Damn your spoilers

So I was gonna read what some of y'all had written but instead I got the story partly spoiled since I've only gotten through ep 5. H8 y'all.

I guess I'll just talk a bit about my thoughts on The Wire.

The characters are much more complicated than I thought they would be. Each character's views on the world are actually interesting and never groan inducing. None of the black characters are lazily written or are little more than a stereotype. Something I find lacking in almost all mediums. I also liked how "street smarts" were presented. The pager code, stash house mixing, and the chess game were all clever presentations of it. There is just a certain cleverness around the series. The scene where McNulty and his partner figure out how the woman was shot was a pretty great. No real dialogue. Just a lot of "Fuck"

Speaking of which, the humor in the show is actually funny. "You think cops care about n***** getting high? They come here for the bodies" Rough quote. Im sure y'all know which one I mean. I found it funny since both marijuana and coke were made illegal on some racist bases. I'm sure there's much more muted humor in The Wire I didn't catch.

Since I've heard this show is brilliant so many times, I've tried to make more observations and question more than usual. I actually watch it with subtitles to make sure I catch all of the dialogue. Right now, I'm waiting for things to start pulling together and reveal the connections between events.

As for the realism of the show, I'm not too sure its actually realistic. It definitely gets some things right and I can't speak for how things run in Baltimore, but paying attention to other things you can see some realism flaws. The boy's soccer game for example. The kids weren't wearing anything more than a soccer jersey for their uniform. No shorts, long socks, shin guards or cleats were visible. The short basketball scene with Avon also had some realistic flaws to it. It was obvious everyone but Avon was just standing around getting orders from Avon, so why be dressed up for some ball standing like they'll rebound from a free throw? My guess is that the show is more interested in telling a good story than with being realistic.