Russell "Stringer" Bell



David Simon has a very cynical view of the American Dream, which is a concept he explores through the captivating character of Stringer Bell, who you all know is my personal favorite. When he's first introduced, he generally plays the background but is soon seen to be the brains behind everything Avon has accomplished. In Season 1, Stringer was mostly painted in small strokes, primarily serving as a foil to both McNulty and D'Angelo. While McNulty falls victim to his anger and poor impulse control, Stringer is the picture of calm deliberation in all but a handful of scenes. Whereas D is subject to his conscience and a pure product of nepotism, Stringer is ruthlessly self-interested and has earned his position, which explains why he holds such disdain towards D, which is even visible in the first episode. In the first season, the two of them have diametrically opposed philosophies on how the game should be played. D'Angelo was uncomfortable with the level of violence, and thought they should put out quality product, while String used violence to 'send a message' and used low-quality product to make more money. The joke of it is, by Season 3, Stringer's ideas for reform are essentially the same as D'Angelo's. But it doesn't work for the same reason reform never works in David Simon's America. People like Avon and Marlo have gotten so used to the status quo, to the black-and-white of constant warfare that they can't even wrap their heads around a new, better way.

Season 2 is one of my favorites simply because of Stringer's amazing character arc in it. With Avon in jail, Stringer can run the business as he sees fit and grows into his own as a character. When he starts keeping things from Avon, like the deal with Prop Joe to split the towers, it becomes clear for the first time that he's in the game for a completely different reason, which I'll dive into later. The first hint that something has really changed in Stringer is when he goes to his economics teacher to ask for advice on what to do with weak product. In Season 1 it just seemed like he was using his economics classes to help him run the businesses that were fronts for the drug empire, but now he's applying it directly to crime. However, as he moves deeper into one world (the legit one), he starts to lose touch with the other. His scheme to set up Omar to kill Mouzone ultimately results in his death because he can no longer understand or predict men like them. The moment when he's too pushy asking Mouzone who shot him is when he seals his fate, and Avon knows that was the wrong thing to do because he's still in touch with where he came from, and understands the code a man like Mouzone lives by. In Season 2, Stringer was pulling away from his past just like he wanted to, without realizing how difficult (or impossible) the transition would be.

Stringer really is a man without a country, or better yet a man between worlds. He obviously looks down his nose at the small-minded dealers and soldiers he employs, and throughout Seasons 2 and 3 is constantly wearing a look on his face that screams. "I'm surrounded by ignorant project ******." At the same time, he's played like a puppet by men like Andy Krawczyck and Clay Davis, the later of which can barely keep from laughing out loud as he scams another project ***** out of his money. Stringer is in a fight against his own nature and he doesn't even seem to realize it. The meeting scene from the Season 3 premiere showcases his two sides perfectly. He's somehow gotten a room full of gangsters to abide by Robert's Rules of Order and is taking the time to explain his decisions and his reasoning to his underlings like some manager. Question him one too many times though, and suddenly he's barking threats like the drug kingpin he is, using fear instead of logic as a motivator. When it inevitably all falls apart, that's what he reverts to, trying to have Clay hit and intimidating Krawczyck with his muscle present. He's given a rough outline of an origin in the middle of the season as he and Avon reminisce. They grew up together in the West Baltimore projects, and even when he was young Stringer had an entirely different dream than his best friend. As a kid Stringer dreamed of owning a chain of grocery stores and was "all into that Black Pride ****" while Avon was dreaming of AK-47's. Not only did he want to be businessman before he became a drug dealer, but he wanted to use his business to help the community as well. He entered the drug game as a kid out of a lack of options, not a love of violence and power. By the time he reached adulthood the game had drained him of his childhood idealism but not his childhood ambitions. This ambition even expressed itself in subconscious ways when he was a kid, like the anecdote about stealing a badminton set. Living in the projects, he didn't have a yard, but he didn't want to USE the badminton set, just have it as a symbol of status. The same goes for his business ventures. He doesn't want to go legit for the sake of profit, because as he says to Avon, he already has more money than he could even spend. He wants the new identity, to go from a project-born corner boy to a Fortune 500 CEO. In short, he wants the American Dream.

Stringer is Simons critique of both the American Dream and the kind of people it produces. The idea that someone can rise from nothing to something through sheer hard work is a myth that is constantly propagated to keep capitalism afloat. We've seen that there are almost no economic opportunities in West Baltimore, so anyone who fit the mold of the 'rugged individual' would naturally gravitate towards the drug game. The true social mobility Stringer sought, which goes beyond gross income and is instead concerned with status, is vehemently opposed by those at the top. Clay and Krawczyck have no interest in helping Stringer achieve their status, they would rather keep him dependent on them for as long as possible so they can keep getting paid. Its a beautiful little microcosm for class relations in America. So it's fitting that Stringer's past finally catches up to him in the shell of his real estate development, his dream that is completely hollow. As much as I do love Stringer, we can't forget that the man is evil. Evil enough to comfort a grieving mother after having her son killed and not feel the slightest bit of guilt. This isn't just a result of the drug game, which can produce men who have a code of honor like Avon, Slim or Prop Joe. Stringer's ruthless self-interest comes from his desire to climb the social ladder, even if he has to climb over dead bodies and his best friend to so. To David Simon, the American Dream isn't just a lie, it's a dangerous lie that can motivate a former idealist to commit acts of unspeakable evil for completely selfish reasons. So when Stringer says to Avon, "We ain't gotta dream no more," he has no idea how right he really is. We have no American Dream, just a dead man in an empty warehouse who sold his soul to chase it.

Thomas "Herc" Hauk



**** Herc. I mean seriously, **** him. In a show where many characters are constantly moving forward and struggling to be better people, Herc just seems to get worse and worse, travelling in the opposite direction of his BFF Carver. I didn't always hate Herc, but once I did it took me even longer to understand him. His stupidity and short-sightedness is played for comic relief a lot and used as a pivotal plot device in Season 4, but after multiple watchings I've started to see the method behind the madness. Herc is basically a big bundle of insecurity and is driven by his delicate ego. However, unlike McNulty who has a similar problem, Herc seeks validation from his superiors in the system, people like Burrell and Valchek. This doesn't come through as much in Season 1, where Herc is mostly comic relief with a tad bit of nuance. In fact, by the end of the season they try to give off the impression that Herc is the one developing into a competent cop while Carver seems on the path to being a hack like Burrell. First theres the scene when Herc talks to Bodie's grandmother with respect, then his last scene of the season as he tries to school two younger detectives on how to make 'big cases' as a proud Daniels watches. Its only in Season 2 that his ego problems start to come to the forefront of his character, to the point where it even starts affecting Carver. One thing I think the writers nailed beautifully is the Herc and Carver relationship which shows exactly how best friends can support each other, enable each others worst flaws and eventually grow apart. In Season 2, Herc starts to bring out the worst in Carver. His pride is obviously still reeling from not being picked from the Sergeants list (partially Carver's fault) and the way the other members of the detail treat him doesn't help. The two of them are always put on the ****ty surveillance details while McNulty, Lester and even goofy Prez do the heavy lifting and get all the credit. Carver seems okay with it as his penance for snitching to Burrell, but Herc's constant complaints bring Carver's pride back into play. That was when Herc started getting less funny and his stupidity got harmful, because he started dragging Carver down with him, leading to their joke of a DEU unit in Season 3.

Season 3 is where the two characters really start to diverge, and I KNEW without a shadow of a doubt that I now loved Carver and hated Herc. The first bit of Season 3 is filled with Herc and Carver acting like idiots, beating adolescent dealers for next to nothing. The key difference starts coming through when Colvin asks them what the point of it all is, and Herc still doesn't get it, and basks in his pride while Carver looks a bit deflated. And when Colvin tries his Hamsterdam experiment, Carver starts to get with it, while Herc can't wrap his head around it. Was he taking a moral stance against drug use, probably not. Like many other characters in Season 3, Herc has been playing the game one way for so long that he can't stomach reform. When he's faced with it, he reacts with anger that he can barely keep in check. In Season 3 (and later 4), Herc becomes the model for everything wrong about policework in American cities, the drug warrior who protects and serves nothing but the status quo and his own love of power. When he drops the dime on Hamsterdam and talks to a reporter, he passed the point of no return for me and forever became my least favorite character. And he only got worse in Season 4. They make him a Sergeant, and then the writers show us just how much damage a single man can do with even that much power if he doesn't understand how to use it. In Daniels' Season1 speech to Carver, he paints being an officer as a grave responsibility. However, the dominant culture in the BPD is so ****ed up that once Herc gets his stripes, the only thing he can think about is keeping them any way he can. So when he becomes the ranking officer in the MCU, he jacks a camera and loses it out of his desperation to appease Marimow and then spends the rest of the season ruining peoples lives to keep his deception going. He becomes a monster without realizing it and Randy and Bubbles both pay the price for his single-minded self-interest. The horrible irony of it all, and something I actually find really sad about Herc is that he loses his job so Burrell can score some political points. Herc spent his whole career as the kind of officer the higher-ups seem to want: a head-busting, stat-chasing, obedient brutality machine. While the departmental brass will cast away brilliant cops like McNulty and Freamon for their disobedience, its especially cold that they'll do the same to a guy who basically followed in their footsteps. Even though he deserved to be fired, they did it for the wrong reasons. In Season 5, he starts working for Levy which confused the hell out of me at first. I originally though Herc's motivation in life came from the thrill and power of physical police work, taking his anger out on criminals he clearly despised. So seeing him on the other side of the equation threw me for a loop at first. Then I re-watched Season 5 and realized that it was the quest for approval that drove Herc. He works for Levy because the guy flatters the crap out of him when he comes back from the bar with information he's weaseled out of his old buddies. So yeah he jacked Marlo's number for Carver, but he ultimately brings the whole case down by tipping Levy off to the illegal wiretap. He feels no remorse over this, but is practically ecstatic when Levy invites him to his home. I have a theory that it stems from daddy issues, since he reacts so negatively when the minister he pulls over in Season 4 calls him son. The exact line is, "You're not my ****ing father," and he's echoing Justin's hurt response to Cutty from an earlier episode and Justin definitely has abandonment issues. That's just my theory for why Herc turned out to be such a douche.

