(Part 1 - #50-37)
(Part 2 - #36-24)
(Part 3 - #23-11)
(Part 4 - #10-5)
I should say that I started this well before Grantland's 32-person bracket for the Wire. I disagreed with a lot of their seedings, but their voted Final-4 was the same as mine. I'll say this, my Final-2 and ultimate #1 are different. I'm not jumping on the "Omar is the Greatest Thing Ever" bandwagon. Anyway, let's finish this off.
4.) Jimmy McNulty
Oh, Jimmy. That damn likable bastard. He's the definition of a character who does a lot of hateable, awful shit but is truly charming enough to make people forget about him. While in a vacuum, all of his intentions were to actually do police-work, when studied in actuality, it was, as he admitted late in S1, to show just how brilliant he was. There was a reason everyone that was above him grew to hate him. He was disloyal to everyone except seemingly Bunny Colvin. He fought with Rawls and Burrell, but so did everyone else, but he also used Daniels, Lester and Carver and thought nothing of it. He drank himself into oblivion and slept with anything. Yet through it all, it was nearly impossible to not root for Jimmy McNulty. It was easy to call Elena McNulty an unfair bitch for trying to squeeze as much alimony and custody away from our Jimmy, but also truly easy to see why she was right. It was easy to call Bill Rawls an ass for putting McNulty on the boat, but also truly easy to see why the fact that McNulty would use him and Judge Phelan as pawns for his own benefit would be maddening. Jimmy McNulty was far from a good person, but he was a great character.
I didn't know until about halfway through S1 that Dominic West (who plays Jimmy) was British - something he shares with the actor of man #3. Looking back, that accent really comes through a lot early in S1, and what I thought was overly-drastic mouth movements when speaking was really just a way for him to get out words in a Bawlmer accent, but it does make West's performance all the more impressive. What really made his job, and the writer's job, that much more impressive was he so easily played a character that played hop-scotch with the ideas of good and bad, but seemed to only skirt those differences. Jimmy McNulty did some really reprehensible things like go behind his boss's back at every turn, or drive drunk and crash his car and then sleep with the seedy waitress (4:50). This extended to his police-work like the entirety of his S5 idea of faking a serial killer. However, it was easy to write that off as him being the lesser of so many evils. The fact that he really wasn't all that much better than those other evils made his character that much more interesting.
Jimmy McNulty was also really, really funny. Probably no scene better showed this then when he was supposed to go to the prostitute's room to catch them, but since the other police took too long, they opened the door to him having a threesome. His ability to charm anyone, whether it be Elena, Rhonda Pearlman, Beadie Russell, or even Teresa D'Agostino, without much ability, but also put all of them off the next day? That was gold. Jimmy McNulty was the perfect fun-loving cop. He was smart as all hell, but never missed out that he had, when finished with the political bullshit, a fun job. He wanted to catch the bad guys. He wanted to lock Stringer up, to never feel the sense that he was outsmarted. He just wasn't aware enough that he himself was a bad guy, a combative, abrasive man that would eventually turn on anyone.
Memorable Quotes:
"What the Fuck did I do?", "Honestly, I was looking for someone who cared about the kid. You're the one who made him take the years, right?", "You disappoint me String, I had such high hopes for us" (1:33), "Motherfuckers come to me and say, 'It's a new day, Jimmy.' Talkin' shit about how it's gonna change. Shit never fuckin' changes.", "Marlo's an asshole. He doesn't get to win. I get to win."
