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The Wire: Difference between revisions
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Baltimore is ''back'', baby. If you feel the need to make stories that blow past the boundaries of detective/crime drama, you need to be working a Baltimore setting. ''[[Homicide: Life On the Street]]'' set the bar. ''The Wire'' doesn't just jump that bar, it executes a triple somersault and lands perfectly on the other side.
''The Wire'' is a show about Baltimore, taking you through a different segment of the city in each season.
'''Season one''' is focused on the police and the drug trade. One of the unique aspects of the show is that, rather than having a crime each week, each episode is just a chapter in a single, season-long case for the Baltimore police Major Crimes Unit. Thus, the viewer sees in great detail the political wrangling on either side of the drug war, as financial constraints, personal vendettas and career opportunism get in the way of the guys just trying to do their jobs - whether those jobs are maintaining law and order or keeping up a steady supply of heroin to Baltimore's numerous "fiends".
The show's scope broadens from the street corners to show how all parts of Baltimore -- and by extension every US city -- are complicit in the social machine that keeps the drug trade alive and buoyant.
'''Season two''' moves to the ailing Baltimore docks and their uneasy racial balance of power, as dock manager Frank Sobotka discovers the price for taking money from organized crime -- even if he's only doing it to keep the docks from dying.
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With the rotating focus every season, the show is anchored by the police officer characters and the often ignored power struggles that go on within major city police department. The rank and file detectives and patrol officers are often portrayed as helpless pawns of their superiors, who are more concerned with their own petty vendettas and personal ambitions than the city and its citizens. Detectives regularly find their investigations spiked the moment they start to become a financial burden for the department or threaten the status quo.
Counterbalancing the police are the city's drug dealers, who range from the the ruthless Marlo Stanfield and Avon Barksdale, to the more affable "Proposition Joe" and ambitious social climber Stringer Bell. Also in the mix is Omar Little, a deadly Robin Hood-like figure who robs drug dealers, the drug-addicted police informant "Bubbles", and the mysterious European crime lord known as "The Greek", who supplies both drugs and prostitutes to the city of Baltimore.
''The Wire'' is rife with social commentary and the liberal political views of show creators Simon and Norris. The most overt theme of the series is the notion that the "War on Drugs" is a complete and total failure in its current form of "lock up the drug dealers and throw away the key" logic. In addition, there is the more nihilistic notion that the institutions that make up the American way of life are irreversibly corrupt, and that it is impossible to reform them. To try to reform them is to be crushed by the system.
Although the series has been critically acclaimed, ''The Wire'' never managed to earn anything more than a small but devoted following. Part of the reason, says co-creator [[David Simon]], is that it has a primarily black cast representing the racial makeup of the real-life Baltimore. Indeed, the show's best-rated season is its second, which was the only one to have an equal number of white faces, being set in Baltimore's docks.
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* [[Abandoned Playground]]: Several, considering that Baltimore is a shooting gallery. Most notably, Nick laments Ziggy in one in Season 2, Marlo holds court in one for most of Season 3, and Lex is ambushed by Snoop in one in Season 4.
* [[Absentee Actor]]:
** Dominic West during much of the fourth season (his character, McNulty, works as a beat cop); this was done largely to accommodate West, due to him landing several movie roles during the period that season four filmed.
** McNulty disappeared through much of season two as well, getting assigned to "harbor unit", which the writers then promptly turned into a key plot point of the season. The writing is overall so strong that major characters cycle in and out of the narrative, and if something life-altering happens to a character (for instance, a life prison term), it's ''permanent'', and the overall arc is so strong that it supports it completely, and we simply focus on other characters.
** For whatever reason Leander Sydnor is not included in the Major Crimes unit in Season 2, but returns for 3-5, the only original member still on the unit at the end of the show. His absence from the Second Season is mentioned in universe, but never explained.
* [[Abusive Parents]]: Unfortunately numerous, particularly in season four. De'Londa Brice is emotionally and borderline physically abusive to her son Namond, Michael and Bug's mother Raelene and Dukie's caregivers are neglectful and Michael's stepfather is {{spoiler|strongly implied to have sexually abused Michael}}.
* [[Actor Allusion]]:
** Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich playing a security guard at the governor's office.
** Donnie Andrews, the real-life inspiration for Omar Little, who appears as his sidekick a few times and is {{spoiler|ultimately killed when Omar makes his [[Super Window Jump]]}}. That scene was based on an incident in Andrews' real life.
** Guess which character is played by [[Retired Badass|notorious former crimelord]] Little Melvin, the inspiration for Barksdale? Give up? [[Beware the Nice Ones|The Deacon.]]
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* [[Adaptational Attractiveness]]: Inverted with Jay Landsman. See for yourself--the real Jay Landsman (Lieutenant Mello's actor) and the fictional Jay Landsman both appear in the show. Conspicuously, the fictional character is at least 50 pounds heavier than his [[Real Life]] counterpart.
* [[Aesop Amnesia]]: At the end of Season 1, Herc is seen giving a couple of rookie Narcotics detectives a speech about the importance of being a [[Guile Hero]] in their work. He immediately forgets all about that lesson in subsequent seasons.
