Episode Name: The Target
Original Air Date: June 02, 2002
Overview
Drug dealer D'Angelo Barksdale, on trial for murder, is acquitted after a witness flips on the stand. The presence of homicide Detective Jimmy McNulty in the courtroom is noted by Judge Phelan, who calls him into his office, asking him what just happened. McNulty explains the means through which Barksdale's crew, headed by his uncle Avon, have dropped bodies and flipped witnesses to beat trials in the past 18 months, but that nobody is really working them in the BPD. Phelan calls BPD Deputy Ops Ervin Burrell, threatening to make a stink. McNulty receives a vicious chewing-out from Major Rawls for spilling his guts to a judge. Burrell gives him what he asks for, a special detail targeting Avon Barksdale, and headed by Narcotics Lieutenant Cedric Daniels, but insists that Daniels not dig in. Returning to his life in West Baltimore, D'Angelo finds himself demoted from leading a housing tower to "The Pit", where he acquaints himself with his new subordinates Bodie, Poot, and Wallace. Fiends Bubbles and Johnny attempt a scam with some photo-copied money, which works once, but not a second time, resulting in Johnny being put in ICU by D'Angelo's crew. Bubbles, who is a CI of Kima's Greggs's, a Narcotics Detective being put on the detail under Daniels, calls Kima and offers to work D'Angelo's crew for her. The body of William Gant, a witness that did not flip and that identified D'Angelo as the shooter in his murder, is discovered on the street.
Recap
On the streets of Baltimore, in the pre-credits sequence, Homicide Detective Jimmy McNulty interrogates a witness in the murder of Omar Isiah Betts, known to his friends as "Snot Boogie". The witness explains Snot's habit of fading the alley dice games, waiting until there was substantial cash on the ground, snatching it, and running. The witness explains that they would "whoop his ass" for it, but not go past that, and laments that you don't "shoot a man over some bullshit." McNulty asks why they let him play if he always took the money and ran. He responds by saying "You got to. It's America, man."
D'Angelo Barksdale, a mid-level drug dealer for the Barksdale organization, which is headed by his uncle, Avon, sits in court for his trial in the murder of Pooh Blanchard, a shooting he committed in plain view of two witnesses: a maintenance man named William Gant, and a security guard named Nakeesha Lyles, both of whom we see testifiy at the trial. For their testimony, several Barksdale enforcers are present in the courtroom: among them Bird, Wee-Bey, and the second-in-command of the organization, Stringer Bell. Gant identifies D'Angelo as the shooter, but Lyles changes her story, saying that it was someone else that did the shooting. McNulty exits the courtroom, saying "Nicely done" to Stringer as he exits.
In a nearby office, Detective Barlow, who had the Barksdale case, angrily argues on the phone about the price of pressure-treated lumber. McNulty mentions to him that his case just hit the wall. Barlow denies the possibility of that, with two eye-witnesses and a statement. McNulty walks away.
On the streets, Narcotics Detective Shakima "Kima" Greggs works with a CI named Tiff as they observe a money drop into a Mercedes containing several armed suspects, while on the radio with Herc and Carver. They stop the car and arrest its occupants, finding a loaded shotgun in the back seat. Kima arrives on the scene and finds a pistol beneath the seat, reminding them that their intel said there would be two guns in the car.
In the courtroom, D'Angelo Barksdale receives a Not Guilty verdict on the murder counts against him. Barlow remarks to Stringer as he walks out of the courtroom, "Think I give a fuck? I'll be chalking you off one night." Stringer's response is polite.
McNulty, about to exit the courtroom, is stopped by an aide and told that the Judge asked to speak with him.
In his office, the Judge, Phelan, asks McNulty "What the hell happened in there?" It's clear that the two have a friendly history (stemming from when Phelan was a prosecutor). McNulty demurs, but Phelan notes that he was in the courtroom when it wasn't even his case, and asks why he's interested. McNulty explains, that D'Angelo is kin to Avon, that Avon holds a very substantial chunk of West Baltimore real estate for dealing drugs, and that his crew has dropped a dozen bodies in as many months, including several that McNulty worked. Phelan asks who in the department is working him. McNulty says that nobody is; the department is more concerned with street rips.
