All the pieces matter -
Lester Freamon
Those prophetic words from season 1 of the Wire underscore the entire 5 season run of HBO’s critically acclaimed drama. Small insignificant events in season 1 will define character interactions all the way in season 5. Little side events in an episode will impact the show 10 episodes later. Everything matters, and absolutely nothing is spoon fed to the viewer.
So lets quickly get this out of the way. In my opinion the Wire is the greatest drama EVER on television. However, to truly appreciate it you need to watch it on DVD. It’s simply not made for weekly 1 hour consumption. You need to watch 3 - 4 episodes at a time to truly appreciate the genius. 3 - 4 hour chunks allow you to watch the storyline of each season slowly unfold. It also leaves everything fresh enough in your memory to catch the significance of say… McNulty fudging his surveillance report in season 1. Or the mother of them all…. Kennard’s seemingly inconsequential relationship to Omar (playing as Omar in season 3, then his respect of Omar turning to distaste by season 5.) Many reviewers say that the Wire is ’so real’. If it is it’s due to the unapologetic portrayal of an urban city in decline given by creators Simon, and Burns. (A baltimore sun reporter, and a baltimore homicide detective respectively)
Another great aspect to the show is how it examines the various aspects of life in Baltimore. Season 1 is the cops and dealers, season 2 introduces the port, season 3 is politics and the mayoral race, season 4 is the school system, and season 5 is the media and media consumption. The Wire is often called a cop drama, but my suspicion is that’s what people call it to get new viewers into it. The truth is the show is an examination of the inner city. It shows the vicious cycle of the drug trade and political corruption, and how they feed into each other. For example. The mayors office wants good stats for re-election. The stat game trickles down to the police force and the policing becomes ineffective as they’re simply looking to bolster numbers rather than going after high value targets. So they make little street level arrests, and juke the statistics to make robberies and rapes disappear. This empowers the higher level drug dealers who make more money than they know what to do with. These high level dealers then turn around and make political contributions and because they’re never caught they provide more and more drugs to the city. These drugs are bought by the adults of the city leading to a generation of street kids without parents. These kids are then entered into a school system that teaches them nothing but how to pass the no child left behind exams (once again stats.) In essence corruption in the bureaucracy trickles down to affect every portion of the city it’s supposed to serve.
It pains me that this show received so much critical acclaim and such little commercial success. It was completely overshadowed by (in my opinion) lesser quality shows like the Sopranos. This could be due to the difficult nature of the show. It’s tough to pick up in the middle of a season. Hopefully with the advent of DVDs this will all change, although I doubt it. It seems like white Americans have a tough time watching shows with predominately black casts. Well it’s their loss.
Posted on April 24th, 2008 by phaedrus
Filed under: television
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