Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Let’s finish the job.

White supremacy is terrorism.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Hot air and ill-informed banter

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

You are here: Home / Popular Culture / The Wire

The Wire

by | 186 Comments

This post is in: 

Since I’m apparently the only front-pager here this afternoon, can we talk about The Wire?

After about a hundred years of thinking I should watch it, I have started watching The Wire while I am walking on the treadmill.

I had no idea that so many actors got their start on The Wire, or at least made their name there.  This fella has a lot of screen presence for someone so young!

The Wire 1

I am finding it hard to watch the police brutality that is so commonplace in the show.  When this first aired – 2002, the year John started Balloon Juice – did everyone just think “that’s the way it is, at least the show is being honest?”

Anyway, if anyone has anything to say about The Wire, here’s your chance!

Otherwise, Open Thread.

 

Reader Interactions

186Comments

  1. 1.

    Kropacetic

    I’m in the boat you just left, WG. It’s on an interminable list of things I want to watch but haven’t gotten to it.

    Checking now where it’s streaming.

    Eta: Ooh, HBO Max, I gots that.

  2. 2.

    William D

    Watched it several years ago with wife and college Aged son….feel we learned  lot together and shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit was a darn good show

  3. 3.

    AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team

    I remember liking the first or earlier seasons better.

    At some point I stopped watching bc I felt like it got too much of the “flawed, rebellious white male protagonist really isn’t that bad and should take up the focus while we marvel at the complexity of his moral dilemmas.” I prefer shows that focus more on ensemble and not just white guys (I am one). I think the show had that more at the beginning than the point at which I bailed.

  4. 4.

    Mike in NC

    It’s on our ‘to do’ list, which just keeps getting longer and longer. I signed up for BritBox at $6.99 per month and there is a massive amount of programming there. Finishing up “Shetland” this weekend.

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    @Kropacetic:  @William D:

    I struggled with the first few episodes because I knew all the actors from other things.

    For instance, the handsome heavyset black fellow was a big-shot attorney on Suits.  But he’s not an attorney on The Wire.  As I was figuring out who’s who, my auto pilot brain saw him and assigned “lawyer”, but no, he’s a cop.

    There were like a dozen people like that – I felt like I need flash cards to keep everyone straight.

  6. 6.

    Starfish

    We watched it shortly after moving to Baltimore. There is a whole season about the stevedores which is somewhat disconnected from the other ones, and possibly the weakest season. They were talking about how expensive housing was, and we were at peak housing boom where housing cost almost twice the value that they considered a lot.

    I really liked the season that had to do with the schools.

    David Simon also recently did a mini series about the Gun Trace Task Force based on Justin Fenton’s book. It was wild.

  8. 8.

    Juju

    I have never seen it either. I suppose I’ll get to it someday, but I’m not in the mood for anything but cartoon type violins right now. Also, what the hell is this new season of Westworld about?  I barely made it through the first season, watched 2 episodes of the second and didn’t make it through a whole episode of the third season. It all just seems like violence for no particular reason. Am I missing something?  The opening credits in the first season were interesting to watch.

  10. 10.

    zhena gogolia

    I’ve never watched it, although I loved Homicide: Life on the Street. But my tolerance for violence has diminished.

    I just started trying to watch The White Lotus. It was well acted and intriguing, and I love Jennifer Coolidge, but I was too afraid something really bad was going to happen.

  12. 12.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    I watched each season when it ran originally.  Then binged it during an x-mas vacation about 8 years ago.  I was talking about it with my mom yesterday becsuse my folks are currently watching on demand.  It is remarkable.  One of the many things that stuck with me was the good intentioned Mayor who found out right quick how fucked the system is.  Ugh.

  14. 14.

    piratedan

    i appreciated the fact that the show managed to show contextual conflict…. Idris Elba’s Stringer Bell is a bad dude, but you can (or at least I did) respect that he followed his own moral code.  Would you consider him as good as McMurtry? if not, why?  if so, why? Evene if you do everything right, how the hell do you escape the odds that are stacked against you growing up in the projects, what constitutes escape?

    I liked the fact that the show illustrated that we all have shit to deal with, good or bad, cop or hood and you got to see heroes and villains in shades of gray.

    and against that background, people struggling for solutions, a way out or thru…

    The acting is top notch, and the casting director found people who really inhabit their characters.

  15. 15.

    SpaceUnit

    I haven’t seen The Wire.  But since it’s an open thread I’ll drop in and recommend a movie that came out on Hulu a couple of weeks ago called The Princess.  For the first 60 seconds you’ll think you’re watching a really cheesy fairy tale.  Trust me, you’re not.  It’s a hoot.

    Kind of a cross between The Princess Bride and Die Hard.

  16. 16.

    Cmorenc

    My nephew is a North Carolina Highway Patrolman, as well as Army National Guard helicopter pilot, snd Afghsn vet..  I prefer to think he is a conscientious, honest cop based on his personal character outside those roles.

