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| The Wire - The Complete Second Season | 
 enlarge | Director: Ernest Dickerson
Actors: Dominic West, Chris Bauer, Paul Ben-victor, Idris Elba, Amy Ryan
Studio: HBO Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $59.98
Buy New: $34.89
You Save: $25.09 (42%)
New (51) Used (21) from $25.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  92 reviews
Sales Rank: 1248
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Full Screen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Greek (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 5
Running Time: 720
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.7 x 1.1
MPN: HBOD92358D
ISBN: 0783130260
UPC: 026359235825
EAN: 9780783130262
ASIN: B0006IUD9Y
Theatrical Release Date: June 2, 2003
Release Date: January 25, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW FACTORY SEALED FAST TRANSACTION
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Product Description
Studio: Hbo Home Video Release Date: 06/06/2006 Run time: 720 minutes Rating: Nr
Amazon.com
It hardly seems possible, but The Wire's second season is even better than the first. The "visual novel" concept of this masterful HBO series is taken even further in a rich, labyrinthine plot revolving around the longshoremen of Baltimore's struggling cargo docks, where corruption, smuggling, and murder draw the attention of detective McNulty (Dominic West). What follows is a series of events which at first seem unrelated (including 13 bodies found in a cargo container), and then the ongoing effort to topple the drug empire of "Stringer" Bell (Idris Elba) and the imprisoned Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris), whose business is suffering from short supply, high demand, and disruption of distribution. The dutiful diligence of a Marine Police Patrol Officer and the moral outrage of the longshoremen's union leader are also factored into the suspicious goings-on at the loading docks, and what unfolds in these 12 episodes is an American crime epic easily on par with the Godfather saga. Yes, it's that good. Detailed synopsis is pointless; The Wire must be seen, heard, and absorbed to fully appreciate the way in which over 40 characters are flawlessly incorporated into a sprawling but tightly disciplined plot that deals, in the larger sense, with the deindustrialization of America and the struggle of longshoremen in a changing economical climate. Offering a privileged and occasionally frightening glimpse of the inner workings of shipping ports and cargo transports, The Wire is also a detailed expose of organized crime and blue-collar corruption, and an authentic, well-informed study of political maneuvering among police and city officials. There's not a single false note to be found in the cast, direction, or writing of this phenomenal series, hailed by many critics as "the best show on television." With all due respect to HBO's other excellent series, The Wire tops them all. --Jeff Shannon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 87 more reviews...
Something perfect just got BETTER... December 14, 2004
86 out of 92 found this review helpful
How do you improve on perfection? Ask David Simon and co., because Season Two of THE WIRE somehow managed to surpass the flawless first season. I love this series. It's THE SHIELD with a brain, it's HOMICIDE with balls, it's THE SOPRANOS in the ghetto, it's HILL STREET BLUES in the 21st century. In short, it's the best of all TV worlds, all rolled into one, and thus, comparable to nothing else out there.
Season Two takes us into a world that is seldom seen, and never before explored in this depth on TV-- the world of dockworkers/longshoremen. If you had told me that I'd come to be fascinated by the lives of a bunch of doughy Polish dockworkers in Baltimore, I'd have laughed at you. Well. Cut to five minutes after the season two Wire finale: I was blubbering like a baby, brought to tears by some seriously epic storytelling, thoroughly invested in the triumphs and tragedies of these men.
Hats off to anyone and everyone involved in this show-- you're doing GREAT work!
A great show gets even better January 27, 2005
35 out of 37 found this review helpful
The second season starts with a classic cop show scenario - McNulty, now working for the marine unit, pulls a young girl's body out of the water. From there, another season of perfection unfolds. It's not fair to give spoilers in these reviews, but suffice to say that the show moves once again with its unhurried pace, building towards some kind of resolution. And who knew that they could make the tribulations of a bunch of stevedores seem so interesting?
Once again, Dominic West anchors possibly the best cast on TV, with continued great work from Idris Elba and the rest of the group. Season two also brings the welcome return of Michael Williams as Omar, who I think we were all sad to see leave during the first season.
The writing is whip smart, and all of the varied directors do an excellent job. It's a credit to the show that it always manages to keep the same feel despite input from so many different directors. West and Williams both provide audio commentaries, but this set isn't about the extras - it's about the show.
If there was any doubt about this show's lasting power, it should be erased with the second season. It's truly one of the best shows to ever grace television.
