“Nicely done.”
These two words are said by one character to another early on in the first episode of the HBO drama series “The Wire,” which ran for five seasons that stretched from 2002 to 2008.
Late in the finale of the first season, the series’ 13th episode, the other character says it back to him.
“Nicely done.”
A fitting bookend quote for a first season that hinted, rather strongly, at the exceptional television that was to come from “The Wire.”
You know those obnoxious people who go out of their way to talk about how great “The Wire” and how crazy it is that you’ve never watched it?
I certainly do. I’m one of them.
I can’t claim to have seen every TV series ever made, so it’s tough to call it the best ever. I can say, however, “The Wire” is the finest show I’ve ever seen. Maybe by a lot.
I’m taking time to lavish this decade-plus-old show because it is among the significant amount of programming HBO has made available for free to nonsubscribers as so many folks are stuck at home during the COVID-19 crisis. There’s some really good content in that bunch, but, with the exception of “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” is the only work that stands as a must-watch.
(It’s also a really great time to take a truly deep dive into the show because sports-and-culture site TheRinger.com recently launched “The Wire: Way Down in the Hole,” a podcast working its way through the entire series. It takes its name from the Tom Waits-penned song that serves as the show’s opening-credits theme.)
If you’ve never seen it, I implore you to give “The Wire” a look.
And here’s the thing: You have to give it at least a handful of episodes before deciding it’s not for you. With its highly complex narrative, “The Wire” isn’t most concerned with hooking you in its first hour.
“The Wire” was created by former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon with a lot of help from Ed Burns, formerly a homicide detective in the Maryland city that’s seen its fair share of murders, many of them related to drug crime.
It is a rich tapestry of the kind of people and stories that make up an urban landscape such as Baltimore’s, where it’s set. The show weaves a large, interconnected, evolving story that explores, incredibly deftly, ideas and institutions that make up life in America.
While the first season focuses on drug crime, the series goes on to explore labor, city bureaucracy, the education system and the media. Rest assured, through, the throughline is the war on drugs, his distaste for which Simon has made no secret.
You truly start to understand what “The Wire” is doing after a few episodes, as unbelievably memorable cop characters including Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), William “The Bunk” Moreland (Wendell Pierce) and Kima Greggs (Sonja Sohn) work to build a case against equally enthralling criminal figures who include drug kingpin Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris) and his business-savvy partner, Russell “Stringer” Bell (Idris Elba).
In the first season alone, the impactful characters, as well as the actors who inhabit them, are too many to mention, but know the show introduced many of us not just to the talented Elba, but also to a young Michael B. Jordan (so sympathetic as 16-year-old drug dealer Wallace) and Michael K. Williams as Omar Little, an unforgettable character who makes his living robbing those in the narcotics trade, aka “the game.”
“It’s all in the game, yo,” says a laughing Omar as he robs a dealer at one point in Season One. “It’s all in the game.”
As the series moves through its five seasons — and electronic surveillance is used periodically, partially explaining the series’ title — some characters come and go. You both can’t believe Simon was willing to kill off Character X in Season Three while wondering how he was able to wait until Season Four to introduce Character Y.
It’s also astonishing to think about how the writers could put a character on the backburner one season — the closest thing the ensemble drama has to a lead character, McNulty is an afterthought in Season Four — only to make him or her prominent again the next.
Speaking of the seasons, as good as the first one is — and it’s great — the series is at its best in its middle and penultimate seasons. Sure, reasonable people can disagree about whether the third season — when police Major Howard “Bunny” Colvin (Robert Wisdom) secretly legalizes drugs in couple of small areas in the city in an attempt to lower the crime rate and make life safer for more residents — or the fourth — when we go into schools and become so, so attached to a group of students — is the finest, but understand those are the only two choices.
It’s also hard to argue against the final season being the weakest. A key element to that volume’s overarching story feels as far-fetched as “The Wire” gets, possibly a byproduct of HBO’s cutting the order to 10 episodes after giving the crew at least 12 each of the other seasons.
Still, the worst of “The Wire” is better than most other shows’ best.
More importantly, the series’ concluding few minutes are close to perfect.
I’m in the midst of my fourth viewing of “The Wire,” give or take, and I simply can’t imagine another drama series being as rewarding to experience again and again. That goes for the aforementioned “Sopranos” and excellent shows of recent years such as “Breaking Bad,” “The Shield,” “Friday Night Lights” “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones.”
Simon and Burns have collaborated on more projects since, but I’ve never found myself engrossed in them — including current HBO limited series “The Plot Against America.”
“The Wire” is that once-in-a-lifetime show.
Nicely done.
All five seasons of “The Wire” are available on HBONow.com and the HBONow apps.
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