The Bodie Show

I started watching The Wire last summer, after the show had ended and all the seasons were available on DVD. Sometimes it's really nice to watch a show like this, when you know that there is a cohesive end and that the fanfare lasted the whole run. How many series on DVD are out there that you recommend, but with some caveat like, "...but near the end it gets a little weird." The Wire isn't like that, and it's nice to know that I'll be just as fascinated with it at the end of the fifth season as I was during the first episode.

It's been almost a year since I started watching The Wire, and I'm now at the beginning of season 5. I usually gobble up TV shows in a matter of weeks, sometimes days, but not this one. Don't get me wrong, I'm obsessed just like the rest of competent civilization, but I'm so into The Wire that I have to periodically take breaks to recover from the emotional drama that the show puts me through.

I finished the fourth season about a week ago (I'm currently taking a break, naturally) and it was probably the single most amazing season of television I have ever seen. I loved The Wire before, but season 4 made me a complete mess, in a good way.

A lot of things changed for me during the fourth season of The Wire. I despised Prez for the first three seasons. I mean, I would cross my fingers and pray that he would just shoot himself on accident and die. But after season 4, while I'm still not in love with Roland Pryzbylewski, I definitely don't hate him.  And the kids. Ooooooh my Looooord. I want to adopt them all and just hug them until they're like, "Step off, bitch!" And I'll go, "Don't use that corner talk with me!" and then we'll all learn a lesson about race and class dyamics.

The one thing that really broke my heart though, was losing Bodie. I LIVED for Bodie. No other death on the show was as heartwrenching. I get into almost all TV shows, no matter how inane, but I was so emotionally invested in The Wire that my reaction to Bodie dying was like when the Others took Walt and when Sydney Bristow woke up and it was two years later COMBINED.  Seriously.

So, after that long jumble of ruminations on The Greatest Show on Earth, I'd like to write a eulogy of sorts for my TV Boyfriend, Preston "Bodie" Broadus.

Oh Bodie, there are so many things I adored about you. First of all, you were quite an attractive drug dealer. No wonder you kept getting promoted.

I also loved the way you styled your do-rags. You'd sometimes have it over your shoulders like a cape (see above). My favorite look was when you just let it rest on your head like a yarmulke (with attached peyot!)

I kept waiting for you to tie it under your chin like a baboushka, but I guess you were saving that look for heaven.

Most of all, I loved how all these things combined with your charm and odd ability to chat with po-lice like a gentleman. You were almost friends with McNulty, until he inadvertently caused your death. I hope you haunt the hell out of him.