3.) Stringer Bell
Where to begin. Where to fucking begin. How many memorable moments? How many memorable speeches? How many memorable instances of trying to be a businessman in a Gangsta's world. Stringer Effin Bell. He might deserve to be a bit higher, but this is my list. I loved the character as a study. As just a character, he might have been the most brilliantly constructed - a man, who as Avon characterized perfectly, "Not street enough for this here, and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for those out there." Stringer was smart. Stringer was the smartest man inside the game. He just wasn't smart enough outside of the game. He was a true businessman. He understood from McNulty, that there is a future in this game that didn't involve bodies, but just business. He wanted to be what the Greek was. Above it all. Just pushing good product around good territory, and let everyone get along while the fiends get high. He just wasn't sentient enough, or in reality, gangster enough, to see that The Game without those externalities of bodies and wars over territory was not The Game. Taking the hitting out of football leaves you with something exciting (flag football with final scores of 80-70), but not based in reality. Taking violence and ego out of The Game leaves you with more peace and cash, but is even further not based in reality. Stringer never understood this. Avon did. Stringer wanted to work in a world where the bottom-line was more important than one's name and reputation.
I never realized how strained the Avon-Stringer relationship was back even in S1 until I went back and watched it. Knowing how it would all ultimately end, it becomes more apparent earlier on that these two just had opposite views on where their organization was going. They both wanted money, but Avon wanted wealth. Stringer just wanted to have cash. Stringer wanted to be a CEO of a bank, a nameless individual with more cash than is truly imagineable. Avon wanted to be CEO of a record label, or a network. He wanted all that money, but in a place of power. Anyway, I'll talk more about Avon when we get to him. This is supposed to be about Stringer Bell.
What The Wire taught us early on was just how meticulous a drug kingpin needed to be. Stringer was always able to think about security and trace his steps at a moments notice. He was able to see that the cops were on to the pager and payphone system, so he was able to have the foresight to break the payphones in the pit. He saw that the cops would eventually break through the system of burners, so he meticulously made sure Bernard would get a maximum of two phones in stops all over Virginia and Maryland. He was a true boss of a business, down to keeping tabs on how many tenths of a mile Bodie drove his car to make sure he followed instructions. However, it was his belief that a legitimate business, that life outside The Game, would straight is what killed him. He thought the games and the thievery was limited to the drugs, but couldn't see that these same games were being played in broad daylight. It was his vulnerability, his naivete to this point that allowed him to be such an easy target to Clay Davis's long-con in S3, the start of his downfall. He wasn't ready to believe that the world he thought himself above (The Game) was so much like the world he aspired to be in (legitimate business). The only place he was truly at home was that copy-shop, where he could make sure a business was run as cleanly as he ran his life.
Memorable Quotes:
"That's like a 40 degree day. Nobody got nuttin' to say about a 40 degree day. 50? bring a smile to your face. 60? Shit, niggas damn near barbecuing. 20? Niggas get they bitch on. But 40? Nobody give a FUCK about 40. And ya niggas are giving me way too many 40 degree days.", "We done worryin' about territory. What corner we got. The Game ain't about that anymore, the game about product. Product, muthafuckers. Product", "What is that?... Nigga, is you taking notes on a fucking criminal conspiracy?" (1:18), "No matter what we call heroin, it's gonna get sold. Shit is strong, we gonna sell it. Shit is weak, we gonna sell twice as much. You know why? Because a fiend, he gonna chase that shit no matter what.", "We ain't gotta dream no more, we got real shit." (1:42)
2.) Omar Little
Oh man, the baddest mutha-fucka in Baltimore. Omar Little was a gay, clean-speaking stick-up boy. He had a code, he had morals. He never killed anyone outside the game. All of this is what defined Omar externally. It was a recipe for a memorable character, for a great character. The first time we saw Omar skillfully raid a Barksdale stash-house, and then saw him give away drugs for free to the poorest of the poor fiends, the 'Robin Hood' of 'The Game', and he did it all with his boyfriend beside him. Omar was God. He did anything he wanted against lethal competition. He would steal from the Barksdale organization, and later from Marlo Stanfield for fun, but it was his epic reaction to when he was challenged that made him all the more brilliant.
Omar Little's response to Avon's crew torturing Brandon showed the dark side of Omar Little. The side that would stop at nothing, including involving people unconnected to the terror of the Barksdale crew, to hit back. His cat and mouse game with Marlo and Chris Partlow was even more inspired, vindictive and destructive, to even Omar himself. He wouldn't survive that feud, but he died at the hands of a child and an environment he basically created. He became a mythological figure, a fake hero, a man to be respected and admired, and it was one of those kids, those people who knew the external beauty of Omar Little, but didn't understand the internal conflict, that offed him. Omar Little was way more complex than a broad gay stick-up artist who was against cursing.