Roland "Wee-Bey' Brice



I ****ing love Wee-Bey and I almost can't even tell you why. There's something about the way he's written and acted that makes you wanna hang out the guy even though he's a cold-blooded murderer. It's because the writers of the show are amazing at painting characters in small strokes. When I think of Wee-Bey, I think of him choking on too much hot sauce or staring at his fish, not murdering people. Like Avon, he doesn't let the evil of what he does take over who he is, even while he's in jail. What just might be my favorite moment for the character is when he tells Avon about the guard who's ****ing with him because Bey killed his cousin. He's mad that the guy ****ed with his plastic fish...as retaliation for murdering his family member. And in a child-like kinda way, Wee-Bey feels like he's the victim in the situation. That moment is pure comic gold. But Wee-Bey really doesn't become a true amazing character until Season 4, when his family is revealed. Yeah, its ****ing horrible at first to see him behind that glass encouraging his son to become a soldier, but his charm and love of his son comes through so strong that he doesn't seem like the villain DeLonda is. I get the feeling he's trying to connect with his son through the only thing he really knows, while trying to pass on his strange code. He seems to think Marlo and his ilk are dishonorable even though the only real differences I can tell is that Chris is better at hiding bodies than Wee-Bey ever was and the Stanfield crew never celebrate their success. Its the same kind of nostalgia Bunny has about the old days of the West Side though, so I assume there is some truth to that differentiation. Actually, I take some of that back, the West Side under Marlo is different because out there, Namond's last name won't protect him, and the generation of pre-teen killers trained under Marlo have no code. So the same way Bodie was left behind in a colder world after the disintegration of the Barksdale Empire, Wee-Bey is stuck preparing his son for a game that has changed for the worst.

Ok, I lied, Wee-Bey's best moment is definitely when he tells off DeLonda after Colvin has enlightened him. All that time in jail gives him enough distance from the Game that he can look at it, himself and his son more honestly than he ever had. Every father has some subconscious compulsion to turn their son into an ideal version of themselves, so to let go of that desire, Wee-Bey had to realize the severity of his mistakes. He became a soldier because he saw no other choice and the fact that he sacrifices his own pride in himself and his reputation to give his son a chance makes him one of the best parents on the whole show. Seriously.

Sgt. Ellis Carver




Most everyone cites Carver as their favorite example of character development on the show. While I have to claim its Bodie, Carver's character arc has the advantage of moving in big stages triggered by huge events, while Bodie changes incrementally in small moments. They pulled an especially nifty little trick with him in Season 1, wherein he and Herc are shown to exemplify everything wrong with modern police-work but Herc is given some depth, and brief moments of intelligence and compassion. Meanwhile Carver is shown to be just as brutal and bullheaded as his partner, less capable on the sergeants exam, , and never gets a moment like Herc does with Bodie's grandmother. The closest he comes is his brief interrogation scene with Bodie where he tries to find common ground and ends up beating on him more. And of course, he turns out to be the snitch in the unit, so as Herc ends the season proudly trying to pass some knowledge on to other detectives, Carver ends it accepting a promotion from Burrell thats tinged with shame. At this point, it seemed like the writers were gonna show us Carver developing into the career-focused cop in the mold of a Burrell or Valchek while Herc slowly gained the detective skills he envied in Kima. Instead Carver takes Daniels' big speech about responsibility to heart. It's a big moment of development for the both of them, and at first I just thought about what it meant to Daniels, and since Carver was still comic relief in Season 2, and a jackass for the first half of Season 3 it didn't really strike me at first. Really though, after Season 1, despite still having a misguided perception of what a good cop is, Carver put the work before his own career. His move to the Western was motivated by his bruised ego and Herc's subversive influence, not any desire to move up the ranks. While he was a DEU sergeant for Colvin, he was loyal to his men and his commander through the Hamsterdam mess, whereas Season 1 Carver would have been up in Burrells office snitchin in a minute. I wouldn't realize it until the closing moments of Season 5, but Carver was designed to be Daniels' successor in the grand scheme of things since Season 1. He even replaces Daniels as Burrell's snitch in Season 1, hinting at the way Carver seems to retrace his boss' steps in life without even realizing it. While it took the shock treatment combination of McNulty, Freamon, and Brandon's tortured corpse to lead Daniels into the light, Colvin has to be that second mentor figure to give Carver the final little push into moral adulthood.

Carver starts Season 3 as an idiot cop, beating minors and enjoying it. The scene where he stands on top of that car and gives a speech that is both full of stupid bravado and eerily prescient about the fate of Hamsterdam is his starting point, and from then on, Carver becomes a slightly better person just about every time he appears onscreen in Season 3. At first its just in the little moments, like when he actually looks a little embarrassed as Colvin criticizes him for using a helicopter to catch a 13 year old. Then Dozerman gets shot, and Carver keeps his unit together and shows he's got what it takes to lead men. But Hamsterdam is the crucible that turns Carver into good police. Not only is he the only DEU cop willing to give it a chance (and the fact he keeps his men in line with the experiment for so long shows how much they respect him) but he actually takes an active role in improving the place, mostly for the sake of the abandoned children down there. Its an old writing trick to make a douchebag suddenly likeable by having him reveal a soft spot for children (see: Dexter) but it works really well in this case because for some reason Carver is the ONLY person who even sees these kids. The dealers ignore them, the rest of cops treat and refer to them as animals and even Colvin doesn't realize theres a problem until Carv brings it to his attention (good call on Colvin's flaw homersimpson.) So the moment when Carver takes initiative and makes the dealers pay out unemployment insurance for the hoppers was the exact moment I realized exactly what the writers were doing with him and how much I liked him now. It also showed the true brilliance behind Hamsterdam, because once there had been a truce called in the war on drugs Carver finally got enough distance from the adrenaline, violence and machismo he associated with police work to see the humanity in the kids he used to hunt like they were animals. That compassion and empathy was always there, it was just drowned out by the sheer rush of the brutality he inflicted, and the police department that encouraged and rewarded it. Carver doesn't associate his newfound empathy with a whole new way (really the old way) of policing until Colvin gives his last epic speech of the season. Its a truly beautiful scene, one man pleading with a man from a younger generation to make his sacrifice worthwhile. Carver doesn't seem to get it until the end when it becomes clear that the Sun reporter seeing Hamsterdam is the beginning of the end of Colvin's career, THEN he starts to realize that Colvin was trying to pass on a deep responsibility to him. Perhaps the greatest thing that can be said about Hamsterdam is that it gave Cutty an opening to reach enough kids to start the core of his gym, and it made a smart, caring cop out of a stupid, viscous one. Those two men (along with Colvin) end up being the only real figures of paternal authority and moral right in West Baltimore during gloomy-as-**** Season 4