    He exemplifies the paradox that in his day to day personal dealings, he is the kind of person you are lucky to have as friend, neighbor, or relative – need to move something? Has truck, will come help gratis a few hours – but he is also an ardent Trump supporter, which fairly or unfairly of itself opens a crack of doubt about whether there is a less good side of him in his hwy patrol job – especially when he cites complaints of other patrolmen that the organization doesn’t back up its memberd when civilians complain about an encounter with nc hwy patrolmen.  On balance, i give him the benefit of the doubt that he is one of the good cops, because of the way he deals with people outside that role, but i still have to take it on faith that he is one of the good cops, absent specific contrary evidence.

  17. 17.

    Chat Noir

    Wendell Pierce as the Bunk is so good, as is Clarke Peters as Lester.

    I found it helpful to watch the series through then go back and watch it again to see how much I missed originally. One of my all time favorite shows.

  18. 18.

    James E Powell

    @Starfish:

    There is a whole season about the stevedores which is somewhat disconnected from the other ones, and possibly the weakest season.

    This is a matter of no small amount of controversy & acrimonious debate, the kind for which the internet was created.

    Season two has some of the most memorable scenes & most quoted lines.

  19. 19.

    raven

    We’re rewatching and are three episodes into season 2. If you think the cops are bad wait till you see the Ukraines and Greeks.

  21. 21.

    catclub

    @Chat Noir: I found it helpful to watch the series through then go back and watch it again to see how much I missed originally.

     

    Listen closely.

  22. 22.

    raven

    Also, watch “We Own This City” on HBO Max. It’s the true story of the Baltimore Gun Task force during the Freddy Grey times.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    Never seen it. But while on the subject of cop shows, will again give two thumbs way up for the French series Spiral, which comes and goes on a variety of streaming services. Currently seems to be available almost nowhere but that has happened before and then – boom – it pops up someplace.

  27. 27.

    Kropacetic

    @Jay: So what, then, happens to the baby? Is this just a free license for husbands to kill wives if they make a get out of jail free claim?

  30. 30.

    raven

    @Cmorenc:

    The large cast consists mainly of actors who are little known for their other roles, as well as numerous real-life Baltimore and Maryland figures in guest and recurring roles. Simon has said that despite its framing as a crime drama, the show is “really about the American city, and about how we live together. It’s about how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution to which they are committed.”[5]

  31. 31.

    trollhattan

    Found it the perfect follow-on to “Homicide, Life on the Street” which was an all-time great cop show, heck, great drama of any kind, set in Bal’more and likewise based on writing by David Simon. Both series feature some of the most memorable teevee characters in the history of the medium.
    With “The Wire” I was all in from the get-go and found it riveting for the entire run. The season set in the docks, away from the hood was an interesting and risky detour.​

  33. 33.

    opiejeanne

    We watched all but the final season. Got distracted by something and never finished it, but I think The Wire is one of the best shows ever made.

    Lance Reddick is right up there with Idris Elba and Wendell Pierce and all of the others. That was an amazing cast.

  34. 34.

    Emmyelle

    I binged the show probably in 2013 or 2014. I really liked it but now realize I don’t remember much of the detail. I enjoyed watching the story unfold over time almost lays on multiple layers. I remember the arcs being hugely complex, because the writers took a systems level approach focusing on how multiple sectors of the city interacted, how evens in one rippled into others.

    I also remember having strong emotional responses to events and characters, feeling something like grief over deaths and other tragic occurrences.

    I moral complexity and trade-offs were more maturely portrayed than is typical in crime dramas.

    i love the opening theme and that it was performed by a different artist each season.

  35. 35.

    Jay

    @Kropacetic:

    Husbands, Boyfriends, Parents, Rapists, Bounty Hunters,…….

    and of course, it does not require that the fetus survives the murder.

  36. 36.

    frosty

    I feel like The Wire is something I should watch since everyone recommends it. As a Baltimore resident at the time I was put off by David Simon disparaging my city in a second series so I never started.

    I did some work for the Port of Baltimore for a few years and everyone there said I should watch the second season. So maybe this year I’ll tackle 1 and 2 and see if I go on from there.

  38. 38.

    schrodingers_cat

    I have not watched it. I tried once but didn’t get beyond one episode. It seemed promising but I was too busy at the time so decided to  watch the series at another time.

  39. 39.

    raven

    @frosty: Simon was a reporter for the Sun  or  13 years and Ed Burns was a cop and then school teacher in the city.  It’s not like they were some outsiders swooping in to take advantage of Balmore.

    Following his retirement from the police force, Burns became a teacher in the Baltimore public school system. He has said that he stumbled into teaching with little preparation because of the intense demand for teachers in inner-city schools.[3] He taught seventh and eight grade. Psychologically, he compared the experience of teaching to the Vietnam War.[3]

    He found the experience profoundly challenging because of the emotional damage that the vast majority of his students had already experienced before reaching the classroom. He saw his primary role as instilling caring behavior in his pupils.[3] He felt his major impact was in giving the children an example of an “adult who’s consistent, who’s always there, who always comes through with what he said, then that’s a new world for them.

