I’ve gone back too and started watching the series from the beginning. I agree that watching the character arcs develop is fascinating, especially knowing how things will end. I felt some deja vu with McNulty and his cycles of peace and self-destruction. I miss Omar. I’m falling in love with his character all over again. It was never about the drugs or money with him. Omar wanted to inflict his own brand of street justice into the game. He was very moral in a rogue vigilante way. He never cursed. He was raised by his grandmother and escorted her to church every month. He respected Sunday truces. He loved fiercely and deeply. Watching Omar and Bunk reminisce nostalgically about “back in the day” warmed my heart. I forgot how closely he worked with Bunk, Jimmy and Kima to bring down Avon, Stringer and Bird. There will never be another Omar. He was an original.

Confusing Perlman for irish is very understandable, as she is played by Deirdre Lovejoy, who is red-haired and freckled, and Deirdre is a very irish name, and she is probably plenty Irish in real life

I cannot recommend going back and watching the series from the beginning enough; the way you see the character arcs develop once you know how everything turns out is amazing. I’ve this series at least 3 times through season 4, and it’s awesome to be able to take the complete package in now.

I’m sorry Omar didn’t make it back to Puerto Rico. It’s awesome here.

Initially, when the show was young, I thought Pearlman was spelled Perlman. I’m an ignorant recovering religionist of the Catholic persuasion, so what do I know?

Anyway, this whole topic seems like a huge stretch to me. I saw the Jewish thing as the same as all of the references to McNulty’s “negligible” Irish heritage or Valchek’s being a “polack”…the day to day acknowledgement but trifling in the main.

I think it’s Simon’s way of debunking the Jews-secretly-run-the-world stereotype, not reinforcing it. As was pointed out above, it’s an illegal deal that’s agreed to by a whole slew of desperate people, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. It’s about as far from power-brokering as you can get.

I don’t think the Yiddish and brisket bit is anything malicious - it’s just there to point viewers to what just happened. Especially since many, myself included, probably didn’t look at it with our Jim Jones glasses as the scene was happening.

“Their lies destroyed Michael’s life. Their imaginary CI made Marlo’s crew hunt him down and thereby seperate him from Bug and drive Dukie to use.”

Great point, kh, that really never occurred to me. At least thirteen ways of looking at a black bird. And if it’s The Wire instead of a Wallace Stevens poem, probably a half dozen more than that.