In Season 4, Carver becomes an entirely different man, and an entirely different cop than any we've seen. Before Season 4, our archetype of the ideal cop was Freamon, the hyper-cerebral wizard of the wiretap. He uses policework as a means to strip bare the cloaked backroom deals that funnel blood-soaked money up to the kings of the city, while little apprentice McNulty is all about chasing the next target. Carver is a whole different beast by the time of Season 4: a cop whose main goal is to help the community on an individual level. Do Freamon and McNulty do good by catching kingpins, sure. But there will always be Marlos to replace the Avons, and more kids who see a gun as the quickest way to be somebody, and wiretap cases don't really address that. In fact, the show itself is skeptical of any macro solution like that and the message of Season 4 ultimately is that through hard work, love and a lot of luck, you might be able to save one kid. So just as the solution to the education problem isn't state wide tests, but a dedicated teacher making a genuine connection with a student, the solution to the drug problem isn't year-long wiretap cases but police who can interact with their communities as naturally as the drug crews do and provide a countervailing social influence on a kid. By Season 4 Carver is that cop, and almost finds his way past Randy's natural distrust to become a genuine influence in his life. The way Miss Anna kept flirting with him, he might have become a more literal father figure too. But MOTHER****ING HERC has to go and ruin everything. At this point, Carver is painfully aware what an idiot his best friend is, you can see it all over his face when Herc tells him about the camera. However, he clearly feels some small portion of guilt for changing and leaving his best friend behind in the process. It's like that high school movie cliche about the geek who suddenly gets tall and buff and feels just bad enough about leaving his dorky friend behind to throw him a bone every now and then. Except that bone is Randy and Herc ruins his life in record time. I love that Carver figures out exactly what he did wrong when he tells a pissed-off Prez that he handed off Randy to Herc, and can't even finish his sentence. I was expecting him to storm over to Herc and rip him a new one, but Carver really is a bigger man than that (even though Herc deserved it) and blames himself and only himself. That's real maturity. He only brings it up to Herc once, in a really touching scene in Season 5, when he explains to his best friend that that is exactly what separates them: Carver feels a deep responsibility to the community and holds himself accountable not only for his own actions, but the actions of the men under him as well. So he learns the lesson Season 4 was meant to teach him when he lets that responsibility to the community override his loyalty his friends, and its a perfect place for his arc to end before his promotion to lieutenant. When Daniels officially promotes him, it became clear to me what the future held for Carver. If you listen close in Sydnors last little bit of dialogue with Phelan, he references working under Lieutenant Carver in what must be the new MCU. I wouldn't be surprised if he rose to the position of Comissioner one day, only for a seedy politician to pull out files related to his 'bad days' in the Western DEU.

Wallace



Wallace is so close to every Wire fans heart specifically because he was the first character to break it brutally. When he died through a combination of his own deeply rooted nature and a series of seemingly trivial coincidences (The Wire's favorite way to do tragedy, see: Randy) it had the feeling of a Greek tragedy in how inevitable it really was. The Barksdales were an organization that did not tolerate too much individuality and followed a brutal and rigid code, and its established pretty quickly that Wallace falls more than a little outside of that mold. For one, he has at least enough education to know who was and wasn't a president, actually cared about the right and wrong of D's chicken nugget lesson, and takes care of all the younger children in the low rises simply because no one else will. Wallace goes beyond being uncomfortable with the drug game, he's a genuinely good, selfless person in a way most law-abiding citizens aren't. As he's shown to be different from those around him his death is foreshadowed in tiny ways. For example, he's the one sitting across the chess table from Bodie as D'Angelo warns them about the short life span of a pawn. There's a moment of too perfect foreshadowing as D'Angelo is describing the queen. As D moves the piece across the board to knock over a pawn, Wallace compares it to Stringer and Bodie gives a little chuckle that just creeps me out now, like he somehow senses what Stringer is eventually gonna ask of him. The projects as an environment lashes out at the people who don't fit in, evidenced by Bodie chucking a bottle at Wallace for no damn reason. Wallace won't realize how different he is from everyone else until Brandon ends up outside his window. The first complete coincidence that sets Wallace's fate in motion is him even seeing Brandon at the diner in the first place. The fact that his mangled body is dumped right outside Wallace's window of all places is the first thing that gives the whole tragedy a sense of inevitability. Then McNulty overhears Poot talking about Wallace as Herc and Carver are listening to him have phone sex, right-place-right-time moment with a funny twist. And of course, it all may have worked out fine if the detail hadn't simply forgotten about Wallace when Kima got shot in an operation that wouldn't have happen if Carver hadn't been snitching. A recurring theme of The Wire is how modern society is so interconnected that the simple decisions people make to, let's say, listen to a drug dealer having phone sex can have heartbreaking consequences. Wallace falls into drugs because there is really no outlet for the kind of remorse he's feeling in his surroundings. He talks to the only person who understands, D'Angelo, who gives him the worst and best advice possible: don't think about it. He knew from experience that if Wallace was to survive in the game, he'd have to repress his basic decency and become hard like the Bodie's and Wee-Bey's of the world. The only reason D himself managed to survive so long with a similar bit of morality is because of who his uncle is, and Wallace doesn't have that protection. That's why he was so quick to encourage Wallace to leave the game entirely when it became clear he couldn't adapt, and why he was so disappointed when Wallace came right back. It seems unthinkable, but Wallace's decision to return was completely understandable to me. He was homesick, and for someone who's entire life was contained in a few city blocks, starting a new life out in the county must have been like suddenly ending up in China. The projects wasn't a place for Wallace, it was his life and his identity, something deep in the core of him that he couldn't change. So D once again tries to protect him, but Wallace has already slipped up once. So he's killed by the only two friends he has in the world in one of the most brutally heartrending scenes I had ever seen on TV (some of the **** that happens to Bubs in Season 4 is up there too.) That was when I knew The Wire was the best thing I had ever seen, because nothing else had ever made me hold my breath so long and feel so devastated when I exhaled. Wallace was the first pawn to fall, which is what makes him something of a martyr in David Simon's Baltimore, which is why his final resting place is right below a poster of 2pac. Wallace: Bodymore's Thug Angel.

Chester "Ziggy" Sobotka



Ziggy is a perpetual ****-up, no one is going to argue that point. He seems completely ignorant of his own limitations, no matter how obvious they may be and acts out for seemingly no reason. So yeah, it's incredibly easy to hate him, especially when comparing him to Frank or Nick. It was clear to me when I first watched Season 2 that Ziggy was spiraling out of control, and somehow felt trapped in the life he was in, but how did he get there? It wasn't until very recently that I realized all of Ziggy's erratic, idiotic behavior was just a sad little kids desperate attempt to get his father to notice and appreciate him. As much as I love Frank (and I LOVE Frank) the man was an absolutely abysmal father, and it shows again and again as he fails to notice his son slowly going insane. When we first meet Zig, its clear that he's a ****ing horrible stevedore, which leads one to wonder why he's there at all. Obviously, he craves the approval that Nick gets from Frank without even trying, but the only time Frank ever really acknowledges his own son is when he's doing something ****ing stupid. I get the feeling that's exactly what Ziggy's childhood was like, and if a kid is raised to think that the only way to get his dads attention is to act out, then he's gonna carry that lesson into his adult years. In one of the only real conversations Ziggy and Frank have together, we hear that he has a brother who went to college, which would really be a much better path for Ziggy to take. But he knew even as a little kid that his father's heart belonged to the docks, so he joined a dying union just to try and get closer to him. Of course, the real problems start when Frank decides to get into crime. He was doing it for the noblest of reasons, but by bringing Nick with him to meet the Greeks, he made Ziggy feel excluded and unloved. So, just as he followed his father to the docks, he follows him into crime, hoping that if he shows talent at that he'll get the pat on the back he wants so bad. The irony is, no matter how many signals Ziggy sends his dads way, Frank doesn't realize his son is ****ing around with dangerous people. He burns a $100 bill in a bar while covered in bruises, but when his dad brings it up, Ziggy just pulls out a few memories from the old days on the docks, and suddenly Frank forgets the whole thing. It's like Frank's brother says, he should have paid more attention to his own. Maybe in the back of his mind, Ziggy knows he's not right for the docks or crime, but he feels like its too late to go back. One of the first moments when I started to emphasize with Ziggy was when he bought the duck specifically because its wings were clipped, making it nothing but a goofy looking bird that can't get anywhere: his spirit animal if you will. That's why I knew Ziggy was doomed the second that duck died as a direct result of Ziggy trying to get everyones attention. One of the really horrible things about the guys life is that literally everyone BUT his father pays attention to his hilarious antics. I've said before that the 2nd season is an exploration of how your identity is largely based on the work you do, and Ziggy was in constant search of a real sense of self, but only had two places he could go to try and find it. When he finally shoots Glekas, its because every little insult and ****-up throughout the season has just continually eroded away at his pride and his sense of identity, so when he feels like life has backed him into a corner, he lashes out. His conversation with his dad after he got locked up basically lays it all out there for Frank and the viewer. Frank never paid him any attention, and his attempts to get that attention got crazier and crazier until he was in way over his head. So if you ever meet a little kid that reminds you a bit of Ziggy, tell his dad to give the little ****er a hug. It may save his life.

