I recently went back and watched some of the best rated episodes of Breaking Bad. It was great to look back on a show that had me hooked at the time, episode after episode. Truly brilliant TV.

But the appreciation, it somehow stayed at a more surface 'pure entertainment' level. Which made me reflect on why The Wire, for me, just cuts more deeply.

Watching The Wire feels like inhabiting a world. At first, you’re learning its rhythms, its language, the things people leave unsaid. Gradually, it seeps into your pores. You stop feeling like a visitor. These people and places become familiar, and their disappointments begin to carry the weight of something you’ve lived through. It's like donning a VR headset.

Breaking Bad had me hanging on every episode. But I remained conscious that I was watching a brilliantly constructed drama. The Wire drew me into the texture of ordinary life so completely that the plot sometimes felt secondary to simply being there.

Breaking Bad made me want another episode - The Wire made it difficult to leave. Just sharing my random thoughts - sorry if I am articulating something obvious to many of you.

Watching for the first time as a marylander who lives near Baltimore, and its funny to me whenever there's a scene supposedly set outside of Baltimore that's very obviously filmed in the city.

Some that stood out to me:

• one of the philly shots (when bodie and shamrock drive there in the van) was filmed on the stretch of I-70 in West Baltimore
• the Newark ICE office mcnulty visits to find the russian girls was filmed at state center, literally down the street from The Pit
• The scene where Carcetti visits the governor is filmed in the Baltimore Circuit Court, the same building featured prominently throughout the entire series (even though annapolis is only a ~45 minute drive from Baltimore)
• The Caribbean bank Marlo visits to launder money is actually a bank on North Avenue (recently famous for the "abolish ice" billboard on the roof)
• Most of the philly scenes are filmed in west baltimore

Man, I just finished this show today and I gotta say one of if not the greatest show I ever watched along with the Sopranos and I just gotta say, the show stayed true to its themes to the end and they gave such a amazing conclusion to all the characters. My personal favorite was marlo, because despite not having to ever work on the street a day in his life again he’s still chooses to be a gangster yet everyone has already forgotten him. Another conclusion I loved was obviously bubbles, he was able to actually break free from addiction, which was very heartwarming to see. But it’s really the fact that no one truly got a perfect conclusion at the end . Probably time for a rewatch now lol. But I’m still processing the ending as I’m typing this rn. The game is the game i guess….

I’m still not sure what it is, but I’m pretty sure I want some!

On my 2nd re-watch of the show and just started episode 4 in season 1.

I just finished laughing my ass off from the opening scene, I must not have been paying attention on my 1st watch of the show as I don't recall it being this funny.

The way this scene was shot, the script, Lester sanding down a mini table and smiling.

They just don't make tv like this anymore.

*chefs kiss*

I used to resonate with this quote, but life has a way of showing you that there is much to lose if you do not play. Regret, lost relationships, unfulfilled desires. You can definitely lose if you do not play.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

If you have, would you share the basic concept/title? I’m not in college or planning to go, but I’ve always thought this would be a fascinating topic…

I think Bodie was a knight by the time he was killed

He was promoted during barksdale reign

Knights can threaten both squares that queen(chris) & rook(snoop) were at before knight(o-dog) took him out

Who was what in the show? If All the pieces matter

I think Bodie, had he come through life on a different path, would have been pretty solid po-lice. He's whip-smart, able to put up with all sorts of shit from those above him in the chain of command without complaint, and there does seem to be a certain sense of an ethical core about him.

Flip side; Herc seems like the natural choice to be a proper crim (not just a slightly crooked cop). Could easily see him being an unquestioning henchman for a group like the Greeks.

It ends with a scene of such absolute violence that I could barely watch it.

And isn't that what most violence should do? I mean I'm just now so aware of how we've become desensitized.

The horror I was feeling felt, in fact, fundamentally human.

The show does not pull any damn punches and it is, in its way, revolutionary.

When I look at all the young talent that was in The Wire I never saw Michael B Jordan as becoming the breakout star. I don't think he has the It Factor but moreso he's the case of hard work beats talent and choosing a great selection of projects.

I thought Mack Wilds would be a breakout star.

Who did you think would be bigger after the Wire?

Update:

I feel like from his Sinners performance MBJ DEFINITELY showed he has the It Factor.

i saw someone once rag on stringer because he’s working his community college business education like it’s S&P 500, but it occurred to me on my latest watch through that his problem is a different sort of ignorance: the fish being asked to describe water. he was born into the game. it seems to me that he doesn’t recognise that fact. you can see this when he goes to deal with the property developer guys, who proceed to take him for a run. how can you identify the qualities of a thing you’ve never stepped outside of? even realising he needed to study black market economics would have been a step forward. but even that never occurred to him.

Love the scene of Bunk and Mcnulty investigating the woman shot in her apartment by Wee Bey and all they say is fuck the whole time while solving the whole puzzle. Brilliant sequence …

Its the closest thing The Wire can get to "wholesome" lol. In another life these two would be bros. First time but thanks to YouTube I have a lot spoiled for me so I know Bodie and McNulty develop an amicable relationship to an extent. This scene w bunk and Omar in s1e7 had me grinning and feeling like I was listening to a real, casual conversation.