     

  40. 40.

    VOR

    @AJ formerly of the Mustard Search and Rescue team: At some point I stopped watching bc I felt like it got too much of the “flawed, rebellious white male protagonist really isn’t that bad and should take up the focus while we marvel at the complexity of his moral dilemmas.” I prefer shows that focus more on ensemble and not just white guys (I am one).

    I assume the flawed white male protagonist is McNulty. He sabotages his own relationships. He fights his chain of command, who in many cases deserves it (Rawls). In Season 5 he does anything to “win”, no matter how far outside the lines.

    It’s very much an ensemble cast where many characters played by black actors have story arcs. Omar is unforgettable: “A man got to have a code”. Stringer Bell. Marlo. Lt. Daniels. Kima. D’Angelo. Detective Sydnor. Lester Freamon, trying to actually run an investigation. Bunny Colvin, creator of Hamsterdam. Bodie. Prop Joe, a smart player trying to navigate between dangerous people like Marlo, Avon, and The Greeks. Bunk doesn’t really have an arc because he is consistently smart and trying to do his job. And Bubbles, how could I forget Bubbles?

  42. 42.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I’m with you WG, it’s on my list but have not yet gotten around to it.

    I’ve seen a total of 30 seconds of it. So many people quote the “taking notes on a criminal conspiracy” line that I finally tracked down and watched that scene.

  43. 43.

    Van Buren

    @Cmorenc: My brother has a nephew with the Virginia State Police who is the same.  Guy’s sister, sweet as can be in person,  turned down a spot at UVA medical school to become an anti abortion crusader. People are complicated.

  45. 45.

    Josie

    I binge watched it probably 8 or 10 years ago. I thought it was one of the best and most realistic portrayals of crime, policing, and justice in the cities I had ever seen. The characters were so real and layered that I was sorry to leave them when it was over. Omar is one of my favorite characters ever.

  46. 46.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Starfish: I only watched a couple of episodes of Homicide but I was spending a lot of time in Baltimore, in the Fells Point neighborhood where they filmed, at the time the show was being filmed. I used to walk past the pier they’d turned into a police station all the time. Got blocked off from “The Daily Grind” coffee shop when they were filming there one day. Never saw any of the actual actors.

  49. 49.

    zhena gogolia

    I need to watch Homicide again. There was one episode set in a seedy motel that was amazing. And Kyle Secor’s character had a girlfriend who only wanted to make love in a coffin. So many great episodes.

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    @Kropacetic: I don’t think I had actually seen Michael B Jordan in anything before, but I certainly knew his name from Black Panther.

    He steals every scene he is in, even though he must have been aroudn 12 for season 1 of The Wire.

  51. 51.

    zhena gogolia

    @WaterGirl: You read my mind. I just looked it up and it doesn’t look promising. It seems as though Xfinity has one season?

  53. 53.

    Redshift

    @Kropacetic:

    Is this just a free license for husbands to kill wives if they make a get out of jail free claim?

    These are the kind of people who extended “stand your ground” to apply to pursuing someone who is running away, so yes, it’s exactly that.

  54. 54.

    frosty

    @raven: Yeah, I knew their history. Simon used his Sun experience to write the book Homicide then turned it into a show and he’s taken off from there. Kudos to him.

    I still didn’t like advertising my city in that light, although with Freddie Gray the Baltimore cops did a good job of it in real life.

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @Chat Noir:

    I found it helpful to watch the series through then go back and watch it again to see how much I missed originally. One of my all time favorite shows.

    I think I was on episode 3 when I decided that would be my exact strategy.  Catch what I could the first time around, then rewatch the whole thing from the start.

  58. 58.

    Bobby Thomson

    Seasons One and Three are the fan favorites.

    Season Two can be a standalone – it’s been described as a filmed version of the Nebraska album.  It’s probably the most nihilistic but also has the funniest line in the entire series.

    Season Four (the schools) is gutting.  Just gutting.

    Season Five isn’t very good.

    Pres is an absolute SOB in Season One but has the biggest character arc of anyone.

    In addition to the Bunk and Pierce, other standout characters are Bubbles (the addict who is there through the entire story), and Chris and Snoop (terrifying characters you will meet later).

  60. 60.

    Jerszy

    Not only is it the best drama of the era, but I can personally vouch for its authenticity.

    I worked my way through law school in Baltimore as a law clerk for the small firm that was the F.O.P.’s contracted attorneys – so, their union’s lawyers.* I worked for and with a lot of the officers that were the IRL basis for the show’s characters, and whom made up Simon’s “Homicide” book, and so were the inspirations for the casts of “Homicide” AND “The Wire”.

    They are both incredible television, but The Wire is a masterpiece (yes even the last season).

     

    *Don’t hate me, it’s where I learned my skepticism of all things police-related.

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    @opiejeanne:

    I knew Lance Reddick from Bosch, and his character in The Wire seems similar to his character in Bosch.

    There was one scene in particular where he’s seated at the dinner table with his wife and he is talking about how to handle some tricky situation and I swear the wife in both shows gives him the same advice about both situations.

