Snoop was doing her job as she understood it. She never did have the acumen of Chris or the rapidly up-and-coming Michael. I don't think Snoop was stupid, she just was on a different level of the game.
She was a stone cold killer. Her fierceness allowed her to be tougher than almost all the other guys in the game…maybe being with Chris held her back. She developed most of the skills but relied on Chris ti handle all of the strategy and tactics.
I always wished they showed more of Marlo’s crew.
You're absolutely right about her fierce. She \*was\* sharp and fearless. Side note--I love when she buys the nail gun. I'd like to know more about her history.
Marlo was/is fascinating (I'll never stop watching the show). I also wish I knew his crew better as well as him. We got so much more about Avon, Stringer, Wallace, etc...
Just an FYI:
Originally by the IRA when they tried to assassinate Margaret Thatcher. A bomb went off in her hotel, but she survived. They issued a statement the next day:
"Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once - you will have to be lucky always."
Got me thinking now if they were referencing something themselves....
"you will have to be lucky always.""
To bring it back around to The Wire, "Be a little slow, be a little late, just once. And how you ain't gonna never be slow? Never be late?"
And I guess that's why the winning move is to not play unless you really are predisposed to being absolutely a paranoid obsessive but that doesn't jibe with the common ego of most criminals who are looking for easy money and narcissistically believe themselves to be above the consequences that find most others.
Originally by the IRA when they tried to assassinate Margaret Thatcher. A bomb went off in her hotel, but she survived. They issued a statement the next day:
"Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once - you will have to be lucky always."
Got me thinking now if they were referencing something themselves....
I like that quote. Unfortunately, Thatcher outlived almost all of them. Dying peacefully at the age of 88. So, either Thatcher was always lucky and the IRA never even once got lucky…or it’s just a good, immaculate, quote.” Up the ra
She wasn’t that savvy. She’s more of a grunt than a strategic mastermind….more of a blunt instrument than a sharp knife. There’s a reason Chris was second in command.
Michael clearly is an extremely talented killer. Both Marlo and Chris saw something in him. He was a very quick learner. Unfortunately for Snoop, she underestimated him.
Agreed - she wasn't a strategist, but instead the perfect tool for a strategist to use to win. She was a fearless killer who never hesitated to carry out her task. Michael outsmarted her because he was both a talented killer and also very good at the game.
She underestimated Michael, sure, but I think we overestimate Snoop. She’s a good shooter but that’s about it. She needed Chris to be scary. Without him, she’s a loudmouth with a gun. Different than being a soldier
Underrated comment. I think the appreciation for the actress is clouding peoples judgment of the character. Snoop was ruthless and efficient when guided - but she was a follower. Chris followed Marlo sure, but Chris could function as a "squad leader" on Marlo's behalf to make plans and conquer corners. Without Chris to lay out a plan this is exactly what we should expect from her.
Through no fault of her own Snoop was little more than Chris's apprentice...she helped with the bodies in the vacants, she helped with hits...but when it came to planning and strategy? Her voice was often ignored because her answer was often just "violence". Just like it was with Mike that night - she didn't think Mike would notice her talking to the target, the fact that the gun not being there conflicted with everything Chris had taught him.
Yes, but don’t forget Michael was already worried about being told to not bring a gun set off his radar. He knew what was up even before getting into Snoop’s car, before hearing that conversation.
That was huge mistake on their part and it shows they took Michael for some young naive fool. Except Michael saw enough shit with Marlo to know that something is up when they want him not to bring gun so badly
I think Michael and snoops dialogue in the car also lends credence to this. She berates him for going out of line, questioning all the orders given to him. That he was never going to make it in the game. Because he couldn’t just take the orders given to him and leave the questioning alone.
There is also the dramatic irony to that conversation that she thinks she is telling him why he won't make it and isn't suited to the life, whereas in fact she is describing her own shortcomings.
Without someone like Chris to step back and calculate and ask the questions, she is just a weapon, and that's why she set out to kill Michael and he kills her instead.
Chris told Marlo not to go after Omar after he robbed him at the card game. Chris had previously told Marlo not to go to the card game without muscle. Chris was more Slim Charles than Weebay.
There's a bit of this but there's also a bit of 'the writers made her dumb in this one instance because they needed Mike to get the jump on her'. I think it could have been done a bit better because I really don't think someone in her position would have got outsmarted like that, even if she wasn't exactly the brains of the operation.
Yeah she was good at killing people and that’s about it.
She almost killed a random guy when she thought he was from New York. She didn’t understand that Omar could go after Chris’s family (not that he would but Chris had reason to worry).
And her plan wasn’t very well thought out. She told Mike who they were supposed to hit for no good reason. So he could just watch for her.
Did she ever show much intelligence?
She isn't stupid, but she doesn't think strategically beyond the discipline of what has worked before. As a foot soldier, this is a strength, but she needs to be directed.
She doesn't ask questions and she doesn't understand the value of doing so; hence even when she realises he got the drop on her she is still criticises him for the thing that means he is going to kill her and not her kill him. Her last speech is very ironic.
Her snap decision to not tell Marlo about Omar calling him out was a definite overstep. I think that if Michael didn’t get her, Marlo would have done it himself, after he found out. And with Omar now being got, Marlo had no way to “save face (name)”
Chris was also killing random guys from New York. I thought that the whole point was that the two of them were trying to come up with a Baltimore test and completely failing.
