The Wire: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''[[Crapsack World|"It's Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you."]]''|'''Commissioner Ervin Burrell'''}}

''The Wire'' is a show about Baltimore, taking you through a different segment of the city in each season.

'''Slim Charles:''' Game's the same - just got more fierce. }}

* [[Artifact Title]]: A literal wire, rather than a metaphor for walking a thin line, only plays a major role in the first season. Wiretaps of one variety or another are central to several operations. The title also suggests [[Pull the Thread|pulling the thread]].

* [[Badass Beard]]: {{spoiler|Prez}} in the series finale.

* [[Badass Boast]]: Omar in the first season: "Lesson here, 'Bey. You come at the king, you best not miss."

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Brother Mouzone, who enjoys reading Harper's. He even references it by saying, "What's the most dangerous thing in America? A nigger with a library card."

* [[The Bad Guy Wins]]: {{spoiler|Scott Templeton, who wins a Pulitzer for his fabricated story while Gus is demoted.}}

** Played earlier and a lot more devastatingly at the end of {{spoiler|the second season}} when {{spoiler|The Greek and his cronies}} get away scot-free with the police still having no idea who they really are. Made worse when they resurface in the story a couple seasons later and we see that they've managed to avoid prosecution and are back in business in Baltimore.

** The reference to former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke in Season 5 despite a guest appearance by the same in Season 3, playing a health official.

** In one episode McNulty pontificates that the core cop cast of the show are among maybe ten or twenty truly good cops in Baltimore, among the names he gives as examples of other cops is Ed Burns, who is of course one of the show's creators and was indeed a cop (though was many years retired by the time he made the show, possibly you could say it was a different Ed Burns).

** Omar is a Fan of HBO's ''[[Oz]]'' although many Actors (Herc, Carver, Rawls, Daniels, Bodie, Freamon and Cheese) on ''The Wire'' have appeared on it

* [[Characterization Marches On]]: Proposition Joe is implied to be illiterate in Season One, when Avon mocks him for carrying a clipboard as a coach even though he can't read. Later episodes reveal Prop Joe to be quite intellectual. His prequel short shows that he was an excellent student who sold his test answers to fellow students.

* [[Chastity Couple]]: Omar and Renaldo are not shown so much as holding hands, in comparison to Omar's being shown as affectionate with his first two boyfriends.

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: The generational shift in Season 3 is represented this way, with Marlo representing a Darker and Edgier amalgamation of Stringer's conservative and calculating nature, and Avon's brutality and pride. Similarly, Chris Partlow is a darker and edgier version of Wee Bey Brice while the Stanfield bit players also seem to be a little rougher around the edges than their Barksdale counterparts.

* [[Dartboard of Hate]]: Sobotka has one with the face of Bob Irsay, the owner of the Colts who moved them from Baltimore to Indianapolis.

** {{spoiler|Brandon}} in season one, presented on the hood of a car as a warning.

** Also in the case of every informal policeman's wake held in an [[Good Guy Bar|Kavanaugh's Pub]], when the body of the deceased is put on the pool table with a cigar and a glass of whisky in his hands.

* [[Derailed for Details]]: In season 4, Prez tries to set his class a [[Train Problem]] and they pester him for details that would be relevant to an actual journey (which station it's leaving from, what the purpose of this guy's trip is, etc.), but not to the basic maths problem he has in mind.

* [[Despite the Plan]]: In season three, an otherwise simple robbery by Omar and his crew turns deadly when they realize that the house is more heavily guarded than they were expecting, and they have to shoot their way out, resulting in deaths on both sides of the gunfight.

* [[Disposable Vagrant]] : {{spoiler|1=McNulty brilliantly fabricates a fraudulent serial-killer case around or inverting this trope using forsaken vagrant victims in order to atract media and political attention and divert funds to real police work. He even "abducts" one live vagrant to further drive the point home.}}

* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: In the 5th season, Marlo gets wind of someone spreading rumors that he's gay. His reaction? {{spoiler|Order the guy who started the rumor murdered, ''along with his wife and kids.''}}

* [[Foreshadowing]]: the chess conversation in the first season; McNulty's confession that he doesn't want to end up "on the boat" in the pilot; {{spoiler|Kenard}} pretending to be Omar; almost all {{spoiler|of Bodie's appearances}} in season four {{spoiler|foreshadow his death}}; Prez not wanting to see {{spoiler|Randy}} get chewed up by the system, many other instances.

