"It's essentially a six hour lecture on zoning regulations" - David Simon's Show Me A Hero

I watched pt 5 last night, will finish pt 6 tonight

Guys, I know it's a bit heavy handed & corny in places but I love this. I loved the lottery and the bus ride to see the new houses & just...idk....these pencil sketches of people's lives, it's really moving

When the crack mom starts her first tenant's meeting with her dream of daycare and the young woman goes in hard about her drain being clogged and she just dies a little on the spot...it was so small but it just felt so true & real

and the blind woman "look what you've done with your meddling"

these pencil sketches of people's lives, it's really moving

otm

finished it yday...ultimately think it's pretty great, possibly the best non-wire david simon project altho neck and neck w/ generation kill for that honor

VG idk if you know historically what the ending is but if not, steel yrself its rough

(i didnt know bc i was six weeks to six years old during the 87-93 time span of this series, deliberately avoided wikipedia-ing)

i already knew going in :(

9/11 happens at the end

unorthodox rezoning technique

it's what happens when the liberals win, truly tragic

thats what reagan warned us about isnt it, shit

Also Omar shows up, and then dies.

Then Longo has several councilmen killed off, dissolves the municipal government, and crowns himself emperor, presiding over 30 years of darkness.

nulty faked the whole thing

this is still sitting on my dvr but there was a good men in blazers w/ simon this week

great final ep but ughhhhhhh so sad

wasicsko's sobbing breakdown :/

i thought for a moment they wouldnt show it but then

i cried for 20 solid minutes

yeah it was rough :(

Slayed me.

can we get Oscar an Emmy plz thx

i hadnt really thought about it til now but those hallucinations of nick's dad leaning against the tree made him look kinda distant & disapproving...even though nick clearly idolized him maybe that was the empty hole that he was trying to fill with votes/approval etc

i am still really sad about nick waciscko

this show ruined my life, basically

otm

this thread is now for holding hands quietly staring out a window & sighing

*sigh*

i turned to my husband this morning and was like, "i'm so sad about nick waciscko" and he was like, "still?" he has no soul.

oscar isaac is really something

and he really did kill himself in the cemetery, i thought it was maybe a dramatic element but ughhhhhh

so sad

http://i.lv3.hbo.com/assets/images/series/show-me-a-hero/homepage/2015/august/150824-ep04-nick-outside-1024.jpg

;_;

I think an emmy nom has to be a given for isaac

lonely guy just thinking baout hings

isaac will def get an emmy nom

holy shit I've been trying to figure out all this time who his gf reminded me of, and I just realized it's Janet from Three's Company

lol not bad, she does have that relatable look & actually like this girl ive been hanging out w/ a lot recently

i wonder now if im going to see janet from threes co. in this gal friend hm idk

she is v easy on the eyes

4 shur

i kinda fell in love with her shoulderpads after a while

imma miss these people

She and Isaac both of course look much prettier out of their late 80s Yonkers getups.

oscar is the most attractive man in the galaxy

I always like hearing that because, like me, he is a modest 5'9" in stature.

so I'm not disqualified from being galaxy-class attractive

i normally adhere to a pretty strict "you must be this tall to ride" policy but he is so pretty I've waived the height requirement

godDAMN he is lovely

well geez I was just speaking generally, not asking for a waiver :p

um i only waved the height requirement for him :p

the "brick by brick" documentary is on vimeo fyi

http://www.brick-by-brick.com/hbo.html

I kind of like the people in that trailer better than the analogous characters in the miniseries

just finished this. fuck.

just finished this, really enjoyed it. agree with general criticism I'm reading re: tonal ambivalence w/r/t wasicsko. the dramatization didn't portray him as much more committed to the cause than news coverage at time of his death did ("He wasn't pro-desegregation, he was pro-compliance" etc. etc.), so establishing him as the titular hero felt both unsatisfying as it fit in the narrative itself and factually questionable. skimmed upthread before watching, expected the final tragedy to be really awful, neighbors burning down townhouses or something. by part 5, I was pretty disillusioned with his character and annoyed with the extent to which the dramatization seemed to be more than half-heartedly promoting his retconned self-importance.

that said, pretty turned off by criticism that conflates the above with how the show handled his suicide. (thinking in particular an Atlantic crit's condescension toward wasicsko because he read the suicide to be brought on by a sense of entitlement that the real world didn't provide. though this may be as much the show's failing as one of interpretation, given the extent to which it seemed to leverage his suicide toward lionization, complete with eulogical send-off to put a bow on the story.) frankly, thought it was one of the most real illustrations of suicide i've seen -- the slow evaporation of self-worth, the withdrawal from and alienation of friends and loved ones, the distorted view of a collapsing world that really wasn't collapsing at all -- that in light of part 6 makes parts 3-5 deeply painful in a way very few things succeed at demonstrating. (especially impressed at this from Simon, who in the Wire -- and elsewhere here -- struck me as more interested in predictable characters as parts of a system, however sympathetic they might be, than as unpredictable and unknowable humans.) the point is that it doesn't make sense, and the sadness is as much in the nihilism as it is in the tragedy of a life ended too soon; to get into a measuring contest of whether wasicsko had it easier than other characters, as Mock at the Atlantic does, completely misses that point. of course we as viewers found him frustrating and overreacting and entitled as he slipped farther and farther out of reach -- so did the other characters in the show, who too reacted with frustration and annoyance rather than empathy before they realized what was ahead. extremely well-executed, if somewhat tonally clunky next to the wonky housing stuff; would be pleased if Simon continues to work at more seamlessly blending the personal and the structural going forward.

I have been thinking about Wasiscko & the title... a lot of comments have been "well he's a pretty crummy hero"

The title isn't meant to imply that he IS a hero, or the hero. It could as easily be the tenants or mary ...there are no perfect "Heroes" here, like in life

And Simon even said that the quote "Show me a hero & I'll write you a tragedy" is talking about how heroes don't exist in the real world, that the truth of their lives is often more difficult & nuanced