I know I've talked about this show in roughly a billion other threads and I think Bomby has too so I figured having an actual thread about it might be nice. I'm not sure how many others around these parts have seen the show apart from Bomby and myself (I know SML was watching through it around the same time I was but he's not particularly active around these parts anymore) but whatever.
In case you're wondering The Wire is a television show originally aired from HBO about crime in Baltimore, particularly the drug trade. Though unlike the average procedural crime drama, the world is much more expanded. Instead of focusing on one crime unit, The Wire shows law enforcement from a variety of crime units and districts, from rookies to the commissioner, as well as providing in-depth looks at the courthouse, local politics, the school system, the port system, the drug trade, and even journalism. The expansive world filled with interesting characters makes this show all the more realistic.
I also liked how this isn't just a black-and-white world of good guys vs. bad guys like so many other police dramas. The police department oftentimes cares more about good stats than good police work. The schools don't care about the kids actually learning stuff as they do about standardized test scores. Good cops can end up on the pawn shop unit while bad cops climb the ladder. People with noble qualities like becoming clean or getting out of the drug world are put in situations that make them repeat the same mistakes or make their lives even worse. Even the person closest to being the main protagonist is somewhere between "great detective who is willing to put himself on the line for his case instead of letting his case die" and "just kind of an a**hole." Again, the more gray portrayal of the world makes everything more realistic.
Spoilering everything else from here on out because they deal with more specific themes and plot points:
[spoiler]Season 4 is probably by far the most emotional I've ever been watching a TV show. It was downright hard to watch sometimes, particularly at the end. Especially with the Bubs-Sherrod incident, Randy ending up being caught in the system labeled as a snitch, and Bodie getting killed after agreeing to help McNulty. Easily the best season of television I've ever seen, though season 3 isn't too far behind. Season 1 is phenomenal too.
The show is great throughout but season 2 and season 5 definitely suffer in comparison. They're still head-and-shoulders above most things but they don't hit the same notes as consistently as The Wire at its best. Season 2 would've been much better if the whole port system storyline didn't seem so separated from the rest of the show. Frank was an interesting character and Nick was okay, but it didn't help that Ziggy was probably the most unbearable person to appear throughout the series' run. Overall I enjoyed it (I mean, at the very least, it gave us an Amy Ryan character and I am always on board
The last few episodes of the show are great, but season 5 doesn't compare to others because of a few things. First, while some of the things that happened in previous seasons seemed a little far-fetched (Hamsterdam), nothing compares to how silly McNulty's serial killer thing was at times. I could see McNulty thinking about the idea but even as dedicated as he was to the Stanfield case and getting results from the case no matter what, the idea of him fabricating a serial killer (and ESPECIALLY Lester being completely on-board with it) seemed like a little much. The other reason season 5 suffered was I think the newspaper story wasn't as fleshed-out as the other parts of The Wire's universe. I guess it makes sense that it would be my least favorite part because I praised how the show isn't generally black-and-white about things and that was the most black-and-white setting of the entire series. I don't remember Gus having any real flaws and on the other side of the spectrum, I don't remember Scott having any real good qualities. Like, I'm pretty sure the character bio for Scott Templeton is "Scott Templeton is a jerk that does jerk things because he likes being a jerk that does jerk things. What a jerk." That being said, the finale is phenomenal and wraps up the entire series incredibly. The season does a great job overall giving closure to as many characters as possible, even the ones the season barely even featured. Also there may never be a character death that I am more upset by than the death of Omar. Again, even at its weakest moments this show is still one of the best I've ever seen.[/spoiler]