Omar Little has been mythologized even in the real world. He's most people's consensus best character, and although it makes perfect sense, I feel like too many people focus on the smooth talking, the hilarious lines, the great attitude and what Omar represented. Of course, the beauty of the character, and almost every character on The Wire. It was his almost openly defiant way his lifestyle contrasted in The Game. In a world of Men, who was proudly gay. In a world that identified with 'Fuck Da Police' he spoke to the police all the time. But he knew that he wasn't perfect. He wasn't Robin Hood, and he might not even have been good. He knew in his heart that he was still a worker in The Game, that he needed it, that he fed off it, that he didn't do anything to stop it. That he wasn't a perfect role model, that he was just a man who wouldn't scare.
Top 10 Omar Quotes:
10.) "Tell the boss-man that you-know-who-it-is dropped Savino last night. You tell that man I'm going to drop all his muscle till he got the heart to come down to the street and dance."
9.) "Omar like it simple... Joe, I need you to resist your natural inclination to anything twisted up here in this play."
8.) "If I had known I'd be sharing quarters with all these boys, I probably wouldn't have robbed a lot of them"
7.) "I don't know about cards, but I think these .45's beat a full house. Banker, cash me out, yo"
6.) "Worryin' about you like worryin' if the sun gonna come up. Ain't about to wile out about it... and even at this range, if I miss, I can't miss"
5.) "Boy, you got me confused with a man who repeats himself" (same clip as #7, just further in)
4.) "A man gotta have a code."
3.) "It's all in the game." (Same clip as #8, but near the end)
2.) "Just like you man... I got the shotgun... you got the briefcase... it's all in the game though, right?"
1.) "Ay, Yo. Lesson here Bey: You come at the King, you best not miss"
1.) Avon Barksdale
Nothing encompassed The Wire quite like its original king, Avon Barksdale. Introduced early almost as a mythological figure that was heard but never seen (it took nearly half the season for any member of the original detail to get a real look at him), Avon grew into arguably the greatest example of the blurry lines between black and white on the show. I think most characters generally fall into the 'good' and 'bad' camps. Of course, the good have traits of bad people (Jimmy's alcoholism and womanizing) and the bad have traits of good (Stringer's business sense and true desire for non-violent drug trade), but Avon might have come the closest to the true axis. He's the 'zero-level' the man that who was a good person controlling a bad world. His largest bad trait was that he was a drug kingpin, that he made money off the dependence of fiends whose lives were already on the fast-track to an unmarked grave. That said, everything else that Avon Barksdale stood for were traits common among all heroes.
Avon was about loyalty and family. He inherited his position through his family. Everything Avon was - with the power, the legacy, the reputation, was due to his family, and he knew this and paid them back. He hosted charity dinners. He gave out good jobs to people in his family. He loved every member of his crew. His loyalty even beyond his family was special. Avon knew that his line of work wasn't what made him a man, that the values he believed in made him a man. When Cutty wanted out, told Avon that the game was not in him no more, Avon understood and let him go. Not only did he hold no ill-will toward Cutty (compare this to Marlo, who probably would have got Chris to stash Cutty behind one of those vacants), but he was cognizant enough to realize that Cutty was more of a man than most, that Cutty's honesty and self-realization was worth applauding, not demeaning. Later, Avon showed even more loyalty, when giving Cutty $15,000 straight cash to start his new gym, when Cutty himself was only asking for $10,000. (1:45) Avon gave you the sense that had Cutty asked for 50 large, Avon would have still obliged*. Cutty once gave his life to the Barksdale cause, and Avon wasn't a man who would forget.