Lieutenant/Major/Colonel/Commissioner Cedric Daniels



MCNULTY. MY OFFICE. NOW! Sorry, had to get it out of my system. I never found Daniels super interesting as a character after Season 1, but I LOVED his character arc in that season. The events of the Barksdale investigation form a crucible that forces Daniels to re-evaluate himself and his priorities, similar to D'Angelo and Wallace in that way. He starts off as decidedly unlikeable, the somber authority figure trying to reign in our lovable rouge McNulty. What's cool about his character is that as he changes from a career-minded social climber to good poh-leece, that relationship stays exactly the same, saying just as much about Daniels' commitment to working with the system (difficult though it may be) as it does about McNulty's unconditional hatred of authority. The real turning point for Daniels (and the whole season) is when Brandon shows up tortured to death on the hood of a car. McNulty guilt trips the **** out of him, and for once, Daniels doesn't shoot back. He knows that if he had pushed for the wiretap, they could have not only saved a life but got half the Barksdale crew on a murder rap. The last shot of the episode says it all, as Daniels silently stares at the picture of Brandon's body. The lesson Brandon taught him is one that he passes on to Carver (even if he doesn't take it to its conclusion until seasons later), the selfish actions of a single cop can destroy lives (Randy is basically the Brandon to Carver's Daniels.) Of course, there is the corrupt past that was hinted at, but somehow it doesn't vibe with the unfailingly honest guy he is at his core. I get the feeling that whatever ridiculous amounts of money he managed to take from drug dealers during his days in the Eastern DEU, he did so at the urging of his bitch of a wife, who I always got a Lady Macbeth vibe from. That's why it felt good (if not altogether necessary) to see him get with Rhonda, a woman who loves him for who he is and not who she wants him to become.

But just because he came to side with McNulty and Freamon and began to oppose Burrell and his meddling doesn't mean he's going to start going around the system to judges and newspaper reporters. As much as he might disagree with them, he can understand the perspective of the higher-ups in the department because he used to have that exact same worldview. It's most clear in the scene in Season 1 when Rawls is trying to charge some Barksdale murders prematurely and Daniels successfully convinces Burrell to stop him. At first he tries arguing his case on merit, on the basis that the case should be made as complete as possible. Burrell clearly doesn't give a ****, so Daniels appeals to his self-interest and fear of pissing off Phelan. Daniels manages to find that middle ground between his team of dedicated detectives and selfish commanders that miraculously enables the cases to go forward even as Freamon works on pissing off every corrupt Baltimore politician. It's no coincidence that after Daniels moves onto the Major posting in the Western, the MCU is gutted from the inside. I doubt Daniels would have been able to stop Freamon from sending out the subpoenas (since Freamon is the master of the guilt trip) but he probably could have found a better way to do it, since Freamon seemed to relish pissing the politicians off for its own sake.

Poor Daniels had a deeply-held faith that his erstwhile police department could somehow be righted, and when Carcetti came swaggering in promising a new day, Daniels believed him after a brief period of healthy skepticism. The two are more than a little alike, mixing ambition and social responsibility. However, Daniels' ambition was to get to a position where he could really turn things around and better the city, while for Carcetti more power was the end and not the means. In Season 5, Daniels slowly realizes that the city is so settled into its rhythm of corruption that not even something as horrendous as 22 people being left to rot in vaccant houses can shake it out of that pattern. So once McNulty concocts a scheme that seems to startle the city back to life, you can see Daniels is happy that good policework is a priority again. Which is why he gets atom bomb levels of pissed when the deception is revealed. Everything he put his faith in, the ability of the department and the whole city to suddenly fix itself in the face of unspeakable evil, was proven to be a lie. That **** has gotta hurt. So when Nerese makes it clear that he either has to join the lie or leave, he leaves. Its a bittersweet ending, because while he gets to live a happy life as a defense lawyer (interesting how he decided to start working on the other side of the system and help criminals) alongside Rhonda, he had to give up on the dream that he worked so hard to earn. One of the more unflinching moral compasses in the show, Daniels at least got to bow out of the game gracefully with his honor intact. But damn it, he almost won it all.

Roland "Prezbo" Pryzbylewski



Who knew that in a show full of supremely flawed, selfish, indelible personalities, that the guy who started out the series as a complete douche and screw-up would end up one of the most fundamentally decent human beings in Baltimore? At first, his character sort of confused me. Was he so stupid and reckless because he knew Valchek would protect him, or did he just watch too much Dirty Harry as he was growing up? The main character trait I smelled coming off of him was completely undeserved arrogance, and its a shame that he had to blind a kid to get humbled a little bit. It also helps that Freamon takes him under his wing, and is a much better influence on the young cop than the cancerous Valchek. He finds his niche as the details code-breaker and accepts rather gracefully that he'll never be cut out for street work. Rather, he starts to actually enjoy the tedious work involved in running a wiretap, displaying Freamon-like patience. The new found confidence he gains under Lester's tutelage allows him to slowly break away from his father-in-law, and when he punches Valchek, he invalidates the protection he had for his whole career and finally has to stand on his own merits. However, other than a few isolated moments like that, Prez mostly serves an instrumental function in the MCU, giving exposition about the breaking of a code, or a new piece of surveillance equipment. That is, until that horrible moment when he shoots another cop and proves again that he's the last man you want to give a gun. It's still kinda hard to watch the way Prez utterly shuts down after this happens, and the shot of him alone in the wiretap room is just ****ing powerful. As tragic as that moment is, it allows Prez to realize that he was unfit to be a cop, because as good as he is at the paper trail, cops have to be able to keep a cool head out on the street, and that ain't him. This allows the character to really come into he own in Season 4.

The relationship between Prez and Dukie is, to me, one of the emotional cores of the show and perfectly articulates how an institution like the school system can leave a kid behind despite everyone's best efforts. Everyone in the school knows exactly what Dukie's home life is like, but Prez is the only one actually shocked by it. Everyone else at the school who's been around a while just accepts it as a fact of life in their environment. The message of Season 4 is that it takes massive effort, luck, and one-on-one attention to possibly save one kid from the streets, and Prez really tries his hardest to do just that as the school system churns along, uncaring. Its a bitter irony that Prez's hard work helping Dukie is what raised his test scores and got him moved on to high school, and his refusal to let him go is effectively undercut by Assistant Principal Donnelly (one of the most underrated characters imo.) She makes a perfect point when she tells poor Prez that there will be more Dukie's next year, and its unfair to them if he focuses all his attention on one kids. As horrible as it is, and as much as Dukie needs Prez's constant support, he has no choice but to let him go. And just as he tried to protect Dukie from the inexorable movement of the school system, he tries to protect Randy from the even more unforgiving criminal justice system, and that intense protective instinct is exactly what makes it so hard for him to let go. At the end of Season 4, you can tell the detective in Prez has deduced that Dukie isn't attending high school, just like Dukie wanted him to in a silent cry for help. But he knows Donnelly is right, so he lets him go. Which is why my heart absolutely BROKE for Prez when he saw the consequences of his actions in the series finale. Now its obvious that Dukie is lying to try and get some drug money, and Prez just keeps on trying to pull the truth out of him. Dukie remains committed to the lie, even as it becomes obvious to both of them that Prez has figured it all out. When Dukie affirms one last time that he'll definitely enroll in a GED program, you can actually pinpoint the moment when Prez's heart breaks and he becomes overcome with guilt. Its that guilt that makes him actually give Dukie 200 bucks for heroin to go shoot up with his new teacher, the junk man. He could have altered the sad trajectory of Dukie's life if he had just stuck with the kid, but then he wouldn't be the effective teacher he's clearly become by Season 5. Its a horrible trade-off for a man to make, but with that lesson learned, maybe Prez can help the next Dukie become a little less dependent on the kindness of strangers. And if not, he's still got that bitchin beard.

Detective William "The ****ing Bunk" Moreland



In the show's Baltimore, the hopelessly decayed institutions of the city bear down on their members and the general population of the city and corrupt them deeply. But the show is good about always giving us examples of individuals who can (mostly) stick to what's right. For every Marlo there's a Cutty and for every Herc, a Carver. One of the best examples of stable morality and understated heroism is the Bunk. He never really changes a whole bunch, but more is revealed about his character as the world and people around him spin further out of control. He's such a central version of this trope that he used as a foil to McNulty, Freamon and Omar as the series progresses. But he starts out as a deceptively simple character: the straight man to McNulty's loose cannon. Jimmy is more or less the anti-hero of Season 1, so the Bunk's more conventional, institutional approach to police work looks a little old-fashioned, if not lazy. But as we learn about McNulty's dysfunctional relationship with his job and his targets, it's easy to imagine Bunk was trying to pull him away from his own obsession instead of back into the bosses good graces. Instead Bunk gets dragged down with him when he lies to another detective to protect Omar and his partner's case, and that night he reaches Jimmy levels of hilarious drunken philandering. Even then though, he finds a way to condescend to McNulty and blame him with the brutal, "You're bad for people," line. True though it may be, its some ****ed up **** to say to your best friend, but that's their relationship. Bunk gets to enjoy holding the moral high ground over someone, and McNulty gets to ignore someone telling him what to do and usually they both have a blast.

