Brown, MBA, MA

If any of us were put in Frank Sobotka's steel toed boots, watching our family and friends lose their pensions and drink themselves to death at 6am, could we really say we wouldn't have taken the Greek’s money?🤔 He’s the treasurer and heart of a dying stevedore local down at the Baltimore docks, stuck trying to save his brothers' livelihoods with nothing but the slim hope of getting that grain pier reopened. What kills me is that it’s hard to even say Frank made any fatal mistakes on his own, almost everything that destroyed him was completely out of his control. Those 13 girls in the can were going to suffocate either way because that air pipe got crushed out on the water before the ship even hit the port. And that whole petty beef with Valchek over the stained glass window at the church? Nobody on earth could have predicted that a bruised ego over a church donation would spiral into a full blown Major Crimes detail with wiretaps and surveillance cameras on the docks. Sure, you could say Frank’s biggest screw-up was not keeping a tighter leash on Ziggy, especially after Ziggy kept messing up with White Mike and Double G, but what was Frank supposed to do, lock his own grown son in a basement? And then the way it all ends is just pure devastation: The feds shut down and decertify the entire union local, and Frank walks straight into a brutal execution under the bridge. I always remember his line about how; "We used to make shit in this country. Now we just have our hands in the other guy's pocket" 💔 #TheWire #FrankSobotka #Valchek #TheGreek #Vondas #Ziggy

Did y'all catch the insane full circle detail with Bubbles' sneakers in the finale? One of the absolute best moments in the closing montage is when Bubbles finally gets invited out of that basement and walks upstairs to sit at the table and eat dinner with his sister Rae. Look closely at his feet in that scene, he’s wearing brand new, crisp, fresh-out-the-box white Air Forces. That tiny detail hits 10x harder when you think all the way back to S1, when Bubs was teaching Detective Sydnor how to pass as a real fiend in the towers and immediately called him out for wearing shoes that were way too clean and fresh instead of beat-up kicks with soles chewed up from pacing the concrete alleys and stepping on dead soldiers. Seeing Bubs finally rocking spotless white sneakers as he walks up those basement stairs after surviving Johnny’s overdose, getting past the Sherrod tragedy, putting in the work at NA meetings with Waylon, and rebuilding his life proves he officially left the corners behind and conquered his battle with addiction. You can watch the show a million times and still pick up some new tiny callbacks 🙂 #TheWire #Bubbles #Rae #Sydnor #Johnny #Sherrod