In Narcotics, Kima discusses the details of their arrest with Herc and Carver, giving Herc the stat for the arrest. Their Lieutenant, Cedric Daniels, makes an appearance, and gets a call from his superiors. As Kima, Herc, and Carver wax on a number of subjects (some computers they were supposed to be trained on, the notion of shit rolling downhill versus piss trickling, and the war on drugs not being a war, because "wars end"), he heads upstairs for a meeting, receiving word that the Deputy Ops is throwing a "piss fit".
At a crime scene, McNulty finds his partner, Bunk Moreland, over a body. McNulty chides him for answering a call when he wasn't up in the rotation, giving a fuck "when it's not your turn to give a fuck," and asking to be cut loose on what looks like an unsolvable homicide. Bunk agrees.
Narcotics. Daniels has gotten his ass chewed in a meeting with his major, who didn't have answers for the Deputy's questions. Phelan has called the Deputy Ops, Ervin Burrell, who has started the shit rolling downhill regarding Avon Barksdale. Kima has never heard of him. Neither had Daniels, who assigns Kima the task of assembling every bit of information she can find on him for a meeting the following morning. She reluctantly agrees, noting they don't even have a date of birth to work with.
Homicide division. McNulty returns to the office, sharing a quick back and forth with his Sergeant Jay Landsman regarding Bunk's picking up a homicide when it wasn't their squad's turn. Landsman is displeased, particularly learning that it's a decomp in the poor homes. Landsman also tells McNulty that the Major wants to see him.
In his office, Major Bill Rawls, having learned that McNulty spoke to Judge Phelan (who mentioned McNulty's name in his conversation with Burrell), rips him the new asshole of new assholes, chewing him out for several minutes straight for bringing up "murders that don't mean a shit to anybody." He gives McNulty an assignment similar to the one Kima received, compiling information on Barksdale: a report by 0800 the next morning. "When you list the cases, put a little dot next to each one," he advises. "The deputy likes dots."
In Wee-Bey's car, D'Angelo discusses his recent stint in prison awaiting trial. He mentions that he didn't have any problems, that they're deep in prison, and deep in the courthouse, mentioning that "what they did with that security lady" was "tight." Wee-Bey sternly reprimands him for talking shop in the car.
At Orlando's a strip club that serves as Avon's base of operations, D'Angelo arrives as Avon and Stringer discuss some of the details of D'Angelo's trial, including the presence of McNulty in the courtroom. Avon pulls D'Angelo aside, asking how he is, to which D'Angelo replies "You know, jail ain't no joke." Avon reminds him that he doesn't know shit about jail, and proceeds to chew D'Angelo out over his shooting of Pooh in front of witnesses, resulting in the need for a work-around that cost time and money. D'Angelo promises to make it right. "We family," Avon says. "You know it's always love."
Homicide, early morning. Bunk returns, noting that his death came back a homicide, as McNulty is typing his report. McNulty explains the recent events, at which point Bunk returns the chide of "giving a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck." Landsman arrives, chiding both detectives for their indiscretions. Landsman notes that if the Deputy says the word, McNulty is back wandering a foot post in the Western. McNulty says that would be fine, at which point Landsman asks him where he doesn't want to go. McNulty responds with the marine unit.
At the towers, D'Angelo arrives early and runs into Stringer, who tells him that he's picking up business in The Pit instead. Ronnie Mo, who had been running the pit, is getting a tower. D'Angelo (correctly) sees it as a demotion, and is upset, but accepts a ride from Wee-Bey to his new turf.
At the department, Colonel Foerster (in charge of Narcotics) and Rawls run into one another in an elevator, where they mention both Daniels and McNulty.
The Pit. D'Angelo runs into his new subordinates, Bodie, Poot, and Wallace. They discuss his demotion, asking what he did to mess up, and D'Angelo responds with "I killed a nigger."
Foerster's office. Daniels gets chewed out by Foerster, as they were unable to provide nearly as much information regarding Barksdale as homicide was. Foerster tells Daniels that a detail is being set up, with him in charge. Exiting the office, Carver tells Daniels that the Deputy Ops is on the phone.
