100 Favorite Shows: #55 — The Wire
“We ain’t gotta dream no more.”
David Simon worked as a reporter for The Baltimore Sun before he got the idea from his collaborator, Ed Burns (who was also once a detective), to create a dramatic series for HBO: The Wire. Was it a police series? A crime drama? An investigative narrative? It was many things over the course of its five season run from June 2002 to March 2008, but it was never as celebrated as its critical contemporaries, like The Sopranos. Instead, Simon and his all-star crew of writers focused on the details of The Wire, fleshing out an expansive narrative that has propped the show up as a consensus all-time great for most critical circles.
(Many consider The Wire to be the greatest television series of all-time, so if this changes things for you and your relationship with spoilers, veer clear of this essay.)
In Andy Greene’s oral history of The Office, The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s, he spends a sizable chunk of time talking to writers, producers, and actors about how enamored the writing room on The Office was with The Wire. Their obsession reached such a breaking point that a couple Wire actors were invited to hang out at Dunder Mifflin for multi-episode arcs. Idris Elba played both Stringer Bell, a major drug player on The Wire, and Charles Miner, a V.P. of sales on The Office. Amy Ryan played both Beadie Russell, a local police officer on The Wire, and Holly Flax, an HR rep in Scranton and Nashua.
Much of this is owed to Michael Schur, one of the leading champions of The Wire on The Office (before he left to run Parks and Recreation, where he snuck in a fun joke about how, if William Henry Harrison didn’t die early in his presidency, then The Wire would have been an Emmys favorite). It’s no surprise either. Schur is a famous bibliophile and The Wire was one of the most novelistic, Dickensian shows ever crafted for television. With densely packed stories and an array of characters so vast it was hard to keep them all straight, The Wire appealed mostly to those with literary sensibilities. At least, that was my major takeaway.
But who wouldn’t want to hang out with people like Elba or Ryan or even actors like Wendell Pierce (playing detective Bunk Moreland) and Aidan Gillen (playing politician Tommy Carcetti)? For me, I grew up seeing all these actors in comedies. My primary association with Amy Ryan, for example, is as Holly. I wasn’t old enough for The Wire when I was old enough for The Office. So it’s a testament to the impeccable (if sometimes impenetrable — I never had any idea what Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) was talking about in his scenes) writing of the show and the across-the-board perfection of the acting that when I did watch The Wire for the first time, I was completely immersed in the world. Scranton was far from my mind. All I cared about was Baltimore.
Ultimately, I was glad I watched it when I did. If I had seen The Wire weekly, as many (but nearly enough) did, there would have been the benefits of a slow burn and of getting to know the grand menagerie of characters better over time. But I also have a tendency to be very dumb and so watching it in a binge style helped me better keep track of who everyone was and what their motivations were. I could hold the story in my head for the duration of the series. (Surely I’d have forgotten a bulk of the story by the time seasons of The Wire began taking two year breaks from 2004 to 2008.) As it was, I already needed to keep The Wire Wiki bookmarked for reference when a scene would end and I’d pause it and say, “Okay. I have no idea what just happened.”
The Wire was the only show I ever rewound scenes to take a second stab at their meaning upon the first watch. That was the closest it came to reading a book for me. When I read Great Expectations, for example, I became quite cozy with some of the paragraphs, as they required my focus and attention. I’d have to reread a page because I’d missed it the first time. When I viewed The Wire, I reread a lot of pages.
On occasion, though, I rewound moments because I couldn’t believe they’d happened and I had to double check that I wasn’t deceiving myself. The two biggest came in the two episodes I decided to revisit for this essay, season three’s penultimate and Emmy-nominated, “Middle Ground,” and season five’s eighth, “Clarifications.” Fans of The Wire probably already know what happens in the episodes. Respectively, Stringer Bell is killed and Omar Little (Michael K. Williams) is killed. And let me tell you, on the rewatch, they weren’t any easier to witness. (There wasn’t a chance I was going back to “Cleaning Up,” the episode when the insanely talented Michael B. Jordan’s Wallace was killed, though. That shit’s too much to handle, man.)
