I don't necessarily have a Favorite Show Of All Time. A lot of shows contend for that spot: Cosby Show, Different World, Seinfeld, 24, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lost, Sopranos, Six Feet Under...and The Wire. Here's what I do know, however, that (with apologies to Six Feet Under and Lost) The Wire is the greatest television show of my lifetime. In fact, it's not as close as folks would think. I'm saying that The Wire is clearly, conspicuously, the greatest show to ever grace television screens since March 6, 1979.
Two Sundays ago, the show ended amidst critical praise and
cultish devotion; but relative anonymity. Millions and millions of Americans tune in to watch tripe like ER -- or even American Idol, for that matter -- but if you were standing in a room of 1,000 folks,
Nielson ratings show that only 3 or 4 other folks, on average, would have seen The Wire.
How is this possible? How could so few people tune in to view the greatest and most compelling dramatic series of the past 30 years? Here in Buffalo, I had two, maybe 3 people that I knew, who dug the Wire. In NYC, that number ballooned significantly. All my SLAM co-workers were Wire nuts, I used to eavesdrop on Wire conversations. Same thing for my time in DC. But while in Florida? Nothing. My friend
Maese was in Buff a few weeks ago. He's a columnist for the Baltimore Sun. he says that The Wire is a constant topic of conversation amongst Sun
newsies (inevitably because a major story line from this season deals with the Sun, the former employer of the
show's creator and principle creative mind, David Simon); but Rick said that his friends back in his hometown of
Albuquerque are completely oblivious. Forget, for a moment, that folks from
Albuquerque are oblivious to a whole bunch, a recognize that it's a
sizable city and metro area, yet, The Wire isn't even a blip on its Desperate housewives radar. That's similar to how I feel here in Buff, which is troubling, since Buff is the same blue-collar city as
BMore, with a similar type of drug-trade, crime-rate and poverty level. The Wire should resonate incredibly in Buff, yet I wouldn't even think to bring up The Wire in a random conversation with a patron at the bar. They'd be like, "The What?"
It's funny, because, in 2004, I spent a summer in Atlanta, interning as a journalist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The office is located in downtown Atlanta, a few blocks from Broad St., a sweet little city block of
restaurants and lunch spots, close to cars, strictly for pedestrians and hungry Atlanta employees. I used to hit Rosa's all the time. It was NY Style pizzeria and the line was usually out the door. You had to shout your order and then move down the line, get to the cash register, pay your money and then wait a little while longer for your slices or
calzone or roll to come out the oven. One day, that summer, in mid-June, I believe it was a Monday or Tuesday, I was in Rosa's w
aiting on my slice and these clowns in front of me were yapping about the previous Sunday's Sopranos. I hadn't seen that episode, yet. So I put my hands over my ears and started singing some type of nursery rhyme. I probably looked and sounded like a fool. Unfortunately, I didn't do this until one of the
dumbies said something about "I can't believe what happened to Adriana." So, of course, I watched that episode waiting to see what happened to Adriana. Of course, it happened to be the episode where they
wacked her. I was consistently missing Sopranos episodes that season and this was before I had
Tivo or
DVR, so I used to tread lightly, wherever I was at, guarding against hearing any tidbits about the previous week's Sopranos. But that's what you had to do with the Sopranos. it was a water cooler show, so wherever you went, you were likely to hear random people discussing the past episode.
That NEVER happened with The Wire --EVER. I
couldve gone the past 3 months and still not know that Omar was
merked by a sniffling little punk or that Clay Davis got off. I never heard anyone randomly talking about
Bodie getting shot or
McNulty boning a woman on a car hood or
Rawls getting scoped in gay-bar.
