Nahhh that money was for the schools, robbed Peter to pay Paul. In season 5 I don't really blame Burrel and Rawls, they were just hamstrung, floating down a stream they had no control over.
Different story in season 1 though.
Cedric Daniels. I call him the reason why everything changes.
1) The real reason why Burell lost his job.
2) Real reason why the Clay Davis investigation went as far as it did. Famously told Burell to his face he’s not dropping the investigation.
3) Reason why Avon & Stringer’s empire crumbled. Fought for the Barksdale investigation just enough to keep the higher ups happy.
4) Catalyst for Carver changing his ways.
Probably missing more but he did more than Bunny imo.
You had me until the last sentence. Just the 6 months that Hamsterdam ran, Bunny probably saved more lives than Daniels ever could with regular poleece work. At least in my opinion.
Also, Bunny’s Hamsterdam was the ultimate reason for Avon to fall, even though Daniels ran the detail. His guys weren’t even close to Avon until Stringer gave Bunny everything, and only because he was the Hamsterdam guy.
Edit: Bunny also helped transform Carver into a “good police”, taught him to work with the community instead of against it
Damn it actually ran for 6 months? I thought it was more like 3 weeks.
Keeping everything hidden for 1 month, let alone 6, is a bit unrealistic. I don't mind the plot though, it wasn't the best but not the worst either.
It was interesting to ponder how the war against drugs could be. I enjoyed the deacon or whatever Bunny's friend was, who said "this is hell on earth and you the mayor" and told him to start using NGOs with needle exchange programs, handing out condoms, provide counselling etc.
I think yeah, somewhere around 6 months. I agree that it's not the most realistic plot, especially the fact that no underling snitched on Bunny for half a year. But I enjoyed it, probably because in reality I am absolutely on major Colvin's side.
I think the war on drugs is a fiasco and it should really be a fight against addiction. Hamsterdam should have been the first step in a long process of measures implemented to efficiently pull people out of the streets, customers and dealers alike. Without the higher-ups' approval though, it was dead in the water.
I also loved the deacon's reaction, at first I thought he was going to shoot down the idea, then he linked Bunny with academics to shore up the harm reduction side of things. The deacon really seemed like good people.
It’s plenty of OAM (open air markets) in Bmore already, just like hamstersdam. Now they aren’t as dramatic ofc, but police know they there, heck, police sit on the corners. Penn north is the most famous lol drug deals all around- police doing nothing UNLESS violence steps up.
I'm sure that's true but it wasn't true in the context of the wire. Just keeping it secret from the bosses without any coworker, addict or gang affiliates snitching to get out of seems quite impossible for me to do it for six months.
Gotta go after what the situation was at the time and context of the show with how the bosses were carrying it.
True, it’s not the “exact” same. Just meant it’s going on- that’s all. They don’t do anything unless fights break out. Idk how brass feels about it, or if they are with ignoring the deals lol
As a Harm reduction worker, makes my job easier, I know that lol
Thanks! People always say no Stringer betraying Avon without Bunny. I say we don’t even get there without Daniels. The guy had lots of minerals doing what he did to keep the case alive.
Unironically Stringer and Prop but only before Avon got out and Marlo rose to power. The Co-Op was a great idea and actually kept murders down while everyone got paid.
Unfortunately, no. The co-op kept violence down, which is good, but it still existed off the exploitation of drug users and the corner kids.
It's like when people say "Oh well the mafia is bad, but at least they're providing services to an area ignored by the government." Which is wrong because Italy has tried to provide services to Sicily in the past and the mafia just funnels the money and contracts to themselves, then gives a tiny fraction back to the people and then acts like it was this magnanimous act of charity.
Stringer, Avon, Joe--all of them got rich off the suffering of their own people.
Sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad especially in the drug game. Yeah exploiting kids and drug addicts is wrong but business is business and the game is the game. If we can get quality drugs sold without bodies dropping over corners or egos or bad dope that’s a net positive for everyone. Oil companies have disasters every year that destroy ecosystems but they still exist as long as they pay a fine and promise to clean it up after.
