Grid Effect

Welcome back to Wire week here at Grid Effect. I know that for some of you, in fact, most of you this is pretty excruciating. Few people are actually aware of this series and even fewer actually watch it. So I guess what I’m trying to say with a week’s worth of posts is I really don’t give a shit. This is the greatest drama in the history of television (it’s undebatable as far as we’re concerned) and if you can’t appreciate it, then that my friend, is on your shoulders. But hey, I promise that when 24 is approaching its series finale, we’ll mention it in a links post somewhere.

Today we’re counting down the finest, most astute character defining moments. Instances that don’t really have anything to do with the series at large, but rather make this series a scripted drama and not a documentary. Moments that humanize these characters and later when they do something almost irreparably stupid or thoughtless, we actually sympathize with and/or comprehend rather than disdain them.

This is probably the trickiest themed countdown that one could drum up for The Wire. The reasoning is two-fold: there has probably been close to 150 characters throughout the five seasons, all of them nuanced and developed before their time on the series ended; and limiting this to five when we could go up to twenty in a moments notice. We are at work, however, and actually fairly busy today. So while we’re not paying tribute to the series like we want to, we’re doing the best we can with the available time we have.

5) Season four, episode 38: “Boys of Summer”
Michael guilts Namond into buying ice cream for Dukie.

We know him now as a reluctant criminal with a conscious, but before he mistakenly waltzed into the game, Michael was a typical middle schooler raising his younger brother and compensating for his drug addicted mother. In this scene after an ill-advised attack on the terrace boys, Namond is buying ice cream for everyone involved in their group beat down, but refuses to for Dukie, supposedly because he’s poor or something (even those in west Baltimore can be elitist). With the implied suspicion that Namond ran away without defending everyone else who caught a beating and a stern look from Michael, Namond forks over the dollar. We see Namond’s socialization (or lack thereof), under-privileged Dukie’s decency and Michael’s nobility ecapsulated in a mere 30-45 seconds.

What a long strange trip it’s been.

4) Season one, episode 4: “Old Cases”
Omar gives money to a single mother

We’ve just met Omar, and the last time we saw him he shot a teenager in the knee with a shotgun. But here, when he is celebrating his score with Brandon and some other unseen, unheard from again guy, a woman approaches them with baby in hand asking for some financial relief. Omar holds her kid momentarily and lovingly before obliging. Here’s hoping she didn’t spend it on drugs.

3) Season one, episode 3: “The Buys”
Kima enlightens McNulty on her sexual orientation.

We know Kima’s a lesbian, and apparently so does everyone else besides McNulty, whose innate prejudices towards female police officers leaves him unsurprised. The two share a bonding experience after discovering each other are severely passionate investigators with Bubbles providing early commentary, and thus sparks a three season long rebellion against the bosses and significant others for both of them, only to be trumped when Kima dimes to brass on him six years later.

2) Season five, episode 58: “Clarifications”
McNulty’s FBI profile

We mentioned the hilarity of this scene in this episode’s recap, but since it literally summarizes the tragedy of Jimmy McNulty we felt it belonged here. Of course the profiler is under the impression he is describing a deranged serial killer, so as he lists trait after trait that describes the now anti-hero, we get a close up of McNulty squirming uncomfortably with each spoken word from the federal agents mouth. Pulling something off like this without anyone being the wiser speaks to the genius of McNulty but also the misguided, intrinsically flawed and unstableness of our resident alcoholic.

1) Season three, episode 36: “Middle Ground”
Avon and Stringer reminisce while overlooking the city skyline

Arguably the best scene in the series, as both seems all too aware that the other wants him dead. Or at least out of his hair. We saw the climax of their friendship/partnership three episodes beforehand in “Moral Midgetry”, now we see the understated result, as these two reflect on the vast enterprise they built and the childhood bond it developed from, all while regrettably but willingly signing each others fate. There are a million other themes at play here, but the personal is what makes it dramatic.

Many consolation scenes to be had, most notably Frank Sobotka giving an employee a wad of cash for his financial woes as a result of being underemployed, D’Angelo teaching the Wallace and Bodie chess, which we felt qualifies for a different list; Rhonda and Daniels laughing in bed together and Dukie offering to buy Randy’s lunch. For the most part all of these scenes listed can seem insignificant, but they speak to the heart of the show. And if these characters weren’t developed to the point that we actually concern ourselves with their outcome, then the principals and societal commentary of the series doesn’t work.