The Wire: Greatest Show Ever Made

The show ended over five years ago. The spoiler time limit has expired.

He was the black sheep, a permanent pariah. He asked no quarter of the bosses and none was given. He learned no lessons; he acknowledged no mistakes; he was as stubborn a Mick as ever stumbled out of the Northeast parish just to take up a patrolman's shield. He brooked no authority. He did what he wanted to do and he said what he wanted to say, and in the end he gave me the clearances. He was natural police. And I don't say that about many people, even when they're here on the felt. I don't say that often unless it happens to be true. Nat'ral po-lice.

But Christ, what an asshole.

And I'm not talking about the ordinary gaping orifice that all of us possess. I mean an all-encompassing, all-consuming, out-of-proportion-to-every-other-facet-of-his-humanity chasm - if I may quote Shakespeare - "from whose bourn no traveler has ever returned." He gave us thirteen years on the line. Not enough for a pension. But enough to know that he was, despite his negligible Irish ancestry, his defects of personality, and his inconstant sobriety and hygiene, a true murder police. Jimmy, I say this seriously. If I was laying there dead on some Baltimore street corner, I'd want it to be you standing over me catchin' the case. Because brother, when you were good, you were the best we had.

Swagdaddy_sl said:

guess theres spoilers in here

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The ship sinks at the end of Titanic.

Adebisi_sl said:

Hitler dies at the end

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Downvoted for ruining my IMMERSION.

Tuco_sl said:

just finished the first season. I love how serious this show is but something about how the writers constantly remind the viewers that everything sucks got almost repetitive.

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As someone who was born in Baltimore and has family there, the show in no way, shape or form, captures how much Baltimore sucks.

Tuco_sl said:

just finished the third season. My wife has lost interest in the show and we're going to take a break from the show for a bit. I enjoy the show because of the depth and realism it has but I am forced to admit that the core of the show (detectives hunting down bad guys) was shit in the third season. Watching littlefinger do his thing was okay but the only thing that made me want to keep watching was Hamsterdam, which ironically was the least realistic part of the show, next to Jordan Hitman Peele. The boxing coach was amiable but boring. The conflict between Avon and Stringer was drawn out and a little tired since it was predicated on Avon's unrealistic stupidity and culminated because of an unrealistic attempt by Stringer to kill Jordan Peele.

Note: I haven't read any of the posts in this thread and will come back and read the thread when I'm finished.

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Ok now I'm curious.what tv shows would you call good or excellent?

I remember reading that Hamsterdam was based on something that really happened, but I can't find a citation right now to back up this ludicrous claim.

Season 4 is the best, imo. Really solid.

S4 is really good. I don't know better, it's a matter of taste (resolution of the avon/stringer storyline makes s3 what it is. You either dig that or you don't), but it's stronger than S3. Marlo emerges, and you've got the schools.

Season 4 is my favorite. Marlo doesn't fuck around.

Marlo is a scary ass dude in that show.

Yeah. And the whole time you're watching it, you want Marlo to be the bad guy who gets his comeuppance. You want it so bad. But The Wire shits on what you want.

Marlo is terrifying because he is emblematic of the hopelessness of the situation. The Avons, Stringers and Prop' Joes of the world, they felt rejected by society and decided to build their own parallel society in which they could thrive. Marlo does not care about any society. He only plays by his own rules, he is ruthlessly anti-social. He has no hope and no dream, only an unquenchable thirst for domination. There are systemic problems that create the Avons, the Stringers and the Prop' Joes and these problems can hopefully be solved. But what can you do about the Marlos?

Szlia_sl said:

Marlo is terrifying because he is emblematic of the hopelessness of the situation. The Avons, Stringers and Prop' Joes of the world, they felt rejected by society and decided to build their own parallel society in which they could thrive. Marlo does not care about any society. He only plays by his own rules, he is ruthlessly anti-social. He has no hope and no dream, only an unquenchable thirst for domination. There are systemic problems that create the Avons, the Stringers and the Prop' Joes and these problems can hopefully be solved. But what can you do about the Marlos?

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There is a theme in the show kind of showing the degradation of "Gangster Society", Bunk says something of it in his speech to Omar, about how despite the older generation being bad men, they still had rules. You see it in a few other places, too--like the Sunday truce, and what not.

The theme seems to go along with Plato's republic--too, it's pretty neat.

Proposition Joe=Aristocrat. The philosopher king. Old school, part of the generation that formed things like the Sunday Truce. He runs his own business, helps his neighborhood--as you said, he became a gangster because they needed that society to fill a void left in the system from societies short comings with their people. (Since his age began right after the civil rights movement, and the start of the drug war.) The point of being a Gangster wasn't about power, or honor, but about ruling justly--as much as they could given the landscape they were in. Hence things like respecting civilians (As Bunk said) or the Sunday truce.

Avon Barskdale=Timocrat. The warrior caste. Plato describes these guys as warriors--and that's what Barksdale was. He still played by the "rules" and was concerned about his image. To him, money? Didn't matter. It was more about honor. He was willing to throw his financial empire away, in order to assure his own honor and power. Perfect Timocrat.

Stringer Bell=Oligarch (Capitalist). This theme was played to an extreme. Check out the Wiki's summary of the Oligarch.

, Plato says that he might have been the child of a timocratic man: The son initially emulates the father, and is ambitious and craves for fame and honor. When, however, he witnesses the problems his father faces due to those timocratic tendencies - say, he wastes public goods in a military campaign, and then is brought before the court, losing his properties after trial -, the future oligarch becomes poor. He then rejects the ambitions he had in his soul, which he now sees as harmful, and puts in their place craving for money, instead of honor, and a parsimonious cautiousness

Pretty much Season 3's arc, with Avon as the father and Stringer as the son. When he sees Avon is about to throw away money and perhaps even his life, all for honor--he rejects that "life", and wants them to go legit and use their money to live comfortably, and make more money.


Then you get to Marlo--the Tyrant. That's where we are at with Cartels, and a lot of inner city gangs today. Marlo shows that even gangsters used to have a society, and between the utter hopelessness of that life, the crushing drug laws, and the huge void society has left for all those people (Even the FBI doesn't care about them anymore)--leads to anarchy, and someone like Marlo, the Tyrant, swoops in to take power.