The Street. Bubbles and Johnny, two dope fiends, prepare a scam where they mix photo-copied money with real money to pay for their heroin. They buy their drugs without the dealers noticing right away. Wallace, who took the money, and gave them their drugs, gets chided by D'Angelo that you can't do things like that, because someone snapping pictures then has the whole thing. D'Angelo notices the fake money. Bodie says "It's got a dead fuckin' president on it," (Wallace corrects that Hamilton wasn't no president, but gets ignored), and D'Angelo threatens Wallace with demotion if it happens again. "That it?" Bodie asks, suspecting D'Angelo isn't quite as hard as he claims.
A Vacant. Bubbles and Johnny shoot up. Bubbles chides Johnny for not pacing the drugs, noting that he'll "fall out" if he keeps it up, noting that he's "still green" and that he's "trying to get some brown in you." Johnny asks to do the scam tomorrow. "I'm ready. Yo, I'm brown," he says. "You ain't even fuckin' beige," Bubbles replies.
Burrell's office. Daniels enters. Burrell instructs Daniels that he wants a buy-bust, getting in and out of this case as quickly as he can. Phelan is a political entity, he explains, and he wants to give him what he wants, but he doesn't want to get dug in. Daniels remarks that he's bringing his best decetive, Kima, on it, and Burrell notes that he'll likely get McNulty, telling him to watch his ass, and to keep him briefed.
FBI offices. McNulty meets with his friend Agent Fitzhugh, were they discuss Fitzhugh's case, provided by a CI of McNulty's. The FBI has a live feed in the apartment of a supplier. Fitzhugh notes that this is the last big drug case the FBI has pending; after 9/11, most of their squad was transferred to counter-terrorism.
The Pit. Johnny prepares the fake money scam, but Wallace, in a disagreement with another fiend, winds up dropping the money to the ground. Bodie spots the fake money, and calls Johnny out. They grab Johnny as he (feebly) tries to run and severely beat him. D'Angelo allows the beating to happen, but seems disturbed by it as he walks away.
Narcotics. The detail starts to assemble, as Daniels meets with Kima, McNulty, Herc, Carver, as well as another homicide detective Santangelo and ADA Rhonda Pearlman. Daniels outlines the plan of a quick buy-bust. McNulty argues, saying that there's no way a buy-bust will get anyone above the street in Barksdale's operation, which is met with resistance from the rest of the detectives (Herc suggests that they go down to the towers and "fuck some people up"). Pearlman notes that they could have had this fight before calling in the ADA ("You don't need a prosecutor; you need a fucking referee"). Daniels insists that there is no disagreement, and that they're doing it his way. "Then you don't do it at all," McNulty warns. Daniels also notes that on his detail, nobody does anything on the street without clearing it with him first. "Chain of command."
A bar. Bunk and McNulty discuss McNulty's recent separation with his wife, and that he's getting screwed on visitation. McNulty brings up Daniels, and that he's leading this detail. Bunk warns him to watch his ass. Not that Daniels is a snake, he explains, but that he's a "company man" on the short list for major: "he's black, still young, hasn't pissed anybody off, shit, he even has a law degree." McNulty laments that he's still going to fuck up the Barksdale investigation.
Orlando's. D'Angelo, still distraught over Johnny's beating, talks with Stringer. Stringer responds that it's "all in the game" and that you "can't show no weakness," before walking away. One of the dancers, Shardene, approaches him at the bar to be bought a drink. D'Angelo declines.
Kima's apartment. Kima enters, exhausted, and greets her girlfriend Cheryl. On top of her policework, she's working on a law degree; she has a lot of homework to get done. Her beeper goes off.
The train tracks. McNulty and Bunk share drinks, and Bunk relates a story of having shot a field mouse in his home after his wife freaked out about its presence. McNulty says to Bunk that he's going to do the Barksdale case right, regardless of what the bosses say, while pissing into an oncoming train (no metaphor there, I'm sure).
A hospital. Kima approaches Bubbles, who watches over Johnny, who is in intensive care. It's clear that Bubbles is an old informant of Kima's. Bubbles is completely distraught over Johnny's beating, and says to Kima that he's got something she can work, if she wants it.