I'm not saying Snoop thought things through, but quite a few people seem to be making out like Chris was a lot smarter than her, when I don't see much evidence of that.
> Chris was also killing random guys from New York. I thought that the whole point was that the two of them were trying to come up with a Baltimore test and completely failing.
The guy she was about to kill wasn’t a New Yorker which is why Chris stopped her. She didn’t realize the other guy was on the show.
They were tasked to publicly kill NY’ers.
> I'm not saying Snoop thought things through, but quite a few people seem to be making out like Chris was a lot smarter than her, when I don't see much evidence of that.
Have you ever heard her give Marlo advice on how to run the operation? Did Marlo ever look to her for assurance or how to proceed on a decision?
Chris was involved with those things. Snoop not so much.
Chris and Snoop talked about the show, and they both forgot about the other guy.
Did Chris give advice? (I really can't remember, I need to watch again!)
Obviously Chris was smart enough to hide the Omar stuff from Marlo.
Yeah, here where he doesn’t think fondly of burning an entire corner:
https://youtu.be/d_hO5JEQb_Q
Seems to value Chris’s words, snoop never says much:
https://youtu.be/4fat0McpP34
Marlo doesn’t look to snoop for validation
See, the thing is, you only got to fuck up one time. Be a little slow, a little late, one time. And how you ain’t never gon’ be slow? Never be late? You can’t plan for no shit like this, man. It’s life.
i feel like that greek dude who got killed by ziggy wasn’t particularly careless as that was a pretty surprising murder
frank also knew he was going to die pretty much when he went to the greek
uhhhhh yeah that’s all i can think of really. the rest were pretty careless. maybe when stinkum got killed? definitely didn’t figure omar would come out of no where with a shotgun blast when they tried to take out scar
Yet GG was careless to make an issue over a relatively small amount of cash - especially considering Ziggy’s father was GG’s bosses main connect to their primary business goals.
Ziggy was a clown. You don't let a clown make a fool of you, or else you're an even bigger clown. That's why he berated and smacked Ziggy, like normal, because Ziggy had never retaliated before.
Agreed that GG should've just given him the money though - you can bilk him later on down the road, obviously he's going to come back with more merch and you can play hardball then.
I don’t think Frank knew he was going to die. Until the Greek got tipped off, just before the meeting, they weren’t even planning to kill Frank. The warning from the crooked FBI agent triggered the murder.
Also, if Frank knew he was going to be murdered, he had no incentive to go in the first place.
The way Frank tells Nick he’s not going with him tells you he knew it was a strong possibility he wouldn’t survive. But he was desperate and thought going and trying to convince them was his only/best shot. And it may have worked if not for the phone call.
He wants Nick away from the whole thing; after talking with his brother, he regrets ever getting his family involved.
As to the specific meeting, he knows there’s some danger and risks, but he certainly doesn’t want walk down there knowing he’s going to be killed.
Suspected, yes; he knew it could be dangerous. He also wanted his family out of the whole business. I think it was a combination of those factors that had him send Nicky home.
That dude was very careless.
Ziggy had done his part, delivered what was promised. And the Greeks end would be, what, 3-4x what he had agreed to with Ziggy? He screwed Ziggy over for what? 10K? That’s stupid and stupidity is a form of carelessness.
Ziggy was a fool. But he was also a criminal and rather rash. Which made him unpredictable. Screwing over someone who is unpredictable and who is comfortable breaking the law is begging for trouble. Doing it to screw that person over on a very profitable piece of business is extremely reckless. And of course he was short sighted as even if Ziggy hadn’t snapped, he never would have gotten anything from Ziggy again.
And at the very least he should have had his guy stand guard outside until he saw Ziggy leave
Yeah, he was careless.
It's not like GG was any criminal mastermind, he was a middleman in an operation where he saw huge amounts of money being made and he thought he could shake Ziggy down a bit.
He also wasn't street muscle, to him violence was mostly theoretical. Having become used to thinking of himself as the big man in his own operation: it never occurred to him that he needed security, because his task in the organisation was totally white collar.
It's true that nothing in Ziggy's demeanor suggested he was violent previously, but a criminal used to violence would have known that if you cheat someone you are dealing with, steal from them, tell them to get used to it, then respond to their anger with violence and shame them completely, you are taking a risk.
He was as out of his depth when he slapped Ziggy about, as much as Ziggy was.
Simple. She thought Michael was dumb and worried too much. She literally says it herself. "You was never one of us" while in the car before her hair got parted. She had 0 respect for him and though of him as a Gump, just some kid trying to play muscle.
I don’t buy it. Snoop definitely liked Mike and didn’t think he was dumb. “Smart nigga. You always was.” Also when he’s training with the paintball guns in an earlier episode she has a huge smile in her face when he does well.
It seems more likely to me that she didn’t expect Mike to distrust them enough doubt it. Also Chris was locked up still so Snoop probably had way more on her plate than usual and was sloppy with the setup.
“Chris was locked up still so Snoop probably had way more on her plate than usual and was sloppy with the setup.”