I'm still not worthy December 28, 2006
28 out of 28 found this review helpful
Coming off the utter triumph of its first season, The Wire faced a pretty big test in trying to move on without compromising its astoundingly high quality, but having just finished watching I'm pleased to say any traces of a sophomore slump are virtually nonexistent. Once again, the show brings just the right mix of cynicism, humor and tragedy to its stories of crime, punishment, and lives on the edge. I don't know about the claims on this site that season two is superior to its predecessor, but The Wire's standards of writing, characterization, and realism are still very much intact. Not to mention, The Wire's sprawling focus and blink-and-you're lost complexity are, if anything, stepped up as it juggles multiple, often tangentially related, plotlines over the course of its twelve-hour running time. This season certainly doesn't see The Wire abandoning its examination of crime in Baltimore's black ghettoes, but rather expanding the view of its microscope to cover the illegal activities of the (mostly) white working class on the docks of the city's East Side and the international syndicate that provides their side income. As a result, the reach of the show has become even more comprehensive, stretching from the projects to the docks to the police headquarters to the prison system. At times there's a bit of a too-many-cooks feel to the events of this season as the show tries to shoehorn the struggles of the disrupted Barksdale-Bell drug crew into the main plotline (in a setup for the third season, it turned out), but that's a small complaint, as what goes on the screen is still probably the best TV out there.
Season two starts with the major players, on both sides of the law, dispersed all around Baltimore, with McNulty and Daniels serving punishment duty as a result of their actions at the conclusion of the first season, Avon Barksdale and his nephew D'Angelo in lockup following their arrests, Omar hiding out in New York waiting to testify in a key murder trial, and Stringer Bell left trying to maintain his and Avon's housing-project drug empire in the face of serious supply problems. McNulty, especially, has become a train wreck, with his addictive personality and dissatisfaction with his new post on the Maritime Police reaching new heights of self-destructiveness highlighted by an hilarious episode-opening bender that sees him smashing up his car and having random sex with a diner waitress before passing out in her bed. It's not long, though, before everyone gets back together, as a personal vendetta draws the attention of Major Stan Valcheck (aka Prez's father-in-law) to the longshoreman's local led by his old neighborhood rival Frank Sobotka. It does feel a bit contrived seeing the wire team brought together for another case, but seeing them do their thing in all its detail is still just an fascinating as ever when they finally get to it. The show still provides a better look into modern policing than anything I've ever seen, from the nuts and bolts of surveillance work to the internecine wrangling that does nothing but impede the actual solving of crimes. Not to mention, there are plenty of shocking moments thrown in to shake up the audience, from a pile of dead bodies in a container at the conclusion of the first episode to some truly cringe-inducing murder scenes to the sight of shotgun-toting street criminal and all-around tough guy Omar making out with his boyfriend.
Season two introduces a new cast of villains, led by the mysterious elderly crime lord known only as The Greek and his murderous underlings, who have taken advantage of the local longshoremen's declining fortunes to turn the city's docks into their own personal way station for drugs, prostitutes, and God knows what else. It also delves into the hard-boiled existence of a people who, in their own way, have been forgotten almost as much as blacks in the housing projects as the U.S. continues its transition to a middle-class country. In the role of Frank Sobotka, Chris Bauer makes a more than convincing everyman, as we see the character dealing with everything from his crumbling union to his bumbling wannabe-criminal son to his nephew's increasing involvement in the urban drug trade. As he struggles to keep his local (and his family) together in the face of the tightening scrutiny of the cops and the pressure of the Greek's crew, Sobotka also becomes increasingly symbolic of the decline of American union labor, but at the same time he emerges as a compelling character in his own right. Frank is a relic and a dinosaur and he's starting to realize it more and more, but he still fights to maintain as much of his niche as he can, keeping up his determined front even as things fall apart around him. He's proud of his job and what he's accomplished, and his grim resolve to resist his declining fortures sends him on an inexorable path to the season's grim resolution.
While they don't assume center stage as much as in the first season, the Bell-Barksdale crew and many of its central figures are still around to one extent or another, with a whole new set of problems (ranging from the imprisoned D'Angelo's newfound independence to the aforementioned dearth of quality product) putting Stringer and Avon in major damage-control mode. Left to run the crew largely on his own, Stringer emerges as an even more fascinating and complex character, a villain whose intelligence and calculation are matched only by his ruthlessness; you get the sense this guy would kill his own mother in the name of business. At the same time, though, it's hard not to admire his single-minded commitment to being the best at what he does, no matter how tough the decisions it requires of him. Watching Stringer work, I couldn't help but think he would've made a great captain of industry if he had been born in the suburbs instead of the projects. This season also sees the start of the rift between Stringer and Avon that would only intensify in the third season. Needless to say, the emergence of this division is handled in the show's usual organic and realistic manner, with the tension between Avon's street-soldier philosophy and Stringer's all-business approach culminating in their vastly different attempts to resolve their supply problems. Fortunately, the problems in the Bell-Barksdale camp do give us viewers Brother Mouzone, a bowtie-wearing Muslim hitman from New York with an odd combination of comprehensive education and seemingly unmatched deadliness, who's brought in by Avon to protect the crew's territory and ends up running into some problems of his own involving a long-running grudge between Omar and Stringer.