Homicide. Bunk is hungover, and is approached (rudely, and humorously) by Landsman, who says he's up with a murder. He complains that he's "a little thin," and Landsman responds that the whole squad is thin, since McNulty's been detailed.
Arriving at the scene, the victim is discovered to be William Gant, the witness at D'Angelo's murder trial that did not flip. D'Angelo is amongst the crowd that gathered around the body. Recognizing the man, he walks away, visibly upset.
Review
"Don't answer no phones, Bunk."
Have you ever seen a cop show where a detective was discouraged from taking on a murder case? Not for dramatic reasons, mind you, but for politics, for statistics, and for personal, petty vendettas?
Think about that for a minute, and maybe one will start to have an idea as to why The Wire stands out amongst the (almost literal) flood of cop shows that have come and gone over the years, even in its first episode.
Watching the episode again, it's easy to see why initial viewers were apprehensive about what it was they were watching. The Wire has many of the surface appearances of the sort of cop shows they're familiar with. Perhaps they were warned, or understood in some way, that this show would be more serial, long-form than they're used to, that the point was to bring in one major case a year, showing it in complete detail as opposed to the normal glossing over the grunt work that I think most people understand occurs in a more traditional show.
What's harder to grasp, the first time around, I think, is that The Wire isn't really a show about the act of police work. It will show, when it comes to police work, that it knows its business; investigations will occur that are incredibly detailed, complicated, and allow many of the normal detective tropes to come into play when it comes to catching suspects and building cases.
It's interesting, then, that The Target contains virtually no actual policing whatsoever, and none (until the very end of the episode) that is relevant to the overall story arc. We see McNulty working a witness in the pre-credits symbolism, and we see Kima, Herc, and Carver take down a suspect vehicle, and we use this lens to form our initial impression of the characters, but it seems mundane, everyday. No big revelations. After, there are brief discussions regarding the collars, and they're never to be mentioned again.
What The Wire shows from the start is that rather than be a show about police work, it's choosing to be a show about the institutions that are formed around policing. It lays the ground work with confidence, starting with the murder trial of D'Angelo Barksdale, whose acquittal isn't what causes the ensuing political shitstorm. Rather, it's the fact that a detective had the gall to talk to a judge following the verdict, confirming for him what he essentially already knew. The elephant in the room is laid bare. In the sense of the story, that elephant is Avon Barksdale.
In the grander sense, of course, that elephant is the War on Drugs as a whole, and the political and logistical fallout of having a multi-billion dollar industry consigned specifically to criminals. Avon Barksdale, and those like him, are products of that system, inevitable results of its inception, figures predicted by simple market analysis. In that sense, the Baltimore PD is portrayed as long since having given up pursuit of the high-level dealers. They're bound to arrest quotas. Street rips, controlled buys, can nab them any street-level dealer they want, and lock them up for possession charges that have evolved to maximize the chances of one of these dealers flipping on a higher-up. That's the only way they know to work up the chain, and sometimes it works, but the drug game has evolved in response. It uses minors for the majority of its actual distribution (they can't be harmed as much by the law, as this season will put on brutal display), and its culture has come to accept some jail time as "all in the game." The players' term for jail time is telling. "Courtside."
It's often mentioned that The Wire devotes as much time to its criminal element as it does to its cops, in a sharp departure from most shows of the genre. That is, of course, true, except for perhaps the part about "the genre." It's less a cop show than it is a show that happens to contain a police department, and that is interested largely in laying the details of that institution out for maximum dramatic effect.
The competing institution, the organized criminals that distribute their drugs and that are more than capable of violence to defend their product and territory, is presented as a contrast: more brutal, more efficient, a ruthless meritocracy, while the police department sometimes seems to float its dead wood (Burrell) or its most ruthless, cynical manipulators (Rawls) to the top.
So that's, I think, how you get a show that's ostensibly about cops, and the criminals they're trying to catch, where the pilot episode shows basically no police work that's actually relevant to their case.