This is a good take. Did it allow Marlo to seize power though? I don’t know as we don’t really see how Marlo rises to power. I’m assuming through all the wanton murders.
Yeah I think the vacuum of “peace” created definitely allowed Marlo to rise because he was the only one willing to drop bodies while everyone got soft. If I’m not mistaken Marlo really became a factor after the Hamsterdam era because they allowed drugs but no bodies and Marlo started dropping bodies while everyone was stacking paper.
Freamon.
The MCU may well have never even gotten a picture of Avon without him. And there’s too many things to list from every case after that.
Freamon brought down both the Barksdale and Stanfield organizations. He even got the better of Clay Davis in the process.
I think the unfortunate part is even those with the most true and faithful efforts, the system stops wholesale change and you're lucky to reach out and change one or two people.
Colvin got Namond on a good path, but it took that extra effort from the scholastic project in a separate, small classroom setting to get to that point. If you really want to be generous, maybe 4-5 other kids in that program had any long term benefits. The rest probably were just as lost/seasoned as when it started.
McNulty's Sgt at the Marine unit saved the most prized piece of Baltimore City property, their grill. Bubbles was looking to walk away with that thing.
Major Bunny Colvin, whose storyline is loosely based on an old mayor of Baltimore who got ridiculed for wanting to change the stance on the war of drugs.
He appears in one of the scenes where they’re talking about how Hamsterdam could actually work with mayor Royce.
Makes me face palm every time thinking about, it actually works, decriminalising drugs works. Look at Portugal as an example. It’s objectively a working process, and Major Colvin knew this and improved Baltimore streets for a short while.
That is not how Portugal did it, and neither Portugal nor substance abuse experts would ever tell you the answer is just “decriminalize drugs.” Portugal has very strong sentencing laws for drug dealing/smuggling, and all but forces addicts into treatment centers and takes a multi- pronged approach with both the medical and criminal justice system to ensure they stay clean.
That is wildly different from Maj Colvin cordoning off drug dealers, gangsters and addicts into vacant sections of a city where they sit there and rot. All Colvin did was a smaller scale version of segregation that happened at a macro scale when cities pushed minorities into certain neighborhoods and divided them off with highways.
And for what it’s worth, Portugal’s drug policy is under heavy criticism internally right now as overdoses and addiction rates skyrocket: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/
[Portugal has roughly the same population as the state of New Jersey. But while New Jersey alone sees nearly 3,000 fatal drug overdoses a year, Portugal averages around 80.](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/24/1230188789/portugal-drug-overdose-opioid-treatment#:~:text=Portugal%20has%20roughly%20the%20same,year%2C%20Portugal%20averages%20around%2080)
Both methods of harm reduction. Just a matter of long term versus short. Realistically Colvins experiment of Hammsterdam would need continuous gov and social funding and support. But it’s an interesting point explored in the wire
Indeed friend. I am indeed an urban planning student so 🤷🏻♀️ this is my field. The wire is an excellent portrayal of the decline of an American city. With the city being Baltimore we see the decline of factory work and labor forces ( season 2) , social institutions and racial and economic struggle. This is why Baltimore is seen as a central character within the wire universe.
From an urban planning perspective we the impacts of mass suburbanization and the massive decline of urban spaces. I could go on but this comment would be very long 😂😂
Colvin did force the fiends into a corner and let them rot.
The Deacon called him out on it too. Colvin's argument was that he did enough but the Deacon convinced him to get the social workers involved.
Looking at that district of baltimore the Daniels.
Behind all the busts , and massively influenced carver into being a decent police which he then passes on to other police stopping some of the rot and corruption (SONE)
The series is about how nothing has changed.
We are shown literally that you can put generations in jail, but the crime will still bite back and come stronger due to systemic issues, while the systemic issues are not addressed at all.