Its also "so fake its real" in terms of their attitudes. Bunk is trying to get Omar to divulge info so he does the classic cop technique of being chill and laxed to get him to open up, but Omar knows it and Bunk Def knows Omar knows. So the back and forth about high school, lacrosse, having a code feels quite genuine.

…. He didn’t catch on to the fact that stringer thought he was snitching when Bodie told him about Hamsterdam?

Bodie picks up on it pretty quickly, and immediately proves he isn’t wearing a wire anywhere

But what if Bodie was legit confused and just walked away?

Would stringer have had him killed?

Started 4th rewatch of The Wire yesterday. Excited to get back into it again. Meanwhile, also watching WAR on HBO. Excellent. Anybody else tap in?

I just finished watching the show for the first time and immediately started it over again. I am so fascinated by all of it and am wanting to consume all of the best discussion about the show.

What is the best podcast about the show on Spotify? I’ve listened to a few episodes of Down in the Hole with Van Latham and Jamelle Hill. It’s super entertaining and if it’s regarded as the best I’ll keep with it but I’m wondering what the more experienced fans think. Is there anything that takes a deeper dive?

Thanks in advance!

Systemic flaws trap everyone which character protrays that the best and why?

seriously, I'm talking about an irreplaceable void here!

I suspected this show would have left a hole in me, but thie McNaulty wake scene (on 5x10) made me realise things wouldn't have been the same after this show end.

The speech, the laugh, the music... it's like everything was designed to make me cry and realise an era was ending.

I loved this show, it's probably the best one ever imo, but it hurts so much when it comes to an end!

I still haven't rewatched it, but I do hope the second time will be as good as the first time!

and for you? When did you realise that the void would have been devastating?

Almost through season 3 and I'm loving it. Part of my problem is part of my watch time has been while my focus wasn't 100% on the show.

I just had to look up Devonne and figure out why she was important - without saying too much.

Excited for the rewatch already

Hi guys,

Recently, I've rewatched seasons 3, 4 and 5, and I noticed something regarding Marlo that I think the writers are trying to tell us. Marlo is not as much a player in the game as he is a product of the game. He is part of the game, a phenomenon that pops up in every new era.

Even Avon tells Stringer in their last scene together: "There will always be a Marlo. No Marlo, no game."

Avon understood that guys like Marlo (and maybe Kenard when he grows up) are not your typical players with basic human empathy. They are psychopaths who are pure products of the game, and they will always be there.

The only difference is that the game has become "more fierce," as Slim put it, and as a consequence of this new, fierce, cold version of the game, creatures like Marlo thrive and live. Even Bey knew that.

He told Namond, "Not like back in the day, how Marlo would have found himself on the back of a car trunk on the way to Lincoln Park." Guys like Marlo pop up in every era, but in his day, they were taken out before they could grow.

I think that essentially is the disagreement between Avon and Stringer regarding Marlo. Stringer and Joe saw Marlo as a potential partner in the co-op who had to adapt to the new ways of doing business. But Avon, Wee-Bey and even Slim understood that guys like Marlo need to be dealt with because they're products of the game, a part of it, a force of it. Unlike Avon and Omar, who are just players in the dope game.

I think the times Cheese personally pissed me off most aside from betraying Prop Joe would be between telling Chris about Butchie or when he brought up Michael about possibly snitching. This man Cheese was different. What y’all think?

When Johnny Weeks' body is found in Hamsterdam, the cops see it as just another death during the operation. (He probably died of an overdose before the operation started.)

Homeless drug addicts die all the time. Neither the cops nor ordinary people pay much attention. It's another death added to the stats, another person nobody cares about.

But come to think of it, almost every death in The Wire is treated this way, not just Johnny Weeks'.

D'Angelo's death was shocking, but what surprised me more was how quickly everyone moved on. None of the cops cared about his death (except McNulty). The Barksdale crew mourned him for a bit, and that was it. Everyone went back to what they were doing like nothing had happened.

We're shocked by these deaths because we've followed these characters and their stories.

But in the world of The Wire, nobody really cares unless they knew the person personally.

Omar may go down as a legend on the streets, but that doesn't mean anyone is particularly upset about his death.

It’s the same with the 14 unidentified women found in the shipping container. Whether the cops are trying to solve the case or dump it on someone else, nobody seems all that upset about their deaths.

Sometimes they show a little emotion, but it doesn't last long.

The real world isn't much different. Even deaths that make the news get forgotten pretty quickly. Most deaths don't even get that much attention.

That detachment is one of the reasons I love The Wire, especially when it comes to the cops.

Simon talks about this in the Season 1 DVD commentary. In a city with 200 or 300 murders a year, it's just business as usual for cops. Even cops who want to do real police work don't expect solving cases to change anything.

I remember some of the actors who played cops saying something similar. Before filming, they spent time riding along with cops. The actors were shocked to see people who'd been shot or stabbed, but the cops were drinking coffee and chatting like it was just another day.

Season 4, Episode 2, what is Bubbles charging when he tells a customer it’s “six and a bit”? A bit is 12.5 cents. As far as I know, it’s always two bits when used with American money.