![undateable season 1 episode 3 undateable season 1 episode 3](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iDwt_AVzgBE/hqdefault.jpg)
But pieces are being moved all across the board, defenses are being probed, and all of this will turn out to be brilliant storytelling strategy by the end. They don't even have a photo of their target until late in the episode, thanks to "cuddly housecat" Lester Freamon demonstrating more game than anybody expected of him, and the raid on the low-rises turns out to be as useless as both McNulty and Daniels knew it would be. We're three episodes in and the Barksdale detail has accomplished next to nothing. The show is absolutely in opening gambit mode at this point. And if you stick around for all those moves, it'll be clear that, as D'Angelo says, chess is the better game, yo. The pieces are not interchangeable each one has its own unique role to play on the board, and each one's actions affect what happens to every other piece.
UNDATEABLE SEASON 1 EPISODE 3 SERIES
Not only does the chess/drug metaphor work, but it shows how well D'Angelo understands the rigged, unchangeable nature of The Game, and how deep this series intends to go.īodie and Wallace using the chess board to play checkers - a fine game, but a simpler one where it's easy to play in a relaxed, reactive fashion - are standing in for every TV crime drama that preceded "The Wire." They had the same pieces at their disposal, but they chose to play an easier game with more instant gratification, where David Simon and company are in this for the long haul, setting up pieces for moves that we won't get to see for weeks or months or, in some cases, years. If the first two episodes established D'Angelo as more thoughtful than your average TV drug dealer - and "The Wire" as more thoughtful than your average cop show - then the chess scene, where he schools Bodie and Wallace on both the game (chess) and The Game (drugs) is the moment when I realized that I was looking at someone - and something - very special here. For me, it was the chess scene contained right here in "The Buys." For some, that revelation didn't (or won't) come for another episode or two. Because the show proceeds at such a measured pace, because it has so many characters and stories going, and because it so often refuses to play by the normal rules of TV storytelling, it took a while to really appreciate how great the show was. Spoilers for episode three, "The Buys," coming up just as soon as I walk on broken glass.Īs I've written many times before, I'm grateful that HBO sent out the first four episodes of "The Wire" for review instead of just one or two. This is the former scroll up for the veterans edition if you want to discuss things that are still to come, both this season and in later seasons. Once again, we're going to talk about season one of "The Wire" in two different versions: one safe for people who are brand-new to the show (or who haven't watched all the way through to the end), one where we can talk about anything from first episode to last.