* [[Affably Evil]]:
** Proposition Joe. "Don't believe we've met. Proposition Joe. You ever steal from me, I'll kill your whole family."
** Spiros and the Greek
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{{quote|'''Cutty:''' The game done changed.
'''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]].
* [[Back for the Finale]]: {{spoiler|Pretty much everyone that's not dead has one last hurrah as a [[One-Scene Wonder]] at some point during the final season. Even Nicky and Johnny Fifty from season 2's docks plotline show up for cameos.}}
* [[Badass Beard]]: {{spoiler|Prez}} in the series finale.
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* [[Being Evil Sucks]]: Unless [[Karma Houdini|you manage to get away with it]]. Though even that isn't always what it's cracked up to be, {{spoiler|ask Marlo}}.
* [[Being Good Sucks]]: Not surprising considering the cynical nature of the show. Then again: the bad guys don't always have it easy either (see above).
* [[Big Applesauce]]: McNulty puts Omar on a bus there to get him away from drug deal retribution, the West Side's drug connection runs through there for the first few seasons, and drug deals (and eventually hitmen) show up from New York periodically.
* [[The Big Board]]: A corkboard laying out all of each case's suspects. Also, the white board in the Homicide division that shows all the open cases, unsolved ones in red. The big board eventually spilled out over the walls as the cases grew larger.
* [[Big No]]: After a mother's son catches a stray bullet during a shootout.
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: A brief sub-plot in series one concerned two older cops named Polk and Mahone. "''Póg mo thóin''" (pronounced Pogue Mahone) is Irish for "Kiss my ass".
* [[Black and Gray Morality]]: Whenever Stanfield and his crew become involved, particularly in his ascendant [[Big Bad]] status in Seasons Four and Five, ''The Wire'' arguably slips into this trope instead.
* [[Black Comedy]]: Quite often. The most hilarious examples include Bodie ordering a wreath for his friend's funeral in Season 2 or Herc and Carver trying to apply [[Good Cop, Bad Cop]] routine in Season 1.
* [[Blood Knight]]: Snoop, in spades.
* [[Blue and Orange Morality]]: Chris and Snoop have some... odd ways of looking at life and death. Snoop seems to think that killing is a natural part of life, and it makes no difference who does it, or whether or not they deserved it. If someone says it's their turn to die, it's simply their turn to die.
* [[Bluff the Impostor]]: Chris and Snoop's questioning of New York drug dealers in the fourth season.
* [[Break the Cutie]]: Randy in season four may have been a mischievous and somewhat naive teen, but he's also a sweet and likable person that no one wanted to do bad things to. That is, until Randy told a teacher about {{spoiler|the vacant house murders}}. Once that happened, and once everyone in the neighborhood got wind of what Randy said, [[It Got Worse|things started getting really bad for him, very fast]]. At first, it was mild, with the kids at his school not wanting to associate with him. Then it escalated into daily fights; enough to the point that his legal guardian forcibly withdrew him until he can be transferred to another school. Unfortunately, {{spoiler|that never happened, because several nights later, two random thugs tossed Molotov cocktails into his guardian's house and set it on fire. While Randy was intact, his guardian was so horribly burned, she was unable to care for him anymore. As a result, Randy had to go to a group home with other volatile neighborhood kids who beat him up everyday for what he did, despite Carver trying to adopt Randy to avoid that fate}}. Needless to say, when Randy briefly reappeared in season five, he had become a hardened, violent individual.
* [[Brick Joke]]: When Ziggy meets Sergei Molotov for the first time, he derisively calls him "Boris" as a dig at his Russian heritage. Near the end of the season, when Sergei is being interrogated by the cops and refuses to speak, Kima just shrugs and calls him "Boris" because he won't tell her his name. He rolls his eyes and mutters "Why is it always 'Boris'?"
* [[Brief Accent Imitation]]: Proposition Joe when calling the police to ask about an officer, fakes not one, not two, but ''three'' different voices and dialects, one for each time his call is transferred.
* [[Briefcase Full of Money]]:
** Marlo's bribe for the Greeks in the fifth season. Mocked, because the Greek won't accept it as it comes, dirty from the streets.
** Stringer Bell also gives a case full of drug money to "the faucet", a corrupt public official willing to approve building plans in return for a bribe {{spoiler|only to later find out that the man he sees is just a random public official and the whole thing was just an elaborate scheme by Clay Davis to swindle him out of cash. This can be seen as a subversion of the trope of sorts as Levy points out that a State Senator like Davis wouldn't be willing to risk his career by walking around with briefcases full of drug money to give to public officials who might rat them out.}}
* [[Butch Lesbian]]:
** Kima drinks, sleeps around, and kicks in doors right along with the men of the series.
** Snoop as well. She has the "one of the guys" aspect down nearly to a tee, wearing almost exclusively baggy men's clothing (concealing her fairly feminine build seen on the one exception), being one of the top two enforcers for Marlo, and with a voice deeper than most males on the show. Her sexual orientation is only once referred to, and that fairly obliquely (where she claims that she, like Bunk, is "thinking about some pussy"), but the actress who plays her is also a [[Butch Lesbian]].