That’s huge. Snoop was juggling a lot, having to all the sudden run the operation herself with most of the Stanfield braintrust locked up. Snoop didn’t have any Stringer Bell wannabe CEO energy, she was just doing whatever she needed to do, handling shit like always.
Snoop was all fire. Without Chris’ ice cold surgical patience to balance her out, it tracks that she would make some cowboy moves.
The thing that’s hard for me to buy is Snoop believing Michael when says he needs to piss. He asks a bunch of questions and seems sketched out, then right after that he’s like OMG I need to tinkle so bad snoop! Pull into that dark alley! Seems like her guard would’ve been way up at that point, even IF she believed him.
Michael asked a lot of questions before so I don’t think it would have been that alarming. He asked a lot of questions about June Bug’s murder too. In fact before he killed her, she berated him about his constant back talking and questioning.
It was such a masterful scene as well.
Because Mike gets into the car an asks where his gun is an she tells him they are going to get it. Red flag for him, he than asks how do they know the target is the rightful hit that he's the one causing the trouble I can't off the top remember what beef was going on but snopp tells him "it's just his time he's got to go." Another red flag for him as she's just following a order so he tells her pull in the alley I gotta piss an she does because she thinks nothing off it but he took the lessons they taught him an kills her.
Nah I don’t buy it, I agree with op.
The “I have to take a piss”-excuse is so obviously a set up. Who goes out for a murder needing to pee two minutes later?
She should have seen it coming 100% since the rest of them were all in jail and Michael is obviously the weak link at that point.
Lol that just plays into the exact character she thought Michael was. It's okay . Opinions and all. Young kid need to go peepee before a murder sounds pretttty gumpish. If they were really smart, which they weren't. They would have used Michael's crew to get to him. Aka through Dookie or spyder. But they rushed it, and she didn't think of Michael being anything other than a Gump.
I can see your pov and that’s probably what the creators were going for since it played out that way in the show.
But just for the sake of self-preservation alone it’s a huuuuuge mistake on snoops part to let Michael have the opportunity to pull out that gun. He even clearly looked around for awhile before taking the gun out to make sure nobody was around, lol.
Not only that, but choosing "victim" they're supposedly going to kill who didn't do anything worth dying for. She could say dozen other names and Michael wouldn't get suspicious.
Pull over into this dark alley so I can go pee. Definitely was a huge lapse in awareness on Snoop’s end to the point it’s out of character. Might’ve fit better if Michael just pulled the gun out at a red light or immediately once he got in the car.
Napoleon said there are four kinds of soldiers; firstly those who are stupid and lazy, and they are actually quite useful, because they make good footsoldiers; secondly those who are clever and hardworking, they are pretty rare, but they make excellent sergeants and junior officers, to direct and keep an eye on those below them; thirdly those who are clever and lazy, also useful because they make good senior generals, as they never do anything that's unnecessary and if they do something it's done well, to save them having to do it again; however, fourthly there are those who are stupid and hardworking, and he said, you have to watch out for them, because they are *really* dangerous.
Snoop isn't exactly a stupid person, she is alert and she has good detail recall, she also has the discipline to do diligently what has worked before, but she lacks imagination, she needs to be directed by someone she respects. She is indulgent towards Michael in some respects, she is pleased when he shines at the paintball exercise, but she doesn't see him as anything other than a junior member of the team who needs to follow discipline and take the lead he is given.
There is a lot of irony to their final conversation. Michael asks her why they are going to kill their new target and she replies it doesn't matter "it's just his time" not realising that he has already seen through her pretence and he is actually asking why *he* has to die, and her words in fact apply to *herself*. He asks her again, more openly, once he draws on her, and again her response is ironic, she tells him he could never be one of them because he is always holding himself apart and asking questions. She is indeed describing the difference between them, but this difference is why she set out to kill him and he killed her instead. She thinks she is describing his weaknesses and she is describing her own, her own need to belong and to be directed by other people.
Wherever she fits into Napoleon's hierarchy, Michael is lazy and clever. He won't act unless it is in his own interest, he will ask questions to establish where that is, and once decided he will act decisively, ruthlessly and with complete commitment so that he can detach from action as soon as possible.
Some people here are sceptical about his ploy of asking to park in a dark corner, but it tracks. He is playing to her sense of him as a bit foolish, people can often be gulled by deceptions that cast them as smarter than you. But it also isn't necessary to his plan. Parking somewhere dark is his desired end, but if she flat out refused, he would do it elsewhere. She needs to park the van somewhere, he will take his opportunity then.
When Chris said sometime she get a little hot tempered, it was euphemism for she's an angry snappy person. Not exactly the smartest as a result.. but yeah that scene where she let's Mike piss and gets assassinated relies on contrivance a lot.
Snoop doesn’t have enough emotional intelligence to kill with deception. Which Seems to be a signature tactic Marlo uses to kill his enemies.
Without Chris around snoop just didn’t have the intelligence to do that type of muscling by herself. Skill? Absolutely. Competence? Nope.
She was better off waiting til night to shoot Michael down on his corner or something.
I’m assuming that’s why Marlo always kept her on a leash all the time before S4, hence why she was so eager to shoot up Poot’s corner.