Bunk truly gets great starting in Season 3, when the comparison between him and Omar they drew in Season 1 gets completely flipped on its head. He knew full well what Omar was when he met him back in Season 1, but they seemed to connect as two men who held to a code of honor in a world that had very little to go around. However, by Season 3 it's clear that **** in the city is getting even worse, and Bunk gets pissed. Suddenly their not connecting, but Bunk is about to hit his ass. Instead of a kindred spirit, he's the personification of everything thats gone wrong with Bunk's community. That scene is where the depth of Bunks code comes to the forefront. He was always perfectly happy in Homicide not because he's lazy, but because he thinks chasing killers (even from drug related shootouts) is more important than dismantling organizations or chasing politicians and developers. He values the life of every body in front of him, which keeps him from giving Omar a pass the way McNulty and Kima did. He plays the guilt trip beautifully, and gets to Omar so bad that he decides to pay him back a year later when he's in jail. As much as it pleases Bunk to see Omar in jail, just the thought of someone getting away with a frame-job bothers him so much he's almost forced against his will to pursue it. At this point, its almost a burden to him to do what he knows is right, the same way he forces the burden of not killing on Omar.

Now he suddenly seems noble, while McNulty proceeds to burn every bridge and get more obsessive, until his little break in Season 4. This is when Bunk's darker side comes out. Always the first to call McNulty out on his irresponsibility, when he suddenly heeds him and straightens out Bunk can't handle it. He misses the fun times he used to have with his friend, but he should understand why McNulty was downright terrified to go to the tracks and have a few drinks. Then he pokes and prods him, basically trying to tear him down and tempt him to go back to his own self. It's easily the most unlikeable Bunk ever gets, and it really taints his 'holier-than-thou-act' that he drops on McNulty in Season 5. He's right every second of the way, but he stops short of ratting him out and does bear some responsibility for the ****storm that follows (although he'd never admit it.) And like it or not, he gets dragged into McNulty's lie bit by bit. He lies to Beadie while making excuses for Jimmy, blaming his behavior on the serial killer and immediately looking like he regrets it. Then, when it comes down to it, he uses McNulty's case number to get crime lab results on Partlow. Even the stalwart Bunk gets a little dirt on him before the end. However, he is literally the only (major) character who ends the show exactly where he began it, crouching over a body right where William Gant was killed. It's the only ending he really could have gotten. He kept his head down, did his job and tried his best to keep the leprosy of the city from deforming him. While kingpins rise and fall and politicians climb over each other Bunk is happy right where he is, crouched over a body or neck deep in a case file.

NOTE: Bunk literally gets the best one liners in the entire series (except for maybe Snoop, but she lacks volume.) Comedy drops from his mouth like water from a faucet and Wendell Pierce kills the delivery every time. That said, I just can't pick one of his funny moments for the youtube clip, this one is the ****ing crux of his character to me.

Reginald "Bubbles" Cousins



The Wire is full of people struggling against the constraints that a city institution puts on them, and the only people who are really free from this are Omar and Bubbles for completely different reasons. While Omar is fearless and strong-willed enough to live separate from a hierarchy, for most of the show, Bubbles is just too weak to cope with the decayed city around him. So he is constrained by his addiction as it continually forces him to do things he doesn't want to do. On top of that, his life on the margins of society makes him particularly vulnerable to the whims of institutions like the police department, drug crews, City Hall and eventually even the school system. Its as if the combined weight of the city's dysfunctions falls on his head, which feeds into his despair and addiction. The drug crews could very well kill him at some point, the police use him when he's got some info but ultimately let him down, and when Carcetti's games **** over Hamsterdam he looses his one sanctuary. What's amazing about Bubbles is that through all of that suffering, he remains a genuinely loving human being and seems to have a compulsion to share that with people. This explains why he takes Johnny under his wing and becomes a surrogate father to Sherrod, no matter what a bad idea it may be. Andre Royo of course makes that warmth and humanity come through in just about every moment, even at his low points. Even though some people might be inclined to be unsympathetic to a dope fiend (like ****ing Landsman) Bubbles remains easily the most sympathetic character in the show despite the considerable wrong he does.

Because of his addiction his best quality, his capacity to care for others, became directly harmful to those close to him. It should have been clear from Season 1 that Bubbles was leading Johnny to his doom, and he has those moments where you can tell he knows better, but **** everyone needs a friend right? In Season 3, Bubs gives reform a shot and leaves Johnny behind, and without Bubs he's even more pathetic, incapable of leaving Hamsterdam while Bubbles finds the strength to resist at least momentarily. But Season 3 was all about people and organizations making the same mistakes, so shortly before Johnny dies of an overdose he takes Sherrod under his wing in what is a more overtly parental relationship. Bubs storyline in Season 4 is almost too painful to watch when you know where its heading. Bubs literally bleeds to try and create some stability for Sherrod and unlike with Johnny, he does his best to be a good example. Of course, he's slow to realize what his drug use is doing to the kid. Obviously no one ever really took the time to look after Sherrod, so he's bound to look up to the guy (the one talent he shows is a well drawn picture of Bubs.) So of course he's going to gravitate to the streets instead of the piecemeal school system. Its an issue that hangs between them that they can only deal with wordlessly, like when Sherrod leaves Bubs a vial on the nightstand or the look on Bubs face when he sees Sherrod strung out on a corner. Once again, its Bubbles lacking the strength to face his demon head on in an honest way. He's also blinded to Sherrods problems because of the demon addict that stalks him, a human personification of everything heroin has done to him. Of course Bubbles just doesn't think and he finally hits his bottom, which Walon said in Season 1 is the only way for someone to shake off addiction.

In Season 5, Bubs is a sober but broken man. It would have been easy to leave Bubs in that rehab place and let us assume he gets clean, but the writers know that living with what he's done is the real hard part. The last of the cities institutions to have an effect on Bubbles is the newspaper, and his plotline in Season 5 is not only there to give us closure with the character we love so much but also to show what truly great journalism can do for people. Going to the meetings, hanging with Walon and volunteering all couldn't get Bubs to shed his shame but when he reads that article and sees himself the way other people do, it frees him. Its not a coincidence that soon after he finds that catharsis through the written word, he also gains his sisters acceptance and finally gets to climb those stairs. Its a testament to the work of the writers and of course Andre Royo that a 5 second clip of a man ascending some steps can reduce a man to tears of joy. The Wire is show of devastating cynicism when it comes to the forces that make our society run (badly), but it is endlessly hopeful about the people who struggle to survive in it, and Bubs climbing those steps is enough to give us hope for all the Dukie's and Randy's out there.

"Proposition" Joe Stewart



I don't know if this is true at all, but I get the feeling Prop Joe was supposed to be a fairly minor character in the scheme of things until everyone realized that Robert F. Chew could turn every single line into pure comic gold. I certainly wasn't expecting the clipboard toting fat guy from Game Day to become the nexus of the entire Baltimore drug trade by Season 3. Of course the way he got to that position proves that he was always the smartest kingpin in Baltimore, yes even smarter than Stringer in the end. When their professional rivalry turned into a partnership it wasn't too hard to see Joe as an older, wiser Stringer without the ego to think he was better than the place he came from or the naivete to believe he could 'go legit.' He was also the most human of the drug lords, because while Stringer and Marlo use other people as a means to further their ambition, Joe has already realized his dream and is more than happy to cooperate with others and pass his wisdom down to the younger generation. So he teaches Stringer how to operate quietly and mesmerizes him with the tale of Charlie Sollers, just as much a part of String's maturation as his economics classes. Its fitting that Joe staffs his organization with his nephews because he comes off like Baltimore's friendly uncle figure, Santa Claus delivering a bag full of raw dope. The Co-op may have been Stringer's idea, but its held together by Prop Joe's personality as much as it is by the connect to the Greeks. For that matter, the whole reason Joe could somehow develop a working relationship with the Greeks was his ability to stay quiet, so quiet that wiretap maestro's Freamon and McNulty never even get an inkling that Joe has consolidated most of the dealing in the city.

