Review -The Wire

Written on April 2020

I get it. You are bored. You are out of your mind. You are deprived of all your freedoms and are living your lives vicariously through the pixels of your screen. TikTok’s, yeah I get that. Silly challenges, sure why not. Screaming at strangers from the balcony, whatever ticks your box dude.

It is only natural that with nothing to do, people will get more and more into new content. I saw friends and family immerse themselves in various avenues. Cringy shows, tacky time passes, and reality shows. I have been holding my tongue……till now

Till now. Because I just read that a reality show broke a few records recently (which will go unnamed to not give it undue publicity via the 3 people who read what I write ). 34 million people watched in the first 10 days. The show can be best described as cheapness wrapped in cringe marinated in a car wreck. The fact that it was so outrageous and bad, became a trend. “Have you watched it” “ Omg its so bad that its good” …you get the gist.

This is the last straw. I am not one of those angry fan types, who looks down upon people watching KUWTK (if you didn’t know what that meant, good for you). All of us are trying to survive and make our way through life. So I guess to each our own poison.

But to watch something knowing its bad, knowing it’s a waste of time, just because it’s a trend. That’s a whole new level of crazy. I will not stand for it and am drawing the line. It is unconscionable to spend time and money to see street vomit while Michaelangelo’s David is right there

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The scene opens in the poor part of Baltimore (A City in the United States). Stationed police cars and silent sirens indicating an event of some sort. The shot is not clean. Not like the crisp fast editing from Cop or crime shows that we are used to.

Children watching from the front steps of their apartments, Police going around plastering yellow tape around the crime scene. In the middle of all this, poetically so, a young black kid(15 or less) lays dead,face down staring off into the void. He had been shot at.

The camera moves to the tired police detective sitting on a nearby porch with another young black kid. A possible witness. The detective finds out that the dead kid’s name was Snot boogie. The potential witness kid makes it clear to the cop that he is no snitch. But also laments that shooting snot boogie was going too far.

On further inquiry by the detective, the potential witness kid explains that Snot boogie was part of the local gang who gambles every Friday night. He had this unfortunate habit of stealing the cash and running once the pot was deep enough. Mostly one or the other kids from the gang will beat him up and get the cash back when they catch him. This was a weekly routine and this week it had gone too far.

Confused, the detective asked him “Why did you guys allow snot boogie back to the game every week, if he stole every week from you guys?”

The kid replies “ Gots to man. This is America”. Scene

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That’s the opening scene of the first episode of the first season of the greatest TV show ever. Its called “the Wire”. Wire as in Wiretap, which is the single biggest premise of the first season. No other movie or TV show transplants the viewer so completely into an environment. Baltimore will feel like a second home once you are done with this show. The street corners, the police stations, the clubs, and the dilapidated streets.

And No other show has shown the human fatigue that is part of our everyday lives. Most of the mainstream Cop/Crime dramas is about a battle between Outrageously evil people and outrageously good people or people who seem cool and whip out fancy lines in courtrooms.

The Wire portrays the stories of Cops, drug dealers, teachers, reporters and politicians who are all fatigued, greedy, power-hungry, cruel and weak at the same time. Like us.

The creators of the show are veteran crime reporters and an ex-homicide detective. The depth is like an abyss and you get no oars or lifeboat. You are given no introduction to “Re-ups” or complicated court procedures or introductions to city and state politics or to drug names. There are little to no action scenes but every episode feels like a chapter in a novel which you can’t keep down.

There will be no sides. No black or white. Just a range of characters so varied and so unique that it will feel surreal. But that’s the reason “The Wire” sticks with you. Most if not all characters are based on real-life cases and incidences. The drug names are real, the crimes are real and the location is real

During the filming of the tv series, the actor playing Bubbles — A hopeless drug addict on screen - was taking a break in between scenes and lighting a smoke outside the set. A passer-by fellow drug fiend saw him and pressed a couple of pills in his hand and told him “you need this more than me bro”. An Oscar from the streets.

Each season focuses on one area of the city. The Drug saga, the schools, the ports, Politics, and the newspapers.

Every episode will feel like work. This will not feel as easy as watching an episode of TV shows that might as well flash text on the screen telling you what you are supposed to think. Every episode is a commitment of your time to understand one more piece in this game and to arrive at your own conclusion.

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Michael and Dukie, two 16-year-old kids are at the fork roads. They were childhood friends. Been through thick and thin together. You have watched their journey right from when they started the school year. It’s the final scene of their journey. They are sitting in the car and they know they will probably never see each other again.

For Dukie is an addict who will, at the current rate of his addiction and the company he keeps, die in a few years. And Michael is running away from the things he has done, including murders and other untold crimes. Both of them realize that this is where they leave each other. Both of them also realize either can help the other out, for they are not even able to help themselves.

Dukie asks Michael to fill the silence in the car — “ Mike, you remember that one-day summer past? You threw them piss balloons at them terrace boys? You know just about schools started again. I took a beat down from them boys. I don’t even throw a shadow on it. That was the day y’all bought me ice cream off the truck. Remember mike? “

Mike stares into space and with a blank look replies to Dukie — “No”

Dukie nods and gets out of the car and both of them move on to a place that they won’t return from. Scene

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I get it. You are bored. You are out of your mind. TikTok’s, reruns of Friends, How I Met your mother, comfort food. I get it. Sometimes all of us are in the mood to watch Junk.

But If you are in the mood to witness actual TV greatness and if you are in the mood to watch Visual and emotional poetry, Please watch “ The Wire”. I hate myself that my poor vocabulary and discombobulated writing does no justice in conveying how good the show is. But I don’t need to be an artist to appreciate the Monalisa, i will just scream really really loud till one more person watches this master piece .