As others have noted, the events of any season of The Wire are difficult to encapsulate in a review; anything anyone can write short of a full-length magazine feature is just going to be a bare-bones outline that comes nowhere near capturing the exhaustive detail that goes into each episode. Suffice it to say, then, that season two is a seamless progression from its predecessor, while at the same time setting up events that continue to unfold even now, two seasons later. It's just part of an ongoing saga, but at the same time everything that happens in this season is worth watching in its own right. Every season is brilliant in its own way, from the intense, propulsive first to the sprawling, tragic, recently completed fourth, and season two is no exception. If you've never seen this show, you're missing out on the best TV has to offer. Seriously.
It's a world so real you change your view on the real world December 10, 2004
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
I'll start with a caveat: the dialogue can potentially be difficult and the pacing is completely different from any show on television. However, the dialogue is the heart of the show, essential to its realism, and the pacing provides you with such a heart-breaking last episode that you wish every television show so finely crafted their season. The more you invest into the show, the more it gives back to you. So if you're not up for some serious immersion, this isn't the show for you. I watched each episode of season 2 twice when it was first airing on HBO to pick up on everything. That's why DVD is an ideal format for the show. You can really absorb the language and action in a way that's impossible when watching it in weekly installments.
Season 1 stunned me. I hadn't seen anything that completely submerged me into a fictional world while influencing the way I viewed the real world. And I watch a lot of television, good television. Even the other amazing HBO shows (and that includes The Sopranos) fails to have the intellectual and emotional impact on me that The Wire does, especially in this second season. Second season raises the bar to something approaching the Shakespearean. I'm serious. I watch these episodes and get something completely different and profound out of them each time.
The outer struggles of the characters against bureaucracy and for power are fascinating and thought-provoking, but it's the inner conflict of the characters that really elevates the show. No one is good and no one is evil. Characters, all the characters, are morally flawed. The Wire doesn't gloss over the immoral actions of the "good" guys and it doesn't omit the human details of the "bad" guys. All these characters are human and the makers of the show take a humanistic approach to portraying them by inviting the audience to embrace the characters in all their flaws and moral ambiguities.
If you don't start reevaluating our nation's drug policy, you weren't paying attention. If you see this show and don't start thinking, really thinking, about what's going on with the urban poor and working classes, you don't have a heart.
 Wire Season 2 Falls a Little Short August 16, 2006
10 out of 17 found this review helpful
While I thought that season 1 of The Wire was fantastic--it's one of the best single seasons of any show I'v ever seen--I'm a little surprised to read the overall glowing reviews of season 2. The second go around is certainly quality TV. I liked it and recommend it, but it doesn't compare to season 1. I don't think it's close.
The overall acting and quality of season 2 is strong across the board, but for my money, it fell short in three main areas:
1) Pacing. My biggest issue with season 2 is that it took until almost half way through the season until it really hit its stride. In season 1, I was hooked right in, but in season 2, it didn't build much momentum in the first half. Once it did, the season really took off, but even then it wasn't as impactful as season 1.
2) Story. Another problem with season 2 is that there were two key "bad guy" story lines going on simultaneously--"The Greeks" and "the dealers", and the creative team didn't spend enough time on either, which diluted both. The two storylines were related overall, but they didn't connect deep enough, fast enough, so I felt myself wanting more on each side, but not getting it.
3) The villains. In season 1, you essentially have the two key sides--the cops and the dealers. Granted, some of the cops were bad and some of the dealers you rooted for--but both sides were intriguing. I wanted to know more and more about them all, and the creative team delivered huge. In season 2, "The Greeks" were not particularly intersting or compelling, so I didn't care much about how or if they got away with it. Moreover, less time was spent with "The Wire" squad than in season 1, so as a viewer, I was less invested.
Season 2 of The Wire is worth the time, but if you're expecting the same quality as Season 1, be prepared for some disappointment. Season 2 is good TV indeed. But it isn't great.
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