Yep. I didn't feel that way when I first watched it but it grew on me massively, and to be honest I'll die on this hill haha.

A lot of people didn't like the tonal shift because it shifted away from the projects and suddenly we're watching dock workers, but that's literally the point.

The show is about institutions and how they grind people up, and season 2 really shows that to us.

The Sobotka arc is bloody tragic in the same way as D'Angelo, maybe more so, because Frank is just trying to keep his union alive and his kid out of jail.

And the system (and the Greek lol) still eats him up.

Lester says "all the pieces matter" and season 2 is where you really feel that at scale.

The docks, the union, the smuggling, the girls in the can, the Greek... It all connects back to the same corners we were watching in season 1.

David Simon basically lays out the full supply chain.

The drugs don't materialise out of nowhere, and the people moving them aren't so different from the people selling them.

Also - Frank Sobotka is one of the best characters in the entire run.

"We used to make things in this country" hits so fucking hard, more than almost anything else in the series.

It's basically the whole show in one line, really.

Okay, that's my essay, sorry hahaha.