The result is more than just the laying of a foundation, though. It's also a chance to show off the verisimilitude that the show would become famous for. I've never been to Baltimore, except to change planes at the airport. I've never interacted with a drug dealer, or a cop in the context of a criminal investigation. I've never dealt with the politics of organized crime, or of a major police department. And yet The Wire has this amazing quality of allowing its viewers to be so sure that this is real. Part of that is a luxury of the long form. A scene like Detective Barlow arguing with a contractor about the price of pressure-treated lumber, or of Wallace trying to pipe in that Alexander Hamilton, despite being on our currency, was never President, would be among the first to be cut in a format where time was more of the essence. Here, they're essential aspects of establishing that the worlds the show explores are at constant intersection with the everyday.
If there's something specific to be gleaned from the first episode of The Wire, it has nothing to do with its themes, its metaphors, its characters, its dialogue, its pace, its production values, or its acting. It's not that the show does these things poorly. It can be argued that any, and perhaps all, of these aspects of the show are top-notch. But what's going on, from the first moment forward, is something more raw, more fundamental, and more conscious of an attempt by David Simon and his conspirators to undermine everything you thought you knew about police work. The message is that "This is a cop show like none you've ever fucking seen before."
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Some Technical Stuff
The Wire is the central focus of this blog, but I don't entirely intend for it to be the sole topic of conversation. Expect full reviews, recaps, and discussions of individual episodes to make the majority of the content here, but don't expect that to be the entirety of the content. From time to time, I'll be discussing other topics that interest me, which may be as far-reaching as poker and sports and video games, to other television shows and general web themes, tropes, and memes that have caught my eye.
I have no set timetable for these reviews. At the very least I'd like to do one per week, but we'll see how that works out.
Each review will consist of a specific structure, starting with a plot synopsis and moving on to episode review and discussion. My intent is not to compete with the sort of (almost overwhelming, imo) detail that you'll find on a place like Television Without Pity, but for commentary and connections to form the bulk of the text.
I will frequently reference and link to The Wire Wiki, a fantastic resource for episodes, characters, and bits and pieces of trivia.
I have no qualifications whatsoever to do this, apart from the qualification that stems from the fact that I'm doing it.
Enjoy!
I have no set timetable for these reviews. At the very least I'd like to do one per week, but we'll see how that works out.
Each review will consist of a specific structure, starting with a plot synopsis and moving on to episode review and discussion. My intent is not to compete with the sort of (almost overwhelming, imo) detail that you'll find on a place like Television Without Pity, but for commentary and connections to form the bulk of the text.
I will frequently reference and link to The Wire Wiki, a fantastic resource for episodes, characters, and bits and pieces of trivia.
I have no qualifications whatsoever to do this, apart from the qualification that stems from the fact that I'm doing it.
Enjoy!
Introduction / The Wire
Welcome to The Wire Rewatch Project. This is a blog whose primary purpose will be the review and discussion of every last episode of all five seasons of HBO's acclaimed and immortal drama The Wire.
With a five-season run stretching from 2002-2008, The Wire existed for the majority of its run as something of a stepchild to HBO's more visible flagship dramas, particularly the Emmy-obliterating The Sopranos, which was in its third season and in the middle of its stride when The Wire premiered, and the delicately ambitious Six Feet Under, which still had that new-drama smell. Those shows, along with many of the others that HBO produced and aired in timeframes that overlapped with The Wire, including Sex and the City, Deadwood, and Rome, were all good television shows. They deserved their ratings, their attention, and their awards.
The Wire always seemed to inhabit a different plane of existence. It didn't engage its viewers with the immediacy of The Sopranos, it didn't bring heart-wrenching moments of drama and interpersonal conflict in the manner of Six Feet Under, it didn't bring the soliloquies of Deadwood, nor the sumptuousness of Rome. When the words used to describe it were "Gritty" and "Realistic" - well, those words were also used to describe FX's The Shield (though I question the judgment anyone that would call that particular show "Realistic" with a straight face), which was more visceral, more in line with familiar cop show tropes, and which used its own urban wasteland more as a vehicle with which to expose its characters (though, to be fair, The Shield was a good show, and as an artistic exploration of the Anti-Hero, it's surprisingly successful). The Wire had its own urban wasteland to explore, but as the show progressed, it became more and more apparent that the wasteland itself was the point. Though its characters were memorable, their purposes were fluid, almost interchangeable. The subject went far beyond what they encountered on a day-to-day basis.