  63. 63.

    lashonharangue

    @WaterGirl: see my comment #47.  There is enough to get outraged about without chasing ghosts or derailing an interesting thread about police dramas.

  64. 64.

    Ivan X

    Tremendously good, believable, and thoughtful show. It took me several episodes to get into it but once I was, I was all in. Indeed it has a you-need-flashcards kind of complexity, but I like that, it provides rewatchability (though I haven’t). It’s also one of the few shows actually about poverty, of people living in circumstances we’d prefer to look away from, and you feel like you actually might be learning something from watching it.

    I think as much as it is about the things it is obviously about, it is also a show about just how difficult it is to change systems and human institutions. That change is not entirely impossible, but sometimes it is, and either way it’s always very, very difficult.

    I have different feelings about different seasons but 1 and 3 are my favorite and 5 is my least (it feels abbreviated in length, because it is; and it also doesn’t feel as believable, though it works as a frightening vision of collapse).

    I bought a couch from a woman on Craigslist who turned out to be the DA character. It took me a minute and then I’m like hey, you were on the Wire!

    (As for the familiar cast members made their bones during the show, you experience the same thing watching 90’s episodes of Law & Order. Both shows needed a ton of actors so plenty of people who you’ve come to see later got gigs on them.)

    Oh yeah Lance Reddick is hilarious as a sociopathic CEO on the sadly obscure comedy Corporate, the first season of which is pure existentialist genius. Kills me that no one has seen it.

  66. 66.

    Barney

    @Mike in NC: You’re not exactly finishing up Shetland – they’ve just scheduled a six-part series 7, airing from Aug 10 in the UK. And there are plans for series 8.

  67. 67.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Chat Noir:

    That’s what I did, and that’s become my modus operandi for each new show I enjoy.

    The Wire is among the greatest TV drama series ever created.

  69. 69.

    HumboldtBlue

    @WaterGirl:

    Peaky Blinders does that was well. When you’re done with The Wire, check The Morning Show on Apple+, it’s very good.

  71. 71.

    Tom Q

    Among the greatest of all TV accomplishments.  The great epic of urban America Tom Wolfe thought he was writing with Bonfire of the Vanities.  I watched it all over a 5-month or so period in 2010.

    The amazement is how each season seems to pull back a bit further, examine another area of Baltimore life (educational system, the press), and show every bit is interrelated.  At one point late in the series, Lance Reddick says “The numbers are killing this department” — and that could apply to everything we’ve seen over 5 seasons.  Just a remarkable achievement.

  74. 74.

    pajaro

    I am in the not small group of people who think The Wire is the best series ever.  It obviously takes a significant investment, particularly in the beginning, since even getting the accents can take some time.  Its strengths, in my opinion:  Some of the acting and characters are one in a million–the late Michael Williams portrayal of Omar Little is beyond amazing, Idris Elba as Stringer is as well, but there are just a multitude of great actors and roles.  The show is also the most serious look at the breakdown of our political institututions, the criminal injustice system, the schools that TV has ever done.   it concentrates on different institutions in deindustrializing America, with seasons one and three (my favorite) dealing with police and the drug “industry,” season two with the port, and dockworkers, season four (the most heartbreaking) on the schools and season five (the weakest) on the media.   IMO it’s serious stuff, but also great TV.

  76. 76.

    NotMax

    Trivia:

    Maryland was the last U.S. state to operate a governmental agency dedicated to censoring movies, which ran from 1916 all the way through to 1981. A bit more info.

    Also covered in the documentary Sickies Making Films (currently streaming on Tubi).

    …One censor was reportedly unable to hear or see the films he was judging; another parlayed her strong opinions and malapropisms into a career as a bizarre national talk show guest.
    [snip]
    …its breakout character is Mary Avara, an outspoken Italian grandmother from Baltimore who was the censor board’s de facto head and stayed with it until its end. She had her own rating system: “GP” for “garbage production.” “R” for “rotten.” “BR” for “beyond repairs.” “RRRR”: “rotten, rotten, rotten, and rotten.” When questioned about the First Amendment, she told an interviewer that the people who wrote the Constitution didn’t have the same kind of movies she was seeing. Source

  77. 77.

    judybird

    We watched it all when it first aired, and still think it’s the best thing that’s ever been written. For years, we’d see one of the actors in another show and immediately think “Oh yeah, he’s Bunk, there’s McNulty, OMG, is that Stringer Bell with a British accent?”

    The season on the schools was very hard to watch, just heartbreaking. Other than that, I could probably watch the whole thing again.

  78. 78.

    WaterGirl

    OT, but the weather just took a big turn here.  It was 90 with a wall of humidity, so heat index was 95+, then it just dropped to 78 a few minutes ago and there is a nice breeze.

    I am out on the porch for the first time in days.

  82. 82.

    opiejeanne

    @raven: Reddick, who other actors say is a totally funny goofball, can make shivers run up my spine when he fixes that glare on someone.

    I will have to check out Treme.