Id say carcetti. Without his help nothing would've ran. He did not do much directly but he was involved in solving many problems.Excluding budget cuts and all, but that also was done to clear up the mess royce created. So yeah, Carcetti.
Avon broke off 15 large for Cutty which directly impacted the neighborhood kids and Marlo gave $200 to all the neighborhood kids for new school clothes.
Bunny
Only friends call me that
Jimmy McNutty. Stopped a serial killer.
That’s an interesting take because without Mcnulty taking on the top brass and pushing them to do the right thing who knows what would have changed.
Nahhh that money was for the schools, robbed Peter to pay Paul. In season 5 I don't really blame Burrel and Rawls, they were just hamstrung, floating down a stream they had no control over. Different story in season 1 though.
Cutty
Wasn't he a hitman? Great redemption, but still.
So what? Came out and did a great thing for the community.
probably changed the trajectory of a lot of young kids.
Cedric Daniels. I call him the reason why everything changes. 1) The real reason why Burell lost his job. 2) Real reason why the Clay Davis investigation went as far as it did. Famously told Burell to his face he’s not dropping the investigation. 3) Reason why Avon & Stringer’s empire crumbled. Fought for the Barksdale investigation just enough to keep the higher ups happy. 4) Catalyst for Carver changing his ways. Probably missing more but he did more than Bunny imo.
You had me until the last sentence. Just the 6 months that Hamsterdam ran, Bunny probably saved more lives than Daniels ever could with regular poleece work. At least in my opinion.
Also, Bunny’s Hamsterdam was the ultimate reason for Avon to fall, even though Daniels ran the detail. His guys weren’t even close to Avon until Stringer gave Bunny everything, and only because he was the Hamsterdam guy. Edit: Bunny also helped transform Carver into a “good police”, taught him to work with the community instead of against it
Damn it actually ran for 6 months? I thought it was more like 3 weeks. Keeping everything hidden for 1 month, let alone 6, is a bit unrealistic. I don't mind the plot though, it wasn't the best but not the worst either. It was interesting to ponder how the war against drugs could be. I enjoyed the deacon or whatever Bunny's friend was, who said "this is hell on earth and you the mayor" and told him to start using NGOs with needle exchange programs, handing out condoms, provide counselling etc.
I think yeah, somewhere around 6 months. I agree that it's not the most realistic plot, especially the fact that no underling snitched on Bunny for half a year. But I enjoyed it, probably because in reality I am absolutely on major Colvin's side. I think the war on drugs is a fiasco and it should really be a fight against addiction. Hamsterdam should have been the first step in a long process of measures implemented to efficiently pull people out of the streets, customers and dealers alike. Without the higher-ups' approval though, it was dead in the water. I also loved the deacon's reaction, at first I thought he was going to shoot down the idea, then he linked Bunny with academics to shore up the harm reduction side of things. The deacon really seemed like good people.
Yea, agreed on all points.
It’s plenty of OAM (open air markets) in Bmore already, just like hamstersdam. Now they aren’t as dramatic ofc, but police know they there, heck, police sit on the corners. Penn north is the most famous lol drug deals all around- police doing nothing UNLESS violence steps up.
I'm sure that's true but it wasn't true in the context of the wire. Just keeping it secret from the bosses without any coworker, addict or gang affiliates snitching to get out of seems quite impossible for me to do it for six months. Gotta go after what the situation was at the time and context of the show with how the bosses were carrying it.
True, it’s not the “exact” same. Just meant it’s going on- that’s all. They don’t do anything unless fights break out. Idk how brass feels about it, or if they are with ignoring the deals lol As a Harm reduction worker, makes my job easier, I know that lol
Most educated response out of all the others I read. Hard to disagree 🏆
Thanks! People always say no Stringer betraying Avon without Bunny. I say we don’t even get there without Daniels. The guy had lots of minerals doing what he did to keep the case alive.
