This is our discussion about the 7th episode of Season 1 of The Wire: “One Arrest.” In the coming weeks we will be live streaming these discussions for anyone to join from the wire106 course and beyond. Also, we will be asking various UMW students to sign-up to lead the discussions of certain episodes, and we will schedule around their availability. So stay tuned for that announcement in week two.
I’ll keep the post for this one brief because I have a longer post I will be writing that integrates all three of the episodes we discussed this week. But be sure to check out Paul Bond’s discussion of parallels in this episode (not his awesome use of GIFs 😉 ).
Also, I really enjoyed Kristine’s reflections on the discussions in her weekly summary post wherein she remarks….
….there are things I’m seeing in my second trip through Season 1 that I missed in the first viewing. Stuff in the background of scenes, things on computer screens that I missed the first time around, and bits of dialogue that have more meaning to me now, having seen the entire thing all the way through. I like the explanations that Freamon gives, and how after he at first seems skeptical of the group and remains on the fringes, he jumps in when it becomes a puzzle that needs to be solved. I like how Prez “finds himself” as a puzzle-solver too, and the two of them end up being the brain trust of the law enforcement side of the story.
She sums episode 7 up better than I can. This entire series will be all about the close reading, and watching each of the episodes more than once to fully get a sense of what’s going on—Lester Freamon gives us just that in the beginning of this one.