what is the wire? i only heard about bc of crazy ex girlfriend lol
it’s a tv show! that was on HBO in the early 2000s when HBO had just started to become its whole “prestige television” brand on the tail of shows like Oz and The Sopranos. it’s about the war on drugs in Baltimore, told from the perspective of both the police and the criminals who are kind of locked into this violent cycle of vying for control of the streets as a result of Reagan’s “war.” most american tv critics will say that it’s one of the best, if not THE best, television shows in history (obviously that’s very subjective, but this show has really been cemented in american canon as one of the greats). it’s one of those shows that like… idk for me it was always a very secret shame that i had never seen The Wire?? it’s one of those shows where you can talk big game about what you think constitutes “peak tv” and such but if you haven’t seen it, then you’re not really worth your salt lmao. In one of his books the critic Alan Sepinwall talks about how he always gets friends coming to him saying, “i’m ready to watch The Wire” like it’s a whole rite of passage for television fans. it’s just really iconic (in the US, at least) and now i’m one of those people who’s like “alright, i’m finally ready” lol.it is quite good, so far (i’m only five episodes in) but some things haven’t aged super well (there’s a lot of instances of police brutality, for instance, that I think were very “edgy” and “morally grey” back in 2002 but now in the wake of black lives matter seem a lot more horrifying, and only one of the main characters is a woman). Then again, it was ahead of its time in some areas — it has a majority black cast (on both sides of the law) and two main characters are gay. It also launched the career of Idris Elba, so it has that going for it. (It has a lot of famous faces — Michael Kenneth Williams, Lance Reddick, and if you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, it stars both Bob and Father Gabriel.) pretty graphic violence, drug use, and nudity (far fewer unnecessary sex scenes than, say, Game of Thrones, though). idk it’s too soon for me to say if it’s as good as Rebecca Bunch hyped it up to be lol
