The Wire (TV Series) Game Day (2002) User Reviews

... before I huff and puff

[snoozejonc · 9/10 · 30 March 2022]

It's a quiet day on the project street corners and Omar makes a proposition.

Game Day is a very strong character-driven episode that sets up the plot nicely to develop and expand.

Themes relating to the 'game' and its players are ever present throughout The Wire and we see plenty relating to it in this episode. Aside from the literal game that is a central part of the plot we have a number of scenes involving players on all sides.

We have a great introduction to 'Proposition' Joe, who is an excellent character, brilliantly played by Robert F Chew, and this helps expand the scope of the narrative to include Baltimore's east side players.

Omar has scenes that are compelling and humorous. One is particularly suspenseful and had me on edge many years ago during my first viewing. Michael K Williams as always is on great form as a character who continues to play by his own rules.

There are a number of scenes involving Avon in this episode that for me have quite iconic imagery of the character. The visual storytelling is incredibly good as we see the 'king' in full flight. Wood Harris not only looks the part but he makes the character feel like real person, along with the writers of course.

The police detail gets closer than previously to their target and the differing attitudes and strategies are written so well into characters like Daniels, McNulty, Freamon, Herc and Carver. We are shown a physical pursuit, the start of a complicated paper trail, plus some effective witness manipulation.

It all makes for another intriguing episode and is probably the first one that made me want to immediately see what comes next.

"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?"

[RainDogJr · 10/10 · 30 April 2009]

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?".

1x09

[formotog · 8/10 · 7 August 2020]

Things are definitely heating up now. The final scene was pretty tense and tbh I thought Avon would get got, but he is a very very careful guy and he kept his wits about him. Omar making a deal with Joe has just made things even more convoluted, and pretty soon there will be a lot of bodies piling up. The police don't seem to be acting quickly enough to keep up with events, and the detail is gonna be up and out the window very soon. Another very good episode filled once again with some interesting character insight

Low 8