The only time The Wire was a topic of random, public conversation was the days after Stringer met his death. I remember that night. I was staying with my boys in DC during that season.. It was between internships in
Atl and Orlando and I had returned to my evening shift at the Washington Post. I used to come home late Sunday -- actually Monday morning -- and me and my
nigga Gee would watch the show when it showed up on On Demand. Gee said nothing to me before we began the episode, he just has a stupid smirk on his face. That whole season, me and the crew had heated arguments about the divergence of Stringer and Avon. Anyone who watched the show since it's beginning had fondness for the Stringer-Avon bond. But when Avon went to jail and Stringer took a greater hold of the cartel, it became clear that they weren't two thugs of the same cloth. Avon loved the game and recognized his limitations, that he was kingpin within the game but not necessarily built for the same type of success outside of the game. Stringer looked at the game as a means to an end and he saw the end in sight and was trying to persuade Avon to a more legitimate means. Stringer had always been my favorite character on the Wire, my boys typically dug Avon. By the time Stringer started angling for Avon's imprisonment and Avon gave up Stringer to enemies, it was clear "something" was gonna go down, but I never expected for Stringer to take that kind of L. There was definite justice in his demise -- getting gunned down by two people that he dealt the most grimy with -- but I had begun to think of Stringer, not
McNulty, as the
show's central character. it was unthinkable that Simon and Burns would kill him off for good, but they did. That was the beauty of the show, not the more metaphorical and abstract complexities and depth of the show -- that stuff was compelling and incomparable as well -- but, at the end of the day, it was just an exciting and dramatic hour of television, every week.
Of course, to boil it down to just that is definitely somewhat trivial. The Wire,
afterall, was the most stark, realistic, true, honest, poignant
depiction of urban America that we've ever seen. What makes it even more significant is that this played out over 8 years in more than 50 hours of film. This wasn't a three-hour epic that focused on one very concentrated, finite theme, like Do The Right Thing or Boys In The Hood or Mean Street or whatever....this was a slow-moving,
deeply-profound series of complex and varied themes and stories that offered a
panoramic, yet, acute view of the urban American landscape.
Think about all the characters and all the sectors of the urban America that they hit: schools, law enforcement, single parent homes, drug addiction amongst parents, drug addiction period, the media, politics, the absence of black male role models, peer-pressure, etc. A lot of these topics sound very surface and cliche, but The Wire actually "went in" on these topics. Because it's hard for me to explain how/why this show addressed these topics in a ground-breaking manner, let me just give you some bullets on certain characters, themes,
moments or episodes that were especially compelling...
--- The Kids. The kids really resonated with me. I have a special
affinity for young black youth, mostly because I grew up in -- in the context of the back community --
privileged circumstances, what with two parents, food, shelter and God. But when you grow up in that environment, surrounded by less fortunate peers, it makes an impression on you.
The most compelling moment of any of the kids story
wasn;t when Dukie was seen on a drug corner at the end of Season 4 (depressing) or shooting up heroine in the series finale (made me put both palms on top of my head, let out an audible groans and tear up) or when Michael couldn't remember the piss-balloons (somewhat unbelievable, but still emotional) or when Randy sat in a hospital, bloody,
goading Carver for his broken promises (scary)....the most compelling moment was actually a collection of moments, call it a story arch and it began when
Namond had former Lt.
Colvin take him home after a near-brush with a stay in a
juvie dentention center.
Colvin dropped him off at the steps of his crib, his mother opened the door, slapped
Namond upside his head and began emasculating him about his fear and aversion to spending time in
juvie. Apparently he was a woos and had no honor because he b*
tched up at this prospect. yet,
Namond had, on countless
occasions, told his effed up Moms that he
wasn;t his father. His father was Wee-Bey, Avon's No. 1
source of muscle and one of my all-time favorite characters on The Wire.
Namond's Moms wanted Avon to be like his father, "a soldier" as she would say.
Colvin saw something in
Namond and knew that his Moms was pushing him down an unwanted path.
Namond's Moms was forcing this young man on the street to go make the family money, enough dough to maintain their hood-rich lifestyle. this wasn't make-believe, there are slews of former drug-dealers-girlfriends and drug-dealers-wives that ask the same of
pre-teen, early-teen sons. They think it's honorable and warranted. It's a warped world. When
Colvin recognized that
Namond was allergic and downright scared and unequipped for this life, he went to Wee-Bey, in jail, and asked if
Namond could move in with him. In one of the next episodes, you
Namond's moms talking to Wee-bey in jail, spouting some garbage about how she wants
Namond to be "a soldier", how it's in his blood. Wee-Bey responded (and I'm paraphrasing) "The man (
Colvin) say the boy could be whatever he want a be, a doctor, a lawyer..." I was struck by that moment
because that kind of hope is nonexistent in the community. It was bittersweet, then, when we saw
Namond winning a high school debate, the surrogate child of a loving home. He was clearly on his way to great, productive, non-street things. Meanwhile, Randy had turned into an ornery thug in the foster system. Dukie was days away from getting strung out on heroine, living with hobos after an unsuccessful afternoon of trying to land a job, and Michael had turned into a serial
killler. that's what these street-muscle dudes are, they're serial killers. I think that The Kids illustrated, better than any other story arch, why the hood is the way it is. it's cyclical and influenced. Boot-strap rhetoric has no home in the hood -- often.
