Top 10 Best Moments From The Wire
#10: Season 2 Closing Montage
“Port in a Storm”
With music montages concluding and summarizing each season of “The Wire”, Season 2 ends most thought-provokingly. Steve Earle’s catchy yet bluesy “I Feel Alright” scores authorities shutting down the dockworkers’ union hall and its criminal rackets. Meanwhile, continued street crime and a condo building’s groundbreaking illustrate the mixed bag of Baltimore’s resilience. It's all the more poignant for how the montage is framed: with Nick Sobotka staring through a chain-link fence like his uncle Frank did before his murder. This corresponding visual and Nicky walking off in the rain perfectly punctuate the season’s study of the death of blue-collar America. Earle’s ballad and the compilation behind it may mark a sweeping climax, but that silence says so much more.
#9: Snoop Buys a Gun
“Boys of Summer”
Season 3 introduced Felicia “Snoop” Pearson as a ruthless enforcer for the Stanfield Organization. This impression makes the way she introduces Season 4 very intriguing. We fade in on Snoop walking into a Hardware Barn to exchange her old cordless nail gun. After some lighthearted conversation with an employee, she hands him an excessive stack of cash, then walks straight out of the store with a top-of-the-line product. This boldly mundane season opener encapsulates the whole show’s mastery at humanizing even the most hardest characters. You never know what an overly generous customer may be planning with a new nail gun. One can only hope she isn’t sealing off vacant buildings where murder victims are stored.
#8: "Where's Wallace?"
“Cleaning Up”
D’Angelo Barksdale is in police custody when he learns that his friend Wallace is dead. He refuses to believe it, until Stringer Bell visits him in jail. Wallace’s reluctant return to the Barksdale Organization roused Stringer’s accurate suspicions that he snitched. The 16-year-old’s assassination is one of the most disturbing moments in all of “The Wire”. Equally heartbreaking is when D’Angelo refuses further orders from his boss, repeatedly shouting, “Where’s Wallace?”. Stringer just silently walks away, knowing the kid knows the answer. Those two words say everything about the tragedy underlying D’Angelo and Wallace’s arcs. If ordering the latter’s death proved Stringer’s cold-bloodedness, the aftermath shows just how little men like him care about the children they turn into soldiers.
#7: Bodie and McNulty in the Park
“Final Grades”
Preston “Bodie” Broadus is a devoted Barksdale lieutenant without question, at least among comrades. His and Season 4’s final episode is highlighted by Jimmy McNulty treating him to lunch in Cylburn Arboretum. Just out of jail, Bodie asserts that he's no snitch, but is frustrated that loyalty to gang bosses doesn't go both ways. This heartfelt exchange focuses the pride and futility in the game’s power structure. It also convinces Bodie to turn informant. But he’s quickly marked for death when word of his meeting with a cop reaches Marlo Stanfield. Bodie’s realization of true honor is rewarded with two shots in the head as he defends his corner. His chat with McNulty showed that it was all he ever really had.
#6: "Well, Get on With It"
“Middle Ground”
Season 3’s penultimate episode is a fitting swan song for Stringer Bell. The callous kingpin is first humbled by a crucial conversation with Avon about their youth and Stringer’s plans to go legit. The next day, he goes to a meeting at his real estate development when Omar and Brother Mouzone bust in. Avon had sold out his lifelong friend as a liability. Cornered after a frantic pursuit, Stringer poetically meets the same fate he ordered for Wallace in Season 1. But instead of begging for his life, he exclaims, “Well, get on with it…”. Omar and Mouzone cut him off with a barrage of bullets. For all his humanity in the end, Stringer Bell died an impatient businessman’s death.