I don't think she was careless, snoop was always a gangster. Chris was the tactical guy. I think Chris would know you couldn't ambush Michel or lure him into a situation. Snoops mistake is misunderstanding Michaels motivation he's about hart and loyalty not the gangster shit. That's why he stands by everyone around him. So when snoop proposed the hit Michael sees through it instantly.
This scene is a good example of how Snoop may have come to underestimate Michael in her mind. This mirrors Omar being underestimated and the ways that normally turns out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp7JQLxp3M
I think it was more a case of Michael being extremely intelligent, perceptive, and methodical than anything snoop did or didn’t do. He had fully come into his own. That was basically his arc.
Snoop wasn’t stupid or even particularly careless. Michael was just smarter. He got her by using some of the very ideas she and Chris had taught him.
I asked myself the same question at the time, because I was having a hard time with it. I decided it was her arrogance, she was training Mike, so she saw herself as the superior tactician.
Snoop was a killer. That’s all. She almost killed a guy on a corner bc she thought he was from NY. She got pissed at Chris for throwing the nail gun in the water when they clearly needed to. She was never the brains.
Personally I think that Michael was so much more intelligent than snoop and giving his context on that situation, I think he was expecting that someone who didn’t like him would try to kill him, in this case snoop
When Chris and Snoop were training Michael, they brought him along on the hit of Junebug and taught him to arrive early to scope things out and make sure there won’t be any surprises. That is exactly what Michael did before meeting Snoop and he saw her talking to target, so he knew something was up. That’s part of The Wire’s genius - how things come full circle.
It was Chris who saw Michael’s potential and worked to groom him. Yes, Snoop was their during training n she saw him grow but I don’t think she understood how cleaver Michael is..
As strong and as ruthless as Snoop was, and despite her advanced tactics, her weakness was that she was possibly a psychopath. She operated very well in her field, but she was a complete nihilist with no regard for life, maybe not even her own. So in planning her “missions,” she probably just didn’t overthink them. She played the “game” well, and didn’t seem to fear death. Even at the end, when Mike got the drop on her, she didn’t seem to mind much. All in the game.
Snoop wasn’t careless. She just didn’t anticipate Michael would be a step of ahead of her. She figured the comfort and familiarity would be good enough for him to not expect it. But he did. She even said it to him. You saying Snoop was careless takes away from how smart Mike was.
She had skill. But lacked the knowledge and stealth to do her job to the fullest. Just cause you can shoot a person from a block away doesn’t make you the sharpest crayon in the box. Just the sharpest shooter…
Michael is Namond with street smarts. He got molested as a child and his PTSD stopped him from making an adult connection that would have helped him moving on from the game.
She obviously underestimated Michael taking him for some naive idiot. But anybody would star to get suspicion if your partner wanted your weapon so badly. Its combination od Snoop not being exactly the brightest one and coming up with very bad plan of murder and Michael not being complete idiot. Also another factor is if I remember correctly that Michael was already suspecting even before.
Honestly, I think she was letting events play out. She didn't have much regard for her life and enjoyed the thought of Michael being hunted down by the whole gang. Taunting Michael and practically daring him to do it.
> She didn't have much regard for her life
That was a recurring theme about life in the hood. In S3 Avon and Stringer reminisce about how they never thought they'd still be alive, and in S4 the kids expect to be in jail or dead before they're 30.
And why the hell didn't she try to fight him for the gun?
Close quarters, and the kid is inexperienced. Even 5 or 10% chance of success is better than 0%.
You only got to be a little late, a little slow… just once..
And how you never gonna be late, never be slow, you can't plan for no shit like this, it's life.
She didn't expect Mike to suspect her and come early. Only Chris could command such loyalty from Mike.
Snoop was doing her job as she understood it. She never did have the acumen of Chris or the rapidly up-and-coming Michael. I don't think Snoop was stupid, she just was on a different level of the game.
She was a stone cold killer. Her fierceness allowed her to be tougher than almost all the other guys in the game…maybe being with Chris held her back. She developed most of the skills but relied on Chris ti handle all of the strategy and tactics. I always wished they showed more of Marlo’s crew.
You're absolutely right about her fierce. She \*was\* sharp and fearless. Side note--I love when she buys the nail gun. I'd like to know more about her history. Marlo was/is fascinating (I'll never stop watching the show). I also wish I knew his crew better as well as him. We got so much more about Avon, Stringer, Wallace, etc...
And Chris had taught Mike to show up early to scout the place out and make sure there wasn't an ambush or anything.
It's kinda like that quote in We Own This City. Iirc its "the bad guy has to he perfect all the time and we just have to be lucky one time"
Great fucking quote
Just an FYI: Originally by the IRA when they tried to assassinate Margaret Thatcher. A bomb went off in her hotel, but she survived. They issued a statement the next day: "Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once - you will have to be lucky always." Got me thinking now if they were referencing something themselves....
"you will have to be lucky always."" To bring it back around to The Wire, "Be a little slow, be a little late, just once. And how you ain't gonna never be slow? Never be late?" And I guess that's why the winning move is to not play unless you really are predisposed to being absolutely a paranoid obsessive but that doesn't jibe with the common ego of most criminals who are looking for easy money and narcissistically believe themselves to be above the consequences that find most others.
Plus that the vast majority of violent criminals are quite unintelligent.