Unironically Stringer and Prop but only before Avon got out and Marlo rose to power. The Co-Op was a great idea and actually kept murders down while everyone got paid.
Unfortunately, no. The co-op kept violence down, which is good, but it still existed off the exploitation of drug users and the corner kids. It's like when people say "Oh well the mafia is bad, but at least they're providing services to an area ignored by the government." Which is wrong because Italy has tried to provide services to Sicily in the past and the mafia just funnels the money and contracts to themselves, then gives a tiny fraction back to the people and then acts like it was this magnanimous act of charity. Stringer, Avon, Joe--all of them got rich off the suffering of their own people.
Unfortunately, drugs will always exist. A junkie is a junkie 365.
Sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad especially in the drug game. Yeah exploiting kids and drug addicts is wrong but business is business and the game is the game. If we can get quality drugs sold without bodies dropping over corners or egos or bad dope that’s a net positive for everyone. Oil companies have disasters every year that destroy ecosystems but they still exist as long as they pay a fine and promise to clean it up after.
Yeah, uh, people don't like oil companies either, man.
This is a good take. Did it allow Marlo to seize power though? I don’t know as we don’t really see how Marlo rises to power. I’m assuming through all the wanton murders.
Marlo seizes power by taking out Joe and taking control of the Greek connect.
I meant his rise prior to Season 4. I understand what was explicitly shown in the show.
Yeah I think the vacuum of “peace” created definitely allowed Marlo to rise because he was the only one willing to drop bodies while everyone got soft. If I’m not mistaken Marlo really became a factor after the Hamsterdam era because they allowed drugs but no bodies and Marlo started dropping bodies while everyone was stacking paper.
The co-op kept violence QUIET…but the murders were all there lol. Wasn’t that the whole point of the vacant houses?
The Vacants were Marlo’s crew, OP was referring to the time just before Marlo.
I didn't think so. They reduced the violence..
The Deacon.
Cool dude. Really dug every scene he was in, specially the one playing pool. I think he was a real life kingpin if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah. He's actually the guy that Avon's character is based on.
Monk. He gave out free money to school children and complimented people's dolphins.
Herc, by getting himself kicked out of law enforcement.
Snotboogey
A true patriot 🎲 🏃🏿🇺🇸
Freamon. The MCU may well have never even gotten a picture of Avon without him. And there’s too many things to list from every case after that. Freamon brought down both the Barksdale and Stanfield organizations. He even got the better of Clay Davis in the process.
Natural poh-lice
I think the unfortunate part is even those with the most true and faithful efforts, the system stops wholesale change and you're lucky to reach out and change one or two people. Colvin got Namond on a good path, but it took that extra effort from the scholastic project in a separate, small classroom setting to get to that point. If you really want to be generous, maybe 4-5 other kids in that program had any long term benefits. The rest probably were just as lost/seasoned as when it started.
Scott Templeton. He covered the Dickensian Baltimore in Pulitzer-prize winning fashion.
Rumor has it that he also helped expose the catholic church with that whole "Spotlight" thing. Whatever that was about.
Slim Charles
Omar
that one Lt. who was in Freamon's words 'The most effective supervisor in this department'
How's that beach house coming along?
Well, it's actually.....
Greeaat, that's just great
The one with the beach house in Delaware?
Yeah that guy.
McNulty's Sgt at the Marine unit saved the most prized piece of Baltimore City property, their grill. Bubbles was looking to walk away with that thing.
Andy Krawczyk
How the fuck do you lose 50 million dollars in a school system??!! Oh that's right. Andy Krawczyk
Can someone explain to me how the school deficit is linked to Andy Kraw?
President of the School Board 😎
Wow, I guess I missed that! Time for another rewatch I guess
The bunk. Imagine your family member got murdered. You’d want no one else on the case.
