Apologies for the lack of update last week, I hadn’t written any reviews and I was too engrossed in season 2 of The Wire to get anything else done. Now I’ve finished that season, so it’s the perfect opportunity for me to discuss it, spoiler-free of course.
Season two is essentially known as the “Docks” season, or the “Cannot Live Up To The Greatness Of Season One” season, but it also felt a lot like the “Setting Up Lots Of Elements And Putting Them In Place For The Future At The Expense Of The Season’s Overall Quality” season. Initially I didn’t much care for the entire docks side of the story, as it at least partially side-lined the more interesting and engaging characters and storylines from the previous season. Also, I felt it took too long to resolve how some characters ended up last time around, and get them into a position where they could interact with this season’s plot, and that come the climax the writers were so eager to get out of this season and onto the next one that they threw everything together in the last episode or two, cramming in as much as possible to get it over and done with, which I found very unsatisfying. Still, I liked the introduction of some of the new characters, like Beadie Russell (Amy Ryan, an actress I’ve been keeping an eye out for since she blew me away in Gone Baby Gone) and Frank Sabotka (Chris Bauer). And whilst this season wasn’t as good as the first, it was still very compelling, and I’ve heard season 3 is possibly even better than the first, although I might take a little break and watch a season of something else, just to space it out. Fortunately The Walking Dead starts again this week, and The Night Of is available streaming on Sky, and I’ve heard great things about that. Look for my thoughts on those soon. In the mean time, here’s what I watched this past two weeks:
Continue reading →