One thing I never understood about the Wire...

[threattonature]

I just took it as the co-op made them all get soft and comfortable. Their main thing was avoiding dropping bodies to keep the police away. They were all getting paid and eating without having to worry about territory so they got soft and let their guard down. They knew Marlo's team had hitters that were great at doing the necessary killing while still keeping the police away so they wanted to take advantage of that.

 

[Professor K.]

I always took the game as being pretty static since the 70's. Avon's grandfather was an OG, if I'm not mistaken. I can't recall the exact scene, but I remember someone talking about who ran the eastside and the westside back in the days and how everything had been pretty much set since then. Everything was relatively local. Shooting at each other was commonplace. But there was a xenophobia towards the NY nikkas that made them fear them more than they did the nikka from up the street.

 

[KingCesar]

Their mentality is about making money, and avoiding murders whenever possible.

Prop. Joe tends to be the stand-in for the Eastside in general, and it’s reflected in him the most. I don’t remember Joe ever being responsible for killing anyone else throughout the entire show. He works with Stringer to get access to the high-rises, helps form the Co-Op, refuses to go after Mouzone when he shoots Cheese, backs down from Marlo and Omar. He’s all about, “buy for a dollar, sell for two, later for all the gangster bullshyt”.

On the one hand, it tends to keep the police off their backs. The Barksdales and Marlo become targets for the BPD because of the all the bodies they drop. But the only time you ever see McNulty and co. ever express any interest in Joe is when they’re trying to use him to get to Stringer.

But on the other hand, it definitely makes them softer than Westside guys like Avon and Marlo. Which is why they turn to Marlo in the first place to get rid of the NY dealers, why Joe introduces Marlo to the Greeks to avoid a fight with him, and why none of the other Eastside kingpins do a damn thing when Marlo disbands the Co-Op and declares himself king of the Baltimore underworld.

At least, that’s my reading of it.

 

[TNC]

The whole point of the Co-op was to get everyone to work together instead of battling for turf and getting rid of the enhanced cop presence since Hamsterdam went down. But by doing that, they shifted their focus from territory and violence to purely money and cooperation, so they no longer needing shooters and killers. That left an opening for Marlo to come in and recruit all the killers that no longer had a place, so once Barksdale went down, Marlo had all the muscle. He was repeating how the show started with Barksdale as the top aggressive crew.


shyt was a circle. Crews battle and kill for turf ---> Cops come in and catch the killers ---> No killers left so crews gotta co-operate for turf ---> Cops die down ---> New crew shows up with killers and takes turf by force ----> Crews battle and kill for turf ----> etc.

 

[who_better_than_me]

Their mentality is about making money, and avoiding murders whenever possible.

Prop. Joe tends to be the stand-in for the Eastside in general, and it’s reflected in him the most. I don’t remember Joe ever being responsible for killing anyone else throughout the entire show. He works with Stringer to get access to the high-rises, helps form the Co-Op, refuses to go after Mouzone when he shoots Cheese, backs down from Marlo and Omar. He’s all about, “buy for a dollar, sell for two, later for all the gangster bullshyt”.

On the one hand, it tends to keep the police off their backs. The Barksdales and Marlo become targets for the BPD because of the all the bodies they drop. But the only time you ever see McNulty and co. ever express any interest in Joe is when they’re trying to use him to get to Stringer.

But on the other hand, it definitely makes them softer than Westside guys like Avon and Marlo. Which is why they turn to Marlo in the first place to get rid of the NY dealers, why Joe introduces Marlo to the Greeks to avoid a fight with him, and why none of the other Eastside kingpins do a damn thing when Marlo disbands the Co-Op and declares himself king of the Baltimore underworld.

At least, that’s my reading of it.

The irony is East Baltimore is the more violent side. That’s where most the violence and murder happens in the city. East side terrorized Morgan state students worst than Omar did the crews

 

[904]

Not every dope boy is a killer nor do they all employ a team of killers

 

[Field Marshall Bradley]

to be fair, they dumbed down Prop Joe from Season 1 til when he got killed

real talk

 

[Sonic Boom of the South]

So many loop holes

Omar gay ass got away with all that shyt for so long gtfoh

 

[mtg]

This bothered me too not only because out of all those crews someone had to have some killers on the team too. But after they showed Chris getting that guy on the street mission was accomplished. I know they disappeared a few bodies and maybe we didn’t see all the killing on the street but at most what was it like five guys from nyc.

Also what choice did they have when marlo raised the price he was the only one with the connect and if you look back to s2 the barksdale crew couldn’t even get good shyt what chance would those off-brand crews have

 

[jay83]

Omar alone damn near had Marlos crew pissing in their pants. lol

 

[Tasha And]

The entire point of the co-op was to step away from the murder game because of all of the drama that comes with it, including never ending turf wars, homicide police, putting oneself at risk. So their dilemma was do they dip back into the murder game themselves, or outsource it and wipe their hands clean? It was an easy answer for them. Low risk, high upside by letting Marlo in if he did what they didn't want to do themselves. If shyt got real with police or come backs, it would be Marlo's problem, not theirs. They thought they were getting over. But they didn't have the foresight to see Marlo had higher ambitions than being used.

Countries do this kind of proxy war shyt all of the time on a wider scale, but it's the same factors at work. Let others get down and dirty in the trenches while you benefit financially from the wars you don't directly participate in.

 

[kdslittlebro]

This thread is why it’s the fukkin GOAT always discourse to be had

 

[mtg]

The entire point of the co-op was to step away from the murder game because of all of the drama that comes with it, including never ending turf wars, homicide police, putting oneself at risk. So their dilemma was do they dip back into the murder game themselves, or outsource it and wipe their hands clean? It was an easy answer for them. Low risk, high upside by letting Marlo in if he did what they didn't want to do themselves. If shyt got real with police or come backs, it would be Marlo's problem, not theirs. They thought they were getting over. But they didn't have the foresight to see Marlo had higher ambitions than being used.

Countries do this kind of proxy war shyt all of the time on a wider scale, but it's the same factors at work. Let others get down and dirty in the trenches while you benefit financially from the wars you don't directly participate in.

Yea but using your logic it still doesn’t make sense. Marlo wasn’t a subcontractor he was just brought into the co-op so if there was real blowback on marlo and he messed up they could link it straight to the co-op. Really the best explanation I can think is they invited him to join and he’s taking advantage of the good dope he has to show he’s fully in too.

 

[Lord Beasley]

Barksdale had too many weak corner boys in the crew. Marlo had sociopathic killers dropping bodies multiple times a day.

 

[Tasha And]

Yea but using your logic it still doesn’t make sense. Marlo wasn’t a subcontractor he was just brought into the co-op so if there was real blowback on marlo and he messed up they could link it straight to the co-op. Really the best explanation I can think is they invited him to join and he’s taking advantage of the good dope he has to show he’s fully in too.

Nah, illustrated by season 5 where Marlo did receive real blowback for his murders and it didn't somehow link back to the co-op.