Minor annoyance with The Wire
Just finished The Wire for the first time and really liked it but there was an aspect that I didn't care for as much and I'm not sure if its just nitpicking. Hope this makes sense but on several occasions I feel like the show showed us the "second conversation" (that is, the conversation AFTER a seperate unseen conversation where a character finds out shocking info) instead of that initial conversation and that it impacted the emotional expressiveness of the characters involved. For example, when Donnette is trying to reach String about McNulty contacting her. Granted, we eventually do get a mini meltdown from String in regard to this topic but still. Donnette's trying to reach him, trying to reach him, trying to reach him and then he just shows up to her apartment like "I heard a cop talked to you." I would've loved to actually have a scene where he first hears about McNulty's efforts and we can see is surprise/shock in the moment but instead it picks up in a second conversation after he's already had time to process his emotions. The most egregious example was after Bubbles' attempted suicide. Kima shows up at the hospital after, but I feel like we were robbed of seeing a reaction from her upon being first informed about what happened. Which really sucks in her case because she was perhaps the most emotionally level character and it would've been nice to see her reaction upon being first informed of this devastating news regarding someone she cared about. I also didn't like that the conversation where Kima informs Daniels about McNulty's shennaningans at the end of season 5 took place almost entirely off screen. This is admittedly a bit more nitpicky as it was more artfully handled than the other examples but still I don't think you're served in a show with such great acting to have a single crucial conversation take place OFF the screen.
I think the clearest example of what I'm talking about is in a scene where this unfortunate habit was not followed: at the end of season 2 when Frank finds out about Ziggys arrest. If I were a betting man and had seen the rest of the show first, I would've bet that either a saddened Nick would've told Frank "I got some news" or something and then the show would've immediately cut to the prison and Frank visiting Zig or the scene with Nick would've just been scrapped entirely and we would've just picked up at the prison visit after Zig's arrest. But we instead get Frank actually being informed, on screen, about what had happened to his son and we see his rage and hurt in the moment with no time to process and it results in one of the best scenes in the show.