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* [[Career Killer]]: Brother Mouzone, on loan from New York to bust some heads in Baltimore.
* [[Catch Phrase]]
** McNulty: "The fuck did I do?"
** Bunk: "Happy now, bitch?"; "Givin' a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck"
** Proposition Joe: "I got a proposition for you"
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** Snoop: YERP!!
** Interesting use with Lt. Mello. His actor, former police detective Jay Landsman, had his own real life catch phrase: he used to pretend to light up a joint and pass it around when something crazy came up in discussions with fellow officers, saying, "Good shit, right?" The writers incorporated it into his character; Lt. Mello does the same thing when scoping out potential locations for Major Colvin's "experiment."
* [[Celebrity Paradox]]:
** Method Man plays Cheese, but Wu-Tang Clan songs have been heard on the radio at least once. We get a clear view of his Wu logo Tattoo on his hand in season 4.
** 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).
** The real Jay Landsman plays Lt. Mello, while Delaney Williams plays "Jay Landsman." Made more confusing in a scene in the fifth season where Lt. Mello, Jay Landsman, and [[Homicide: Life On the Street|Detective Munch]], based on Landsman, all appear in a bar.
** 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
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* [[The Chessmaster]]: Many including Stringer, Prop Joe, etc. though their successes vary. Probably the most successful however, is Lester Freamon who is a magnificent bastard despite being a good guy.
* [[Children Are Innocent]]: Played straight with characters like Michael's brother, Bug, and then defied with characters like Kenard, who {{spoiler|lies, steals, kills Omar, and is eventually arrested. Not to mention swears like a sailor on leave. He's even seen about to set a cat on fire before being distracted by Omar.}}.
* [[Child Soldiers]]: Not always the case for every West Baltimore kid, but it's certainly expected, given the ruthless nature of the drug game. In some cases like Bodie and Poot, they voluntarily joined for the monetary benefits and because it's almost encouraged by their environment. The most blatant and tragic case is {{spoiler|Michael}}. Although he became a very good soldier for {{spoiler|Marlo Stanfield}}, he joined because he needed an escape from his horrible living conditions and neglectful parents.
* [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]]: {{spoiler|Stringer.}}
** McNulty for pretty much the entire series.
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* [[The City]]: Baltimore
* [[Clear My Name]]: A strange example. Herc and Carver arrest a cash mule and turn the money over to the Major Crimes Unit. However, it is several thousand dollars short of the amount that they heard being discussed on the wire. So Daniels tells them to get it back before he reports them - Herc and Carver tear apart the squad car and find that it has somehow gotten under the spare tire in the trunk. Carver notes that Daniels will never believe they didn't try to steal it. And since they have both seen each other doing so in the past, neither of them really believes the other didn't hide it there.
* [[Cluster F-Bomb]]: In season one, McNulty and Bunk spend an entire scene investigating a crime scene while muttering nothing but variations of the word "fuck."
* [[Comically Missing the Point]]:
** O-Dog suggests to Snoop and Chris to execute someone via drive-by, like in the movie ''[[Boyz N the Hood]]''. [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing|"Shit was tight, remember?"]] The negative context of the drive-bys from the movie must've gone completely over his head.
** "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttbQTz8tAE Like a 40 degree day!]" (NSFW)
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* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: Andy Krawczyck.
* [[Corrupt the Cutie]]: Carcetti starts out idealistic and messianic, but slowly but surely gets dragged into the politics game.
* [[Country Matters]]:
** McNulty fails to get away with indirectly applying the word to his ex-wife in Season One. The word also features in a line in Season Three which is so offensive it shocks ''Stringer''.
** Bird, the charming gentleman who spouts this word, and many other slurs, several times at Kima and the other detectives while in homicide's interview room. {{spoiler|He's actually so offensive and obnoxious that even Daniels joins in on the asskicking.}}
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* [[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.
* [[Dead Guy on Display]]:
** {{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.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Most of the characters get their moments to some degree, but the ones who stand out include Bunk, Lester, and [[Servile Snarker|Norman Wilson]].
* [[Death Is Dramatic]]:
** Usually averted, but the scene of {{spoiler|Stringer}}'s death had quite an aesthetic tinge to it.
** {{spoiler|Bodie's}} last stand is also fairly meaningful up until its seemingly anticlimactic end.
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* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]: {{spoiler|1=In season 5 when (McNulty) goes to the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit for help on the serial killer he made up, the profile describes him perfectly.}} You can see in his face that this isn't lost on him.
* [[The Don]]: In season 2, "The Greek", unnamed patriarch of the Greek crime syndicate. He's very soft spoken, has a calm civility of another age, masking an icy ruthlessness.
* [[Don't Answer That]]:
** Zig-zagged; in the first season, a detective tries to make one of the Barksdale clan's top soldiers (D'Angelo Barksdale) write an ''apology letter'' to the (fictional) family of a man killed for witnessing against him. [[Amoral Attorney]] Levy's reaction is something to behold. This also counts as a case of [[Shown Their Work]], as this is a common trick the police use to elicit written confessions from crooks who don't know better.