From Season 3 onward one of the themes of the show is how one generation of corner boys, soldiers and kingpins is supplanting the older one through sheer ruthlessness and lack of loyalty. Joe seems to think he can hold back that rising tide with the New Day Co-op, full of middle-aged kingpins who discuss the next real estate scheme instead of the next assassination or turf war. He can see that Marlo (and Cheese as well) feels out of place in a setting like that, and tries almost desperately to bring Marlo around to his way of thinking. Its one of the more fascinating relationships on the show because Joe is smart enough to see the potential in Marlo that Cheese lacks, while Marlo is cold enough to see Joe's kind trusting nature as a weakness to exploit but still gets taken in by his charm just a little. Joe can see that Marlo is destined to wear the crown after him one way or another, and Joe is trying to make sure he rules benevolently, with a code. What he doesn't realize until its too late is that Marlo already has a code of his own, one that drives him to eliminate anyone that stands between him and the crown no matter how much he may like and respect him. Joe wasn't civilizing Marlo at all, he simply let the wolf into the sheep's pen. That chilling moment when Marlo watches Chris kill Joe is the signal of what the future holds for Baltimore, much like Kenard's murder of Omar. While the streets were once ruled by men whose brutality was restrained by a sense of honor, loyalty and the smallest hint of social responsibility, when we leave Baltimore they have all been replaced by younger predators who can't be bargained with or even befriended. To even try is to invite a bullet into the back of your head. So a man who was smart enough to tame the Baltimore drug trade and avoid the police for who knows how many years was simply overtaken by the inevitability of time. Because the future don't give a **** about a proposition.

Felicia "Snoop" Pearson



I just realized that there's very little I can think to write about Snoop from a purely analytic perspective because there's really not a whole lot to analyze. What makes Snoop such an amazing character isn't her depth or development, but the perfection of the performance. Snoop is the exact same character from her silent introduction in the 3rd season to the moment Micheal blows her brains out in the 5th: an assassin with no remorse, a soldier who follows orders. She takes so much pleasure in her work that she turns murder scenes into comedy routines, playing perfectly off of eternal straight man Partlow. The contrast between them is what makes them a perfect duo: Chris stoically does his job with business-like efficiency, while Snoop seems to be having a ****ing ball every time she pulls her gun out. Add Micheal into the mix and you have a beautifully twisted little family unit, with Chris and Snoop scolding Mike like parents whenever he displays a hint of potential disobedience. The way Snoop and Micheal grow more distant over the course of Season 5 shows that Snoop will always put her work over her emotions the way Marlo and Chris do. She clearly has some affection for the kid, and vice-versa so when she prepares to kill him, she simply feels "its just his time," and de-personalizes the whole thing. It's not for her to say who dies and when, but she is perfectly happy to the blunt instrument that does the dirty work. To do that kind of work she has to build a wall around every bit of compassion and femininity she has, a wall she only lets down when staring down the barrel of Micheal's gun. Then she shows the affection she has for him mingled with bitterness that he could never truly be the obedient soldier she and Chris tried to mold him into, and of course finally acts like woman and asks about how her hair looks. Goddamn, that ****ing scene. Of course, the reason the role feels so natural is that Snoop is playing herself, and only an actress that could fall into the role so completely would be able to nail a joke right after executing someone.

Chris Partlow



No joke, Chris scared the **** out of me when I first saw him execute that guy in the rowhouse in the Season 4 premiere. The scene itself was like something out of a nightmare, and it was downright creepy the way he talked to his victim so kindly, as if he was doing the guy a favor. That always stuck out to me as one of the most important things about Partlow, the kindness you could see lurking just under the surface. It's most evident when he leads Old Face Andre to his fate: he puts his arm around and quiets his fears, going so far as to assure him "I gotcha back." Saying something like that to a man your about to kill speaks to some serious psychological issues but his victims are taken in by it, answering the question the kids ask of how he can get someone to walk into a building with him if they know what's coming. You could always tell he didn't enjoy his job the way Snoop did, and it was always a mystery to me how someone who clearly had sympathy for his victims could also be so cold-blooded. Of course, the answer comes in that pivotal scene where he beats Micheal's stepfather to death with his bare hands, implying he was once raped. Now here's where I unveil my overly complicated fan theory on Partlow's past. In the very same episode that has Chris wrecking Mike's stepdad, Namond tells Carver that he fears 'baby-booking' because kids get raped in there. In Chris' brief conversation with the pedo, he brings up his prison time and only snaps when the guy admits to raping men in prison. Maybe my imagination is running wild, but I don't think it's too far-fetched that Marlo and Chris met as kids in 'baby-booking' and Marlo saved Chris from whoever it was that was taking advantage of him. It explains why Chris would be so unfailingly loyal to Marlo and kill for him with a joylessness that speaks of duty, the same way Micheal kills at Partlow's behest. His history of abuse also explains why he's so gentle with his victims: he knows what its like to be at the mercy of a stronger man. It creates another neat little parallel with Micheal, who loses his virginity while asking the girl if she's sure and assuring her he doesn't want to hurt her. Chris and Marlo may have seen the potential for a soldier in Micheal from afar, but its only when Chris gets closer to him and sees the look of pain and shame on his face as he asks them to kill his tormentor that he starts to see himself. Its almost sweet how Partlow teaches Micheal to stop being a victim, except he turns him into a victimizer and is teaching Micheal how to suppress the compassion in him.

Of course despite all that pathos Chris is also one-half of one of the funniest comedic duos in television history. The writers know exactly how to bounce Snoops manic bloodthirsty energy off of Chris' constant calm to make pure comedic gold, and to this day Chris and Snoop arguing about club music/assassinating New Yorkers is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV.

In Season 4, Chris is the boogeyman of West Baltimore, and the kids tell stories about him around their fire in place of ghost stories. But in Season 5, he comes up against his white whale: Omar. This show loves creating those adversarial relationships that slowly slide into obsession (McNulty vs Stringer and Freamon vs Clay being a couple examples) and Partlow falls into the same trap. You have to imagine that he's never come up against a person he couldn't hunt down and kill, and Omar's borderline supernatural escape from him clearly wounds his pride. Seriously it feels like half of the characters in this show are driven to some extent by their egos. So his frustration mounts while he tries to keep Marlo from hearing any of Omar's taunts. Slowly it becomes apparent that Partlow is afraid of both Omar and Marlo, and he probably hasn't felt fear of any serious sort in years. And on top of all that, surrogate-son Micheal is starting to ask way too many questions. So Partlow's quest to kill Omar becomes not only about his pride, but about holding his most important relationships in place. So when he hears Kenard got the kill, his disappointment is palpable. He is also one of the few characters in the show who gets exactly what he deserved: life in jail. Partlow was full of contradictions that he managed with an eerie ease: zombie master to children, kind killer to anyone Marlo doesn't like and miraculous savior to a tough little kid who needed him, Chis was a unique kind of monster and one of the shows most complex creations. Just don't walk into a rowhouse with him at night.

Marlo "Black" Stanfield



You could argue that Marlo is the most evil character in the show, and everyone would certainly agree that he is the least endearing. He has none of the humanity that practically overflowed from Avon and Prop Joe or the twisted Romantic dreams of Stringer. He never shows a moment of true compassion, regret or mercy (unless you look REALLY close to the subtlest facial ticks) and accumulates power with a ruthlessness that is almost inhuman. In Season 3 the show starts to foreshadow the arrival of a new generation (which Carver mockingly refers to as "the dawn of a new ****ing day), even more brutal than their predecessors and Marlo is the first wave. The older kingpins simply cannot wrap their head around him: master schemer Stringer Bell can't make peace with him, street soldier Avon can't outfight him and even Prop Joe the master of turning rivals into partners gets played in the end. However, we can actually learn more about Marlo by comparing not with his fellow drug lords but with the bureaucrats that run the legitimate side of Baltimore. At first the clues are visual and stupidly subtle. He swings a gold club around his head when menacing Bodie, which I didn't connect to Burrell's habit of practicing his putting while being a douche to Daniels. Didn't catch that till my third viewing. He has a fondness for poker that he shares with Clarence Royce, the difference being that Royce is already the king of his table while Marlo hungers to take the older men around him for all their chips. That took till the 4th viewing. And the one that should have been painfully obvious on my first viewing is the parallel between Rawls and Burrell chewing out commanders with bad numbers at Comstat, while Marlo does the same with one of his dealers in an open air park. Seen through this lens, Marlo isn't just the ultimate gangster: he's the ultimate bureaucrat. Its a consequence of the game he's in that he deals with disobedience with a bullet instead of an exile to the boat. What REALLY didn't hit me until just a few months ago is that the rise of Marlo is also meant to parallel Carcetti's meteoric career, and Season 5 depicts the horrible consequences of their rule.

By Season 4, Marlo is the undisputed king of the West Side but still 'a babe in the woods' when it comes to running a real empire, actually allowing his voice to be captured on phone once by the MCU he doesn't even know is on him. Of course he's too ****ing arrogant (*coughCarcetti*cough*) to realize he could actually learn something form Prop Joe until ****ing Herc (seriously, how much happier would everyone in B-More be if Herc had died in Season 1?) ****s up and gets noticed. So Marlo swallows a bit of his pride and opens himself up enough to actually learn from Prop Joe and wrap himself in silence. Even so, he remains a predator at heart, recruiting teenage killers and turning the city upside down for Omar, very un-Joe moves. Throughout his lessons, he remains a very special kind of monster: bringing death on command without anger or any sort of passion. Why display someone's mutilated body on the hood of a car when one bullet in a rowhouse will suffice without drawing investigation? Its cold, economical cost-benefit analysis that comes into play. When he orders the death of Micheal he isn't even fully convinced the boy snitched, and for a moment you can see he regrets doing it because he liked the kid. Did you see how pleased and perversely proud he was when he first saw Andre's ring around Micheal's neck?

