r/TheWire • u/Vivid_Look_4269 • 3d ago

Forgot about Rawls

I just did my second rewatch. I waited five years so I could forget a good bit and really enjoy it the second time. I forgot Rawls is closeted, and it never comes out. In a lesser show, they would have outed him. I think it's great that they showed how a person in power can hide in broad daylight

47 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

111

u/GORILLO5 3d ago

He’s a colossal prick, but he’s one of the best characters in the show imo.

The line where he tells Lester

“when I fuck you over you’ll know it. You’ll be so god damned certain you won’t need to ask the question.”

makes me laugh even after like 6-8 rewatches.

46

u/JeanVicquemare 3d ago

such a great character. Great performance by John Doman. You feel like Rawls has a lot more depth than what he presents to our main characters. But we're left to wonder about it, rather than have it spelled out.

26

u/ironmike2594 3d ago

He figures out the turned street sign thing immediately when he shows up on the scene of the botched deal

30

u/releasetheshutter 3d ago

There are certainly glimpses where you can see he's a brilliant detective. And reasonable.

17

u/gp2quest 2d ago

Very reasonable.

8

u/GORILLO5 3d ago

Yeah fantastic performance

35

u/gdabull 3d ago

Fantastic and reasonable

7

u/GORILLO5 3d ago

Another great scene 😂

13

u/DePraelen 3d ago edited 3d ago

And then in the same conversation he moves Lester to homicide, instead of punishing him/shipping him back to the pawnshop unit.

He's a vindictive prick, but he's not incompetent. I like the flashes we get of his ability when Greggs is shot in S1. He is/was "real police" at one point, but has been warped by the system.

Edit: Mixed up Lester + Rawls scenes.

3

u/GORILLO5 3d ago

This is actually the scene when he moves Lester off the cargo ship murders and into Daniels’ unit.

Yep I like how they show his ability in a few spots

2

u/DePraelen 3d ago

Oh yeah, duh. I mis-remembered.

1

u/Fedaykin98 2d ago

His response to McNulty after Kima gets shot really humanizes his character. It makes you reevaluate all the other shit he does. It's like he isn't in favor of all the corruption, but he's accepted that's the world they have to live in, and he's just so over it that he doesn't understand how some of the "troublemakers" haven't understood that there's no fighting it. Like "This dummy doesn't understand the rules we are all operating under, and he's gonna screw us all with his ignorance."

1

u/KaityKaitQueen 11h ago

And he says to McNulty “things went south, she took two for the company. That’s it”

2

u/PinkEspada 3d ago

Any chance you (or anyone else) knows what to type on YouTube to see this clip?

1

u/GORILLO5 3d ago

Just tried and can’t find it easily. I’m rewatching now actually and saw it recently. I believe it’s season 2 episode 5 or 6

1

u/PinkEspada 3d ago

Where you watching it?

1

u/GORILLO5 3d ago

I have it on my plex server. But it’s on hbo max if you want to watch it.

1

u/No-Breadfruit1626 3d ago

It's on Disney+ too

2

u/Miserable-Scholar215 2d ago

That's what I like about him. He's an asshole, but never a maliciously deceiving one. Honest, and you'll know what to expect.

2

u/bigfatskankyho 2d ago

He definitely has some good ones.

2

u/CACuzcatlan 2d ago

Love that scene, but I've never laughed at it. It's probably Rawls at his worst and most vindictive. Especially considering what is revealed about him screwing over another cop - I don't remember if that's revealed before or after the scene with Lester.

31

u/L0st_in_the_Stars 3d ago

I appreciate the deft way Rawls' gayness was dropped in, without it becoming a subplot, as was done with Vito in the Sopranos. In real life, though, a closeted high-profile public official would be more likely to cruise remote rest stops so as to avoid recognition.

14

u/FelineThrowaway35 3d ago

Oh Vito’s gayness was definitely a subplot

11

u/attaboy_stampy 3d ago

Yeah. I mean it was a whole thing.

4

u/darth_necrosis 2d ago

I think the comment’s point was that they did not do it with Rawls but did with Vito.

4

u/sdcamilleri On a Sunday morning. 3d ago

Do State Police have jurisdiction over remote rest stops? Because if so, it's pretty funny that Rawls is appointed to superintendent of the Maryland State Police at series' end.

6

u/Quakarot 3d ago

Tbf I’m not sure Rawls is high profile, and least at that point.

He’s the deputy ops of a temporary commissioner. Maybe if he was the actual commissioner, who is more of a face, but I just doubt the average person would recognize him if they weren’t also in politics, in which case they would probably have an unspoken understanding- since they’d be in the same place and all.

12

u/Narxolepsyy 3d ago

Back channels is the way to go

6

u/elegiac_bloom 3d ago

Say what you want about Rawls, but he is not stupid.

6

u/marbanasin 3d ago

To be fair - he was hiding in a semi-dark gay bar. Not exactly broad daylight.

And thinking of Police culture, and American culture ~2003, I think it's safe to say that not many Po-Lice were really going in there.

4

u/Puzzled-Traffic1157 2d ago

What? How the hell did I miss this lol.

1

u/MondayNightRawr 2d ago

I don’t think Rawls was gay. Just saying