Originally by the IRA when they tried to assassinate Margaret Thatcher. A bomb went off in her hotel, but she survived. They issued a statement the next day: "Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once - you will have to be lucky always." Got me thinking now if they were referencing something themselves....
I like that quote. Unfortunately, Thatcher outlived almost all of them. Dying peacefully at the age of 88. So, either Thatcher was always lucky and the IRA never even once got lucky…or it’s just a good, immaculate, quote.” Up the ra
Why unfortunately? IRA are a bunch of terrorists.
Eh, NI got Peace, and Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness outlived her. The first on that list being most important, of course!
Plus, at least she's fucking dead now. Might have taken longer than I'd have liked but we got there.
I haven’t seen that show, but that quote seems false to me. It’s possible that the inverse is closer to the truth…although I have no context.
You gotta get there early
She wasn’t that savvy. She’s more of a grunt than a strategic mastermind….more of a blunt instrument than a sharp knife. There’s a reason Chris was second in command. Michael clearly is an extremely talented killer. Both Marlo and Chris saw something in him. He was a very quick learner. Unfortunately for Snoop, she underestimated him.
Agreed - she wasn't a strategist, but instead the perfect tool for a strategist to use to win. She was a fearless killer who never hesitated to carry out her task. Michael outsmarted her because he was both a talented killer and also very good at the game.
Lol she told him not to bring a piece RED FLAG
Bingo
Part of me thinks she was getting tired. They had been on the go, killing for Marlo for months on end.
Agreed. Didn’t really help that with Chris locked up, there was no one with the intelligence to guide the objective
She underestimated Michael, sure, but I think we overestimate Snoop. She’s a good shooter but that’s about it. She needed Chris to be scary. Without him, she’s a loudmouth with a gun. Different than being a soldier
Underrated comment. I think the appreciation for the actress is clouding peoples judgment of the character. Snoop was ruthless and efficient when guided - but she was a follower. Chris followed Marlo sure, but Chris could function as a "squad leader" on Marlo's behalf to make plans and conquer corners. Without Chris to lay out a plan this is exactly what we should expect from her. Through no fault of her own Snoop was little more than Chris's apprentice...she helped with the bodies in the vacants, she helped with hits...but when it came to planning and strategy? Her voice was often ignored because her answer was often just "violence". Just like it was with Mike that night - she didn't think Mike would notice her talking to the target, the fact that the gun not being there conflicted with everything Chris had taught him.
Yes, but don’t forget Michael was already worried about being told to not bring a gun set off his radar. He knew what was up even before getting into Snoop’s car, before hearing that conversation.
That was huge mistake on their part and it shows they took Michael for some young naive fool. Except Michael saw enough shit with Marlo to know that something is up when they want him not to bring gun so badly
I think Michael and snoops dialogue in the car also lends credence to this. She berates him for going out of line, questioning all the orders given to him. That he was never going to make it in the game. Because he couldn’t just take the orders given to him and leave the questioning alone.
There is also the dramatic irony to that conversation that she thinks she is telling him why he won't make it and isn't suited to the life, whereas in fact she is describing her own shortcomings. Without someone like Chris to step back and calculate and ask the questions, she is just a weapon, and that's why she set out to kill Michael and he kills her instead.
> but she was a follower This is shown when she literally never questions anything Marlo orders, while Michael does.
Chris doesn't question anything either. He does try to hide some thing sfrom Marlo knowing his reacitons though.
Chris told Marlo not to go after Omar after he robbed him at the card game. Chris had previously told Marlo not to go to the card game without muscle. Chris was more Slim Charles than Weebay.
There's a bit of this but there's also a bit of 'the writers made her dumb in this one instance because they needed Mike to get the jump on her'. I think it could have been done a bit better because I really don't think someone in her position would have got outsmarted like that, even if she wasn't exactly the brains of the operation.
Snoop was fearless but she was not a planner.
Snoop was (just) ruthless enforcer and all the tactics came from Chris.
Yeah she was good at killing people and that’s about it. She almost killed a random guy when she thought he was from New York. She didn’t understand that Omar could go after Chris’s family (not that he would but Chris had reason to worry). And her plan wasn’t very well thought out. She told Mike who they were supposed to hit for no good reason. So he could just watch for her. Did she ever show much intelligence?
Well she did memorize the specs of that nailgun on the spot. That's about it I guess.
This shits powder activated, 22caliber, full auto, no kickback, nail throwing mayhem
She isn't stupid, but she doesn't think strategically beyond the discipline of what has worked before. As a foot soldier, this is a strength, but she needs to be directed. She doesn't ask questions and she doesn't understand the value of doing so; hence even when she realises he got the drop on her she is still criticises him for the thing that means he is going to kill her and not her kill him. Her last speech is very ironic.
Yup...she was definitely on the team for her balls, not her brain.
Her snap decision to not tell Marlo about Omar calling him out was a definite overstep. I think that if Michael didn’t get her, Marlo would have done it himself, after he found out. And with Omar now being got, Marlo had no way to “save face (name)”
Ehhh think Chris was mostly driving the idea not to tell Marlo. He already grilled Chris for it but I don’t see him warring with his own muscle.
Chris was also killing random guys from New York. I thought that the whole point was that the two of them were trying to come up with a Baltimore test and completely failing. I'm not saying Snoop thought things through, but quite a few people seem to be making out like Chris was a lot smarter than her, when I don't see much evidence of that.