Seeing the parallel between Marlo and Tommy in Season 5 made me think back to Season 4 to see if it had really been implied that far back. Oh hell yes it was, especially in the last episode of the season. A crisis forces both of them to the feet of the king above them: for Marlo its Omar's epic last robbery, and for Tommy its the school budget crisis. It allows Marlo an opportunity to meet with Vondas and put a tail on him, and provides Tommy the last bruise to his ego he's willing to suffer. Those events are what drive both of them to decide once and for all to take the crown for themselves no matter what. The only key difference (besides the slightly different games they are playing) is that Marlo and the viewer know exactly what he is about from Day 1: power. Carcetti is a creature of lies and the biggest ones are the ones he tells to himself, which the viewer is actually led to believe throughout Season 3 and 4. But enough about Carcetti, Marlo's key relationship in Season 5 is with Prop Joe. I've already gone on an on about Prop and Marlo in my Prop Joe write-up, but one thing I need to note is how much Marlo actually cared about Joe, insofar as he was capable of caring for anyone. It's in the little moments, specifically when he first meets Levy. Prop Joe leaves him behind to talk to his new lawyer alone and Marlo turns back, confused, unsure and vulnerable for the smallest of moments before Joe reassures him. Bizarrely, it instantly reminded me of a kid looking back at his dad on the first day of kindergarten...if you learned how to launder drug money in kindergarten. That earns Joe the 'kindness' of Marlo's 'soothing' words before Chris caps him and Marlo tucks his humanity away again. In the end, Marlo was more like The Greek than Joe, and David Simon named them 'pure power' and 'pure capitalism' respectively. They operate with equally cold dedication to a single ideal, which is why Vondas' casual boast in Season 2 that "My name is not my name" is mirrored in Marlo's most ****ing awesome moment. It speaks to the genius of Omar that he knew exactly how to rile Marlo up because even if the noble gunslinger would never admit it, the two share something in common: they understand that a predator is only as fearsome as his reputation. While Omar was full to bursting with love for those closest to him and would gladly die for them, Marlo would die for nothing but his rep. Omar and Chris both knew that, but for the viewer it was an unexpected look into what makes Marlo tick. And God was it awesome. Marlo's ending is one of the best in the show, heavy with irony and the inevitability of fate. Its ironic that Marlo operated so much like the rulers of 'legitimate' Baltimore that he was eventually ushered into their ranks by Levy, Stringer's wet dream in a nutshell, only to leave at the first opportunity. He's so uncomfortable he can barely come up with a convincing lie to tell Levy. And I'm sorry but anyone who says Marlo's last scene is ambiguous is a ****ING IDIOT. We now know that his reputation on the streets is the only thing he puts stock in, and he's only back on these streets for two seconds before he hears an exaggerated tale of Omar's death. The kids telling it don't even know they're talking **** to the former blood-soaked king of the Baltimore drug trade. Omar won as far as Marlo's worldview goes (Omar may disagree) and he does not take that **** lying down. Standing on a corner with blood running down his arm and a gun at his feet, he's finally content again. And people really think he was gonna go back into that room full of old white men in suits?! MUTHA****A HIS NAME IS- oh just click the link.

Detective Lester "Cool Lester Smooth" Freamon



This mother****er right here has everything figured out. If you wonder why Freamon navigates the show with an almost supernatural calm its because he's seen all of these patterns play out before. Not only does he know how to run a wiretap case almost single-handed, but he expects the bosses to try and shut it down. Beyond just that, he's also the person that ties all of these volatile personalities together. Once he reveals how much of a badass he really is, everyone respects him enough that he can act as a bridge between McNulty and Daniels, turn Prez from a goofball to a valued member of the team, and even gets Herc and Carver to listen to advice every now and again. While the corruption of their police department shocks the younger cops into anger, Freamon more or less accepts it as the way its always been (until Season 5 of course) and has figured out a way to survive after 13 years and 4 months in the Pawnshop unit. Even Rawls respects the guy enough to not **** him over and put him in Homicide (twice), but that might also be for the sake of his clearance rate. Freamon is also a rarity in The Wire because he's dedicated to making all of the people around him into better police and better people simply through sheer force of will. He helps drag Daniels onto the side of good police, teaches Prez some humility while helping him discover his natural talent and help Kima master some of the more ephemeral aspects of police work. However, his greatest challenge and his greatest failure is his one true protegee, McNulty.

Initially, McNulty worships Lester who is the embodiment of the cop McNulty wants to be: the smartest guy in the room. Therein lies one of the key differences. McNulty constantly feels the need to prove to himself and others how goddamn smart he is, while Lester simply knows he's the best and doesn't care if anyone acknowledges that, so long as he can run his case. Its the difference between youth and experience. And if Lester is clearly the man Jimmy wants to be, then Jimmy is obviously the man-child Lester used to be. Freamon spells it out as clear as day for him in Season 3 with knowledge that can only come from experience: the job alone won't save you, Stringer and Avon are not substitutes for family and friends. Jimmy's obviously heard it before from his wife and the Bunk, but that just serves to make him defiant. Eventually his wife gives up and Bunk accepts his faults like a friend should. But Freamon is more of a father figure than a friend, and Jimmy respects him so much that it actually starts to sink in for once, and Stringer's end drives it all home. There are 100 ways the two are similar, but one difference comes to the forefront in Season 4. Freamon has the self-control to chase targets like Marlo without slipping into obsession, while McNulty has to separate himself from that whole area of police work for his own good. Freamon damn well knows this too, but the thrill of the case against Marlo and his 22 bodies is something he sincerely wants Jimmy to share with him. It's almost touching but this is when Freamon the Cop starts to overpower Freamon the Role Model and **** really starts to hit the fan.

Season 5 is my favorite Freamon season for a number of reasons. First of all, its the only time he's shown to be something other than the perfect cop. Second of all, the Clay Davis case becomes a window into Freamon's ultimate purpose. Unfortunately I couldn't find the clip on YouTube, but my favorite Freamon moment by far is when he explains to Sydnor why Clay Davis is a better target than any drug kingpin. That's when you realize what Freamon's goal has been since Season ****ing 1: he wants to show that the drug game is not an isolated world, but tied intricately to the political and economic structure of the city and its leaders. The same people who give speeches about law-and-order and cleaning up the streets are getting paid to let the murder and addiction continue, and WE keep putting them back into power. He doesn't even necessarily want to lock Clay Davis up, he wants to roll him up and follow the money trail to its end. Not for punishment, not so he can pat himself on the back, but just so people will finally SEE the hypocrisy they are unwittingly a part of. Sound like David Simon and Ed Burns to you? At the same time, the political complications of the Clay Davis case, combined with the gutting of the case on Marlo are the final straw for Freamon. While everything may go in cycles in Baltimore, the dysfunctions of the institutions simply keep compounding so the only meaningful change is a change for the worst. It takes until Season 5 for Freamon to see this, and he finally falls into McNulty-like rage. Unlike Jimmy, he remembers a time when 22 dead bodies actually meant something, and the realization that after all this time (and with Daniels as Commissioner no less) the city has only gotten harder to fix finally brings him back to Jimmy's level. So he sells his soul to do one last bit of good for the city, and even manages to trace the money all back to Levy (and what an awesome revelation that was, a balding Jewish lawyer is the ultimate kingpin, wtf?!) But in the end, he has to deal with the same bitter irony as McNulty: not only does Marlo get off because they broke the rules, but Pearlman specifically has to leave the money trail Freamon spent more than 5 years uncovering just to keep the two of them out of jail. At the very least though, he gets to leave the BPD with a legacy of sorts: Sydnor has absorbed the last of Freamon's traits he never passed on to Prez or Kima, the cynicism to say '**** the rules.' But even when he wins he loses. He was the smartest man in Baltimore, he saw the connections between killers and kings, broke through all the lies with laser-focus police work and like Jimmy, he never got his target. But at least after 32 years and 4 months, he got a stripper for all his troubles.

