The Wire Review

Every person I tell to watch The Wire says almost the same thing: “There have not been any good cop shows since Homicide, Life on the Streets.” My response is that “Homicide” and “The Wire” are both creations of writer David Simon.

The truth is “The Wire” is just like the crack at the center of the story: the more you have, the more you want. It is the thinking person’s cop show that you mull around and want to talk about hours later. It shows the complexity of inner city life, unknown not only to many rural Americans, but arguably many urban Americans. The destructiveness of drugs, however, is a theme that many Americans can relate to.

The story revolves around the drug trade in Baltimore, Maryland and the various influences on this trade. The focus of Season 1 is the police and the drug gangs. The day-to-day life of both is explored, from the carousing “PO-lice,” as they refer to themselves, to the minor drug dealer with a heart. Both organizations are run in much the same manner: like the McDonald’s corporation, with the small fry franchises having little or no influence on those up the food chain.

What keeps you watching is not cliffhanger endings, because there really aren’t any, but rather the humanity in the show. Just when you start to have a hero, that person goes on a bender, or cheats on his wife. For example, at one point the viewer starts to root for Stringer Bell, one of the main drug dealers, because we see him taking business classes at the community college. We want him to get ahead. But instead of “going legit”, Bell is using his knowledge to bring together the main drug dealers in Baltimore, using Robert’s Rules in meetings, and teaching his corner guys about profit margins. And then three scenes later Bell is planning how to kill one of the corner guys doing time because he is worried he might snitch.

Season 2 finds the police investigating the longshoremen, the linchpins needed to get the drugs in to Baltimore. But as you watch, you are drawn into the drama of life as a longshoreman today, the loss of jobs, the difficulty finding honest work. Take, for instance, Ziggy, the adopted son of the head of the Longshoremen’s Union. Ziggy is an idiot, getting mixed up in every imaginable mess, selling drugs and flaunting the proceeds on a diamond studded collar for his blue-collar pet duck. We learn later on that Ziggy should have gone to community college to work in computers, but his dad could not afford to send him. So instead, Ziggy started working down at the docks without much success because of this small stature and his penchant for annoying everyone around him.

It’s the dark side of globalization, the part that’s destroying the possibility of the blue-collar middle-class, but doing so only inch-by-inch providing just enough hope for the players to cling to, but not enough to change the reality. The drug dealers play a less prominent role in the show, but you still check in on them every so often. The viewer also gets a glimpse of who the really big players in the international drug trade are, but not much more than that.

Season 3 finds us back in the thick of things with the drug dealers, but this time the politicians act as the counter balance in the story. The police are under extreme pressure to reduce the crime rate. One police major seeks to make a difference at the price of legalizing drugs in three central blocks of his district, an area soon named Hamsterdam. The crime rate does drop, but the cost is the creation of three blocks of Hell. In most parts of the district people are out on their front stoops again, children are playing, but a few blocks away the drug trade is plied and free market economics take hold, reducing the cost of drugs, while increasing the drugs’ efficacy.

The director Simon says that he is seeking to create a new kind of drama for the typical consumer, less Shakespearian and more Greek tragedy. In The Wire the characters, try as they may, cannot overcome the wishes of the gods: be they City Hall, globalization, or the Chief of Police. The world is less black and white. The cops aren’t always good, the drug dealers aren’t always bad, but the politicians behave as expected. Simon says they “create doomed and fated protagonists who confront a rigged game and their own mortality.” (The Believer, August 2007)

As a viewer, I can’t wait to get more of these flawed characters, even if they are not going to evolve. The characters are real just because of this lack of growth. We can see ourselves in their decisions.

Some critics of the show might find that it too violent, and I agree - the violence makes me uncomfortable. But the show becomes more authentic through the violence, jolting the viewer out of her complacency. We may be able to understand how difficult living and going to school are when your home is without running water, but what many of us do not understand is how difficult doing this is when bullets are flying through your house.

Season 4 of The Wire is out in December. But you can get your fix off the first three seasons from Netflix until then.