America was the subject. Baltimore was the canvas. The drug trade, and society's war on it, were two prominent colors of the paint.
When it came to the show's ratings, such lofty ambition didn't seem to help. Neither did the show's relentlessly serial nature (miss a couple of episodes, and you'd pretty much be helplessly lost for the season, even though the "Previously On..." segments were well-done), the timeslot that saw it in competition with Desperate Housewives (whose inevitable victory says more about us as a culture than we'd probably like to admit), its predominantly black characters, or its extensive use of slang (many a viewer reportedly needed to turn the subtitles on in order to understand what was being said when the drug dealers spoke to one another). For the duration of its run, The Wire struggled mightily to find an audience. It was faced with the prospect of cancellation after its third season, and only survived because it was relatively inexpensive to produce, it over-performed against its ratings in DVD sales, and to one degree or another, because the higher-ups at HBO recognized that something very interesting was happening with the show. The audience that it did find was passionate and hooked. Though it went almost completely unrecognized at awards season, TV critics were already calling it "The best show ever made."
The best art is, of course, vindicated over time. I've yet to mention a show that I felt was in any way poor, and the general consensus probably agrees, but show me a show that I've brought up that hasn't faded considerably since the end of its run, and I'll show you one set in Baltimore. No doubt The Sopranos is worthy of study in film and drama classes, but The Wire is being taught at Harvard, Duke, and elsewhere. In Sociology classes. Discussions on the show don't seem to resemble discussion of a television show at all.
In many ways, The Wire feels more like classic literature than a TV show.
Is that taking things too far? Perhaps. Calling it literature sets the bar very high. It's one thing to say that something is better than Bones (a show I do enjoy, for what it's worth), another thing entirely to start comparing it to Shakespeare. Or Dante. Or Faulkner.
Or. You know. Dickens.
On that level of discussion, I'll be the first to admit that my own qualifications are slim to none. It's not that I'm utterly ignorant of that plane, just that as something of an Entertainment Omnivore, I'm more likely to have a book by George R. R. Martin or Nick Hornby in hand than to be examining the deeper and more challenging stuff day in and day out. Like Hornby's character Rob from High Fidelity, I've read books, and I think I've understood them, but my tastes tend toward entertainment. As such, you'll see little mention of literature, however it may apply, in this discussion. It's not that I'd say they're better, just that I'm more likely to engage on the level of Scott Lynch than on that of Aristotle, more likely to have Sara Bareilles on in the background than Beethoven, more intrigued by Felicia Day than by Helen of Troy. That's my way of saying that I like to think that I do have taste, to the degree to which one can in an era that consists largely of the entertainment equivalent to fast food, and that my appreciation of The Wire comes from that taste being stimulated in a way that I didn't know was possible on television, and that I haven't seen anything before or since that engaged me, from the television screen, in that way.
A DVD set of the complete series, I think would be at home on any bookshelf of classic literature, the contents of which can almost always be looked upon with as much critique as appreciation. The Wire will live on, I think, long after all of us are gone, both in the literal sense of us as individual people and in the more figurative context of our civilization. Future civilizations will study ours, I daresay, and if they have any sense, I suspect that The Wire will feature somewhere in that syllabus.
Why do this? Because I feel the desire to have my say on the show, and to ensure that the details of its existence, to me as a random viewer, aren't lost.
Greg Shaffer
July 8, 2010
With a five-season run stretching from 2002-2008, The Wire existed for the majority of its run as something of a stepchild to HBO's more visible flagship dramas, particularly the Emmy-obliterating The Sopranos, which was in its third season and in the middle of its stride when The Wire premiered, and the delicately ambitious Six Feet Under, which still had that new-drama smell. Those shows, along with many of the others that HBO produced and aired in timeframes that overlapped with The Wire, including Sex and the City, Deadwood, and Rome, were all good television shows. They deserved their ratings, their attention, and their awards.