  83. 83.

    different-church-lady

    Any show that writes a line that has people going, “Which Shakespeare play is that from?” must be pretty good.

  86. 86.

    Chetan Murthy

    WG, it’s interesting that you mention the police brutality.  After these last few (*ugh* so many) years, the police brutality in The Wire comes off as copaganda.  But aside from that, it’s an epic show.  With amazing characters and great actors portraying them.

    Others have mentioned H:LOTS; I’ll mention that in-between H:LOTS and The Wire, Simon did The Corner, which had actor overlap with both series. Great stuff.  Great stuff.

  88. 88.

    patrick II

    @VOR: ​ That scene was the show’s writers response to HBO censors saying there had been too much bad language in earlier scripts..@VOR: ​​

  89. 89.

    prostratedragon

    @Chat Noir:  That’s become how I watch anything worthwhile: once for the outline,  then again later for nuance and aesthetics. Memory seems to help perception .

    I think Lester is my favorite character, but there are so many good ones.  Still have to catch season 4 for the first time and 5 for the second, but I’m one who quite liked 2, partly because I like process stories like the dock. But then the whole series is kind of like that.

  90. 90.

    WaterGirl

    @judybird:

    OMG, is that Stringer Bell with a British accent?

    Is it crazy that I think Idris Elba is more sexy and more attractive now than he was in The Wire?  (at least the first season)

    I thought the younger version would blow me away.  Surprise!

  93. 93.

    WaterGirl

    @Chetan Murthy:

    After these last few (*ugh* so many) years, the police brutality in The Wire comes off as copaganda.

    I had never heard the term copaganda before.  oops phone call. will finish this later.

    I googled the term, and I think it serves as anti-copaganda – it shows how awful the cop culture is. 🤷‍♀️

  94. 94.

    Chetan Murthy

    I use the character of McNulty in The Wire to explain to people what devotion to doing your job correctly will do.  He’s a “gaping asshole”, b/c he actually cares about doing the job he was ostensibly hired to do.  Which is not the job his superiors want done.

    ETA: The others: Keema, Lester, Daniels, Ronnie (Pearlman) all want to do their jobs, but are unwilling to sacrifice their personal lives to do so.  They have story arcs.  McNulty …. not so much.

  96. 96.

    RevRick

    @ellie: My wife and I loved Omar. In his crazy world, he was a moral center.

    My wife and I watched The Wire during COVID-19 time,  along with a number of other series our son recommended: Burn Notice, The Great, The Expanse, The Handmaid’s Tale, Stranger Things, Outlander.

    We are now watching Dark. Suits is on our to-do list.

  98. 98.

    Ivan X

    @WaterGirl: same. But I like plenty of shows that are copaganda (notably L&O, though bad cops and prosecutors and judges do occasionally appear there). I’m not always wanting a realistic depiction of harsh reality. It’s probably a cope, because I want to believe in good cops.

  101. 101.

    WaterGirl

    @RevRick: I tried Burn Notice when it first showed on TV, rolled my eyes and I don’t think I made it all the way through the first episode.  Then a good friend said how much she liked it, i gave it another try – and I thought it was great.

    Castle was kind of like that, but by then i had learned my lesson.  I thought the first few episodes were kind of lame but I gave it a chance and by episode 7 I really liked the show.

  102. 102.

    WaterGirl

    @Ivan X: Yeah.  I watch the FBI shows and SWAT and all the characters are shown as really trying to do the right thing and they are highlighting a lot of the law enforcement issues we have right now and as the characters on the shows are trying to address them it’s at least spotlighting the issue.

  104. 104.

    RevRick

    @pajaro: Oh, definitely concur that it has to be one of the best TV series ever. Not only was the acting superb, but its gritty realism was a gut punch. For me, it portrayed the catastrophic damage white male supremacy has done to the black community in so many cases.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    @Ivan X: Yes!

    You just have to give yourself over to it and it’s just fun.

    Speaking of shows where the characters are good people who are trying to do the right thing, I am really sorry the cancelled the “new” Magnum PI.   I really liked a lot of the characters on that show.

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    @John Cole: Do you still think Boom town is a great show?

    When I saw Boomtown (in your 2005 post) I was confused for a second because I was thinking about Stumptown – which was also an outstanding show – and I was sure Stumptown hadn’t been on in 2005!

    I don’t know what Boomtown is.

  110. 110.

    RevRick

    @Ivan X: Absolutely. It’s so over the top. We found Sharon Gless from Cagney and Lacey days a hoot, as well as Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona “shall I shoot him?”

  113. 113.

    zmulls

    Yeah, I’m one of those guys who will go on and on about The Wire.     I will say that it took me until episode 4-5 before it clicked for me, and I went back and watched it again from the beginning.

    It’s written by an ex-reporter and an ex-cop so it has a verisimilitude that many shows lack.  They were determined to not write *that* kind of cop show.

    There are tons of characters and it takes work to sort them out.  The show trains you how to watch it.

    And yes, S1 = great, S2 = also great but jarring because, S3=phenomenal, S4=Gutting, S5=has weak spots.