* - There is a great Youtube comment on a clip of this scene. I can't take credit, but it is brilliant; anyway, here it is:
How brilliant is that?*
Avon's best scene might have been his speech to D'Angelo while standing over his comatose brother. Avon was able to realize just who he was, the situation and danger he found himself in every day, and that he owed his life to the people around him. That all of it could be taken away any day. Avon was more self-aware than any other player in The Game. When he fought with Stringer in S3 about the Marlo problem, Avon kept saying that The Game was about territory, that a non-violent Game just wouldn't work. Stringer had his more sensible idea, but Avon was always more practical. He could pinpoint early that Marlo was never going to be interested in co-ops and money, that he was interested in power; something Avon had in spades (witness him crossing the baseball field in prison and the inmates just stopping the game cold, without anyone saying a word). Avon had power and money, but he was more interested in legacy, in protecting what his people fought (and died) for in the towers, in respecting the game the way it was played and honoring those that fought in it the right way. This may have made him more close-minded than others, but nevertheless just as intriguing and in all honesty, more open and beautiful. Avon, the ultimate shade of perfect gray in a large spectrum of black and white mix.
Memorable Quotes:
"Since when do we buy corners? We take corners?... Shit, I don't think I was gonna be around this long... Yeah, I ain't no suit wearing businessman like you. I'm just a gangsta I suppose, and I want my corners!", "You know what the difference is between me and you? I bleed red, you bleed green. You know when I look at you these days, you know what I see? I see a man without a country" (0:50), "There's always gonna be a Marlo. No Marlo, no game.... Tonight, I'm just gonna kick back and see this view. Look at this shit... This is the same place. We used to run through this mutherfucker. We had every security guard in there following us... I told your ass not to steal a badtminton set. What you gonna do with a fucking net and a racket and we ain't got no yard!" (incredible scene, last with Bell & Barksdale). "He a man today. He a man.", ~FINGER WAG~ & "
(Part 2 - #36-24)
(Part 3 - #23-11)
(Part 4 - #10-5)
I should say that I started this well before Grantland's 32-person bracket for the Wire. I disagreed with a lot of their seedings, but their voted Final-4 was the same as mine. I'll say this, my Final-2 and ultimate #1 are different. I'm not jumping on the "Omar is the Greatest Thing Ever" bandwagon. Anyway, let's finish this off.
4.) Jimmy McNulty
Oh, Jimmy. That damn likable bastard. He's the definition of a character who does a lot of hateable, awful shit but is truly charming enough to make people forget about him. While in a vacuum, all of his intentions were to actually do police-work, when studied in actuality, it was, as he admitted late in S1, to show just how brilliant he was. There was a reason everyone that was above him grew to hate him. He was disloyal to everyone except seemingly Bunny Colvin. He fought with Rawls and Burrell, but so did everyone else, but he also used Daniels, Lester and Carver and thought nothing of it. He drank himself into oblivion and slept with anything. Yet through it all, it was nearly impossible to not root for Jimmy McNulty. It was easy to call Elena McNulty an unfair bitch for trying to squeeze as much alimony and custody away from our Jimmy, but also truly easy to see why she was right. It was easy to call Bill Rawls an ass for putting McNulty on the boat, but also truly easy to see why the fact that McNulty would use him and Judge Phelan as pawns for his own benefit would be maddening. Jimmy McNulty was far from a good person, but he was a great character.
I didn't know until about halfway through S1 that Dominic West (who plays Jimmy) was British - something he shares with the actor of man #3. Looking back, that accent really comes through a lot early in S1, and what I thought was overly-drastic mouth movements when speaking was really just a way for him to get out words in a Bawlmer accent, but it does make West's performance all the more impressive. What really made his job, and the writer's job, that much more impressive was he so easily played a character that played hop-scotch with the ideas of good and bad, but seemed to only skirt those differences. Jimmy McNulty did some really reprehensible things like go behind his boss's back at every turn, or drive drunk and crash his car and then sleep with the seedy waitress (4:50). This extended to his police-work like the entirety of his S5 idea of faking a serial killer. However, it was easy to write that off as him being the lesser of so many evils. The fact that he really wasn't all that much better than those other evils made his character that much more interesting.