Every person I tell to watch The Wire says almost the same thing: “There have not been any good cop shows since ‘Homicide, Life on the Streets’.” My response is that “Homicide” and “The Wire” are both creations of writer, David Simon.

The truth is “The Wire” is just like the crack at the center of the story: the more you have, the more you want. It is the thinking person’s show that you mull around and want to talk about hours later. It shows the complexity of inner city life, unknown not only to many rural Americans, but arguably many urban Americans. The destructiveness of drugs, however, is a theme that many Americans can relate to.

The story revolves around the drug trade in Baltimore, Maryland and the various influences on this trade. The focus of Season 1 is the police and the drug gangs. The day-to-day life of both is explored, from the carousing “PO-lice,” as they refer to themselves, to the minor drug dealer with a heart. Both organizations are run in much the same manner: like the McDonald’s corporation, with the small fry franchises having little or no influence on those up the food chain.

What keeps you watching is not cliffhanger endings, because there really aren’t any, but rather the humanity in the show. Just when you start to have a hero, that person goes on a bender, or cheats on his wife. For example, at one point the viewer starts to root for Stringer Bell, one of the main drug dealers, because we see him taking business classes at the community college. We want him to get ahead. But instead of “going legit”, Bell is using his knowledge to bring together the main drug dealers in Baltimore, using Robert’s Rules in meetings, and teaching his corner guys about profit margins. And then three scenes Bell is planning how to kill one of the corner guys doing time because he is worried he might snitch.

Season 2 finds the police investigating the longshoremen, the linchpins needed to get the drugs in to Baltimore. But as you watch, you are drawn into the drama of life as a longshoreman today, the loss of jobs, the difficulty finding honest work. Take for instance Ziggy, the adopted son of the head of the Longshoremen’s Union. Ziggy is an idiot, getting mixed up in every imaginable mess, selling drugs and flaunting the proceeds on a diamond studded collar for his blue-collar pet duck. We learn later on that Ziggy should have gone to community college to work in computers, but his dad could not afford to send him. So instead, Ziggy started working down at the docks without much success because of this small stature and his pension for annoying everyone around him. Ziggy ends up dead.

It’s the dark side of globalization, the part that’s destroying the possibility of the blue-collar middle-class, but doing so only inch-by-inch providing just enough hope for the players to cling to, but not enough to change the reality. The drug dealers play a less prominent role in the show, but you still check in on them every so often. The viewer also gets a glimpse of who the really big players in the international drug trade are, but not much more than that.

Season 3 finds us back in the thick of things with the drug dealers, but this time the politicians act as the counter balance in the story. The police are under extreme pressure to reduce the crime rate. One police major seeks to make a difference at the price of legalizing drugs in three central blocks of his district, Hamsterdam. The crime rate does drop, but the cost is the creation of three blocks of Hell. In most parts of the district people are out on their front stoops again, children are playing, but a few blocks away the drug trade is plied and free market economics take hold, reducing the cost of drugs, while increasing the drugs’ efficacy.

The director Simon says that he is seeking to create a new kind of drama for the typical consumer, less Shakespearian and more Greek tragedy. In The Wire the characters, try as they may, cannot overcome the wishes of the gods: be they City Hall, globalization, or the Chief of Police. The world is less black and white. The cops aren’t always good, the drug dealers aren’t always bad, but the politicians behave as expected. Simon says they are “create doomed and fated protagonists who confront a rigged game and their own mortality.”

As a viewer, I can’t wait to get more of these flawed characters, even if they are not going to evolve. The characters are real just because of this lack of growth. We can see ourselves in their decisions. Interesting.

Some critics of the show might find that the show too violent, and I agree the violence makes me uncomfortable. But the show becomes more authentic through the violence, jolting the viewer out of her complacency. We understand how difficult living and going to school are when your home is without running water, but what many in the public do not understand is how difficult doing this is when bullets are flying through your house.

Season 4 of The Wire is out in December. But you can get your fix off the first three seasons from Netflix until then.