Game Day (4 Aug. 2002)

Freamon gets Sydnor and Prez started on Barksdale's money trail. They discover the usual ties to dummy companies, but they also find large sums of political contributions. Herc and Carver ... See full summary »

Director:

Milcho Manchevski

Writers:

David Simon (creator), David H. Melnick (teleplay),

Stars:

Dominic West, John Doman, Idris Elba

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Dominic West	...	Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty
John Doman	...	Maj. William A. Rawls (credit only)
Idris Elba	...	Russell 'Stringer' Bell
Frankie Faison	...	Dep. Comm. for Operations Ervin H. Burrell (credit only) (as Frankie R. Faison)
Lawrence Gilliard Jr.	...	D'Angelo Barksdale (as Larry Gilliard Jr.)
Wood Harris	...	Avon Barksdale
Deirdre Lovejoy	...	Asst. State's Atty. Rhonda Pearlman (credit only)
Wendell Pierce	...	Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland (credit only)
Lance Reddick	...	Lt. Cedric Daniels
Andre Royo	...	Reginald 'Bubbles' Cousins
Sonja Sohn	...	Det. Shakima 'Kima' Greggs
Seth Gilliam	...	Det. Ellis Carver
Domenick Lombardozzi	...	Det. Thomas 'Herc' Hauk
Clarke Peters	...	Det. Lester Freamon
Jim True-Frost	...	Det. Roland 'Prez' Pryzbylewski

Storyline

Freamon gets Sydnor and Prez started on Barksdale's money trail. They discover the usual ties to dummy companies, but they also find large sums of political contributions. Herc and Carver bust Wee-Bey holding $22,000, but only $15,000 is reported. Lieutenant Daniels discovers the discrepancy and orders them to find the money before the morning roll call. Omar's mission takes him to Proposition Joe where he promptly offers another recently stolen Barksdale stash to Joe in exchange for Barksdale's pager number.

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Plot Keywords:

wiretapping

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Details

Release Date:

4 August 2002 (USA)

Company Credits

Did You Know?

Trivia

This episode marks the first appearance of Proposition Joe, played by Robert F. Chew.

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Goofs

In Season 1, Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell's corporation is referred to as D&B Enterprises. In later seasons, the corporation is given as B&B Enterprises. There is no indication that the characters changed the name of their company.

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Quotes

Avon Barksdale: Yo ref, yo ref, yo ref... what the fuck? The boy was fouled, clear straight up... how you not going to call that?
Referee: Look If you want I can put time back on the clock and replay it...
Avon Barksdale: Are you talking about a do over baby? Are you talkin about a fuckin do over? That's not how the game is played, you can't do that... fuck, can you believe this shit? this nigga talkin about doin it again!
Referee: Look I don't want any trouble, ok...
Proposition Joe Stewart: Ain't going to be no trouble over no ball...
Avon Barksdale: Man, you supposed to be the ref...
[...]

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Connections

References MASH (1970)

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Soundtracks

"Ghost Town"
Written by Jerry Dammers
Performed by The Specials

User Reviews

"Let me understand, Avon loses a hundred large to me on a bet, then you bring me some of his s*** so that I can put your predatory self on his ass. Not his day, is it?"

I would put this episode as one of my favourites, and well I will explain more about the dialog that I used for my title. "Game Day" is the title of this the ninth hour of "The Wire" and its first scene shows Avon and Stringer in front of their new talent, the n large and some more and Avon has a real talent that may put an end to the bad patch against the Eastside in the annual basketball battle" between Westside and Eastside. Also during that first scene Avon wants to know what is going on with Omar, Stringer says again that he thinks they should wait and when Omar is comfortable they end with him but Avon can't think in wait or anything like that.

The game day, as you already know after reading my title, won't be a very memorable day for Avon and during that day we get to see for the very first time Robert F. Chew's character Proposition Joe, from the Eastside and who as Avon does for the Westside coaches the basketball team in the annual game. Certainly the dialog from my title is said by Proposition Joe and is said to Omar who has really great and memorable parts in this episode. Omar makes the last minutes of this show truly awesome ones since he is there to once and for all end with Avon and hell Omar was close to do the thing, really close but…

On the other hand the basketball game allows to the detail to get a look at Avon, Daniels says that they should follow him yet McNulty doesn't think like Daniels, he is like "he ain't gonna touch drugs or money anywhere you can see him" but who the boss is. At one point Daniels will say about Avon "this guy's good" (I add they get a million dollars a month), certainly he is and that scene with Avon passing by Daniels is really good. This hour also has the first talk of (played by Wendy Grantham. Shardene is a dancer at Orlando's club and at this point she was dating D'Angelo) with Lester and Greggs. Is a difficult part, Shardene seeing how one of her friends ended; superb performance of Wendy Grantham.

Also there's a very interesting part with Herc and Carver. They took money from Wee-Bey, $22, 000 to be exact and Carver is clever enough to say to his partner why is a bad idea to steal some of the money, certainly the exact quantity that they took is on the wire. And then we have Daniels asking to Herc and Carver where is the rest of the money, he has $15,000 and he knows $22,000 wasn't much of a real lost for the targets so is really interesting, Carver don't trust in Herc and both are looking for the money desperately. They find it, it was in the car but will Daniels believe that? says one them and the other responds by saying "would you?".