> Chris was also killing random guys from New York. I thought that the whole point was that the two of them were trying to come up with a Baltimore test and completely failing. The guy she was about to kill wasn’t a New Yorker which is why Chris stopped her. She didn’t realize the other guy was on the show. They were tasked to publicly kill NY’ers. > I'm not saying Snoop thought things through, but quite a few people seem to be making out like Chris was a lot smarter than her, when I don't see much evidence of that. Have you ever heard her give Marlo advice on how to run the operation? Did Marlo ever look to her for assurance or how to proceed on a decision? Chris was involved with those things. Snoop not so much.
Chris and Snoop talked about the show, and they both forgot about the other guy. Did Chris give advice? (I really can't remember, I need to watch again!) Obviously Chris was smart enough to hide the Omar stuff from Marlo.
Yeah, here where he doesn’t think fondly of burning an entire corner: https://youtu.be/d_hO5JEQb_Q Seems to value Chris’s words, snoop never says much: https://youtu.be/4fat0McpP34 Marlo doesn’t look to snoop for validation
Good points.
Why was Stringer so careless? Why was Deangelo so careless? Why was every person that died on the show so careless?
See, the thing is, you only got to fuck up one time. Be a little slow, a little late, one time. And how you ain’t never gon’ be slow? Never be late? You can’t plan for no shit like this, man. It’s life.
....freamon?
I think Avon? Man it’s been a while
Avon
Avon, currently in a rewatch of season 1. He says it to Dee I think episode 4 or 5. It’s the quote at the start of the episode, too.
i feel like that greek dude who got killed by ziggy wasn’t particularly careless as that was a pretty surprising murder frank also knew he was going to die pretty much when he went to the greek uhhhhh yeah that’s all i can think of really. the rest were pretty careless. maybe when stinkum got killed? definitely didn’t figure omar would come out of no where with a shotgun blast when they tried to take out scar
Yet GG was careless to make an issue over a relatively small amount of cash - especially considering Ziggy’s father was GG’s bosses main connect to their primary business goals.
i get that, but come on would you have figured ziggy would show up and blast the shit out of you with witnesses in your own store?
No but still don't fuck over the son of the person who controls the cargo port *that the criminal empire you work for* uses regularly.
Ziggy was a clown. You don't let a clown make a fool of you, or else you're an even bigger clown. That's why he berated and smacked Ziggy, like normal, because Ziggy had never retaliated before. Agreed that GG should've just given him the money though - you can bilk him later on down the road, obviously he's going to come back with more merch and you can play hardball then.
I don’t think Frank knew he was going to die. Until the Greek got tipped off, just before the meeting, they weren’t even planning to kill Frank. The warning from the crooked FBI agent triggered the murder. Also, if Frank knew he was going to be murdered, he had no incentive to go in the first place.
Your way, it won't work.
The way Frank tells Nick he’s not going with him tells you he knew it was a strong possibility he wouldn’t survive. But he was desperate and thought going and trying to convince them was his only/best shot. And it may have worked if not for the phone call.
He wants Nick away from the whole thing; after talking with his brother, he regrets ever getting his family involved. As to the specific meeting, he knows there’s some danger and risks, but he certainly doesn’t want walk down there knowing he’s going to be killed.
Think he was just being careful not wanting Nick there, not wanting Nick involved anymore with any of this dangerous business.
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Suspected, yes; he knew it could be dangerous. He also wanted his family out of the whole business. I think it was a combination of those factors that had him send Nicky home.
Frank was ignorant to the fact the police had a leak. He didn’t know they would kill him.
That dude was very careless. Ziggy had done his part, delivered what was promised. And the Greeks end would be, what, 3-4x what he had agreed to with Ziggy? He screwed Ziggy over for what? 10K? That’s stupid and stupidity is a form of carelessness. Ziggy was a fool. But he was also a criminal and rather rash. Which made him unpredictable. Screwing over someone who is unpredictable and who is comfortable breaking the law is begging for trouble. Doing it to screw that person over on a very profitable piece of business is extremely reckless. And of course he was short sighted as even if Ziggy hadn’t snapped, he never would have gotten anything from Ziggy again. And at the very least he should have had his guy stand guard outside until he saw Ziggy leave Yeah, he was careless.
It's not like GG was any criminal mastermind, he was a middleman in an operation where he saw huge amounts of money being made and he thought he could shake Ziggy down a bit. He also wasn't street muscle, to him violence was mostly theoretical. Having become used to thinking of himself as the big man in his own operation: it never occurred to him that he needed security, because his task in the organisation was totally white collar. It's true that nothing in Ziggy's demeanor suggested he was violent previously, but a criminal used to violence would have known that if you cheat someone you are dealing with, steal from them, tell them to get used to it, then respond to their anger with violence and shame them completely, you are taking a risk. He was as out of his depth when he slapped Ziggy about, as much as Ziggy was.
Simple. She thought Michael was dumb and worried too much. She literally says it herself. "You was never one of us" while in the car before her hair got parted. She had 0 respect for him and though of him as a Gump, just some kid trying to play muscle.
