Adam Smith book in Stringer’s apartment and he says, “who the fuck was I chasing?”

The first scene of the first episode of S4 is pure David Simon genius.

All the rest were a total mess. Multiple divorces, loveless marriages, painful struggles over sexuality…I think Burns/Simon assume that detectives will have failed personal lives characterized by deception, cheating and misery.

It struck me watching all those scenes in the box over the years that detectives have a completely warped way of relating to people — everything they do in the box is about getting the suspect to reveal/tell the truth. And yet, the cops themselves lie, lie, lie as much as they can to get to that end. They’re obsessed with not being played, while they play everyone else (sometimes even fellow members of the force). Kima might have thought she could bluff her way through being a supportive parent because being good at that kind of thing is one of the keys to her job.

My memory of the Wire timeline is a little fuzzy, but doesn’t McNulty’s relationship with the harbor cop develop after he gets back into uniform on a beat?

It just occurred to me that there’s an interesting asymmetry between Kima and McNulty…

One of the big themes of season 3 is that Kima becoming more like her womanizing, hard drinking policing partner. One of McNulty’s best attributes is that he’s a really enthusiastic dad. He’s not always the most competent or responsible parent, but he loves his kids. Ultimately, his marriage still failed because of his infidelities, alcohol abuse, and his obsession with detective work–the same problems that Kima has.

Here’s the part that hadn’t occurred to me. When McNulty’s on a date with the political consultant, he reveals an interesting biographical detail. She asks him about college and he says, with some regret, that he had to drop out after a year because he got his girlfriend pregnant. McNulty’s still insecure about not being a college graduate all these years later. So, he had to sacrifice something in order to be parent, but he still managed to love his kids, even if he wasn’t willing to be a conventional family man.

The kids’ stories in Season Four are good, but they’re necessarily smaller, humbler stories. I missed the larger-than-life dimensions the gangsters took on, from the prison yard parting for Avon in 3.1 to Bell dying at the hands of two legendary gunslingers. Marlo, in Season Four, is ruthless and despicable, but he’s also a lizard, cold humorless, and passionless, and he lacks the charisma of the other crooks. Omar’s still around, but after finally avenging Brandon he doesn’t have the same fire. I missed Avon, Stringer and Mouzone.

The couple is already deep into the IVF process when we meet them. Early in season 1, Kima sighs when she sees the doctor bill and says, “A thousand dollars worth of baby…” You can see her ambivalence, but not the abject rejection we see in subsequent episodes. The scene with the IVF bill establishes that the couple has already made some kind of agreement to try for a baby together. It’s not like Sheryl goes out and gets herself pregnant behind Kima’s back.

I feel like Kima’s outright indifference to the baby is overplayed, or presented without sufficient context. She is a parent, but she acts like a total stranger to her son. Even reluctant parents tend to have some vestiges of affection for their own kids mixed in with their frustration and bitterness.

We see some negotiation and renegotiation between Kima and Sheryl about the baby, but it’s well-established that Kima agreed. I think that makes her a lot less sympathetic than someone who ended up being a parent by accident and found themselves unable to deal with the responsibility.

Also, Kima agreed to quit the police force and didn’t follow through, so I sort of feel like she owed Sheryl some major concessions about their lifestyle. It’s one thing to be an absent parent, it’s quite another to help yourself to a double life because you’re pissed off about a child you helped bring into the world. The writers are careful to show that Kima contributed financially and emotionally to the making of that baby, even though she’s not the bioparent. We see that Sheryl stuck with Kima when she got shot and even when she broke her promise to quit the force.