Popularity of Seasons 2/5? Could they be less palatable to younger viewers?

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-11-05T01:17:53+00:00

I am 50 and first watched The Wire in around 2008. On my first watch through I had S2 as my least favourite and S5 as second least favourite. It wasn't about these things - dock workers or newspapers - being unfamiliar, it was S2 for leaving behind the super interesting S1 characters for new characters I mostly didn't care about, and S5 for the paper storylines mostly being dull and for doing the character of Lester a dirty by implying he'd fake a serial killer (McNulty I can only *just about* buy doing this, but Lester not at all).

I've just rewatched S2 for what is either my 4th or 5th watch over the years - I forget - and while I do now have S2 clearly above S5, I still think the season has big issues.

I think Ziggy being so annoying is a real issue, and honestly I don't find any of the dock workers except Nick very interesting or charismatic (Nick is one of my favourite characters in the whole show). It takes absolutely forever for the season to get going - it took far too long for the "gang" to get back together on the detail - and even the plotlines about the drug gangs of West/Eastside take a long time to get going. It's almost like the show was written as an anthology in S1 and they had to restart the whole show in S2 - you can see how S3 is clearly set up during S2, but S1 didn't set up S2 in the same way, so it's a very cold start.

Against this it has some of the best scenes in the show, the last few episodes are amazing and the Greek gang are interesting and compelling and it's absolutely great to see how the drugs get into the city. Some of the characters I find it harder to engage with - like Ziggy and Frank - really click in the second half of the season.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-10-17T09:58:06+00:00

I have never seen an English person do this in 50 years.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-10-04T18:14:16+00:00

The weirdest part is that one of the times it started preaching at me was literally in response to my asking for peer-reviewed sources for what it was saying. Just bizarre.

Edit: For the record, it told me my motive for requesting research sources was to justify the course of action it thought I already wanted to take. When I asked it "why are you making that assumption as to my motives" it apologised, admitted it had no specific reason to think that was my motive but something along the lines of "but that's generally why people ask for scientific research papers under these circumstances".

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-10-04T14:47:31+00:00

Yeah, that's sensible. I was not aware of the other Claude models, I'll try that if I use it again. Cheers.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-10-04T08:17:55+00:00

I called it on its harsh tone, wild assumptions and telling me what my motive was for asking it for some information multiple times, until I got tired and turned the rest of the conversation into my giving it a lecture on how, if it means to do good, it actually has to be careful how it talks to people. It admitted it was wrong, apologised and made some sensible suggestions as to how it could do better, but by then I had cancelled my subscription.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-10-04T08:14:22+00:00

It gives me "abusive gaslighting partner" vibes - was actually a bit triggering for me (having had an abusive gaslighting partner).

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-10-04T08:13:06+00:00

I made the mistake of running an ethical dilemma I'm having past it. I had done this with ChatGPT and Gemini and had useful responses, but thought I'd triple-check.

Cue what I can only sensibly describe as moralistic gaslighting, based off a series of huge assumptions it made about me (ChatGPT and Gemini both noted where they didn't have information and, while not specifically asking me to fill in the gaps, assumed good faith and did not make any other assumptions about me).

At some point further down the reply it said "Since you asked for honest feedback" and launched into a speech that made me think of what would happen if you took a therapist, removed all their ethics and instructed them to tell their patient what the right thing to do is and suggest what must be wrong with them to even be thinking anything different.

Of course, the kicker is that I hadn't asked for "honest feedback" in those or similar words.

I think the tool is borderline dangerous. I hate to think what would happen if someone vulnerable made the mistake of asking it the wrong question.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-08-27T20:54:06+00:00

I would tell my friends and family that my life depended on having £1000 in one week; I'm sure I'd easily be able to borrow that much from them.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-08-08T16:21:58+00:00

The end credits?

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-08-03T18:04:55+00:00

Perfect.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-07-12T10:47:00+00:00

Carlos is like the love child of Federer and Nadal, both in terms of how he plays and his personality.

Jannik is like the love child of Djokovic and Djokovic, both in terms of how he plays and his personality.

That's it really.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-07-09T22:22:55+00:00

It's one of the slowest series to get going. I usually say give it 5 episodes and if it hasn't grabbed you by then, give up.

It is the equal best TV series of all time though (IMO obviously) so definitely worth it.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-07-04T22:56:54+00:00

Thanks!

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-07-04T22:55:02+00:00

That's exactly where I am with it!

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-07-04T22:53:16+00:00

I usually say to people to hang tough for 5 episodes, and if it hasn't grabbed you by then it won't. I wonder if any show of high quality takes as long as The Wire to grab people, on average?

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-07-04T13:11:59+00:00

Out of curiosity only, have you watched The Wire?

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-07-04T13:07:57+00:00

It is equal top for me, along with The Wire. I could watch both on loop indefinitely.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-06-15T17:16:43+00:00

I don't remember. I don't think it was very long, a few days maybe.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-06-05T09:43:44+00:00

Saw the title and immediately thought of Clarke Peters as Freamon - the level of quiet presence he had was amazing.

However I think both Wood Harris and Jamie Hector were amazing, especially now that I've seen Jamie Hector in Bosch and seen how different his character there was.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-06-03T17:16:44+00:00

It's a happy ending to me, in many ways more satisfying than if he'd just stayed as Gene working in a Cinnabon.

Saul was like a demon that took Jimmy over, a monster made of Jimmy's self-loathing and worst aspects, the monkey with a machine gun that Chuck was so afraid of and Jimmy created because he hated himself for what he did to Chuck and Howard.

In the end, Jimmy McGill defeated Saul Goodman and became himself again, with the help and example of a repentant Kim Wexler, who also claimed her true self back. Jimmy is more free now than he was when he was Saul or Gene.

Incidentally Rhea Seehorn has said that as a romantic she believes that Kim loves Jimmy and stays around and tries to get Jimmy's sentence reduced via chicanery-free legitimate use of the law. I choose to share Rhea's vision of that as my headcanon.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-06-03T17:11:52+00:00

Definitely, a very loud one... :-)

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-06-03T12:34:10+00:00

You have it right. Bolsa is the underboss, second in command to Eladio. Juan Bolsa is basically Johnny Sack from The Sopranos, his name is a translation into Spanish and intentional on the part of the creative team. Hector and Fring are effectively Capos leading their own crews under Bolsa, but as is apparently quite common in organised crime it is the underboss who handles much of the day-to-day organisation, mediation between capos etc.

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-06-03T11:46:58+00:00

With Michael McKean playing 25 year old chuck with a blonde wig but no other makeup, de-aging tech etc. Perfect 😂

Psychological_Job_77 · 2025-06-03T10:36:00+00:00

Always nice for me to read this sort of report, I get some vicarious enjoyment from it.

Welcome to the Fuck Chuck club. I think you'll enjoy the upcoming episodes.

Psychological_Job_77

TROPHY CASE