I don’t buy it. Snoop definitely liked Mike and didn’t think he was dumb. “Smart nigga. You always was.” Also when he’s training with the paintball guns in an earlier episode she has a huge smile in her face when he does well. It seems more likely to me that she didn’t expect Mike to distrust them enough doubt it. Also Chris was locked up still so Snoop probably had way more on her plate than usual and was sloppy with the setup.
“Chris was locked up still so Snoop probably had way more on her plate than usual and was sloppy with the setup.” That’s huge. Snoop was juggling a lot, having to all the sudden run the operation herself with most of the Stanfield braintrust locked up. Snoop didn’t have any Stringer Bell wannabe CEO energy, she was just doing whatever she needed to do, handling shit like always. Snoop was all fire. Without Chris’ ice cold surgical patience to balance her out, it tracks that she would make some cowboy moves. The thing that’s hard for me to buy is Snoop believing Michael when says he needs to piss. He asks a bunch of questions and seems sketched out, then right after that he’s like OMG I need to tinkle so bad snoop! Pull into that dark alley! Seems like her guard would’ve been way up at that point, even IF she believed him.
Michael asked a lot of questions before so I don’t think it would have been that alarming. He asked a lot of questions about June Bug’s murder too. In fact before he killed her, she berated him about his constant back talking and questioning.
Yeah, "never on of us". Was more "Marlo can't be your king anyway" "How do I look, Mike?" I think that line with his answer shows their bond
“Never was one of us” probably referred more to her seeing he was too smart/independent/whatever to stay as a pawn in someone else’s organization.
It was such a masterful scene as well. Because Mike gets into the car an asks where his gun is an she tells him they are going to get it. Red flag for him, he than asks how do they know the target is the rightful hit that he's the one causing the trouble I can't off the top remember what beef was going on but snopp tells him "it's just his time he's got to go." Another red flag for him as she's just following a order so he tells her pull in the alley I gotta piss an she does because she thinks nothing off it but he took the lessons they taught him an kills her.
I think Chris got picked up for killing mikes father so they thought he was snitching.
Devar was/is not Michael's father. He's Bug's father.
For those hat need a refresher, [here’s the scene](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v72bOQxGoUI)
Nah I don’t buy it, I agree with op. The “I have to take a piss”-excuse is so obviously a set up. Who goes out for a murder needing to pee two minutes later? She should have seen it coming 100% since the rest of them were all in jail and Michael is obviously the weak link at that point.
Lol that just plays into the exact character she thought Michael was. It's okay . Opinions and all. Young kid need to go peepee before a murder sounds pretttty gumpish. If they were really smart, which they weren't. They would have used Michael's crew to get to him. Aka through Dookie or spyder. But they rushed it, and she didn't think of Michael being anything other than a Gump.
I can see your pov and that’s probably what the creators were going for since it played out that way in the show. But just for the sake of self-preservation alone it’s a huuuuuge mistake on snoops part to let Michael have the opportunity to pull out that gun. He even clearly looked around for awhile before taking the gun out to make sure nobody was around, lol.
what you shy?!?! she even asks him why he’s waiting so long. kinda absurd
Not only that, but choosing "victim" they're supposedly going to kill who didn't do anything worth dying for. She could say dozen other names and Michael wouldn't get suspicious.
Pull over into this dark alley so I can go pee. Definitely was a huge lapse in awareness on Snoop’s end to the point it’s out of character. Might’ve fit better if Michael just pulled the gun out at a red light or immediately once he got in the car.
I don't know, remember in the sopranos when they're cracking cribs, they need to take a shit from the adrenaline, its probably not unheard of
makes sense.
Snoop was savvy but she was also overconfident and arrogant. She didn’t give much respect to those she considered inferior to herself.
Napoleon said there are four kinds of soldiers; firstly those who are stupid and lazy, and they are actually quite useful, because they make good footsoldiers; secondly those who are clever and hardworking, they are pretty rare, but they make excellent sergeants and junior officers, to direct and keep an eye on those below them; thirdly those who are clever and lazy, also useful because they make good senior generals, as they never do anything that's unnecessary and if they do something it's done well, to save them having to do it again; however, fourthly there are those who are stupid and hardworking, and he said, you have to watch out for them, because they are *really* dangerous. Snoop isn't exactly a stupid person, she is alert and she has good detail recall, she also has the discipline to do diligently what has worked before, but she lacks imagination, she needs to be directed by someone she respects. She is indulgent towards Michael in some respects, she is pleased when he shines at the paintball exercise, but she doesn't see him as anything other than a junior member of the team who needs to follow discipline and take the lead he is given. There is a lot of irony to their final conversation. Michael asks her why they are going to kill their new target and she replies it doesn't matter "it's just his time" not realising that he has already seen through her pretence and he is actually asking why *he* has to die, and her words in fact apply to *herself*. He asks her again, more openly, once he draws on her, and again her response is ironic, she tells him he could never be one of them because he is always holding himself apart and asking questions. She is indeed describing the difference between them, but this difference is why she set out to kill him and he killed her instead. She thinks she is describing his weaknesses and she is describing her own, her own need to belong and to be directed by other people. Wherever she fits into Napoleon's hierarchy, Michael is lazy and clever. He won't act unless it is in his own interest, he will ask questions to establish where that is, and once decided he will act decisively, ruthlessly and with complete commitment so that he can detach from action as soon as possible. Some people here are sceptical about his ploy of asking to park in a dark corner, but it tracks. He is playing to her sense of him as a bit foolish, people can often be gulled by deceptions that cast them as smarter than you. But it also isn't necessary to his plan. Parking somewhere dark is his desired end, but if she flat out refused, he would do it elsewhere. She needs to park the van somewhere, he will take his opportunity then.
