I’ve often seen The Wire described as the best television drama of all-time and for a while now I’ve been interested in seeing if that was true. The series aired from 2002-2008, but since I didn’t have HBO I had never seen the show. Luckily these days it’s easy to pick up the DVDs and quickly plow through entire seasons of shows. So this year I finally decided to put Season 1 of The Wire on my Christmas list. But then one day in mid-December, while Christmas shopping on Amazon.com, I noticed that the complete series (all five seasons) was on sale for 70% off. It was a sign. So I took a page from Mrs.’ playbook and bought myself a pre-Christmas present (and of course removed Season 1 from my list). The DVDs arrived a couple of days later (thanks Amazon Prime!) and we were off and running. At first I assumed I’d be watch the series myself, most likely after Mrs. fell asleep on the couch, but to my surprise she was willing to give it a shot and now we’re both hooked. And I was going to wait until we finished the series to blog about the show, but since I have so many thoughts and Mrs. has little to no desire to hear them, I figured I’d do a “quick” post on Season 1 & 2. Really, the main reason I post on the blog is to avoid subjecting Mrs. to the myriad observations I have on everything I watch and read. It’s a win-win.
At this point you’ve either seen the show or probably won’t ever see it, but just in case I’ll avoid any major spoilers. As a quick synopsis, Season 1 follows a Baltimore police detail under the command of Lieutenant Cedric Daniels as they investigate a drug dealing organization led by Avon Barksdale. We see the interworking (and dysfunction) of both the police department and the drug dealing operation. Although the detail is originally assigned as a way to appease the higher ups after a state’s witness is murdered and is specifically told not to dig too deep, the detail eventually sets up wiretaps and other electronic surveillance (hence “The Wire” title) in an effort to bring down the entire Barksdale operation, which may have ties that go deeper than just the street level drug world. Season 1 did not disappoint and definitely lived up to the high expectations that were set.
Season 2 took a bit of a detour and after the detail is reunited again under Daniels, they are charged with investigating a smuggling operation at the city port. The target of the investigation is Frank Sobotka, the president of a struggling dockworker’s union, who’s involved with some shady characters paying him to help smuggle drugs, prostitutes, and stolen goods into Baltimore. The “B” story still involves the Barksdale crew as they attempt to work around the problems caused by the results of police investigation from Season 1. I’ve seen Season 2 called the worst of the five seasons, but for my money I really enjoyed it. It seems the biggest complaint with the season is that a majority of the new characters introduced (mostly the dockworkers) only appear in this season and the story of the downfall of the blue-collar working class in Baltimore doesn’t tie together that well with the rest of the series. I can see this complaint, but the story was strong enough and there was enough common threads that it was still great television. But if this was the worst season, then that’s a good sign for the last three seasons. It’s probably too early for me to call The Wire the greatest drama ever, but even after just the first two seasons, it’s undoubtedly in the running.
A few other observations on what makes The Wire such a great drama:
1) The pacing of the show is excellent. It takes its time introducing all of the characters and setting up the story. Much like Mad Men this slow pacing requires a ton of patience, especially early in the season when entire shows are just setting up events in future episodes. But it’s well worth it when everything starts coming together. It’s funny how after an episode or two we’re still trying to figure out who each character is (“Wait, who’s Bodie?” “Have we seen that guy before?” “Is Lester one of the cops?”), but by the end of the season it’s like we’re old friends. And then we repeated it all again in Season 2, like “Wait, now who’s that guy?” But I’ve learned now to just trust the writers and go along for the ride.
2) Those characters that it takes so long to introduce? Those are some great TV characters, really some of the all-time greats. It’s cool how characters we just get a glimpse of in one episode end up playing much larger role in later episodes. Some of our favorite characters:
Omar Little – Who doesn’t love Omar? He’s the one larger than life character who doesn’t quite fit in. As in, there’s no way that someone out there is actually like that, right? A gay, shotgun toting, children’s song whistling, thief who “rips and runs” (you know, robs other drug dealers)? Definitely unique.
Lester Freamon – The best part about Lester was that we really didn’t know who he was at first. Hanging out in the detail office crafting dollhouse furniture, he could have been the janitor for all we knew. But he proved to be one of the best cops, with a hilarious back-story, and is always the coolest guy in the room.
“Stringer” Bell – The 2nd in command of the Barksdale operation, and one of the most interesting characters on the show. The brains of the operation, he’s still violent and dangerous, but he wants to be thought of as a regular business man. He’s taking economics classes at the local community college, running a legitimate copy services business and leading meetings of his drug dealers like he’s in a boardroom. You can’t have enough Stringer.
D’Angelo Barksdale – How interesting that the first season was bookended with episodes of D’Angelo in a court room and how different we feel for him in each. It’s a credit to the show that we first see him as a murderous drug dealer and clearly the bad guy, but by the end we've seen so much of how he thinks that we see the potential in him and are rooting for things to turn out differently.
Jimmy McNulty – The closest thing to a main character on the cop side in Season 1 (with D’Angelo being the focus on the drug side), Jimmy’s a good cop who really cares about the job, but he’s also a drunk and a womanizer. You want to root for Jimmy, but man if he doesn’t have his flaws. You also have to love that he's always willing to ruffle the feathers of his bosses.
Wallace – He epitomized the tragedy of the drug game. Born to an addict mother who clearly doesn’t care for him, and living in an abandoned house helping to raise other homeless kids. Wanting to change his life and go back to high school, but only knowing the small world of the drug game in the projects.
Bubbles – The heroin addict and police informant. How can you not like Bubs and root for him to get clean?
And I didn’t even get to Bunk or Kima or Bodie or Daniels . . .
3) I can’t say for certain how realistic the show is (having never been to Baltimore, never been on the police force, and never been involved in the sale of drugs), but it definitely feels more real than other cop shows. For one thing, the show doesn’t compromise. It shows both the good and bad in all characters. Everyone operates in a grey area with their flaws exposed, and yet we still find a way to root for most of them (on both sides of the law). It also doesn’t leave you with the best feelings about the world we live in and exposes serious problems in society. The drug war is a losing cause for everyone. The drug dealers who try to get out of the game find themselves trapped. And we see there’s often a short shelf life when you live in that world. The drug addicts are clearly not going down a good path. And the cops find that they have to accept small victories as the war on drugs that their waging doesn’t seem like it can be won. There’s only so much they can do and they know it. All of this makes for a realistic, if not depressing (yet still excellent) show.
4) But damn if it isn’t funny. Like seriously, laugh out loud funny at times. The scene where Omar testifies in court in Season 2 was hilarious, and Omar gets a ton of funny lines (amazing since he’s such a violent criminal). It was amusing when McNulty had to go buy a bunk bed so his sons could stay at his apartment, both because he had to go purchase the furniture for his bare apartment and for the fun of watching him struggle to assemble it. I also liked when Stringer asked his professor for advice on a struggling business that we know he’s using to apply to the drug trade, and how funny was it when he tries to school the drug crew working at the copy shop? – “We have an elastic product . . . and you’re acting like we’ve got an inelastic product.” And back to Jimmy, the funniest scene so far had to be in Season 2 when he goes undercover as a British businessman to infiltrate the prostitution ring, and then when Kima and Bunk bust in to make the arrest he’s in bed with two of the prostitutes – “You’re late.”
Congratulations if you’ve made it this far in the post. Just think of how much more I’ll have to talk about after the next three seasons. Stay tuned.
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