Last evening, I pitched
The Wire to a friend of mine who hadn't heard of the show. Again. I've been pimping this television show ever since I started watching it a couple of years ago, and I've been eagerly waiting the start of its fifth and final season next month, even if it's tinged with sadness at the prospect of saying good-bye to these characters.
But I've been down this road before with David Simon: I
said good-bye years ago to a bunch of equally beloved characters on
Homicide: Life on the Street, which was based on Simon's seminal work of police reportage
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, based on the time he spent attached to - the word, I guess now would be "embedded" - with the Baltimore Police Homicide Department in 1988. The book is one I keep returning to like an old friend, ever since I first read it in 1992 while studying for my law degree in London. Its exegesis on the right to silence and the
Miranda warning's role in police interrogations is still one of the finest and most entertaining pieces of writing I've ever read.
Homicide was a cop show, but one deeply rooted in reality in its portrayal of the thinking detectives that speak for the dead when nobody else can: their flaws, their intelligence, their ideals, their cynicism, their black and bitter humour, and most of all their humanity. No matter how bleak the subject matter gets, you are compelled to watch because in Simon's world, the characters have their own kind of integrity. Even the immoral ones are fascinating because they stick to their own kind of twisted reality. "A man must have a code," as Bunk Moreland profoundly notes in
The Wire.
As good as
Homicide was (and far superior to its slicker and more soap-ish cousin
NYPD Blue, and I'm willing to take anybody on to prove it),
The Wire is so much better because, being on HBO, it allows Simon to take the gloves off. Not all the way, though: if he really held a mirror up to the real situation, it'd be way too depressing. So he pulls back just enough so it's still palatable, but what remains is still resoundingly real. Still,
The Wire isn't a ratings success and even though it's critically acclaimed, it's never won an Emmy. Critics describe it the same way they did
Homicide, which staggered along for 7 (well, closer to 5.5) seasons: the best show on television you're
not watching.
The Wire is a visual novel, each chapter building on itself, until the story threads come together at the end of each season. In this regard, it's one of those shows that are made for DVD, which allows you to take it in hour by hour instead of having to wait week by week. The first season starts off looking like a cop show - about the drug war as waged on the Baltimore streets - but it starts catching your attention because it shows you the battle from both perspectives, the cops as well as the dealers, and the subtle parallels in their organizations start to catch you eye. By the end of the first season you realize that it's not just about the cops, or the drugs, but it's about Baltimore, and in a much larger sense, it's about cities and most of all
institutions, and how similar and fucked up they all are, cop or dealer, politician or educator... as Simon puts it, it's "really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how... whether you're a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge [or] lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you've committed to."
Over the next three seasons, the show covers the docks of Baltimore, the politicos and land developers shaping the city, and the broken education system of inner city schools. Next year, they will cover the media. And through it all, the authentic voice of Baltimore, uncompromising, relentless, comes through.
The Wire is a show that demands its audience pay attention; it practically requires it if you want to follow it at all. Thankfully, its rich cast of characters and character actors make it easy, even if the crap they go through will break your heart several times each season. It's also one of the
most quotable shows in recent memory.
So for those of you who haven't been watching this show - run, don't walk to the Netflix queue or local equivalent. It's only 13 hours each season, and trust me, it's worth it. The DVDs are expensive as a set, but I think it's well worth the price for what you're getting. And if I like you enough, and are within easy reach, I might be persuaded to part with my boxed sets temporarily.
10 more episodes, and
The Wire is done. I can't wait to see what Simon comes up with next - a miniseries based on the book
Generation Kill, about an embedded reporter's experiences in Iraq - and thereafter a still gestating project about New Orleans and the jazz scene.
For more information on
The Wire, check out this good
New Yorker article from October about David Simon.
I hope everyone had a happy Christmas and will have an equally joyous New Year.