As heartbreaking as these deaths were, I can’t deny that it was completely in tone with the show. The Wire never said it was anything but bleak. It centered around a disparate city with many factions of characters never interacting with others. Incredibly realistic at every turn (a moment in “Middle Ground” that I picked up on: Johnny (Leo Fitzpatrick) shoots up in Hamsterdam and while the visuals linger on him, the sounds are filled with the cacophony of vendors, children, vehicles. There is always something else happening around the characters we see the most.) In this way, it told the whole story of Baltimore and the vast depth a city can have. It just so happened that all of these pockets of story in Baltimore were doomed from the start. The Wire was bleak, bleak, bleak. That’s why we grabbed onto characters like Omar because they provided temporary reprieves from dour hopelessness. That’s why it was all the more devastating when Omar got taken away, too. He couldn’t get out. He didn’t make it.
While there is so much to be said about Omar, the show’s breakout character who could handle anything that came his way, I want to make sure that the vast roster on The Wire gets their due in this essay. After all, for as much as the city was disconnected narratively, it was filled with through lines thematically.
This is thanks to the team of writers on The Wire, who would have been overqualified on many other programs. They weren’t even necessarily television writers. George Pelecanos was a novelist before The Wire. He wrote over twenty books in the genres of crime and detective fiction and he’s still going. Among his most notable works are The Man Who Came Uptown, The Night Gardener, The Big Blowdown, and the aforementioned episode, “Middle Ground.” Additionally, Dennis Lehane wrote for The Wire after having written many acclaimed novels like Shutter Island, Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River, and Since We Fell. Of course, Lehane also wrote “Clarifications.”
Because of the writers’ experience with long-form storytelling, thematic introspection, and engrossing character development, The Wire was able to reflect its richest crime story contemporaries. Not one story ever broken by The Wire came without intricate plotting and delicate set-up. (This became a hallmark of David Simon’s showrunning style, working to a lesser effect in his 2017–2019 series, The Deuce.) With this effort in place, the writers were able to develop the stories (many of which were based on real-world experiences from Simon, akin to how veterans’ recollections of the Korean War drove a great many M*A*S*H installments) and infuse them with the thematic brilliance the writers had a propensity for. And they infused this through the characters.
Baltimore, like every city, is overflowing with corruption in every institution. The first season of the show includes much of this, but it is also the season that most prominently positions the police department as the ones fighting for what’s right. By the end of the season (and certainly by the end of the series), the police department is shown to be one of the most corrupt institutions in Baltimore (if such a thing can be a competition) and barely able to affect any change whatsoever. This is reflected outwardly in the way the show carefully and deliberately manages the McNulty character. He’s billed as the hero of the show in season one and by season two, he barely has any influence in The Wire at all. Not even the police could make a difference in Baltimore and McNulty fades for the entire second arc of the show as a result. Now, we understand The Wire wasn’t crafting a fictional statement; they were reflecting a reality that sheltered people (like myself) hadn’t yet been exposed to.
This sounds incredibly reductive and perhaps a bit childish, but I viewed the transition from season one to two as being akin to a game of Super Mario Brothers. In the video game, you can play through an entire underwater world where every level is consumed by the sea. Once you beat that world, though, you make it to the next world. Maybe this one is consumed by snow and ice or hot lava. Either way, it’s a different world than you’re used to. That’s what happened in The Wire: we went to the next level. Season one was focused on the police department and then season two took us down to the docks. The docks were the second world. Only there was no way to beat it.
Very few people ever beat the system. Some, like Carcetii, were swallowed up by it because they tried too hard to make a difference. That was The Wire’s most tragic element: the ones who got the furthest were the ones who kept their heads down. Think of Stan Valchek (Al Brown). He’s corrupt for sure, but he only minds himself and plays the game and obeys the racket in Baltimore. By the end, he’s the police commissioner. Even when so many other Baltimore police workers were clearly more equipped for the job (Sonja Sohn’s Kima Greggs, for one). It was a condemnation of trying and hoping for better.
The most admirable detective, in my estimation, was Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters). Don’t get me wrong, I loved Bunk, too. He reminded me of Dr. Cox from Scrubs what with his aloof exterior that masked the biggest heart of anyone in the BPD. But Freamon brought pride to his work. For him, providing justice to the world was never about advancing his career; it was just about doing the right thing, even if it went against the rules from time to time. For example, his investigation into Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector) is filled with quality clue deduction and careful detective work. But in “Clarifications,” he sheds away all pretense and procedure and uncorks a threat of increased investigative pressure for Clay Davis (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.). He’s sick of Davis, yet another figure of corruption in the city (this time connecting to the state senate), always dodging consequences with a wry smile and a cheesy catchphrase. As a result, Freamon decides to actually do something about it.