Jimmy McNulty was also really, really funny. Probably no scene better showed this then when he was supposed to go to the prostitute's room to catch them, but since the other police took too long, they opened the door to him having a threesome. His ability to charm anyone, whether it be Elena, Rhonda Pearlman, Beadie Russell, or even Teresa D'Agostino, without much ability, but also put all of them off the next day? That was gold. Jimmy McNulty was the perfect fun-loving cop. He was smart as all hell, but never missed out that he had, when finished with the political bullshit, a fun job. He wanted to catch the bad guys. He wanted to lock Stringer up, to never feel the sense that he was outsmarted. He just wasn't aware enough that he himself was a bad guy, a combative, abrasive man that would eventually turn on anyone.
Memorable Quotes:
"What the Fuck did I do?", "Honestly, I was looking for someone who cared about the kid. You're the one who made him take the years, right?", "You disappoint me String, I had such high hopes for us" (1:33), "Motherfuckers come to me and say, 'It's a new day, Jimmy.' Talkin' shit about how it's gonna change. Shit never fuckin' changes.", "Marlo's an asshole. He doesn't get to win. I get to win."
3.) Stringer Bell
Where to begin. Where to fucking begin. How many memorable moments? How many memorable speeches? How many memorable instances of trying to be a businessman in a Gangsta's world. Stringer Effin Bell. He might deserve to be a bit higher, but this is my list. I loved the character as a study. As just a character, he might have been the most brilliantly constructed - a man, who as Avon characterized perfectly, "Not street enough for this here, and maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for those out there." Stringer was smart. Stringer was the smartest man inside the game. He just wasn't smart enough outside of the game. He was a true businessman. He understood from McNulty, that there is a future in this game that didn't involve bodies, but just business. He wanted to be what the Greek was. Above it all. Just pushing good product around good territory, and let everyone get along while the fiends get high. He just wasn't sentient enough, or in reality, gangster enough, to see that The Game without those externalities of bodies and wars over territory was not The Game. Taking the hitting out of football leaves you with something exciting (flag football with final scores of 80-70), but not based in reality. Taking violence and ego out of The Game leaves you with more peace and cash, but is even further not based in reality. Stringer never understood this. Avon did. Stringer wanted to work in a world where the bottom-line was more important than one's name and reputation.
I never realized how strained the Avon-Stringer relationship was back even in S1 until I went back and watched it. Knowing how it would all ultimately end, it becomes more apparent earlier on that these two just had opposite views on where their organization was going. They both wanted money, but Avon wanted wealth. Stringer just wanted to have cash. Stringer wanted to be a CEO of a bank, a nameless individual with more cash than is truly imagineable. Avon wanted to be CEO of a record label, or a network. He wanted all that money, but in a place of power. Anyway, I'll talk more about Avon when we get to him. This is supposed to be about Stringer Bell.
What The Wire taught us early on was just how meticulous a drug kingpin needed to be. Stringer was always able to think about security and trace his steps at a moments notice. He was able to see that the cops were on to the pager and payphone system, so he was able to have the foresight to break the payphones in the pit. He saw that the cops would eventually break through the system of burners, so he meticulously made sure Bernard would get a maximum of two phones in stops all over Virginia and Maryland. He was a true boss of a business, down to keeping tabs on how many tenths of a mile Bodie drove his car to make sure he followed instructions. However, it was his belief that a legitimate business, that life outside The Game, would straight is what killed him. He thought the games and the thievery was limited to the drugs, but couldn't see that these same games were being played in broad daylight. It was his vulnerability, his naivete to this point that allowed him to be such an easy target to Clay Davis's long-con in S3, the start of his downfall. He wasn't ready to believe that the world he thought himself above (The Game) was so much like the world he aspired to be in (legitimate business). The only place he was truly at home was that copy-shop, where he could make sure a business was run as cleanly as he ran his life.