#5: Bunk Confronts Omar
“Homecoming”
Hearing that Omar Little may know something about a shooting, Detective Bunk Moreland meets with the infamous stick-up man. Slowly but surely, the evasive interview turns to a debate about community policing. Bunk scrutinizes Omar as a role model for exclusively robbing drug dealers, and reflects on his own criminal neighbors growing up. Where these men kept Bunk out of their affairs, today's hustlers exploit the kids who idolize them. This marks one of “The Wire”’s most succinct laments of the hood’s moral hierarchy and decline. Bunk’s powerful words seem to affect Omar. And as they echo all the way to his death at a child’s hands two seasons later, it seems the only legacy of violence is violence.
#4: Bubbles's Anniversary
“Late Editions”
Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins grew from one of the most tragic characters on “The Wire” to one of its most triumphant. His torturous battle with substance dependency is put into perspective in the show’s penultimate episode, with a Narcotics Anonymous speech to commemorate one full year of sobriety. Bubbles speaks to recovery as a daily fight for joy in the midst of grief. But he cannot share that it was his attempt to murder an attacker that resulted in surrogate son Sherrod’s death. Quite possibly the show’s most heart-rending moment of redemption, Bubbles’s monologue is still underscored by the horror of his rock bottom. It’s also an important and articulate reminder of the strength it takes to live with oneself.
#3: The Shotgun and the Briefcase
“All Prologue”
Even when hitting gangsters by legal means, Omar stays dominant. He wears casual clothes and a tacky tie while testifying against Barksdale enforcer Bird. His cheeky honesty endears the jury, until Bird’s attorney Maurice Levy tries to discredit the witness as no better than the criminals he robs. When the stick-up man is labeled a “parasite”, he responds by equating his enterprise with a shotgun to Levy’s with a briefcase. The tense cross-examination suddenly becomes an indictment of the legal system’s own amorality. The best representation is usually more interested in the highest bidder than how the client got there. Omar punctuates one of “The Wire”’s snappiest exchanges with one of its most elegant metaphors for the game’s many methods and wardrobes.
#2: "You Gonna Look Out for Me?"
“That's Got His Own”
Sergeant Ellis Carver sees goodness in young Randy Wagstaff, but the streets see something else in their connection. The kid’s label as a snitch leads to molotov cocktails incapacitating his foster mother and destroying their home. Carver visits Randy in the hospital, sincerely vowing to get him proper help from social services. The officer then mournfully walks away as Randy sarcastically gushes about someone looking out for him. Carver is himself pessimistic about the system, especially as it was his own meddling that put Randy in danger. Indeed, a group home would turn Randy into a brute by his return in Season 5. His rant at Carver foreshadows this, while offering one of “The Wire”’s most devastating hints of futility in this environment.
Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
Cutty Gets Out, “Homecoming”
Avon Respects His Soldier’s Courage to Rise Above His Environment
Four-Letter Investigation, “Old Cases”
Bunk & McNulty Charmingly Drop F-Bombs While Looking for a Bullet at a Crime Scene
Snoop's Hair, “Late Editions”
All the Cold Killer Wants When Michael Turns the Tables is to Go Out Looking Her Best
"You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss", “Lessons”
Omar Displays His Ruthlessness with a Flipped Assassination Attempt & an Iconic One-Liner
Davis on the Witness Stand, “Took”
The Senator’s Populist Testimony on His Community’s Strife Is Both Hilarious & Harrowing
#1: D'Angelo Explains Chess
“The Buys”
“The Wire” lays its thesis with one seemingly insignificant scene in the third episode. When D’Angelo Barksdale catches his crew playing checkers with a chess set, he explains chess in a relatable way. Their experiences in the drug trade are associated with the strategic and combative power struggles of pawns and monarchs. In the end, though, “the King stay the King.” This slick monologue foreshadows the fates of these boys trapped in the game of urban life. An ensemble of hustlers, capitalists and politicians will meanwhile navigate Baltimore’s power structure, but the broken system is king. D’Angelo’s chess lesson became as important as any piece in “The Wire”’s long-form narrative. Mind you, as Lester Freamon said, “All the pieces matter.”
What are your favorite moments on “The Wire”? Re-up in the discussion under the comments.