Boss TV - The Wire

"Come at the king, you best not miss." -Omar

In 1977, on his classic Little Criminals album, Randy Newman recorded a track named after the city of Baltimore in which he lamented, “Hard times in the city / In a hard town by the sea / Ain’t nowhere to run to / There ain’t nothin’ here for free” – and though those lyrics were written more than three decades ago, they could just as easily apply to the Baltimore of today, where the murder rate is nearly seven times the national average (higher than New York and L.A.), and decades of lost jobs and a shrinking tax base have conspired against the city’s ongoing efforts at renewal. It is against this backdrop that “The Wire” played out for five seasons, telling one of the largest, most ambitious stories ever seen on the small screen. Although the stars of the show, nominally speaking, were the cops who made up the detail that provided the framework for each season’s arc, “The Wire” employed an enormous ensemble cast, shifting nimbly as the show’s focus shifted each season: from drug crime, to the port, to City Hall, to the school system, and finally, in the fifth season, the media. It sounds like a lot to handle – and it is: “The Wire” demanded close attention more persistently, and more confidently, than most other serial dramas have ever dared.

Of course, it also rewarded that attention more richly, thanks to some incredible writing (guest writers included Dennis Lehane and Richard Price) and uniformly stellar acting from a cast whose principals have gone on to higher-profile work. “The Wire” reflected the real-life experiences of Simon, who was a reporter for the Baltimore “Sun,” and Burns, who was a homicide detective for the city – which is perhaps why it never enjoyed the buzz of bigger HBO successes like “The Sopranos.”

"Dope on the damn table." -Daniels

Season One focuses on the Major Crime Unit and its extensive, surveillance-heavy investigation of ruthless drug dealer Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris) and his bright, all-business second-in-command, Stringer Bell (Idris Elba). We meet the members of this unit, most of whom are major characters throughout the series--notably hot-tempered and hard-drinking good cop/bad cop combo Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), his partner and drinking buddy "Bunk" Moreland (Wendell Pierce), wise veteran (and investigative genius) Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters), and their boss, hard-nosed Lt. Cedric Daniels (Lance Reddick).

The central M.O. of the show is clear from the start. First off, there are no easy good guys or bad guys. The Wire operates in shades of grey, giving us flawed and human cops (some good, some not so much) interacting with dealers who are often bright and interesting but doing the wrong thing for a variety of possible reasons. There are no easy answers and no naïve solutions. But we see the drug epidemic from every angle, from the corner kids hustling it to the overlords profiting from it to the cops fighting it on the ground to the bureaucrats trying to spin it, and no one gets off easy. But the humanity of the characters is always front and center, and there is not a false moment to be found.

"They can chew you up, but they gotta spit you out." -McNulty

Season Two turns to the Baltimore docks, where tough times for working class longshoremen and the high cost of exerting political pressure have led union leader Frank Sobotka (Chris Bauer) and other dock workers to engage in less-than-legal activities, particularly moving contraband and drugs in their containers. The Major Crimes Unit has disbanded, but homicide detectives "Bunk" and Freamon start sniffing around the docks when a container of dead women turns up; they're aided in their investigation by a green port authority officer (Amy Ryan, later an Oscar nominee for Gone Baby Gone). Sobatka's son and nephew, meanwhile, turn to theft and dealing in order to make ends meet.

There are plenty of people who pinpoint season two as The Wire's finest, but to this reviewer's mind, it's the weakest of the five. The intermingling of the continuing Barksdale arc with the new storyline on the docks isn't entirely successful--it feels like we're being pushed and pulled between the two nearly-unrelated narratives. There are episodes in this season where it almost feels like we're channel-surfing between the two story threads, and at season's end, they don't really come together in a meaningful way (as opposed to the wrap-ups of the later seasons, particularly season three, when seemingly every scene, every line, snaps into place like a jigsaw puzzle). The season also doesn't contribute as much to the overall arc of the series, as evidenced by how few season two characters reappeared after it wrapped.

But, that said, season two is still better than just about anything that's been on television. So, you know, take that criticism for what it's worth.