    You’ll notice that make several deliberate choices

    •  No Flashbacks (they forced them to do one in the first episode and they vowed “never again” — you remember what happened, they are not going to remind you
    • No music unless it comes from an actual music source (car radios).   No underscoring.
    • No montages except end of season (they break this rule in S4 once, but you can see them struggling to avoid it)
    • No explaining — they are not going to explain the lingo, or tell you who the important characters are, you will discover it as if you are a reporter, or a cop looking for clues.

     

    There’s a moment halfway through S1 where a mid-level drug dealer spends an inordinate amount of time picking out clothes.   His closet is full of the best sneakers, tons of shirts, etc.    He is holding things up to his body.  Finally, when he is dressed, he looked like any corner-dealing gang-banger.  But we know how much thought he put in to looking just right.    It is the kind of character detail The Wire does all the time, shows you a little something that lets you see the character in a different light.

    I could go on and on, but The Wire is just not like any other show.  It’s not trying to be grand opera like The Sopranos, or thrill you with cinematography and adrenaline like Breaking Bad (both shows I love).   It is something unique.

  114. 114.

    trollhattan

    @WaterGirl: ​First couple seasons of “Burn Notice” kept the concept fresh and plausible. Kind of collapsed under the weight of unsustainability after some point.

    Naturally, Fiona kept me watching–everybody’s dream girlfriend.

  117. 117.

    Mike in NC

    @WaterGirl:  Sadly, I think ‘Boomtown’ only lasted one season. It was set in LA and showed how several cops saw things from their own perspective. We loved it.

  118. 118.

    James E Powell

    @VOR:

    One of my favorite scenes is Detectives Bunk and McNulty re-investigating a murder. They think the cop who originally investigated is substandard. The scene is mostly visual with little dialog other than variations on the word “Fuck”.

    A classic. I don’t know how they got through without breaking character.

    So many forms & intonations of “fuck” and we understood the meaning of each one.

  119. 119.

    Turgidson

    @James E Powell:

    I’m a “season 2 was good actually” guy all the way.  Frank Sobotka was a great character, with what I thought was a well-paced arc of trying to help his people but sliding deeper into the morass with each step he took.

    Great, great show.  Set a new template for “gritty, realistic” TV that is often imitated but very rarely surpassed.

  120. 120.

    pajaro

    @John Cole:

    A strong second to John’s suggestion to watch We Own This City, which deals with stuff that happened just a few years ago.  It was interesting that possibly the most sympathetic police officer in WOTC (there aren’t many) is played by an actor who played one of the real villains in The Wire.

  121. 121.

    Brachiator

    @zhena gogolia:

    I need to watch Homicide again. There was one episode set in a seedy motel that was amazing. And Kyle Secor’s character had a girlfriend who only wanted to make love in a coffin. So many great episodes.

    I have never seen The Wire, but I loved Homicide: Life on the Street. I think my younger sister was in college at the time, and she would call me and we would talk about the latest episode, an odd but fun kind of brother/sister bonding.

    There was a villain, Luther Mahoney, portrayed with an amazing degree of coiled menace by Erik Dellums. I loved how the city of Baltimore was a character in the series.

    Episodes flowed like a kind of operetta, with each of the detectives given his or her little suite to reveal character moments.

    I once ran into Kyle Secor at some public event and told him how much I enjoyed the series and his performance.

  122. 122.

    thalarctosMaritimus

    @Kropacetic: Once you murder the mother, you’ve kind of sealed the fetus’ fate as well, except in a very few cases.

    This law is not very well-thought-out–in other words, it’s totally on brand.

  123. 123.

    WaterGirl

    @zmulls: Thanks for all of that.  I am really appreciating all of these comments from folks.

    When I went back years after Homicide was first on TV and watched it again, I could see that in the first episode they were very deliberately teaching us stuff.

    The is the white board.  There are partners.  Who is  “up” rotates.  One person takes the lead.  Etc.

    In the wire there doesn’t seem to be any of that.  They just throw you into the pool with no swimming lessons and you just have to figure it out.

  127. 127.

    jnfr

    Just want to say, to start out, that I’ve watched “The Wire” through three times. The first I was utterly entranced. The second came to an abrupt halt at Season Four, for some years, as I just could not go through the experiences with those kids for a while.

    I got through that and finished the series again. Then recently went through it a third time. It totally is worthwhile to watch many times. The characters only get richer as you see the details again.

  128. 128.

    RevRick

    @WaterGirl: Oh, I fully understand the eye roll. But I also got its rollicking appeal. My wife and I later learned that our nextdoor neighbor named her car “Fiona” in honor of the character!

  129. 129.

    James E Powell

    @Barney:

    You’re not exactly finishing up Shetland – they’ve just scheduled a six-part series 7, airing from Aug 10 in the UK. And there are plans for series 8.

    Best news I’ve heard all week!

  130. 130.

    Bex

    Found myself at a Thanksgiving dinner and talking to a guy who turned out to be a federal prosecuter.  He was describing the drug trade in our city, and I said that it sounded like The Wire.  He said that was about as close as you could get to describing it.