The Wire always seemed to inhabit a different plane of existence. It didn't engage its viewers with the immediacy of The Sopranos, it didn't bring heart-wrenching moments of drama and interpersonal conflict in the manner of Six Feet Under, it didn't bring the soliloquies of Deadwood, nor the sumptuousness of Rome. When the words used to describe it were "Gritty" and "Realistic" - well, those words were also used to describe FX's The Shield (though I question the judgment anyone that would call that particular show "Realistic" with a straight face), which was more visceral, more in line with familiar cop show tropes, and which used its own urban wasteland more as a vehicle with which to expose its characters (though, to be fair, The Shield was a good show, and as an artistic exploration of the Anti-Hero, it's surprisingly successful). The Wire had its own urban wasteland to explore, but as the show progressed, it became more and more apparent that the wasteland itself was the point. Though its characters were memorable, their purposes were fluid, almost interchangeable. The subject went far beyond what they encountered on a day-to-day basis.
America was the subject. Baltimore was the canvas. The drug trade, and society's war on it, were two prominent colors of the paint.
When it came to the show's ratings, such lofty ambition didn't seem to help. Neither did the show's relentlessly serial nature (miss a couple of episodes, and you'd pretty much be helplessly lost for the season, even though the "Previously On..." segments were well-done), the timeslot that saw it in competition with Desperate Housewives (whose inevitable victory says more about us as a culture than we'd probably like to admit), its predominantly black characters, or its extensive use of slang (many a viewer reportedly needed to turn the subtitles on in order to understand what was being said when the drug dealers spoke to one another). For the duration of its run, The Wire struggled mightily to find an audience. It was faced with the prospect of cancellation after its third season, and only survived because it was relatively inexpensive to produce, it over-performed against its ratings in DVD sales, and to one degree or another, because the higher-ups at HBO recognized that something very interesting was happening with the show. The audience that it did find was passionate and hooked. Though it went almost completely unrecognized at awards season, TV critics were already calling it "The best show ever made."
The best art is, of course, vindicated over time. I've yet to mention a show that I felt was in any way poor, and the general consensus probably agrees, but show me a show that I've brought up that hasn't faded considerably since the end of its run, and I'll show you one set in Baltimore. No doubt The Sopranos is worthy of study in film and drama classes, but The Wire is being taught at Harvard, Duke, and elsewhere. In Sociology classes. Discussions on the show don't seem to resemble discussion of a television show at all.
In many ways, The Wire feels more like classic literature than a TV show.
Is that taking things too far? Perhaps. Calling it literature sets the bar very high. It's one thing to say that something is better than Bones (a show I do enjoy, for what it's worth), another thing entirely to start comparing it to Shakespeare. Or Dante. Or Faulkner.
Or. You know. Dickens.
On that level of discussion, I'll be the first to admit that my own qualifications are slim to none. It's not that I'm utterly ignorant of that plane, just that as something of an Entertainment Omnivore, I'm more likely to have a book by George R. R. Martin or Nick Hornby in hand than to be examining the deeper and more challenging stuff day in and day out. Like Hornby's character Rob from High Fidelity, I've read books, and I think I've understood them, but my tastes tend toward entertainment. As such, you'll see little mention of literature, however it may apply, in this discussion. It's not that I'd say they're better, just that I'm more likely to engage on the level of Scott Lynch than on that of Aristotle, more likely to have Sara Bareilles on in the background than Beethoven, more intrigued by Felicia Day than by Helen of Troy. That's my way of saying that I like to think that I do have taste, to the degree to which one can in an era that consists largely of the entertainment equivalent to fast food, and that my appreciation of The Wire comes from that taste being stimulated in a way that I didn't know was possible on television, and that I haven't seen anything before or since that engaged me, from the television screen, in that way.
A DVD set of the complete series, I think would be at home on any bookshelf of classic literature, the contents of which can almost always be looked upon with as much critique as appreciation. The Wire will live on, I think, long after all of us are gone, both in the literal sense of us as individual people and in the more figurative context of our civilization. Future civilizations will study ours, I daresay, and if they have any sense, I suspect that The Wire will feature somewhere in that syllabus.
Why do this? Because I feel the desire to have my say on the show, and to ensure that the details of its existence, to me as a random viewer, aren't lost.
Greg Shaffer
July 8, 2010
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