** Played with hilariously in a later episode, where they convince a young punk that a photocopier is a lie detector. The kid confesses because he assumes the jig's up now anyway.
** Or the infamous Big Mac Bluff.
* [[Double Meaning Title]]: In the first two seasons, the title obviously refers to the wiretapping techniques that the police use to catch drug dealers. After they stop using the wire around the third season, it can take on a variety of more metaphorical meanings.
** It can refer to the act of "walking the wire"--that is, to the metaphorical "balancing act" that Baltimore cops must perform in order to fight crime while staying loyal to the forces that perpetuate it.
** It can refer to the proverbial "thin line" that separates cops from the criminals that they fight.
** It can refer to the metaphorical wire that connects Baltimore citizens of all walks of life, thus ensuring that one group's actions always affect the other.
* [[Do You Want to Haggle?]]: The reason for Proposition Joe's name.
* [[The Dragon]]: From season 3 through the end of the series, Chris Partlow fills this role for Marlo Stanfield, though his constant training and use of Snoop may amount to making the two of them [[Co-Dragons]].
* [[The Dreaded]]: Omar fucking Little. Even Chris and Snoop -- Chris and Snoop -- get nervous when he's hunting them. Chris and Snoop themselves also count.
* [[Driven to Suicide]]:
** {{spoiler|Bubbles}} in season four. {{spoiler|He is [[Interrupted Suicide|saved]] just in time.}} Also, "No Heart" Anthony Little (Omar's older brother) got his nickname from a [[Bungled Suicide|failed suicide attempt]] after he was sentenced to several years in prison; he tried to shoot himself in the chest, but ended up with only a contact wound "and a new nickname".
** {{spoiler|1=McNulty comes VERY close to the edge over the course of Season 3, he seems very tempted to simply stay on the the train tracks.}}
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* [[Escalating War]]: The entire fight between Valchek and Sobotka in season 2 stems from when both men donate stained glass windows to a local church, and Sobotka refused to withdraw his larger, more expensive window which had been installed first. Valchek has Sobotka investigated in terms of where he got the money, having police ticket the Union worker's cars, and doing a "random" DUI screening in the morning to catch the Union guys coming out of the bar, so the Union retaliates by stealing his valuable district surveillance van from right under his nose and shipping it from port to port, sending him photographs from each destination. And even better, {{spoiler|even after Sobotka is killed, the van continues to travel around the world, and when Valchek gets the final envelope there's even a bit of what sounds like admiration in his voice}}.
* [[Establishing Series Moment]]: Officer McNulty's conversation in the diner in the first episode demonstrates that this series has a different outlook than your usual police procedural, and demonstrates where on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]] the series falls.
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]:
** Many of the gangbangers respect a "Sunday Truce" prohibiting violence on that day. When two clueless hitmen spot Omar taking his Grandma to a church, they make a move on him. Both Omar and Avon are completely livid at this breach. Avon orders the hitmen to replace Omar's grandmothers hat, which was ruined in the attack.
** Omar's code of not killing anyone not in the game as well.
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** Bodie bordered on evil territory at times, but even he couldn't stomach Marlo's methods for dealing with his enemies.
* [[Evil Matriarch]]: De'londa Brice and (to a lesser extent) Brianna Barksdale.
* [[Evil Will Fail]]: In The Wire season 1, the nature of "The Game" of drug dealing has everyone looking out for themselves, to the point where innocent bystanders or even friends who might pose a risk have to be dealt with. It's this repeated brutality that ends up winning allies for the investigation team again and again from players who want out after someone they care about gets hurt.
* [[Expecting Someone Taller]]: In as many words (or facial expressions, if you must).
* [[Expy]]: Johnny, Bubbles' friend and fellow addict, is basically an extension of Leo Fitzpatrick's character from ''Kids''. Carcetti is based on current Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley (though O'Malley himself apparently exists in the world of The Wire, having been referred to once in season 5.)
* [[Expospeak]]: ''Very'' little from a story standpoint, and ''no'' [[As You Know]] explanations. You [[Continuity Lock Out|can't skip an episode]] to follow the plot, and if you don't have a cursory knowledge of each season's field, then be sure to have a web browser open and a pause button handy. The closest the show gets is Bunk and Lester saying as McNulty flirts with women in a bar:
{{quote|'''Lester:''' Ain't he married or some shit now?}}
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* [[Fake Nationality]]: Sergei, supposedly from [[Insistent Terminology|the Ukraine]], is played by Chris Ashworth, born and raised in the USA. In-universe example with {{spoiler|"The Greek"... who's not even a Greek. He does head a mostly-Greek gang though.}}
* [[Faking the Dead]]: The audience is led to believe that {{spoiler|1=McNulty}} is dead, and a wake is being held for him {{spoiler|in a Baltimore pub}}; that is, until {{spoiler|he then starts laughing uncontrollably when one of his fellow officers makes a joke about him. It turns out that the "funeral" is a retirement party in the uniquely morbid style of the Baltimore P.D.}}
* [[Failure Is the Only Option]]: No matter who gets put away, the Game is the Game.
