HBO’s The Wire has been getting plenty of good press in the run-up to its fifth and final season. Prior to the announcement of this gritty, realistic show’s demise, it floundered in ratings, missed out on Emmy wins, and was barely accepted to HBO’s roster because of the network’s reported prejudice against cop shows.
The Wire, though, is not your regular police show. And despite the hype the show has received of late, it is a sorely underwatched and underappreciated program. The Wire is television’s best argument for itself: complex social criticism, complicated narrative, distinct cinematographic style, and also showing everyone–cops, drug dealers, junkies–as real, nuanced people. It is a must see for anyone interested in great television. If you haven’t seen it already, you have some catching up to do, because starting at season one is imperative to appreciating the show.
“We be like them little bitches on the chess board.”-Bodie (street-level dealer)
The Wire chronicles a group of Baltimore city police as they try to get the ever-coveted wire (this allows for long-term investigations so the higher-ups in a drug cartel can be captured) into a drug dealing organization. To accomplish this task, the small group of cops have to overcome a politicized, corrupt and bureaucratic system that seems to work against doing anything other than street level arrests–the big guys get away, and the little guys do all the work. That is until an alcoholic named Detective McNulty plays politics himself in the first season and procures an actual investigative unit to go after a drug lord named Avon Barksdale.
The police are like Sisyphus in the Greek myth–their own department is the hill and their targets the rock. Sometimes the hill gets steeper, sometimes the rock grows bigger, and many times people are pushing in the wrong direction. No matter how close rock gets to the top, it always falls back down, and the next season the cops start pushing the rock all over again.
“No one wins. One side just loses more slowly.”-Roland Pryzbylewski
And the show doesn’t just examine the cops’ side of the story. It just as closely shows the drug dealers and their struggles. That is what separates The Wire from other cop shows. We see the stories of everyone involved with drugs and its policing, from junkies to the drug lords, from officers to the mayor. And the rock never stays at the top for anyone. Everyone is like Sisyphus, constantly struggling.
“Crawl, walk, and then run.”-Clay Davis (state senator)
If you’re thinking The Wire must be a fairly complicated show, you’d be correct. At any given time there are several story lines running through each season, and some will drop out of sight for several episodes before being revisited. Little exposition is offered along the way. In order to follow the show, one has to follow every conversation closely. Much has been said about the novelistic features of The Wire, and it’s true. This show is more complicated than many books of literature, and it’s taken the art of television to the next level–The Wire isn’t just beating the competition, it’s sprinting laps around them.
“…a little slow, a little late.”-Avon Barksdale (drug lord)
The Wire‘s complicated nature is one reason it hasn’t caught on. If one episode is missed, the viewer is lost. The show is demanding not only because it requires consistent viewing, but also because of the attentiveness a viewer has to give to each episode. The dialogue is so realistic, non-repetitious and non-expository that you can’t miss a beat. Words are mumbled. Conversation is often all slang. But a viewer’s effort will be rewarded in the end.
“No justice, no peace.”-McNulty (detective)
What makes The Wire so important is its ongoing indictment of the criminal justice system (both in Baltimore and nationwide). If our system offers no justice to the city’s poor and disenfranchised, then how is the system expected to produce peace? When a Band-Aid is offered instead of actual treatment, how can the system expect wounds to heal? How can a system be bucked if it’s controlled by a mighty few? These are just a few of many important questions posed and on The Wire, as in life. There are no tidy solutions to be found.
“You got your briefcase, I got my shotgun. What’s the difference?”-Omar, to a corrupt lawyer
The Wire often shows the code of the street to be more effective, efficient and moral than the code of law. Omar, a man who makes his living by robbing drug dealers, embodies this best. Like most characters on the show, he is driven by a personal moral code, one that is quite noble most of the time. And this code enables him to quickly rid the street of some of its worse problems. But like the drug dealers he robs, he’s just getting by within the system. It’s not OK. His means are just as corrupt as many of the politicians or policemen, or junkies, but in the end is all the same. So as Omar says, “What is the difference?”