"Don't matter how many times you get burnt, you just keep doin' the same." -Bodie

For my money, Season Three is The Wire's finest hour (er, 12 hours). This season, the focus is on the Baltimore political machine, specifically the mayoral candidacy of Tommy Carcetti (Aiden Gillen), an ambitious young white politician who attempts (through some smearing and mild deception) to win an office traditionally held by African-American candidates. Elsewhere in big-city bureaucracy, police major Howard "Bunny" Colvin (Robert Wisdom), nearing the end of his career, looks for a new way to clean up drug traffic, and ends up trying out a controversial social experiment.

Avon Barksdale is released from jail and threatens to undo all of Stringer's hard work by engaging in a messy street war with cold-hearted up-and-comer Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector). Allegiances shift, secrets are told, and Robin Hood-style thug Omar Little (Michael K. Williams) shoots many, many people.

The season's various threads weave together in the season's exhilarating final episodes, where Colvin's experiment proves valuable, in different ways, to both Carcetti and Stanfield. Colvin is one of the series' most fascinating characters, an effective leader and good cop who goes a little off the reservation and has to pay the price (a narrative successfully revisited in season five). Stanfield also proves a valuable addition, providing a very different kind of antagonist for the remainder of the series.

"No one wins. One side just loses more slowly." -Prez

One of the most disturbing (but accurate) motifs of the series is that of youth; the kids who work the corners and the towers are astonishingly young, and Simon and Burns (who worked as a teacher for seven years after retiring from the Baltimore PD) explore that trend in Season Four, which deals with the problems of the public school system (and how their ineffectiveness ultimately populates those corners and towers). Major Crimes investigator Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski (Jim True-Frost) is dismissed from the force after an unfortunate accident at the end of season three, and he decides to become a school teacher. A great deal of time is spent in his middle school classroom, and with a quartet of his students, who end up taking divergent (and unexpected) paths into and out of "the game."

The fourth season also navigates effortlessly between the school interests and the ongoing narcotics investigation; Major Crimes is again effectively shut down, but the (well-hidden) body count of Stanfield's takeover eventually leads to a stunning discovery that reassembles the unit. This is another solid season, with stellar performances by the talented young performers and continuing excellence from the (still growing) cast.

"Just 'cause they're in the street doesn't mean that they lack opinions." -Haynes

The series ends (too soon) with Season Five, which widens the net to include the media, particularly the staff of The Baltimore Sun (where Simon worked as a writer earlier in his career). This season introduces another terrific character in the Freamon/Colvin mold (i.e., very smart people who are astonishingly good at what they do, played by an actor you've never heard of before but will hopefully see again): City Editor Gus Haynes (Clark Johnson, who also directed several episodes, including the pilot and finale). Haynes is an old-fashioned newspaper man, firm but fair, and one of the season's many fascinating subplots involves his battle with a career-minded writer (Thomas McCarthy, director of The Station Agent and The Visitor) who, in shades of the Blair and Glass scandals, has a tendency to get quotes and stories that are just a little too perfect.

Major Crimes, meanwhile, is shut down again when the Stanfield case goes cold; the city's huge school deficit means belt-tightening at Baltimore PD, and the lack of overtime and resources puts morale at an all-time low. In desperation (and with a potential new line on Stanfield), McNulty (and later Freamon) engage in a scheme that could bring the whole department to its knees. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit being more than a little befuddled by this storyline, but when it starts to pay off, it's a stunner. The final, 93-minute episode is particularly solid, tough and funny and moving (the conclusion of reformed addict Bubs' journey--"Ain't no shame in holding on to grief"--still gives me goosebumps), bringing an exquisite series to a worthwhile and entirely satisfying conclusion.

All five season sets have already been made available individually, but for the fan who hasn’t picked up any of them – or the introductory viewer who doesn’t want to shell out £20 for each season as he goes along – there is now “The Complete Series,” a 24-disc set that bundles up all the episodes and bonus features from the individual season DVDs, rolling it up into roughly 60 hours of prime television viewing. (hmv.com is selling it for the ridiculously low price of £49).

In an era that finds television channels increasingly relying on reality television, and quickly pulling the trigger on underperforming scripted series, it can be easy to forget exactly what the medium is capable of, and to assume that we’ve run out of ways to challenge or redefine its conventions. During the course of its 60 episodes, however, “The Wire” proved that the serial drama format is still capable of producing art – by presenting hard truths, asking questions that have no answers, and presenting a picture of us as a society so ruthlessly compelling that we never want to stop watching. Buy it, gift it, whatever you do, don’t miss it.

Follow @Glady_Libs_LFC