* [[False Rape Accusation]]: An 8th grade girl has sex with two boys, and when it is revealed they only had interest in her for the sex, she accuses them of rape. In the end this ruins quite a few lives {{spoiler|and sending ripples through the entire criminal underworld.}}
* [[A Father to His Men]]: Colvin, especially towards McNulty and Carver.
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* [[Freeze-Frame Bonus]]: During a police/community meeting about drug dealing in city neighborhoods, a chart shows the success of enforcement efforts with drug arrests going up between 2003 and 2004--however arrests for every other crime are down. This of course reinforces the third season's premise that the drug war distracts from real police work.
* [[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]]:
** Played straight frequently, but [[Deconstructed Trope|shown to be ineffective]], because most 'gangstas' have no idea how to use guns. A shootout between two gangs is shown in season two where they fire like this, (half the time covering their eyes) and the only person they hit is an innocent child upstairs in an apartment not far away.
** Actively defied by Marlo, Chris and Snoop - the first thing they do on recruiting Michael is teach him how to shoot properly. He lampshades the trope later when he's teaching Dukie how to shoot; he tells him not to do any of that "gangsta bullshit" when using his gun. Cutty and Slim are also shown aiming down the sights when shooting. The minor drug dealers may not know how to shoot, but the professional muscle know how to do it right.
{{quote|'''Snoop:''' Fuck them west coast niggas. In B'more, we aim to hit a nigga, you heard?}}
* [[Gayngster]]:
** Omar.
** Snoop.
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''(cut to McNulty driving across three lanes)'' }}
* [[Go-Karting with Bowser]]: The East side and West side gang lords have a truce day where they meet and play a high-stakes basketball game. This series is full of examples of this, fairly cordial interactions between sworn enemies.
* [[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".
* [[Good Guy Bar]]: Kavanagh's, the bar where McNulty and Bunk regularly go to drink, and where the Irish wakes are held.
* [[Good Scars, Evil Scars]]: Omar has a pretty distinctive antihero scar running down the left side of his face, which goes a long way towards solidifying him as a [[Badass]]. Interestingly, that scar isn't a prosthetic--Michael K. Williams actually has a scar like that, which he got from a bar fight.
* [[Gratuitous Foreign Language]]: In the second season's opening credits, a passport ostensibly from the Russian Federation (despite still having Communist stationary and reading "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" at the top of one page) reads: ??????????? D????? ??????????? (''Fedorovskal Dovlasch Lschtvkrfyrsht''). The passport's gender reads M and something that looks like a cross between an F and ?, and the "transliterated" name is "Dobrav Naberezhnyi".
* [[Greedy Jew]]: Maurice Levy, the [[Amoral Attorney]] who profits handsomely by protecting drug dealers, makes a number of references to his Jewish culture, while Rhonda Pearlman, his honest counterpart, is also Jewish, but [[All There in the Manual|you'd never know it]].
* [[Greek Chorus]]: The touts, who you constantly hear (and sometimes see) in the background shouting out the name of the latest brand of heroin. "Brands" like "pandemic" and "election day special" are amongst the more memorable ones. These are often punctuated with shouts of "Five-O!" or, famously, "Omar! Omar coming!".
** Or in once instance, "Haha! Check out that little kid getting his ass beat!"
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** Herc and Carver try to cover up using the listening device (hidden in a tennis ball) by crediting their information to a fake informant (Herc's cousin) they named "Fuzzy Dunlop."
* [[Instant Death Bullet]]: Quite frequently for a show renowned for its realism, though [[Justified Trope|justified]] at times.
* [[Ironic Echo]]: Many. Prominent examples include:
{{quote|"I'll take anybody's money if he's giving it away." Senator Davis, Namond Brice
"I'm tired of this gangster shit." Stringer Bell, {{spoiler|Marlo}}
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* [[John Munch]]: makes a cameo in the fifth season as a bar patron
* [[Jurisdiction Friction]]: Inverted. Several times, the Baltimore PD ''wants'' the FBI to come in and take over, but they refuse because they only want terrorism or corruption cases.
* [[Just a Kid]]:
** Bad idea, {{spoiler|Omar}}.
** Said by Vinson during the final minutes of the series finale, regarding {{spoiler|Michael's rise as the new stick up man, a la Omar}}.
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* [[MacGuffin]]: Old Face Andre's ring in season 4. Marlo demands it from Andre after his stash is stolen. Omar steals it from Marlo in a poker game. Officer Walker steals it from Omar when the latter is arrested for murder. Michael steals it from Officer Walker in retribution for breaking his friends' fingers. Marlo spots it on Michael's hand, but chooses to let him keep it.
* [[Make It Look Like an Accident]]: {{spoiler|D'Angelo}} is killed, and the scene is dressed to make it look like a suicide.
* [[Mama Bear]]:
** Averted. Namond and D'Angelo have some of the worst mothers around. Both continually press their sons into the drug game (read: mortal danger) to maintain their own lifestyles. Both are eventually called out on it, in a brutal manner. Wee Bey allows Namond to live with Bunny Colvin, for a chance at a real future. When D'Angelo is "suicided," McNulty goes to his girlfriend with his suspicions instead of his mom because [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|"Frankly, I wanted to tell someone who cared about the kid."]] The ironic and sad thing though, is that his girlfriend didn't really care about him either.
