The Wire -- Season 1, Episode 2 (The Detail)

I'm in. Maybe I'm easy that way, but whatever. The pilot had me intrigued; episode 2 had me hooked.

Despite its flaws (of which there are many), "The Detail" more than made up for it with an equal number of fantastic scenes, and that's not even counting the fact that Avon Barksdale looks like a darker version of CL Smooth.

Time to catch wreck with The Creator:

What I liked:

- It's raining glass, and TV sets, in the projects...Asshole Lawyer smacking the illegitimate love child of Charlie Villanueva and Sebastian Telfair upside the head (which is not to say I'm on Asshole Lawyer's side, rather the opposite*; you go, Charbastian Villanfair)...The Drawing of the Threeesque "it's only the second episode, and already we're FUBAR" angle...Red hats...drinking in motor vehicles**, which seems to be a recurring theme...The bureaucratic shit in the ep's 2nd half.

What I didn't like:

The bureaucratic shit in the ep's 1st half...The Scorseseesque/post-The Lost World Spielbergesque low illumination in a couple of scenes. Been there, watched that...The Chicken McNuggets theory. I complained about some of the dialogue in ep 1; mercifully this was the only dialogue exchange in ep 2 that made me cringe. But it was pretty bad like two women mud wrestling...If I never watch a television or film character woken up by a phonecall, followed by that character saying shit like "Really? When?" then followed by that character's wife waking up right after he hangs up and asking "Who was that?" it'll be too soon. Someone call the cliche police, there's a dead horse in the hospital...Apparently someone was on the same page with me as far as Dominic West twitching and touching his face too much in the pilot, and asked him to dead that shit; only problem is, this ep his face barely moves, so now he looks like a post-op cosmetic surgery patient. Please, Mr. West, try to strike an emotive accord between an MS sufferer and the ornamental masks I have hanging on my office wall***. Please?

* Furthermore, neither do I believe that all lawyers are assholes. Or Jewish.

** Stationary, mind. Word to MADD.

*** Little known fact: I own no ornamental masks (none not made of human skin, anyway), nor do I have an office. Not a real one like Fonzi's, anyway.