This ties in with the book club’s conversation about The Great Gatsby, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s belief that there are no second acts in American lives.

Specifically, this zeroes in on the life of D'Angelo. D believes that everything is shaped by the past, so our entire life story is just a “prologue” to our future. And in his case, his time with the Barksdale organization and the sentencing that followed was just the prologue to his inescapable death in this episode.

This refers to the highly cyclical nature of The Wire, which creator David Simon depicts in order to demonstrate the cyclical nature of poverty and crime.

This is best evidenced in the Season 5 finale, which shows Omar dying only to be “replaced” by Michael, McNulty leaving homicide as Sydnor becomes the new BPD trouble-maker, Bubbles getting clean just as Dukie begins shooting up, and Spider stepping up as the leader of the corner Bodie used to patrol over.

This refers to the negative consequences that come with Frank’s dream of bringing business back to the docks again by working with The Greek. It could possibly foreshadow the downfall of another famous dream in the series.

This refers to the difficult casework BPD is going to have to do in order to solve the 14 homicides of the women in the shipping container, as well as the “hard cases” (stubborn people) working these cases. This can refer to McNulty, Kima, Daniels, and Freamon, as well as the stevedores that hold strong and refuse to go in for questioning during these cases.

Virgil Sollozzo, better known as “The Turk” is one of the top narcotics men in New York. Seeing as Don Corleone was dealing with so many other business affairs when his name was brought up, it’s easy to forget about him, but he will soon become an integral part of the movie.

While this is derived from fennel, an Italian vegetable, it is essentially the Italian version of “fag/faggot”.

This is the first, and one of the only displays of aggression we see from Don Corleone in The Godfather. It takes a lot to set him off, but failing to act masculine in times of stress is one of those things – especially considering it reflects poorly upon Don Corleone if his godson is crying, showing a sign of weakness.

Fun Fact: This angry reaction and the childish mockery following it was improvised by Brando. Robert Duvall’s laughter is said to be a genuine reaction, and the actor playing Johnny Fontane (Al Martino) can be seen corpsing while Brando drags him across the desk and ridicules his complaints.

One of the main plotlines throughout the course of The Godfather is Michael’s attempts to distance himself from the “family business”. As of now he is a WWII veteran with no ties to the mob outside of his last name, but Michael’s character arc – following him closer and closer to his own family – is an essential part of the film.

It’s definitely worth noting that the head of a crime family has close allegiances with high-ranking politicians as well as judges.

“Consigliere” is Italian for counsellor, and is high-ranking position in the American Mafia. It is based off of the political position in the Sicilian government, since the Corleones decided to model their organization after Sicilian hierarchy.

Being the consigliere puts you third in charge, though your power is derived more from your wisdom than intimidation. Responsibilities include being a close confidante/advisor of the Don, and representing the family at meetings with other crime families. Seeing as Tom Hagen is a lawyer with strong loyalty towards the Corleone family, this makes him a good candidate.

In the original book, the decision for Tom to take over this position is viewed with contempt and suspicion as Tom is not a Sicilian.