** Wallace, Michael and Dukie's mothers were even worse, since they were all junkies who couldn't care less about their sons' well being. Wallace ran away from home and lived in the low rise projects with other (presumably) runaway kids for this reason. Dukie was constantly deprived of essential needs, and had to rely on what his teacher gave him, and eventually {{spoiler|stayed in Michael's place, which he acquired after getting involved in the drug game}}. In Michael's case, he was forced to take responsibility of the welfare money issued out to his mother every month, because she kept using it on drugs instead of food, clothes and other household essentials. If Michael didn't step up to the task, he and his little brother would have starved.
* [[Manly Tears]]:
** Omar fixing up and then walking on a broken leg. Ouch.
** Seeing his boyfriend, Brandon's, mutilated corpse.
** In the aftermath of {{spoiler|Dante accidentally shooting Tosha during an ambush because [[I Just Shot Marvin in the Face|he wasn't paying attention]] to where his gun was pointed}} in season three. In fact, Omar cries a lot, and yet he is still never less than manly.
* [[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.
* [[Missing White Woman Syndrome]]: [[Discussed Trope]] in "Unconfirmed Reports", {{spoiler|1=inspiring McNulty to cross his [[Moral Event Horizon]]}}.
* [[Mobile Kiosk]]: In Season 3, Bubbles starts selling white t-shirts to the drug dealers and users around Baltimore from a shopping trolley. Later in the season and in season four he starts to expand his operation, offering cans of paint, pirated DVDs and other such assorted goods from his trolley. Later, he uses two trolleys, so we can say that he goes ''trolleys akimbo'', right?
* [[Mob War]]: In Season 3, between the Barksdale and Stanfield crews.
* [[The Mole]]: Agent Koutris, who feeds information to the Greek about the joint BPD-FBI investigation into his activities in exchange for counterterrorism intel.
* [[Momma's Boy]]: D'angelo shoes some signs of this early on, but Namond fits this trope fully.
{{quote|Bodie: "Your momma is what niggas call a 'Dragon Lady'
Namond: "Yeah, she don't blink."
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* [[Mother Russia Makes You Strong]]: 'Boris' points out that American prisons are not real prisons as he has been a 'guest' to the actually harsh Ukranian ones.
* [[Name's the Same]]: The graphic novel ''[[Watchmen]]'' features a company called "Pyramid Delivery", as does the second season of ''The Wire''. In both works, the company turns out to be a front set up by the [[Big Bad]] ( {{spoiler|Ozymandias}} and The Greek, respectively).
* [[New Job Episode]]: Not an actual ''episode''. McNulty is forced to work in the Baltimore Marine Unit for half of the second season as revenge by his former commander.
* [[Never Heard That One Before]]:
{{quote|'''Bunk:''' Not gonna give us your name? How 'bout we just call you Boris, then.
'''Sergei:''' ''[sighs]'' Boris. Why is it ''always'' Boris? }}
* [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]]:
** Before season 1 started, Lester Freamon had been forced to work in the pawn shop unit for, well, doing his job investigating a homicide.
** McNulty gets a similar treatment at the end of season 1 for getting people in his homicide unit involved in the drug case that season 1 was all about.
** Haynes and Gutierrez also find this out the hard way in Season 5.
** Bunny Colvin's reward for cutting the felony crime rate in his district by 14% and improving the general quality of life for its citizens is {{spoiler|to be busted down to lieutenant, fired in disgrace, and vilified to the media as an "amoral" and "incompetent" man who "buckled under the pressure" of his command}}.
* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: Chris Partlow delivers a ''gruesomely'' fatal one to {{spoiler|Michael's stepfather, Devar}}.
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* [[One Steve Limit]]: Averted surprisngly often, such as with Dennis "Cutty" Wise and Dennis Mello; Roland "Wee-Bey" Brice and Roland Pryzbylewski; William "Bunk" Moreland and William Rawls; Tommy Carcetti, Thomas "Herc" Hauk and Thomas "Horseface" Pakusa; Johnny Weeks and Johnny "Fifty" Spamanto; Ray Cole and Raymond Foerster. Probably due to [[Loads and Loads of Characters]].
* [[Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping]]: Several actors do this in their more emotional moments. Idris Elba manages to avoid it as Stringer Bell. Michael K Williams as Omar affects a pretty good Bawlmer accent for the most part, but slips a couple of times into his natural Brooklyn, particularly noticeably when he's acting across from Ernest Waddell, also from New York (and who uses his real accent). In the scene were Carcetti is pretending to make a phone call he sounds very Irish.
* [[Pac-Man Fever]]:
** Michael's little brother is clearly playing [[Pokémon]] Red Version in a Game Boy Advance, yet the sounds it makes are beeps and boops.
** Namond is shown playing on his X-Box, without the TV in view, and, despite showing him playing ''Halo 2'' in other episodes, we hear random stock ninja sounds playing over and over.