* [[Four Lines, All Waiting]]: a rare example of this done well. You sometimes have to wait several episodes for a minor plotline to advance at all, and it might be by a single line of dialogue; however, since you ''really'' have to be paying attention to enjoy this show at all, it usually works.

* [[The Fun in Funeral]]: The Baltimore police have a tradition of holding rowdy Irish wakes for their own, culimating in a passionate sing-along of the Pogues' "The Body of an American." Even the black cops seem to love the tradition.

* [[Gangsta Style]]:

{{quote| '''McNulty''': I'm looking you in the eye, Gus, and I'm telling you, I'm not driving a car tonight!<br />

''(cut to McNulty driving across three lanes)'' }}

* [[Good Adultery, Bad Adultery]] / [[Sympathetic Adulterer]]: In season 1 D'Angelo hooking up with Shardene despite having a wife and young child (who he led Shardene to believe he was separated from) was depicted very sympathetically. His wife Donette hooking up with Stringer in season 2 wasn't depicted so sympathetically, especially since Stringer {{spoiler|was the one who arranged D'Angelo's death}}.

* [[Good Cop, Bad Cop]]: Subverted: season one, episode five has this shtick turning into "Bad Cop, ''Pissed'' Cop".

* [[Harmless Villain]]: How many see Marlo Stanfield. It really comes back to bite the cops in the ass with a brutal subversion.

* [[Headbutting Heroes]]: A minor case in season 3. The MCU is slowly turning into a dump unit for solving impossible cases, but McNulty doesn't want anything with it and continues his investigation on Stringer Bell. On the other side, Lester Freamon is compliant out of loyalty to Daniels and happy to do actual police work after years in terrible units. They both annoy each other at the beginning, with McNulty [[Dare to Be Badass|appealing to Lester's pride and longing for puzzles to solve]] and Freamon [[What the Hell, Hero?|berating Jimmy for being a selfish jackass pissing on the unit he himself created]]. Hilariously, they both give themselves food for thought.

* [[How's Your British Accent?]]: McNulty (played by Brit actor Dominic West) puts on a ridiculous English accent to go undercover at a brothel in season two.

* [[How We Got Here]]: Done in a very roundabout way with the children followed in season 4. Over the course of two years we see how they'll become characters very similar to Bubbles, Omar and so on.

* [[Incredibly Obvious Tail]]: Stringer should really have been concerned that Bodie and his friend didn't notice the black SUV that was no more than one car behind them every step of the way from Baltimore to Philadelphia and back again. If it hadn't been Stringer's men, there would have been trouble.

* [[Infant Immortality]]: A young kid who catches a stray bullet in season 2.

* [[Insistent Terminology]]: Lester Freamon, a highly capable detective, was forced into pawn shop unit for thirteen years "and four months".

** Bird (real name: Marquis Hilton)

** Bodie (real name: Preston Broadus)

** {{spoiler|Stringer's}} death also qualifies, as it's a direct result of {{spoiler|his attempts to set Omar and Brother Mouzone against each other.}}

* [[Kick the Dog]]: Marlo, at least once in the fourth season (for example, flagrantly shoplifting ''lollipops'' just to intimidate the security guard). This being ''The Wire'', though, it's played as much [[Deconstructed Trope|to explore his ego issues]] as to establish that he's [[Card-Carrying Villain|just plain evil]]. The payoff of this [[Kick the Dog]] moment comes when {{spoiler|he has that same security guard murdered for daring to ask him to stop.}}

* [[Killed Mid-Sentence]]: {{spoiler|Stringer Bell}} and {{spoiler|Omar}}.

* [[Kingpin in His Gym]]: in Season One, Avon Barksdale and Russell "Stringer" Bell were shown working out at the gym and on the basketball court while planing gangland operations.