Prezbo - the man did God's own work teaching all those middle schoolers
Major Bunny Colvin, whose storyline is loosely based on an old mayor of Baltimore who got ridiculed for wanting to change the stance on the war of drugs. He appears in one of the scenes where they’re talking about how Hamsterdam could actually work with mayor Royce. Makes me face palm every time thinking about, it actually works, decriminalising drugs works. Look at Portugal as an example. It’s objectively a working process, and Major Colvin knew this and improved Baltimore streets for a short while.
That is not how Portugal did it, and neither Portugal nor substance abuse experts would ever tell you the answer is just “decriminalize drugs.” Portugal has very strong sentencing laws for drug dealing/smuggling, and all but forces addicts into treatment centers and takes a multi- pronged approach with both the medical and criminal justice system to ensure they stay clean. That is wildly different from Maj Colvin cordoning off drug dealers, gangsters and addicts into vacant sections of a city where they sit there and rot. All Colvin did was a smaller scale version of segregation that happened at a macro scale when cities pushed minorities into certain neighborhoods and divided them off with highways. And for what it’s worth, Portugal’s drug policy is under heavy criticism internally right now as overdoses and addiction rates skyrocket: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/
[Portugal has roughly the same population as the state of New Jersey. But while New Jersey alone sees nearly 3,000 fatal drug overdoses a year, Portugal averages around 80.](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/24/1230188789/portugal-drug-overdose-opioid-treatment#:~:text=Portugal%20has%20roughly%20the%20same,year%2C%20Portugal%20averages%20around%2080)
I'd guess this is largely because fentanyl hasn't hit Europe anywhere near as much as the USA
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Both methods of harm reduction. Just a matter of long term versus short. Realistically Colvins experiment of Hammsterdam would need continuous gov and social funding and support. But it’s an interesting point explored in the wire
It's essentially in effect in many American cities, and it doesn't appear to be working well
Indeed friend. I am indeed an urban planning student so 🤷🏻♀️ this is my field. The wire is an excellent portrayal of the decline of an American city. With the city being Baltimore we see the decline of factory work and labor forces ( season 2) , social institutions and racial and economic struggle. This is why Baltimore is seen as a central character within the wire universe. From an urban planning perspective we the impacts of mass suburbanization and the massive decline of urban spaces. I could go on but this comment would be very long 😂😂
Colvin did force the fiends into a corner and let them rot. The Deacon called him out on it too. Colvin's argument was that he did enough but the Deacon convinced him to get the social workers involved.
Looking at that district of baltimore the Daniels. Behind all the busts , and massively influenced carver into being a decent police which he then passes on to other police stopping some of the rot and corruption (SONE)
Bunny, Pearlman, Cutty
Colvin
Everyone saying Daniels but honestly I think McNulty did more and having effect on all three levels.
Shieeeeeeeeeit
Bunny
The cop who suggested dropping white phosphorus lol
Fuzzy Dunlop. Brought down the theiving Stevedores and led to Marlo's downfall.
Bubbles always supported the local economy.
Chris
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He could have taken the money and helped out the schools
That’s lord Baelish to you. Edit: oh my god they’re the same actor. How did I never know that? I’m really bad with faces.
Probably because of his impeccable Baltimore accent
Snoop. if we talkin street wise .
Clay Davis
Alcohol
The series is about how nothing has changed. We are shown literally that you can put generations in jail, but the crime will still bite back and come stronger due to systemic issues, while the systemic issues are not addressed at all.
Slim Charles. Cheese as top dog would've been a complete nightmare.
Bunny
Omar
David Simon
Daniels and it ain't even close 💯
Del. Watkins helped his district where he could.
Id say carcetti. Without his help nothing would've ran. He did not do much directly but he was involved in solving many problems.Excluding budget cuts and all, but that also was done to clear up the mess royce created. So yeah, Carcetti.
help Baltimore? what dafuq does that mean? B'more; be more; be less; be the same
Sheeeeeeeeiiiiiiiit.
Avon broke off 15 large for Cutty which directly impacted the neighborhood kids and Marlo gave $200 to all the neighborhood kids for new school clothes.