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{{quote|"You, McNulty, are a gaping asshole. We both know this. Fuck if everybody in C.I.D. doesn't know it. But fuck if I'm gonna stand here and say you did a single fucking thing to {{spoiler|get a police shot}}. You did not do this, you fucking hear me? This is not on you. No, it isn't, asshole. Believe it or not, everything isn't about you. And the motherfucker saying this, [[OOC Is Serious Business|he hates your guts, McNulty. So you know if it was on you, I'd be the sonofabitch to say so.]]"}}
** Wee-Bey Brice's [[Real Men Wear Pink|love of his pet fish]] could qualify, and his fourth-season decision {{spoiler|to let Bunny Colvin take custody of his son so he could have a chance at an actual future}} ''definitely'' does.
** Omar showing affection to [[Friend to All Children|the adorable baby of a dope fiend]] hitting him up for a free fix is the first sign that he's more than just a criminal. In season three, it's revealed that he also takes his grandmother to church once a month.
** Landsman's letting Bubbles off, and "fuck the clearance".
** Arguably, Mayor Royce's consideration of Hamsterdam.
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** Even Marlo Stanfield gets one. Despite repeatedly demonstrating that he's the coldest motherfucker in the series, he also keeps good care of a coop of pigeons, even hiring someone to take care of it.
* [[Phrase Catcher]]: People describing McNulty as an 'asshole'.
* [[Plot Armor]]:
** The cops and politicians [[Justified Trope|justifiedly]] have it ''way'' easier than anyone on the street. ''Nobody'' in the game knowingly shoots a cop. Through the course of the series, the number of officers to die in the line of duty amounts to {{spoiler|one}}, and {{spoiler|that officer was not a character until his death to friendly fire at the hands of Prez}}.
** Highlighted effectively by the Barksdale crew's panic after accidentally shooting an {{spoiler|undercover}} officer.
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* [[Poirot Speak]]: Omar's boyfriend Renaldo.
* [[Police Brutality]]: Most officers on the show at least one incident of brutality towards suspects in their custody, and this is simply considered part of the Game.
* [[Police Procedural]]: In this case a huge [[Deconstruction]].
* [[Politically-Incorrect Villain]]: Any time a gangster refers to Omar using an anti-gay slur instead of his name, [[Drinking Game|take a shot]].
* [[Prequel]]: Omar, Proposition Joe, McNulty and Bunk's backstories were shown in short vignettes before the premiere of the fifth season, to heighten speculation about [[Tonight Someone Dies|who would die]].
* [[Prison]]: Season two, more briefly in season three, still more briefly in seasons 4 and 5.
* [[Product Placement]]: An aversion: Verizon pops up with great frequency, especially in the early seasons. This is because Verizon handled most of the payphones and inner-city telecommunications in Baltimore at the time, not because of paid consideration.
* [[Punch Clock Villain]]: Various individuals of the Barksdale organization would qualify; D'Angelo pretty much treats his criminal actions as a profession.
* [[Putting the Band Back Together]]: What Lt. Daniels spends most of Season 2 doing. The hardest one to get back is, of course, McNulty.
* [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]]: The MCU.
* [[Rainmaking]]: Senator Clay Davis in season three
* [[Rabid Cop]]:
** Detective Collichio in the fourth and fifth seasons; he becomes so exasperated by the actions of the street dealers in Baltimore that he takes out his frustrations on a middle-school teacher driving to work.
** Officer Walker decides that the most reasonable response to Donut's constant car thievery is to break his fingers. {{spoiler|The boys get their revenge on him for this.}}
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* [[Real Men Wear Pink]]: Omar is so tough that he can walk down to the corner grocery store in a turquoise silk bathrobe and drug dealers will still toss their stashes to him out of fear.
* [[Real Song Theme Tune]]: Tom Waits's "Way Down In The Hole", performed by a different artist each season (including Waits himself in Season 2).
* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: Quite a lot of them considering the cynical nature of the series, though none are without flaws. Cedric Daniels is shown to be a good cop at heart, but he's very ambitious. Howard Colvin is a father to his men, but he risks everything on a poorly conceived gambit that inspires some [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|angry tirades]] from cops. Frank Sobotka does everything he can to save the docks, but essentially sells his soul to do so. Carcetti seems to be one during his early career and political campaign, but his ambition causes him to go down the same roads as everyone else. Prez turns into one over the course of season 4, though he'd already shown himself to be a truley incompetent and even violent cop.
* [[Reassigned to Antarctica]]:
** McNulty, at the end of the first and third seasons (the latter being used to allow Dominic West to be [[Written
** Daniels, when he's assigned to Evidence Control.
** D'Angelo after he returns home from jail.
** Santangelo is demoted to beat cop following the end of the Season 1 Barksdale case, but ends up liking it way more than being a Homicide detective.
** Lester Freamon, stuck in the pawn shop unit for thirteen years. [[Insistent Terminology|And four months.]]
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** Bodie Broadus is the Red Oni to Poot Carr's Blue Oni.