Freamon’s behavior and prioritization of work over career in “Clarifications” corresponds with and contrasts the insufferable Scott Templeton (Tom McCarthy), who reported for The Baltimore Sun. In this episode, his spinning plates of fabrications are at full tilt. For him, advancing his journalistic career was more important than actually conducting honest work. Templeton makes up the most sensational quotes for an article about a local vigil and they’re completely without sources. Responding to the improper sourcing procedures, Gus (Clark Johnson) cuts the story after remarking, “Best quote I could ever ask for. That’s my concern.” Templeton’s defensiveness is enough for an admission of guilt, but ultimately, the story runs anyway. I was maybe a more ardent supporter of the Sun story line more than most were, but I think it’s important to feature here for understanding the minute differences in corruption at the newspaper versus corruption at the force.
Of course, the police derive much of their own corrupt force from the political racket in Baltimore. Carcetti, for example, begins as an idealistic politician, perhaps in the vain of junior senators from Illinois or the more progressive brother of the man actually in office. By the end, he’s been completely swallowed up by the rampant deception and mistrust that defines the legislation side of Baltimore, as it does every city. Tragically, Carcetti doesn’t distance himself from the distaste. Instead, he decides to play the game. He winds up mayor. The cycle continues.
When the politicians are corrupt, how could the police not be corrupt, too? Everything the politicians do (from ordering an systematic increase in arrests on the part of Ervin Burrell (Frankie Faison) to denying a budget rescue for the Baltimore schools in order for Carcetti to save face) trickles down through the other institutions of Baltimore and it becomes more than poison. With poison, you can rip out its root and suck out the venom. On The Wire, corruption escalated so far that it became a virus. You didn’t know where it started and there was no way to get rid of it. It just persisted until the individuals on every street were just as infected as mayors, senators, and commissioners.
Brother Mouzone’s (Michael Potts) small amount screen time with a massive emotional impact. Stringer Bell’s endurance of crushed dreams (the American way!) and the impossibility of making an honest life for himself. Prop Joe (Robert F. Chew) trying and failing to bring peace and order to the massive criminal organizations in his orbit. Snoop (Felicia Pearson) becoming more and more ruthlessly violent until it’s her turn. This is all a result of the self-serving behavior from those in charge. There’s no popular sovereignty at play in Baltimore. As a result, the characters are forced to make their own way.
Tragically, the paths they follow are rinsed and repeated. Omar dies and the naive person inside of me thinks that, while it’s tragic, those who run the streets in Baltimore will close the loop on the need for a guy who sticks ’em up, shoots ’em up. How could I be so foolish? Not only does Omar’s role get filled immediately, but it’s Michael (Tristan Wilds), the middle schooler who’s had the odds stacked against him every step of his life. Omar didn’t get away. He never had a chance, really. And as soon as Michael takes up the stick-up duties, he’s doomed, too. He’s doing Omar’s job and he’ll die in Omar’s way. And he’s just a kid, man. It’s obviously tragic, but it’s no less affecting. That was The Wire. In all of its cycles and season finale montages and preventable American tragedies.
But that’s not the note I want to end on. I want to end on Bubbles (Andre Royo), my favorite character. In his oral history of The Wire, All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire, journalist Jonathan Abrams wrote about how the show’s portrayal of all its institutions (the politics, the schools, the police, the streets) offered no hope for anyone. Instead, the hope came solely from individuals. From me, it came from Bubbles.
2020 showed us more than ever had deep-seeded the corruption in the United States is. In that way, The Wire portended as much as it reflected. But with the character of Bubbles, he was the show’s most important beacon. Not only was there hope from Bubbles in that he dodged the criminal life and became a volunteer and an honest, independent worker, but there was hope in his everyday behavior. (I wanted to applaud his sobriety chip, too.) He was not immune to the endless grittiness and reality of The Wire, but he reacted to it all with a smile and the sentiment that he could make a difference, even if only for one person, even if only for himself.
In ‘Middle Ground,” Bubbles hears the concerns from a homeless young boy who asks Bubbles why he doesn’t start selling hoodies instead of t-shirts when the weather gets colder. Not only do the hoodies then immediately come out in Hamsterdam, but he begins to work with the boy, too. He’s extending a hand in the same way he always needed one. And who’s bearing witness to it? A drugged-up Johnny upstairs. There’s always a story in the cacophony.