Mayor Thomas Carcetti



Tommy is introduced into the show a lot like McNulty is: our plucky, snarky guide into another part of the Baltimore bureaucracy. Like Jimmy, Carcetti is initially portrayed as one of the few politicians trying to do what's best for the city, until we see that it's all motivated by a planet-sized ego. Carcetti walks a fine line throughout Season 3, because as wonderful as it is to see him **** with Burrell, once the camera's are off Tommy admits he's doing it all out of boredom and the feeling that he's being ignored. The man simply loves playing it up in front of an audience, which is immediately evident when he rushes home to admire a tape of himself yelling at Burrell. In fact, every time Carcetti is faced with his own image he looks like he's falling in love. He stares right into a mirror while ****ing some country club tramp. When his campaign strategist plays another video of him in a council meeting to point out what he's doing wrong, he barely hears her he's so wrapped up in himself. While he may tell other people and himself that he genuinely wants to help the city, even he sounds less and less convinced as the show goes on. He's given a choice between his idealism and his ambition at the end of Season 3, when Colvin shows him the good and the ugly behind Hamsterdam. He can see the logic behind it all, but everyone knows it would be political suicide. Whereas he started the season speaking truth from the city council bench he ends it by calling for a more aggressive campaign against drugs, knowing full well that West Baltimore will turn back into a war zone and that the speech will put him on track to run for mayor.

Season 4 is when Carcetti truly takes a turn from anti-hero to full-on villain. Initially, we're happy to see him win the election because its still anyone's guess what kind of mayor he will be. His first significant act after beating Royce is turning down his hot campaign strategist, implying that he'll be able to master his darker tendencies. I love the confused look on his face as he shoots her down, as if he's not even sure why he's doing it. The hope he has for the future of the city sounds genuine as he's talking to his wife, but its all thrown horribly off track in a scene I barely noticed my first viewing. While talking to Democratic strategists from D.C., Tommy seems content and excited to be mayor. He even looks like he regrets that he can't fix the school system (as Norman says, "Gotta respect the depths.") Until one of them casually mentions that Tommy is pretty enough to be governor in two years, experience be dammed. Then Tommy gets this far-away look in his eyes and the character I loved in Season 3 gets consumed by his ambition. Once it becomes clear that Tommy is going to be forced to deal with the school problem, it becomes more than a political question for the viewer, since we've seen the damage one year in a broken school system can do to a child. Faced with helping the children of Baltimore or helping himself, he makes choice we all should have seen coming. No matter what lies he tells about helping the city as governor, in his most honest moments Carcetti tacitly admits that his ego will not allow him to be happy as mayor.

By Season 5, every word out of the ****ers mouth infuriated me. It turns out Carcetti not only ****s over the children in his ignoble quest, but the police as well, essentially handing the city to Marlo. He turns a blind eye to the corruption going on around him and focuses solely on raising money and positioning himself for the governors race. Until McNulty and Freamon start desecrating corpses. The Red Ribbon Killer is the perfect microcosm for Carcetti's term as mayor: a giant lie motivated by ego, with pretenses of a noble aim. Despite what McNulty says, he's strangling dead bodies just to prove he can outsmart a whole city and because he personally hates Marlo. Carcetti, likewise, is running for governor so everyone can see him as the savior he sees himself as, and of course to get revenge on the Republican governor who embarrassed him in Season 4. The show hints as much when Carcetti cuts a huge red ribbon in front of the newest dockside condo, desecrating the corpse of the ports on his way to the State House. Even when he finds out it was all a lie, he continues with it because it was the issue he was riding into office. The fact that McNulty's act of desperation and protest against Carcetti's ambition is what ended up securing Tommy's win is a brutal irony that left me genuinely pissed. Carcetti deserved to be punished for what he did to the city of Baltimore, instead the dysfunction of the cities institutions is what provided him with a winning issue. I hope they serve nothing but tuna subs in the Hell reserved for ******* politicians.

Duquan "Dukie" Weems



**** YOU DUKE! Sorry, had to do it. Dukie wasn't born, he was designed. Created in a lab (or TV writing room) by David Simon and Ed Burns to function as a perpetual heartbreak machine. Through no fault of his own, the city of Balitmore and its people continuously victimize him, starting with his own family. Its a great mercy on the part of David Simon that we never see what goes on inside Dukie's house, because it could very well be too much to handle. At the same time, it allows our imaginations to run wild with the horror Dukie has to deal with on a daily basis. Dukie and Micheal's personalities are both studies on how children deal with trauma while so young, and the do it in opposite ways. Micheal becomes stronger and determined to protect those weaker than him (Bug and Dukie), even if its through violence. He becomes determined never to be a victim again. Dukie goes in the other direction and internalizes that treatment, accepting the role of a victim. You can see it in the way he walks behind his friends with his head down, or plays with bugs off to the side while they try to catch pigeons. He tries to stay out of sight and out of mind, reasoning that its better for people to ignore him rather than harassing him. That's why he's initially surprised and a little confused by Prezbo's attention and kindness. He's used to accepting the occasional helping hand from Michael or Randy, but the idea of an adult (and an employee of the school system no less) helping him for no reason other than kindness take's him a little bit to wrap his head around. Of course, once Prez takes the time to get to know him, we find out Dukie is probably the smartest kid in the class. In fact, a running theme of Season 4 is that Dukie always knows more than just about everyone else. Freamon spends most of the season trying to figure out where Marlo is putting his bodies, while Dukie has already witnessed Chris executing a dude in a rowhouse. Randy's life is then ruined by Herc trying to get information out of him that he doesn't even have. Also, Dukie's life of abuse has made him a lot older than his years, like when he has to show Randy and even Micheal that there's no 'special dead' by showing them one of Chris' corpse's. He knows better than to turn witness though, and the only other person he tells is Prezbo which indicates how much he really trusts him. That's why its such a horrible double whammy when Prez is forced to let him advance into high school the very same day his family is evicted and leaves him behind. Prez tries to keep him hopeful and tells him he can still stop by, but Dukie has already accepted that he won't be around. Dukie knows damn well he can't survive without protection and support, so he's forced to follow Micheal into the drug game. He does make one last cry for help though, and shows up to Prezbo without a backpack and with new clothes. He's giving Prez one last chance to save him and they both know it, even if they can't bring themselves to say it directly. All Prez has to do is let him in the front door, but he can't for good reason. Dukie doesn't understand that though, all he sees is another adult abandoning him. All he really has left is Michael, who has left him behind in a whole different sense.

Season 4 ends with Dukie on the corner, but its not long before Season 5 shows us that he doesn't fit in there either. It should have been obvious that Dukie can never be hard enough for the corner, but Michael really can't do anything more for him. When he gives Dukie a thinly veiled assignment as Bug's 'nanny' so he can have an excuse to just give him money as charity, the shame is all over Dukie's face (as Ne-Yo's "My Addiction" plays on the radio.) In The Wire, just about everyone belongs to an institution that informs their identity and sense of self-worth. After being fired from the corner, Dukie goes in search of such an identity. He doesn't have what it takes to be part of Cutty's gym, which is where potential corner boys find a positive way to channel the violence that doesn't exist in Dukie. He's too young to get legal employment and that leaves him with one real option: the arraber. Dukie is constantly searching for someone to take him under their wing and he picks horribly. So once the cluster**** of the serial killer/Marlo case forces Michael to go on the run, the two best friends are forced with the thought of living life on their own. When Mike tells him that he can't remember the piss balloons Dukie takes the hint: childhood is over, he's on his own. We know Michael is more than strong enough to support himself, but Dukie needs the support of others, even if they're dope fiends. So he ends the show where he began it, living with dope fiends. Only by this point in his life, he's seen that the school system will only treat him as a statistic and the corner will only make him a punching bag. Everyone who's ever cared about him has been forced by circumstance to abandon him. He's reached a true dead end in life, and is forced to find comfort and love in the needle. This leads to the devastating scene where he returns to Prez seeking drug money. It's a horribly callous move on Dukie's part, since he's essentially banking on Prez's guilt overriding his better judgement. It also shows us that he's willing to sever every meaningful connection he's ever had to get his fix. He doesn't look ashamed until Prez watches him give the money over to his new teacher, but if Bubbles is any indication, it will be years until that shame drives him to try and change his life. If he lasts that long. Love you Duke.

THE END

thanks for posting these, super awesome so far (only 2 deep.)

Yeah, thanks this is awesome. Man, now I wanna watch it again.

aaaaand no sleep for me. Thanks for posting these though. Don't forget to post the recaps too! I'm looking forward to reading those after watching each episode.

[copy]
[paste]
[save as pdf]
[import to iphone]

Yeah, my commute will be very nice today.

Thanks a lot, dude. These are awesome.

what about Michael?

this is amazing. thanks so much for posting

oh yeah <3

I kinda disagree with this. Avon wanted to go to war with Marlo in large part because he recognized what Stringer couldn't-- that Marlo was interested in power, in "wearing the crown", not in cutting deals, and that he wouldn't stop coming until he had it or he was dead. That was more Stringer's downfall, his inability to realize that not everyone saw his vision of what the drug game could be as a good thing (that and an overestimation of his own savvy and street smarts, as seen both in how Clay Davis hustles him and how easily Omar and Mouzone are able to figure out his double-cross).