Memorable Quotes:
"That's like a 40 degree day. Nobody got nuttin' to say about a 40 degree day. 50? bring a smile to your face. 60? Shit, niggas damn near barbecuing. 20? Niggas get they bitch on. But 40? Nobody give a FUCK about 40. And ya niggas are giving me way too many 40 degree days.", "We done worryin' about territory. What corner we got. The Game ain't about that anymore, the game about product. Product, muthafuckers. Product", "What is that?... Nigga, is you taking notes on a fucking criminal conspiracy?" (1:18), "No matter what we call heroin, it's gonna get sold. Shit is strong, we gonna sell it. Shit is weak, we gonna sell twice as much. You know why? Because a fiend, he gonna chase that shit no matter what.", "We ain't gotta dream no more, we got real shit." (1:42)
2.) Omar Little
Oh man, the baddest mutha-fucka in Baltimore. Omar Little was a gay, clean-speaking stick-up boy. He had a code, he had morals. He never killed anyone outside the game. All of this is what defined Omar externally. It was a recipe for a memorable character, for a great character. The first time we saw Omar skillfully raid a Barksdale stash-house, and then saw him give away drugs for free to the poorest of the poor fiends, the 'Robin Hood' of 'The Game', and he did it all with his boyfriend beside him. Omar was God. He did anything he wanted against lethal competition. He would steal from the Barksdale organization, and later from Marlo Stanfield for fun, but it was his epic reaction to when he was challenged that made him all the more brilliant.
Omar Little's response to Avon's crew torturing Brandon showed the dark side of Omar Little. The side that would stop at nothing, including involving people unconnected to the terror of the Barksdale crew, to hit back. His cat and mouse game with Marlo and Chris Partlow was even more inspired, vindictive and destructive, to even Omar himself. He wouldn't survive that feud, but he died at the hands of a child and an environment he basically created. He became a mythological figure, a fake hero, a man to be respected and admired, and it was one of those kids, those people who knew the external beauty of Omar Little, but didn't understand the internal conflict, that offed him. Omar Little was way more complex than a broad gay stick-up artist who was against cursing.
Omar Little has been mythologized even in the real world. He's most people's consensus best character, and although it makes perfect sense, I feel like too many people focus on the smooth talking, the hilarious lines, the great attitude and what Omar represented. Of course, the beauty of the character, and almost every character on The Wire. It was his almost openly defiant way his lifestyle contrasted in The Game. In a world of Men, who was proudly gay. In a world that identified with 'Fuck Da Police' he spoke to the police all the time. But he knew that he wasn't perfect. He wasn't Robin Hood, and he might not even have been good. He knew in his heart that he was still a worker in The Game, that he needed it, that he fed off it, that he didn't do anything to stop it. That he wasn't a perfect role model, that he was just a man who wouldn't scare.
Top 10 Omar Quotes:
10.) "Tell the boss-man that you-know-who-it-is dropped Savino last night. You tell that man I'm going to drop all his muscle till he got the heart to come down to the street and dance."
9.) "Omar like it simple... Joe, I need you to resist your natural inclination to anything twisted up here in this play."
8.) "If I had known I'd be sharing quarters with all these boys, I probably wouldn't have robbed a lot of them"
7.) "I don't know about cards, but I think these .45's beat a full house. Banker, cash me out, yo"
6.) "Worryin' about you like worryin' if the sun gonna come up. Ain't about to wile out about it... and even at this range, if I miss, I can't miss"
5.) "Boy, you got me confused with a man who repeats himself" (same clip as #7, just further in)
4.) "A man gotta have a code."
3.) "It's all in the game." (Same clip as #8, but near the end)
2.) "Just like you man... I got the shotgun... you got the briefcase... it's all in the game though, right?"
