the one scene in the wire i cannot stop thinking about is in season 5 when nicky sobotka is shouting at carcetti, and carcetti's man dismisses him as "that's nobody mr mayor, nobody at all" as alan sepinwall pointed out in his review, this was the theme of the episode, but i actually in some ways think the idea of who has the power to make somebody Nobody is a running theme of the entire show.
obviously, the irony of the above scene, is to us the viewer, nicky sobotka's trials and tribulations are just as, if not more important than carcetti's. but within the world and hierarchy of the show, carcetti is clearly considered the "Somebody" and nick the "Nobody"
but even as far back as season 1, this idea was sort of there. take the inciting incident of the show - william gant is the random killing of some nobody, until the powers that be decide he is in fact Somebody by virtue of being a witness. likewise, the dead women in season 2 simply become 'jane does', even mcnulty who supposedly cares about trying to find the life and story of one of them gives up, and his most consequential action is to use them as a 'fuck you' to rawls.
marlo sort of takes this idea to an extreme. in one of his most hateable moments he completey decides to throw away the life of a security guard who irritated him. it doesn't matter he has a family, it doesn't matter anything he tells marlo, because marlo has already decided he is Nobody, and does not even have the right to live. in fact marlo's entire business with the vacants is not only the murder of people, it's the complete erasure of them. lex's family know he's dead, but they can't properly morn him. lil kevin, on being sent to the vacants, protests that his "family won't know". it's like they simply cease to exist. even once they are found, the racist police department and mayor's office are essentially happen to let their murders go unsolved, because they have been deemed not just by marlo but by the institutions of baltimore as "nobodies"
this idea of who has the power to treat someone else like they are nobody permeates season 5, where we see even mcnulty and lester get in on it. even having a serial killer does not initially catch the interest of anyone, because he is killing "nobodies". lester declares that "the dead men don't care, no one cares" but he is wrong, clearly wrong, as when kima is seen talking to one of the family's and sees just how serious the effect of these "murders" has on them. in another stomach churning scene, mcnulty essentially kidnaps a man and attempts to erase his existence for a while, aided by the fact the man is so vulnerable and confused he is not even clear about where he is. it's notable that the actual last scene of the entire show involves mcnulty returning this man to baltimore. even the cover up of this entire event relies on the fact there is a "nobody" - a mentally ill homeless man, to take a few more murders for them.
all of this culminates in the hardest to swallow Nobody of all, which is omar himself. to viewers he is an american hero, a robin hood, etc etc, someone who harkens back to legendary heroes of folklore. but in the show, to the powers that be of baltimore, he is a dead stick up boy. his death is not even important enough to make the news, cut for another story about a fire. he barely even gets sent to the morgue with the correct nametag. because like nicky sobotka, being a main character in the wire does not stop you from being nobody at all.