  131. 131.

    RevRick

    Two other series we enjoyed, which our daughter and son-in-law recommended are White Lotus and Mare of Easttown.

  132. 132.

    James E Powell

    @judybird:

    The season on the schools was very hard to watch, just heartbreaking. Other than that, I could probably watch the whole thing again.

    I switched careers to become a teacher the year before that season first ran. My friends started calling me the name of the character who did the same. [No spoilers for those who truly want no spoilers.] High school English instead of middle school math, but man, the bells rang in every episode.

  133. 133.

    Anonymous At Work

    The way I saw the brutality, all the back in the halcyon days of the Aughts was that the police-dealer relationship was brutal and adversarial, and that it spilled over into the general population.  Bad cops succumbed to the pressures; good cops did not.  How naive, right?

    Now, it’s more a systemic threat that gets taught from mentor to mentee, unless someone gets lucky and gets both a mentor and a position where the pressure doesn’t crack them.

  138. 138.

    RevRick

    And for some British nuttiness, we have enjoyed The IT Crowd, Travelman, and Taskmaster.

  139. 139.

    jnfr

    @piratedan:

    The thing I loved about Stringer is that he was legit trying to run a straight business in a totally crooked environment. He was a businessman, and I kind of relate to that.

    Of course that brought him into conflict with Avon and his commitment to gangster life. It all went pretty deep.

  142. 142.

    RevRick

    @jnfr: Oh, Stringer Bell understood the whole system was crooked and that by getting a toehold in redevelopment, he could launder the reality of his brutal past.

  143. 143.

    Brachiator

    @Mike in NC:

    Sadly, I think ‘Boomtown’ only lasted one season. It was set in LA and showed how several cops saw things from their own perspective. We loved it.

    Another great show. Maybe lasted 2 seasons. I think it also focused on DAs, prosecutors, etc. I think it might have been too gritty for broadcast television.

  144. 144.

    jnfr

    @catclub:

    We always have the captions on. I have hearing loss and Mr. Jnfr has English as a second language, and the accents are fierce in this.

  145. 145.

    James E Powell

    @Turgidson:

    I’m a “season 2 was good actually” guy all the way.  Frank Sobotka was a great character, with what I thought was a well-paced arc of trying to help his people but sliding deeper into the morass with each step he took.

    I was down on Season 2 myself on first watching it. After reading & being part of a spirited discussion in the comment section of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s old blog, I re-watched it and came around to agree with you & others. It was a good season.

  146. 146.

    prostratedragon

    @WaterGirl:  There’s one scene where we’re dismayed to see a bunch of characters we’ve come to like joining in on some outrageous brutality to a person already in their control. I don’t think we’re meant to see that as heroic or in any other way positive.

  147. 147.

    James E Powell

    @zmulls:

    Yeah, I’m one of those guys who will go on and on about The Wire.

    Apparently, so am I, but I will make this my last comment on The Wire. At least for today. Or this thread.

    In addition to the show being great about police, cities, America, etc., it’s a great show about relationships in the workplace. I’m thinking of the way the others react to the way Bunk dresses, how everyone does not necessarily like each other but manages, how bosses are, etc.

  148. 148.

    Chetan Murthy

    @James E Powell: “Lacrosse, man.  I was All-Metro Attack.  Prep school boys used to pee themselves when they saw the ol’ Bunk comin’ at ’em”.

  152. 152.

    Edmund Dantes

    Stringer is a perfect example of the idea that simply by birth and circumstance he got cut off from a lot of avenues where he could have been legit.

    His baseline “nature” was highly intelligent, emotionally intelligent, entrepreneur, but his “nurture” was growing up in failing schools, failing justice system designed to punish, and surrounded by the gang life.

  155. 155.

    Chetan Murthy

    @WaterGirl:

    I think it serves as anti-copaganda – it shows how awful the cop culture is.

    I wish that were true.  But thing is, most of the cops are actually well-meaning and don’t want to brutalize the Black people they encounter.  This is quite at odds with what we know of reality: there are no Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Philando Castile (and on and on) in The Wire.  The one cop early on who commits an  act of brutality is drummed out of the police.  In ways small and large, the story is that cops are good guys.

    But they’re not, and that’s what we’ve learned over the last N years, esp. the summer of 2020.

    In that sense, yeah, it’s copaganda: “with all their warts, they’re really good guys, trying to do a hard job, poorly, but trying nevertheless.”

  156. 156.

    prostratedragon

    @James E Powell:
    Relationships at home, too. The Danielses as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, McNulty’s persistent difficulties and Bunk’s less terminal ones, Kima’s attempts to have a married life with a spouse whose attitude toward Kima’s profession seems ambivalent at best … There’s a great marital montage in I think season 2 where we get snips of marriages exploding all over Baltimore, accompanied by the inspired choice of a Bach Brandenburg concerto — you can hear the crystal wine glasses tinkling.

