The Wire

2024-10-18 See all posts

Every year or two I feel compelled to rewatch what is, in my correct opinion, the greatest television show of all time. When the money is no longer a concern I'm going to offer creator David Simon a 5-figure sum to the charity of his choice to have lunch and reminisce with me.

The show draws you in with badass players in the drug game like shotgun-weilding neighborhood legend Omar (Michael K. Williams) and debonair Stringer Bell (Idris Elba). No question about that. But there are plenty of others who are key in delivering Simon's sociological and philosophical messages. Here are five of my favorites.

Jimmy McNulty - "Real Police". A functioning alcoholic whose adventure-seeking, short-term thinking nature prevents him from seeing the bigger picture. Lester tells him as much in season 3, "The next case isn’t going to bring you happiness." British Dominic West’s Baltimore accent was really impressive. If there’s a main character in the show, it’s McNulty.

"What the fuck did I do?"

Tommy Carcetti - The best character development arc over probably the best two seasons (3,4) and another excellent casting (shoutout Littlefinger). To start, he evolves from an acerbic and ambitious city councilman to unlikely white mayoral candidate for Baltimore who is going to solve all the city’s problems. In an attempt to get elected he resorts to playing the police department’s numbers games that the audience is already familiar with. By the end, he has his sights on Annapolis and represents everything he once wanted to dismantle in Baltimore politics.

"I still wake up white in a city that ain't."

"The job isn't about doing things right, it's about doing things at the right time."

Frank Sabotka - Capable and stalwart union president who gets mixed up in ever-escalating amounts of dirt and inadvertently brings his nephew and fuck-up son along with him. We see the moral anguish at times, but in the end he always chases the money and goes back to the Greeks. We see in his effortless description to the cops of the port’s software system and in his knowledge of history and policy that Frank is not the bumpkin you might expect. Delivers some of the best monologues and one-liners in the entire show. He’s the only single season character on this list.

"What you're forgetting, Detective, is that every IBS Local on the east coast has had its ass in front of a federal grand jury two or three times already. You want to throw your summonses, throw 'em. You want to subpoena our records? sh¡t, you don't even need a subpoena no more. Our books have been open to the Justice Department for eight years. We're here through Bobby Kennedy, Tricky dіck Nixon, Ronnie 'The Union Buster' Reagan and half a dozen other sons of bitches. We'll be here through your weak bullshit, no problem!"

"We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket."

Bubbles - Just one of the best acted supporting characters ever. If he’s on the screen I’m happy. Andre Royo crushes the role of an aging addict in the city who becomes disillusioned with the drug life.

"Thin line between heaven and here."

Clay Davis - "That guy was born with his hand in someone's pocket. Played Stringer Bell like a pinball machine and planted the seeds of doubt that he, as Avon put it, 'just might not be smart enough for them out there'." In a show that highlights how the best political maneuver-ers make it to the top in the police department, the drug game, the unions, and everywhere else power resides, dastardly U.S. Senator Clay Davis shows us that there are levels to this sheeeit.

"It takes money to make money, String. Otherwise hell, every pauper'd be a king."

Honorable mention to Bodie. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel for a good soldier. One of my favorite points the show makes is how nearly impossible it is to climb out of a poor inner-city upbringing. You can easily imagine Bodie, D’Angelo, Wallace, Poot, and the season 4 kids (among others) being thriving members of society were they born into different circumstances.

"I feel old. I been out there since I was 13. I ain't never fuckin run from nobody."