The Wire - Season One

When I watched the pilot back in November, my impression was that The Wire focused more on the bureaucratic aspect of police work. While that's not untrue, I would like to add that it is about depicting the truth in the long, difficult process of collecting evidence to prove guilt. It's a crime show, but not a crime mystery. The cops know from the first episode that Avon Barksdale is running a drug ring and ordering hits on those who cross him, but the entire run of the season follows the tedious procedures and laws they must follow in collecting hard proof so they can legally make arrests. This is something that isn't frequently seen in cop dramas, probably because it can be boring and viewers would rather see them cut to shoot-outs and doors being busted down. The Wire does have those moments, too, but again it gives us the entire truth instead of just the action-packed parts. Barksdale is very careful in his operation, not leaving his name anywhere and forcing his gang to use pagers and payphones to avoid call tracing. There is even a special dialing code they use to further scramble caller identities. My guess, though, is this sort of thing was Stringer's (Avon's second-in-command) idea, because he is the smart, crafty one. Subsequently, this leads to the police resorting to tapping the pagers and payphones, though only after proving to their superiors that all other investigative methods failed, and even then, being public payphones, they have to stake out cops to watch the phones because they're only allowed to listen/record when a suspect is using them. Proper procedure, see.

Now take that concept of the entire truth and stretch it even further: we also get an equal amount of time with Barksdale and the members of his drug operation, providing insight into their procedures, too, and even allowing us to sympathize with some of them. Most of them are cold enough that they're willing to kill someone at the drop of a hat, and do, but some have noticeable consciences, notably Wallace and D'Angelo, Avon's nephew. D'Angelo and McNulty both reflect, at times, on the needless violence that occurs in the drug business. Nobody selling something other than drugs gets killed over it, they say, so why the animosity? My answer to that question is because nobody else sells things that are biologically addictive, or bring in extremely high tax-free revenue.

One memorable scene I loved involved detectives McNulty and Bunk going back to investigate an old crime scene and finding overlooked evidence as they recreate how the murder happened; all of the dialogue in that scene consists of variations of the F-word, which somehow just seems believable on top of being funny. Another thing I mentioned in November was that this show can be hard to follow if you're not concentrating (a very large of number of supporting characters with varying roles in the police, legal, and drug systems can be hard to keep track of), but if you can figure out what's going on, it is rewarding. I can't necessarily differentiate between episodes most of the time, but I like watching.

Best Episode: "Cleaning Up", in which Avon and Stringer get nervous about the security of their business, the detectives install a hidden camera in Avon's club, someone is killed by his own, two someones are arrested and someone else is not arrested. There, spoiler free.