--- I wonder how many of you out here think that
Barack Obama is anything but a politician, that he's he's different, that he will "change" things. I wonder if his rhetoric inspires you. I'm not here to rain on
anyone's parade; and you all know that I have no political affiliation (might sound hokey, but I vote for God)...but as smooth and
oratorial (word?) that
Obama is, dude is a politician. he ain't wholly different, he just speaks better and has a different set of pipe dreams. I like
Obama, I find him riveting and Pops and I just had a discussion about how he might be a tad more
principled than your average Washington-sullied sleazeball, but dude is a politician.
I hated Mayor
Carcetti, seriously. From the jump, I knew he was man on a mission and all the rhetoric and righteous-indignation he feigned would be exposed at some point. Season 5 was did a good job
sof showing how these politicians abandon promises in order to garner re-elections or, in
Carcetti's case, to salvage or, perhaps, develop ties and bridges that will help them into more prestigious offices. yet, The Wire, as always, did this in such a 3-dimensional manner, because, for everyone duplicitous decision that
Carcetti made, i saw "why" he did and it never seemed entirely devious or negligent. What it cast a bright light on was the nature of politics and how city governments have so much to do with power, leverage, self-interest and straight-up political devices; maybe even more so than it has to do with serving a constituency. In a very warped and deviant way, the dirty Clay Davis was a more loyal and concerned
politican than
Carcetti. Now that's powerful.
--- I saw Omar in Gone Baby Gone, that
Affleck-directed, Boston-based film
noir. When he popped up on screen, the word homosexual did not pop in my mind, his sawed-off shotgun did. Omar is also in the new
Sheek Louch video and a host of others. These rappers don't look at him as a homo-thug, they look at that character as a cold-blooded gangsta. I think too much was stock was put into how much Omar advanced the notion of homosexuality within the black community, a community where a black male is still inclined to call a gay man "faggot" or beat him with a pipe if the gay man accidentally hits on him. I think that The Wire did Omar's
character justice by not overplaying his homosexuality. that's what a lesser show would have done. We'd have seen Omar
blowin some light skin fairy's back out every episode, or walking with a switch, etc. Oh, believe me, we saw enough. I had to cover my eyes more than once when he went in to slide his
lizard tongue in some man's mouth, but the central theme to Omar's story -- what
couldve been overshadowed by placing too much emphasis on his sexual orientation -- was the fact that Omar was like the
show's moral code. A killing-spree stick up man was the most poignant
manifestation of right-and-wrong. that's dope to me. he was reckless, fearless, heartless and gay; but at the end of the day, he was stick-up man with a God Complex. I truly believe he felt he was
meting out just punishment. I'm gonna miss that dude.
-- If there is indeed a Wire movie in the works, I'm most anxious to see what comes of Michael. it was easy to see that, as Seasons 4 and 5 progressed, he was developing the same street code as Omar. So when we say him with sawed off,
jackin'
niggas, it was surprising, but logical. What's too bad is that he had such a big heart and was such a compassionate cat. He
couldve been a great husband and father. Instead he's destined to father several illegitimate kids and be a virtually absent social and familial presence
in a community that sorely needs him. It's sad.
--- And, finally, Marlo. I don't wish people harm...but I'll say this, all season I wished him a slow-death.
All-in-all, I'mma miss this show, a show me and my nigs started watching on an HBO-whim. It was like, "Well, even though it seems like another trite cop show, where the boys in blue hunt down the young black criminals, it's HBO, so it has to be good." And it was -- exceedingly. I look across the television landscape these days and no show comes even remotely close to depicting this ignored sector of American society, at all, let alone as wonderfully and epic as The Wire did.
