The Friday High Five
Coming around on genius, existential questions as entertainment, and awakening to True Crime
Every Friday I share 5 things I enjoyed this week. Also, high fives are inherently cool, and I think we can all agree Friday is the bestest day. Hence the Friday High Five. 🙏🏻My Favorite Thing This Week Was…
The Wire
I was feening for more gritty police procedurals after this week’s bounce back episode of Night Country, so I decided to finally give The Wire a serious shot. The Wire is widely considered one of the best TV shows ever. I can’t go around crowning Deadwood without giving the nearest competition serious merit.
I honestly don’t know why I waited so long. It’s sooooo good!
I attempted The Wire once, probably 6 or 7 years ago. I didn’t even get through the pilot. There’s a lot thrown at you in the first episode and the show doesn’t really hold your hand. You’re expected to keep up, and learn as you go. I’m 4 episodes in and I’m still not 100% sure which of the old white guys is which. And that’s fine—they only really enter the picture to bust balls and then exit stage left.
I have so many thoughts about this show. So I’ll be recording a pilot episode of a podcast once I’ve seen the first 6 episodes. I’ve already written a loose script, which is really just a bullet point list of things that occurred to me. Example: The Wire is strongly reminiscent of New Jack City, but far more mature and grounded. Nino Brown feels like a cartoon villain in comparison.
I briefly considered doing a podcast per episode, but that honestly seems crazy. So instead, I’ll do a mid-season podcast, and then one at the end of the season. If it works good, I’ll do so for all 5 seasons. And if it really works, expect to see Deadwood, Firefly, and probably even Star Wars episodes.1
Other Things I Enjoyed This Week
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Wow. What a movie.
I have a lot of complex thoughts and feelings about this one, which was frankly a surprise. I thought I was in for something lighthearted like Troop Zero or even Little Miss Sunshine. And while it does have a light hand in its approach to theme, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. does not shy from asking big questions or depicting the struggles of prepubescent girls. I’ve always sorta known boys have it easier, but I’d never really understood the profound gulf in experience.
I started writing a longer piece about this movie, so I’ll shut up for now, other than to recommend it to everyone reading this.
Plus One
My wife and I found this on Netflix a few weeks ago and decided to squirrel it away for Valentine’s Day. It was one of those rare rom-coms that scored really well on Rotten Tomatoes.
Plus One is about two single besties from college who happen to be the opposite sex, and therefore are the platonic ideal date for the gauntlet known as wedding season. You can probably already guess what’s coming, but the joy of these movies isn’t so much the what as it is the why and how.
Jack Quaid—son of Hollywood royalty Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan—is the clueless dude in the scenario. He’s charming and likable, but the real star is Maya Erskine. She has that it factor and just kinda jumps off the screen. She’s also currently starring in the TV adaptation of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which is just another reason to check it out.
Tombstone
I broke with 30-some odd years of tradition last weekend and elected not to watch the Super Bowl. And to be totally honest? I didn’t miss it at all. I thought I’d be hit with some serious FOMO during the game, but other than a brief feeling of idle curiosity about who was winning—but not curious enough to check my phone—I just lived my life as though professional football had no bearing upon it.
Instead, I watched Tombstone with my son and wife, neither of whom had seen it before.
Funny thing. I didn’t remember it being quite so slow. My wife got bored halfway through and picked up her iPad. I couldn’t really blame her. I think the movie mostly lives on hype and Doc Holliday gifs at this point. Still good, but honestly not great. I’d easily put it behind Unforgiven and the remakes of 3:10 to Yuma and True Grit.
American Nightmare
I have never once felt any inclination to dip into the True Crime genre. Don’t know exactly why. I guess it feels sort of like an extension of tabloid journalism. Sensationalism for its own sake. The closest I’ve previously come is Only Murders in the Building—which both celebrates and satires True Crime—and the recent documentary about the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Last night I was working on plans for next weekend’s D&D birthday bash when my wife threw this on. (A mystery lover, True Crime is very much in her wheelhouse.) I had no intention of watching, but American Nightmare completely absorbed my attention. This is one of those ‘crazier than fiction’ stories. And it just gets crazier as it goes. I changed my mind about what happened at least 5 times in the course of a single episode.
We watched 2 episodes last night and will almost certainly watch the final one tonight. This documentary is really well done. Which just begs the question: What other amazing True Crime stuff have I been sleeping on? Lemme know!
That’s a joke. There will obviously be Star Wars episodes of the podcast. You probably should be more worried that every episode ends up a Star Wars episode.
"You’re expected to keep up, and learn as you go."
This might be the show's superpower. It's a good show, but the way it almost forces you to pay attention makes it a great one.
1: The Wire is hands down the best TV show ever. It's not necessarily a crime show, not in the Law & Order sense of the a crime show. But it's about the death of a great American city. I don't know if you've ever said where in MI you're from, but so much of what you see in The Wire could be applicable for Detroit. Like in season 2, swap out the docks for the auto industry and it works.
5: I have a love/hate relationship with true crime, and have moved away from consuming a lot of true crime media. A lot of it I just find it either too focused on the gory details and/or exploitative. Especially when you have the internet detectives involved interfering with investigations or accusing the wrong people, see the recent Idaho murders or the Boston bombing case. That's not to say you should trust the cops to always get it right, far from it. Also, a lot of crime is actually really boring. I was a defense lawyer for 5 years. The vast majority of my cases were run of the mill possession or dwi or other supremely uninteresting things. So I think a lot of podcasts just repeat the same serial killer stories over and over again.
All that to say, I do have a favorite. My go to true criminal suggestion is the book "Homicide" by David Simon. Before he created The Wire, Simon was a crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. In the mid 1980's, he took a year and basically was an embedded reporter with the Baltimore PD homicide detectives. You'll see stories from book pop up in The Wire. The very opening scene where McNulty is taking to the kid about Snot Boogie getting killed is a true story. It was also the basis for the TV series by the same name, which I've never actually seen because it doesn't ever seem to show up on streaming. In the last few years, Simon has sort of distanced himself from the book, in that it's a little too deferential to the cops.