** Omar fixing up and then walking on a broken leg. Ouch.

** Seeing his boyfriend, Brandon's, mutilated corpse.

* [[May-December Romance]]: Of all people, {{spoiler|''Lester''}} ends up with Shardene in late season one, and they remain together for the rest of the series; she shows up again in the finale.

* [[Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot]]: Season Two: Wharfie with suspicious amounts of money buys a stained-glass window for a church + Shipping container full of dead prostitutes -> International drug and human smuggling cartel, city-wide crime organizations merging.

{{quote| '''Herc''': He's a complicated man, and no one understands him but his woman.<br />

'''Carver''': Seek professional help. }}

* [[Shown Their Work]]: When it was on the air, ''[[The Wire]]'' was considered to be quite possibly the most realistic, accurate, and brutally honest television show on the air. One sociologist called the show the greatest sociological text ever created.

* [[Shrouded in Myth]]: Omar. After {{spoiler|he is shot by Kenard}} the story makes the rounds through the streets getting bigger each time it's told. When another character who knows the truth tries to correct someone, no one believes him. 'The bigger the lie, the more they believe.'

'''Brother Mouzone:''' Let me be emphatic, you need to take your black ass across Charles Street where it belongs.<br />

'''Bodie:''' Man, better go on before I lose my composure out this bitch! }}

* [[Spoiler Opening]]: Every opening contains clips from episodes later on in the season, but they don't make much sense until you see them in context.

* [[Straight Gay]]: Omar, Omar's various boyfriends, and [[Word of God]] confirms this about {{spoiler|Commander Rawls.}}

* [[Stylistic Suck]]: McNulty's intentionally horrible British accent--Dominic West is British himself.

* [[Super Window Jump]]: Unfortunately, it [[Deconstruction|doesn't work too well]] for {{spoiler|Omar}}; he ends up with a broken leg that never fully heals

** Stringer feels this way at times in Season 3.

** Don't forget Jimmy 'I'm the smartest asshole in three districts' McNulty.

** For the most part, however, this is averted: most applications seen on the show are plain Win32 GDI apps running on Windows XP. The animations on the dock monitoring software are a little unbelievable (a little truck drives away with the container?), and once a search for "suspects" was done using what appeared to be the Windows Explorer File Search (with a call to the contact done through the Windows Telephony dialog), but jaggy, aliased 2D polygons and unframed text boxes in clunky custom programs are far more believable on a city police computer than full-3D operating systems that [[Magical Computer|can enhance a 4 pixel area]].

* [[Viewers Are Geniuses]]: You're expected to keep up with multiple plot lines, a dozen-plus characters and their sub-stories, and all their field terminology with no [[Expospeak]] provided.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]:

** Omar shows signs toward the end of season 5 as his physical condition deteriorates and his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] becomes more and more disasterous.

** In season two, it looks like Beadie's about to throw up after the discovers the 13 dead girls in a shipping container, but she keeps it together. Not bad for a woman whose main work experience up to that point was taking tolls, and a hint that she's a lot tougher than she looks.

* [[Watering Down]]: Due to its heavy focus on drug gangs, ''The Wire'' features the drug version of this trope in spades. Numbers are thrown around between the gangs to talk about the strength of their product; 'Take it to ten' or 'This stuff is ninety', referring to what percentage of the product is actually the drug, and in hard times, they weaken their product by cutting it with whatever similar-looking substance comes to hand to make more profit. In season two, {{spoiler|there are five deaths and eight hospitalizations in the Correctional Facility because the supply of heroin has been cut with rat poison.}}

* [[Wham! Episode]]: Usually the second-to-last episode of each season; most memorably, the eleventh episode of the third season.

* [[What Could Have Been]]:

* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: Bunk on the night after Jimmy's [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope]].

* [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]]: seen at the end of each season, with an extra-length one at the end of season five.

* [[White Gang-Bangers]]:

** The hoppers in white neighborhoods are generally portrayed as posturing wanna-bes. Herc visits Kima just to joke about how incompetent they are and suggests there should be Affirmative Action for white gangbangers. Herc and Nick Sobotka both deliver a "You know you're white, right?" line to a white gangbanger.