In March 2008, The Wire concluded its five season run on HBO. While initially ignored by almost everyone, The Wire came to be respected as one of the finest series in the history of the medium. Ex-Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon and his partner, Ed Burns, an ex-Baltimore police officer and public school teacher, brought forth their combined knowledge of the workings of inner city Baltimore’s societal and municipal structures to develop a story arc that unfolded over the course of the show’s run.
The Wire addressed the myriad issues that beset our metropolitan centers: race; discrimination; ethnicity; political muscle; the power of the press; shifting economies within our media; the death of traditional industries; violence; education and our inner-city public schools; changing labor unions; social welfare; the path of city and state government funding; the infiltration and subsequent chain of illegal moneys into our economies; police, legal & political corruption; upward mobility; the influence of black churches; immigration; alcoholism and drug abuse; recovery; family dysfunction; mentorship; and prison. Among other things, the series was at once a commentary on our institutions; a police and prosecutorial procedural; and a crime drama, but mostly it was about individuals living their lives within the larger context.
In attempting to categorize what made The Wire different from anything that preceded it, one element that should be mentioned was its wide use of African American characters. Unlike so much of what we see on television and in the movies, The Wire showed us wealthy, middle class, working class, poor, and completely marginalized black characters, all within a single panoramic view. What differentiated it further, however, is that not only did it show many of the faces of black urban America, it also painted members of each rung of this complex strata as morally complex.
As more information emerged about casting and production, it became clear that Simon and Burns, et al, were always careful to confirm with people who had lived similar lives to those being portrayed that the dialogue and behavior was on target. This meant talking to actual cops; dock workers; union delegates; reporters; drug rehab specialists; addicts; ex-cons; criminals; attorneys; and politicians. As Simon has described, the script was written for the “people living these lives” as opposed to television’s normal target audience, largely constituting white suburbanites. The attitude was, “if they don’t get it, fuck em”. This same approach played itself out in casting, with non-professionals woven into the cast with experienced actors. Watching The Wire, one never had the feeling that the situations, characters, or story lines were implausible – from the very beginning the show smacked of authenticity.
Author David Simon’s first book was turned into television’s Homicide: Life on the Streets. For his second, he collaborated with Burns on a searing piece of reportage, The Corner, detailing life in a Baltimore neighborhood infested with drugs and poverty. Filled with memorable characters, and gritty sub-plots, The Corner later became an acclaimed mini-series on HBO, and thusly a kind of archetypal blueprint. For The Wire, Simon and Burns enlisted numerous experts to assist them, including journalist Bill Zorzi; journalist and ex-port worker Rafael Alvarez, and crime writers like George Pelicanos; Dennis Lehane; and Richard Price. Directors like Ernest Dickerson, Brad Anderson, and Agnieska Holland - known more for their film work, were also employed.
There were numerous standout characters populating the story-lines over the course of five memorable seasons. Though police officer Jimmy McNulty (Aussie Dominic West) might have been the nominal lead, the heart and soul of the whole affair just might well have been “Bubbles” or “Bubs,” wonderfully played by Andre Royo. A long time intravenous heroin user and police informant, Bubs eventually finds sobriety, and in the process discovers (to his own amazement) that he somehow wasn’t infected by the HIV virus. Throughout the life of the show, Royo somehow managed, despite Bubble’s outward appearance to the world, to continuously convey a certain indomitable spirit residing within the character.
We followed Bubble’s journey through the five seasons – one that included beatings, overdoses, horrible living conditions, and the death of his one time running partner. In the end, Bubs, clean and sober for months, has his story depicted in the newspaper, is living with his sister (albeit in the basement), and is beginning to look at himself in a different way. The beauty of the extended format is that we were able to see events in the lives of some of these characters play out over the course of multiple years in something resembling real time.
Though The Wire was full of hundreds of characters we came to know, and love, like or detest (Stringer Bell; Burell; D’Angelo and Avon Barksdale; Rhonda; Omar; Snoop; Spiros; The Greek; Chris; Proposition Joe; Mayor Carcetti; Michael; Namond; Dukie; Prezlewski; Kima; Cuddy; Bunk; Lester; Cedric Daniels, Sydnor; Wee-Boy; Maury Levy; Slim; Rawls; Ziggy; Scott; Norman; Royce; Marlo; Bodie; Herc; Carver; Beadie; Gus; Cheese; Sobotka), what was perhaps most interesting about their character arcs was that their success or failure often-times had little to nothing to do with like-ablity, ambition, drive, or anything readily identifiable in their character. Instead, individual fates were often based in large part on some elusive elixir of inherent gifts and circumstance, and sometimes by acts of fortitude or manipulation or pure dumb luck (and their opposites). When it came to season three’s middle schoolers, the most cowardly and generally unappealing of the bunch Namond (Julito McCullum) winds up in a stable home doing well; strong, proud Michael (Tristan Wilds) becomes immersed in a sea of violence; operator Randy (Maestro Harrell) winds up in foster care; and kind, sensitive Dukie (Jermaine Crawford), the weakest, gets thrown to the wolves, likely destined to become another Bubs.
Omar (Michael K. Williams), the criminal vigilante with the drug-dealer-robbing modus operandi, once said, “a man’s gotta have a code”. The Wire was often about that very subject – personal codes. Whether it was a journalist making up a story for print; a cop manufacturing murder cases or letting down an informant; a drug dealer turning on a friend because it’s “just business”; or a politico making a deal with the devil, the stories were often based on balancing personal ethics with the desire for money, power, recognition, and/or mere survival, and, at their root, those individual choices differed little whether one was a thirteen year old drug runner or a sixty year old long-time political player.
Like the mutable morality that cut across all social/racial/economic and institutional lines, The Wire itself was never afraid to bounce around. After a critically successful Season One that looked at police chasing after drug sellers, the logical thing to do may have been to keep on with what was working. Instead, in Season 2 a radical shift was made (albeit a pre-planned one), introducing a whole set of new characters in their examination of the waterfront and it’s workers. As the seasons progressed - often, episodes would go by without seeing one or more of the main characters, but somehow when we floated back to them it always felt natural – as if, life continued to go on whether we were looking at them or not. Through seasons examining the machinations of city and state politics and police departments; the failure of our public schools; and the current financial and ethical position of our press, The Wire managed to balance the mix of the personal and institutional.
Like all good drama the characters were a melange of conflicting qualities – McNulty a hopeless alcoholic and womanizer, but underneath a kind of good guy rebel, a solid cop; Bunk, a drunk himself, lazy, a bit arrogant but solid too; Marlo, someone to respect for his courage and leadership ability, but a cold blooded killer. There were a number of gay characters too - Omar, Snoop, Kima, none of them demonized (or at least not because of their sexual preferences), all of them multi-faceted, all of them representing in their own way the conflicts and dualities that come with alternative lifestyles within the context of their community.
The Wire worked for many obvious reasons – great writing, terrific camera work, a fantastic sense of place; complex and changing story lines. It wasn’t afraid to be sincere – especially when tackling big, unwieldy topics too often left untouched, but it also knew when to pull back from the social commentary and let the characters joke and get drunk and have sex and moan and groan and do what we all do to try to make it day to day. Sure, there were some cliché moments here and there (including a somewhat shaky last episode), but our lives are nothing if not cliché. It struck a nearly impossible balance between the sensational and mundane. Incisive, intelligent, and courageous, The Wire just might have been filled with more humanity than anything that has ever hit the airwaves. It’s dedication to what is real was felt at every level, throughout every chacracter, plot line, and season, and those who immersed themselves in it enjoyed the ride every step of the way, and even now bemoan the loss.