1.) "Ay, Yo. Lesson here Bey: You come at the King, you best not miss"
1.) Avon Barksdale
Nothing encompassed The Wire quite like its original king, Avon Barksdale. Introduced early almost as a mythological figure that was heard but never seen (it took nearly half the season for any member of the original detail to get a real look at him), Avon grew into arguably the greatest example of the blurry lines between black and white on the show. I think most characters generally fall into the 'good' and 'bad' camps. Of course, the good have traits of bad people (Jimmy's alcoholism and womanizing) and the bad have traits of good (Stringer's business sense and true desire for non-violent drug trade), but Avon might have come the closest to the true axis. He's the 'zero-level' the man that who was a good person controlling a bad world. His largest bad trait was that he was a drug kingpin, that he made money off the dependence of fiends whose lives were already on the fast-track to an unmarked grave. That said, everything else that Avon Barksdale stood for were traits common among all heroes.
Avon was about loyalty and family. He inherited his position through his family. Everything Avon was - with the power, the legacy, the reputation, was due to his family, and he knew this and paid them back. He hosted charity dinners. He gave out good jobs to people in his family. He loved every member of his crew. His loyalty even beyond his family was special. Avon knew that his line of work wasn't what made him a man, that the values he believed in made him a man. When Cutty wanted out, told Avon that the game was not in him no more, Avon understood and let him go. Not only did he hold no ill-will toward Cutty (compare this to Marlo, who probably would have got Chris to stash Cutty behind one of those vacants), but he was cognizant enough to realize that Cutty was more of a man than most, that Cutty's honesty and self-realization was worth applauding, not demeaning. Later, Avon showed even more loyalty, when giving Cutty $15,000 straight cash to start his new gym, when Cutty himself was only asking for $10,000. (1:45) Avon gave you the sense that had Cutty asked for 50 large, Avon would have still obliged*. Cutty once gave his life to the Barksdale cause, and Avon wasn't a man who would forget.
* - There is a great Youtube comment on a clip of this scene. I can't take credit, but it is brilliant; anyway, here it is:
How brilliant is that?*
Avon's best scene might have been his speech to D'Angelo while standing over his comatose brother. Avon was able to realize just who he was, the situation and danger he found himself in every day, and that he owed his life to the people around him. That all of it could be taken away any day. Avon was more self-aware than any other player in The Game. When he fought with Stringer in S3 about the Marlo problem, Avon kept saying that The Game was about territory, that a non-violent Game just wouldn't work. Stringer had his more sensible idea, but Avon was always more practical. He could pinpoint early that Marlo was never going to be interested in co-ops and money, that he was interested in power; something Avon had in spades (witness him crossing the baseball field in prison and the inmates just stopping the game cold, without anyone saying a word). Avon had power and money, but he was more interested in legacy, in protecting what his people fought (and died) for in the towers, in respecting the game the way it was played and honoring those that fought in it the right way. This may have made him more close-minded than others, but nevertheless just as intriguing and in all honesty, more open and beautiful. Avon, the ultimate shade of perfect gray in a large spectrum of black and white mix.
Memorable Quotes:
"Since when do we buy corners? We take corners?... Shit, I don't think I was gonna be around this long... Yeah, I ain't no suit wearing businessman like you. I'm just a gangsta I suppose, and I want my corners!", "You know what the difference is between me and you? I bleed red, you bleed green. You know when I look at you these days, you know what I see? I see a man without a country" (0:50), "There's always gonna be a Marlo. No Marlo, no game.... Tonight, I'm just gonna kick back and see this view. Look at this shit... This is the same place. We used to run through this mutherfucker. We had every security guard in there following us... I told your ass not to steal a badtminton set. What you gonna do with a fucking net and a racket and we ain't got no yard!" (incredible scene, last with Bell & Barksdale). "He a man today. He a man.", ~FINGER WAG~ & "
Watch the Wire. It is the best 60 hours you will ever spend watching TV. Ever. It is so dramatically better than anything I have ever sen on the TV. Breaking Bad is a Hell of a Show. It is the best show currently on TV. The Wire blows it out of the water. Watch it. It is a gift.
Stringer: "ok 10k, but I want reciepts on everything shit's tax deductable"
Prop Joe: "I give you 20k now, but I want 20% of any of your fighter's winnings"
Marlo: " Chris get over here"