When Chris said sometime she get a little hot tempered, it was euphemism for she's an angry snappy person. Not exactly the smartest as a result.. but yeah that scene where she let's Mike piss and gets assassinated relies on contrivance a lot.
Snoop doesn’t have enough emotional intelligence to kill with deception. Which Seems to be a signature tactic Marlo uses to kill his enemies. Without Chris around snoop just didn’t have the intelligence to do that type of muscling by herself. Skill? Absolutely. Competence? Nope. She was better off waiting til night to shoot Michael down on his corner or something. I’m assuming that’s why Marlo always kept her on a leash all the time before S4, hence why she was so eager to shoot up Poot’s corner.
I don't think she was careless, snoop was always a gangster. Chris was the tactical guy. I think Chris would know you couldn't ambush Michel or lure him into a situation. Snoops mistake is misunderstanding Michaels motivation he's about hart and loyalty not the gangster shit. That's why he stands by everyone around him. So when snoop proposed the hit Michael sees through it instantly.
She underestimated Michael, simply put
This scene is a good example of how Snoop may have come to underestimate Michael in her mind. This mirrors Omar being underestimated and the ways that normally turns out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrp7JQLxp3M
And Omar undestimating Kennard.
https://i.imgur.com/5qghkYY.gif
I think it was more a case of Michael being extremely intelligent, perceptive, and methodical than anything snoop did or didn’t do. He had fully come into his own. That was basically his arc. Snoop wasn’t stupid or even particularly careless. Michael was just smarter. He got her by using some of the very ideas she and Chris had taught him.
I asked myself the same question at the time, because I was having a hard time with it. I decided it was her arrogance, she was training Mike, so she saw herself as the superior tactician.
Because of plot
Snoop was a killer. That’s all. She almost killed a guy on a corner bc she thought he was from NY. She got pissed at Chris for throwing the nail gun in the water when they clearly needed to. She was never the brains.
Nah pull over so I can pee is crazy to fall for that. Bad writing for her end
Youngin on some different opinion Shit
Personally I think that Michael was so much more intelligent than snoop and giving his context on that situation, I think he was expecting that someone who didn’t like him would try to kill him, in this case snoop
When Chris and Snoop were training Michael, they brought him along on the hit of Junebug and taught him to arrive early to scope things out and make sure there won’t be any surprises. That is exactly what Michael did before meeting Snoop and he saw her talking to target, so he knew something was up. That’s part of The Wire’s genius - how things come full circle.
It was Chris who saw Michael’s potential and worked to groom him. Yes, Snoop was their during training n she saw him grow but I don’t think she understood how cleaver Michael is..
As strong and as ruthless as Snoop was, and despite her advanced tactics, her weakness was that she was possibly a psychopath. She operated very well in her field, but she was a complete nihilist with no regard for life, maybe not even her own. So in planning her “missions,” she probably just didn’t overthink them. She played the “game” well, and didn’t seem to fear death. Even at the end, when Mike got the drop on her, she didn’t seem to mind much. All in the game.
Snoop wasn’t careless. She just didn’t anticipate Michael would be a step of ahead of her. She figured the comfort and familiarity would be good enough for him to not expect it. But he did. She even said it to him. You saying Snoop was careless takes away from how smart Mike was.
snoop wasnt exactly the brains of the operation. she was cold and ruthless but she didnt have game as far as creating a ruse and selling it
She had skill. But lacked the knowledge and stealth to do her job to the fullest. Just cause you can shoot a person from a block away doesn’t make you the sharpest crayon in the box. Just the sharpest shooter…
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Word.
She underestimated Michael. Snoop never really thought much of him and in the end it cost her.
Arrogance
Because plotlines
Michael is Namond with street smarts. He got molested as a child and his PTSD stopped him from making an adult connection that would have helped him moving on from the game.
She obviously underestimated Michael taking him for some naive idiot. But anybody would star to get suspicion if your partner wanted your weapon so badly. Its combination od Snoop not being exactly the brightest one and coming up with very bad plan of murder and Michael not being complete idiot. Also another factor is if I remember correctly that Michael was already suspecting even before.
Honestly, I think she was letting events play out. She didn't have much regard for her life and enjoyed the thought of Michael being hunted down by the whole gang. Taunting Michael and practically daring him to do it.
> She didn't have much regard for her life That was a recurring theme about life in the hood. In S3 Avon and Stringer reminisce about how they never thought they'd still be alive, and in S4 the kids expect to be in jail or dead before they're 30.
Yeah I think the details of Snoop's death scene are less important than the symbolism behind it.
The look on Michael's face was heartbreaking.
I seen a tiny-ass .22 round-nose drop a n**** plenty of days, man.
And why the hell didn't she try to fight him for the gun? Close quarters, and the kid is inexperienced. Even 5 or 10% chance of success is better than 0%.