  158. 158.

    lee

    A phrase I’ve heard more than once about The Wire is: The best 4 seasons of TV ever produced. It was on for 5 seasons.

     

    The 5th season is not very good.

  159. 159.

    Chetan Murthy

    @WaterGirl:

    for no reason other than that they have the power and they can do it.

    But that’s not the only reason they do it.  They do it because they’re reinforcing the hierarchy of white supremacy.  It would be like a show about frat boys and the parties they throw where they get freshman girls drunk and rape them, that left out the raging misogyny.

  160. 160.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Chetan Murthy: I mean, I can’t remember a single time in the series (maybe there was one?  one?) that a completely law-abiding Black man was stopped by the police and subjected to their brutality.  This is the sense in which it’s copaganda.

  161. 161.

    WaterGirl

    @Chetan Murthy: That’s a compelling analogy.  So far, though, maybe halfway through season 1, I am seeing lots of black faces as attorneys and cops, so it feels more like power than racism to me.

    I am not far enough into it to know if any of the criminals are white.  (besides the cops who engage in criminal behavior)

  162. 162.

    WaterGirl

    @Chetan Murthy: I am thinking of the episode where the cops go into the projects in the middle of the night to stir up shit just to stir up shit.  Then they beat the shit out of a black kid just because they could.  Because they felt disrespected.

    Rape is also about power.

  163. 163.

    Chetan Murthy

    @WaterGirl:

    so it feels more like power than racism to me.

    Precisely.  The story is about power, and not about racism.  But we know that in the real world, a big part of police brutality is about racism and not solely about power; we know that well-to-do Black people are also targeted by the po-po, that well-to-do Black people must also take care to not end up as statistics in the newspaper.

  164. 164.

    Chetan Murthy

    @WaterGirl:

    Then they beat the shit out of a black kid just because they could.  Because they felt disrespected.

    Yes, but this was immediately after a dramatic and violent confrontation between the cops and the residents.  Now imagine that they go to a quiet Black neighborhood and just pick some kid walking by, minding his own business, and blind him in one eye.  Or pick a kid coming out of a Wal-mart to do that to.

    This is what I mean by copaganda: even when the cops do something awful, really awful, there are always some mitigating circumstances.  But we *know* that that doesn’t reflect real life.

  165. 165.

    Chetan Murthy

    @WaterGirl: I feel like need to repeat that The Wire is one of my favorite TV series.  I perennially reference it in explaining things to people about the workplace.  Perennially.  I don’t expect Simon to address everything in his work.  But OTOH, I think it’s fair to note what he doesn’t address, that renders his work unrealistic.

    And after the summer of 2020, that something is “police brutality and its role in cementing and perpetuating white supremacy”.

  167. 167.

    eclare

    One of my favorite TV shows, I think I’ve watched it all the way through three times, each time noticing something new.  I tell people just starting the show to watch until episode four, that is when it starts to come together.  Plus the first appearance of Omar.

  168. 168.

    stinger

    @WaterGirl: Boomtown is excellent. If nothing else, watch the first episode. I watched it repeatedly before realizing with horror that the moment that made me laugh out loud was also the precise moment that something terrible was happening. To me, that’s amazing plotting.

    The first season’s unusual episode structure was something they didn’t/couldn’t sustain for season two. Pity.

    Another great two-season show that aired a few years later was Life, starring Damien Lewis and Sarah Shahi.

  169. 169.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Edmund Dantes:

    Yup. And Omar would have been a tenured professor of classical literature, and Wallace as a social worker/volunteer/community organizer.

  171. 171.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Salty Sam: That scene made me go back and watch Col. Nicholson’s scene in Bridge over the River Kwai: “My god, what have I done!”

  175. 175.

    WaterGirl

    @TJC: Thanks for posting that!  I will watch it in the morning.

    And double-thanks because Cole had put up a post about Wire the Musical in 2012, which i discovered when I put up this post, except the link to the musical didn’t work.

    Which i have now fixed, thanks to the link you supplied.

  177. 177.

    trnc

    @Chetan Murthy: Keema, Lester, Daniels, Ronnie (Pearlman) all want to do their jobs, but are unwilling to sacrifice their personal lives to do so.

    Interesting. I’m only halfway through season 3 and at this point Kima and Daniels are well on their way to tanking their personal relationships because they’ve chosen the work. Looking forward to seeing how the stories play out, although I’m trying to slow myself down a bit. Been binging way too much.

  179. 179.

    Miss Bianca

    @VOR: Such a great, great show. For all the characters you named. And their arcs. Up there in my top 5.

    In fact, I should put it on the rewatch list…

  181. 181.

    Barry

    @Kropacetic: “So what, then, happens to the baby? Is this just a free license for husbands to kill wives if they make a get out of jail free claim?”

     

    It’s literally a license to kill women.

  185. 185.

    indianbadger

    To me, The Wire was the closest TV show that seemed like a Dickens Novel. Tied storylines that felt real and lived in, amazing side characters, shades of grey everywhere. Which makes it best series I have seen. Plus the opening music, done by different musicians in every season adds to it.

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