Monday, March 5, 2012

THE KING STAY THE KING: It's March, and that means brackets of all kinds, and today Grantland brings us a 32-entrant tournament of Wire characters. I assume that the point of the tourney is "best Wire character," and not "who would win?", since (spoiler alert) a nonzero number of the characters most assuredly did not win.

Most brutal bracket: Ports Region, with a surfeit of bosses and the strongest #8 seed, Prez. Best first-round matchup: Clay Davis vs. Bubbles. Worst mismatches, in every possible sense: Overall #1 seed Omar vs. Ziggy; Stringer vs. Herc. Last in: Brother Mouzone, Ziggy. First out: Slim Charles, Carver, Randy, Namond. I can only assume that Serge ("Boris") won the Greeks' conference tournament, leaving his confederates on the outside looking in.

Incidentally, Grantland said something about the tournament only playing out on Grantland's Facebook page, which -- isn't the Facebook backlash here yet? Or are we waiting for it to finish the IPO before we crater it?

15 comments:

  1. isaac_spaceman5:06 PM

    Incidentally, over on Twitter, Ken Tremendous (a) doesn't want to see the title of this post any more; and (b) is incensed by both the selection and the seeding.

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  2. Andrew5:19 PM

    Related: NY Magazine is hosting a best TV drama of the last 25 years bracket, which includes The Wire: http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/the-best-tv-drama-of-the-last-25-years.html

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  3. gtv20006:01 PM

    I realize she's probably not anyone's overall favorite character, but why doesn't Rhonda Pearlman get any love?

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  4. isaac_spaceman6:20 PM

    Yeah, so Pearlman (like you say), Slim Charles, Carver, Randy, and Namond (as mentioned above), and I think, without going back, that we're also missing, from the political side, Mayor Royce, Nereise Campbell, and Norman.  From the police side, Burrell, Landsman (fake), Landsman (real), Sydnor, Valchek, Santangelo.  From the West Side gangs, Bodie (inexcusable), Poot, Little Kevin, Fruit, Shamrock, Savino, Bird, Spider.  Unaffiliated crime:  Butchie, White Mike, Johnny, Sherrod.  Ports:  Nicky, Horse-Face, Johnny Fifty.  Schools:  Donut.  Greeks:  The Greek, Vondas.  That's 32 off the top of my head to fill out a bracket of 64, and we can still pretend that the newspaper never existed. 

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  5. Carmichael Harold6:58 PM

    Bodie is there (#3 in the East), but I think Beadie Russell could fill in that spot to keep it at 64.

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  6. A bracket of 64 would be awesome for parsing some of the smaller players, though some unfortunate motherfucker would still have to hit Omar in Round 1.  Not sure where signal disappears behind noise picking favorites in that deep a field -- without resort to google/imdb I recall maybe 3/5 of those Isaac named -- but it's not like this is terribly scientific and it sure would be fun to see who resonated with a broader audience.

    On that level, I'd pick Herc to out-perform his seeding if he weren't up against Stringer first thing.  I for one have given in to my tendency to overwrite Chief from BSG with Herc.  They were both dumbasses about one thing and another, but Herc was consistently funny about it where Chief was a bit of a sad sack drip.

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  7. On Facebook backlash--all the cool people are moving to JuggaloBook.

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  8. isaac_spaceman8:09 PM

    Right, Beadie.  Can't believe I missed her.  Also Kenard.  Beadie for Bodie, Kenard for Little Kevin. 

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  9. isaac_spaceman8:10 PM

    There may be no characters in the Wire that I despise more than Herc. 

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  10. Randy8:18 PM

    The obvious opponent for Omar in round 1 is Kenard.  Isaac, as for your comment about Herc... yeah, you're probably right.  Maury Levy might be close, because of how he takes advantage of the system, but at least he plays an important role in the system.

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  11. isaac_spaceman8:23 PM

    I don't want to spoil, but let's just say that Levy fucked things up because it was his job, and Herc fucked things up because he was a fuck-up. 

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  12. Yes, but he owned being a fuck-up in a way that I almost had to love him for, and I enjoyed seeing a character created that I simultaneously couldn't like but almost loved. 

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  13. Randy9:41 PM

    Oooh, another character that I may put at the top of my most-despised list: Namond's mother.  She was just a nasty piece of work.  (Brianna Barksdale would also be worthy.)

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  14. Herc, he was negligent.  Maybe even criminally so.  But two characters in the penultimate episode of season 1?  Never forget, NEVER forgive.  NEVER.  

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  15. spacewoman3:57 PM

    Templeton the Rat

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