Took me 3 rewatches of The Wire to realize I was skipping the wrong scenes

I kept fast-forwarding through the parts with the newspaper reporters because I thought they were boring side plots. My coworker Steve overheard me complaining about how slow season 5 was and he just stared at me. He said those newspaper scenes are literally the whole point of the show, tying everything together. I felt like an idiot because I had been skipping the main thesis of the entire series for hours. Now I'm going back and watching all the press room stuff and it completely changes how I see McNulty's whole arc. Has anyone else done this with a show, just completely missed the forest for the trees?

3 comments

3 Comments

alicesingh15d ago

Honestly, just pick ONE rewatch where you watch EVERYTHING no matter how boring it seems. The second time through a show is when you catch all the little details the writers planted. That coworker Steve sounds like a real one for calling you out, most people just let you stay wrong.

robinp7215d ago

@alicesingh has the right idea, only problem is you have to actually do the rewatch for it to matter. My buddy still claims he watched all of The Wire but somehow missed every single scene with Stringer Bell running the business side.

miles94615d ago

My buddy Dave skipped every single scene with Gus Fring in Breaking Bad because he thought he was just some boring restaurant guy. He got to the end of season 4 and had no idea why the old man in the nursing home was so important. We still give him crap about it.