The Gods Will Not Save You: The Wire Revisited

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Willy and Jacob get right into discussing episode 2, which sees the ramifications of William Gant's execution as McNulty and Bunk try to tie it to the detail's goal of bringing down the Barksdale organization. Other material covered includes Jacob's David Simon "grand chicken conspiracy" and an in-depth discussion of some of the pillars of The Wire's cinematic style with references to "Style in the Wire," an incredible video essay by a Norwegian academic named Erlend...

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD: We have reached our final episode of "The Gods Will Not Save You: The Wire Revisited," in which we discuss every episode of the hit original HBO series, "The Wire." We want to take this opportunity to thank anybody who has engaged with us and our project along the way. Whether you've listened to us from the beginning, came along during a later part of our run, or are just now discovering us, your engagement has meant a lot to us and we couldn't be more grateful....

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Carcetti continues to do a complete 180 from what he campaigned on. He gets back into bed with Clay Davis and Nerese Campbell, in order to advance his position in the gubernatorial race. Freamon bluffs his way into blackmailing Davis and giving up the crucial nugget of information: the lawyers are part of the money trail. Marlo misses out on his opportunity to celebrate Omar getting killed by a child. by going to Atlantic City with Chris, when his clock code is...

WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD! Clay Davis lies on the stand, humiliating Bond and eradicating any of his political ambitions. Carcetti okays the police to do whatever they want, leading McNulty to make requests that would have previously seemed outlandish. Gus continues to suspect that Templeton is a fraud when the Iraq war veteran that Scott interviewed, comes back to accuse the paper of printing falsehoods about his time in combat. Bunk is persuaded to hold back on following through with his...

WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD! McNulty finally gets the serial killer story to blast off when he fakes a call to Templeton, does a soft kidnapping of a homeless man, and gets Carcetti's full support. But he soon starts to regret this when everybody in the department comes to him begging for OT and manpower to work their own cases. Freamon needs more time to figure out what the time-based codes Marlo and company are using actually means. Fletcher goes to the viva house for an on-the-ground scoop on...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! McNulty tries to out fake Templeton, by claiming that there's fake probable cause for wiretapping the Baltimore Sun because Templeton faked a call from the "serial killer." Without even waiting for approval, Freamon sets up a wiretap on Marlo's phone. Omar plays hide-and-seek in the utility closet at the same apartment complex from which he made his "Spider-Man" jump, while Chris, Snoop, and more of Marlo's minions are left scratching their heads. Bunk channels the...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! With Proposition Joe out of the way, Marlo takes on the position of being Vondas and the Greeks' Baltimore drug connection, proving that loyalty never meant anything to them and that they were always primarily concerned with their bottom line. Dukie continues to be the victim of bullying even with Michael's protection and no amount of learning how to fight or shoot guns seems to change his personality. Clay Davis takes it upon himself to shape public opinion in his...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Kenard really ticks off Officer Colicchio by setting up a brown paper bag dog feces decoy, which causes him to assault a teacher and therefore forces Carver to grow as a person and as a cop. Proposition Joe tries to send out signals to Omar that he's upset about Butchie's death, but he doesn't take into consideration that Marlo, Cheese, and the Greeks are already making moves against him. McNulty and Freamon do their best to sensationalize the idea of homeless...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Michael, fresh off a new wave of PTSD after he refused to kill a kid in a home invasion, plays hooky from dealing drugs, to go to Six Flags with Dukie and Bug, where they meet girls from Virginia with sidekick phones. Bunk is still mad at McNulty for creating a fake serial killer, so he enlists the help of Freamon to talk some sense, but Freamon ends up endorsing McNulty's plan. Valchek leaks the real crime statistics to Carcetti, which throws the whole Commissioner...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Dee-Dee makes her final appearance on the show as she tells her story in an NA meeting attended by Bubs. Bubs himself, is being pressured by Walon to tell his full story of how he got clean, thinking that it will be the only real way he could ever get true clarity. Clay Davis feels the walls closing in on him and lashes out at Burrell, who was once one of his staunchest allies. Marlo, feeling emboldened, goes on a tear and starts ordering home invasions, homicides,...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Willy and Jacob dive right into discussing what is easily the most controversial season of "The Wire" with its' premiere episode, "More With Less." Among the many things covered are how Tom McCarthy may or may not have been shamed into making an oscar-winning movie about good journalists because he played such a bad one in "The Wire," whether or not Rhonda and Cedric would have recognized Chris Partlow, life imitating art with development and gentrification near...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! For this episode, we also get into some spoilers for another David Simon show, "The Deuce," so proceed with caution. Bubs feels guilty about accidentally killing Sherrod, so he confesses to his crimes before trying to hang himself, which causes Landsman to have a rare change of heart about the clearance rate. Bodie, feeling like there's no room for advancement in his current career path, and feeling disillusioned by the fact that some of his favorite coworkers are...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! This might be the most depressing episode of "The Wire" ever because by the end of its running time Randy is destined to get sent back into the foster care system, Namond gets exposed for being a big softie, Dukie's family gets evicted, Michael becomes one of Marlo's henchmen, Bunny's pilot program is pretty much done for, Carcetti is finding out the hard way that he can't deliver the promises that he made to the voters because of a deficit in the city's school...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! The Boys of Summer decide to exact their revenge on Officer Walker by keying his car, dumping yellow paint on him, and stealing his ring, which makes Namond realize that Michael might be more involved with nefarious activities than he had previously thought. Bodie and McNulty have an awkward meetup where they both commiserate over the current brutal tactics of the BPD and begin to come to some sort of strange understanding with each other. Randy starts to learn the...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! URGENT MESSAGE! As we stated, we were going to donate all of our Anchor funds to Michael K. Williams' non-profit organization, "Making Kids Win" but were unable to. So, instead, we donated everything to his other non-profit organization "We Build The Block." You can either donate to us at anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support or https://webuildtheblock.org/donate/ and the money will end up in the same place. In this episode, we dig into the uncomfortable and...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! In this week's episode, we address the tragic loss of the great Michael K. Williams. We make the announcement that all of our donations to our podcast, which can be made at anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support will now go to the incredible non-profit he co-founded to curb mass incarceration and gun violence among kids, "Making Kids Win." You can also donate directly to his non-profit at http://www.makingkidswin.com/donate.html. We also give a shout-out to another...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Willy and Jacob are back to talk about how Robert Chew (R.I.P.) had a Looney Tunes-sized catalogue of vocal impressions from which to draw on when pulling a fast one on law enforcement. We also discuss Chris and Snoop's classic banter on Baltimore radio and how they find out if somebody is from New York, how Bunny is finally making some headway in reaching the kids in his pilot program, and how terrifying it is for Michael now that an abusive father figure has...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Willy and Jacob talk about how truly messed up Chris' plan to frame Omar is, how Ronda's meeting with the new State's Attorney gives her conscience an awakening, how Namond continues to prove to all of us that he's just all talk, how Carcetti's meeting with Royce after the election is super cringe, and how the dirty politics of the days in "The Wire" seems almost quaint by today's standards and much much more. Thank you to everybody who's been listening to us all...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Willy and Jacob give their thoughts on the opening of the episode that sees the mayoral candidates at their respective church services and Carcetti and his family performing some truly atrocious dance moves. The mayoral race, by the way, has some potential last-minute game changers that keep everybody on their toes but the depiction of political smears seem downright quaint in the age of social media and mass-marketed misinformation. And Carcetti ends up winning...

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! There is internal conflict at Mayor Royce's office, which means Burrell is unceremoniously shunned, while Rawls pulls a two-faced switcheroo. Prez stumbles on his disciplinary tendencies and Bunny rocks the boat with Parenti when he suggests a strategy that could be read as "tracking." Chris and Snoop make a job offer to Michael with an advance on his salary. Dukie snaps Randy back into reality to try and get him to deal with the fact that there is no such thing as...