** Ziggy Sobotka is the Red Oni to Nick Sobotka's Blue Oni.
* [[Reformed but Rejected]]:
** Ultimately subverted. Cutty Wise is shocked at the state of the world after his release from prison (he's held up at gunpoint by a dealer soon after getting home); most of the third season chronicles his unsuccessful attempts to find work and go straight. He eventually joins the Barksdale crew, but realizes "the game ain't in him no more" and opens a boxing gym instead, which flourishes with young trainees.
** Potentially played straight with Michael's stepfather in Season 4, although the entire arc is shrouded in ambiguity.
* [[Right Hand Versus Left Hand]]: When Avon Barksdale gets sent to prison at the end of Season 1, he and Stringer Bell start pulling their gang in separate directions. Stringer is a businessman at heart, and wants to turn the gang into a mostly nonviolent [[Thieves' Guild]] that finances legitimate business investments. Avon is a thug at heart, and is obsessed with controlling as many corners as possible, even if it inevitably leads to war and police investigation. Their conflict reaches its nadir in late Season 2, when Stringer {{spoiler|tries to trick Omar into assassinating Brother Mouzone, Avon's new enforcer}}.
* [[Road Sign Reversal]]: played for ''lots'' of drama.
* [[Running Gag]]: Herc's issues with surveillance, Omar's attempts and failures to get Honey Nut Cheerios and Donut's intermittent, and hilarious, appearances in various high-priced SUVs.
* [[Rustproof Blood]]:
** Subverted: at first, it appears that {{spoiler|Michael}} has shot {{spoiler|Chris and Snoop}}, but it turns out that it was a training exercise with paintball rounds.
** Played straight, however, with the blood of the store clerk left to frame Omar.
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* [[Save Our Students]]: Played fairly straight. Prez struggles to adopt to his new life as a teacher, and the class barrier between him and his students makes his transition very difficult, but he grows pretty quickly and gets his class in line within the first school year. Even still, he cannot win every battle.
* [[Scary Black Man]]: Most of the gangs' enforcers. The cops even have a shorthand for less-than-useful witness descriptions, "B. N. B. G." ("Big Negro, Big Gun").
* [[Schmuck Bait]]:
** Herc and Carver roust a corner of the drug dealers, when one of the youngest ones grabs the drug stash and takes off through the alleys. The cops all tear off in pursuit, and then another kid comes walking by, casually picks up the ''real'' drug stash, and disappears.
** Season 5, during one of the corners "time out" moments. Kenard blatantly stashed a brown bag "package" in plain view for the western "knockos" to see. Without question, militant cop Colicchio snatches the whole corner. When he reaches inside the package, he pulls out a hand full of dog shit.
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* [[Secret Test of Character]]: Stringer sends Bodie and some other Mooks to Philadelphia to pick up some drugs stashed in a parked car. He has Bodie memorize the route and plans to check his odometer ''down to the tenth of a mile.'' What Bodie doesn't know is that Stringer has a car following Bodie the whole time, and the route he picked goes right through a construction zone (necessitating a detour) just to see how Bodie would handle it.
* [[Series Fauxnale]]: The ending of season three, since David Simon wasn't 100% sure whether [[The Wire]] would return for the fourth and fifth seasons.
* [[Serious Business]]:
** The annual basketball game between the Barksdale crew and Proposition Joe's men. The entire neighborhood shuts down to watch it and Avon thinks nothing of paying $20,000 to hire a ringer for his team.
** Business doesn't get more serious than a stained glass window at Father Lewandowski's church. Because of a beef over that window, lives are destroyed, careers are made, a union is brought low, and the MCU is formed.
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* [[Sherlock Scan]]: Lester: "This is a tomb. Lex is in there." Cue baffled looks from his colleagues.
* [[Shirtless Scene]]: McNulty, Avon, Daniels, D'Angelo, Omar, Stringer.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** Cutty's roommate in the hospital is watching ''[[Deadwood]].'' The man chuckles to himself, "[[Heh
** In season four, Little Kevin mentions [[SpongeBob]] in a conversation with Bodie and some other runners. Bodie chides them for watching too many cartoons.
** In season five, Dukie and Bug watch ''[[Dexter]]'' and are obvious fans. This is probably another [[Take That]], calling the show childish.
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* [[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.'
* [[Sir Swearsalot]]: Played straight with almost every character from the police, the politicians, corner boys, workers, and fiends. Notably averted by Omar Little, who ([[Characterization Marches On|after one incident early in season one]]) never swears at all. When he finally breaks his habit in an explitive-laden public tirade against Marlo, it's a sign of his degenerating composure and state of mind.
* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: Definitely on the cynical side.
* [[Smoking Is Cool]]: Omar and Bunk.
* [[Smug Snake]]: Ervin Burrell, Maurice Levy and Clay Davis.
* [[Sophisticated As Hell]]:
** Used in both a verbal and non-verbal sense when {{spoiler|Stringer}} is shown attending an Introduction to Macroeconomics class (and uses the lesson in the next scene).
** This trope is to David Simon as [[Buffy-Speak]] is to [[Joss Whedon]].
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* [[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
* [[Surrounded by Idiots]]:
** Stringer feels this way at times in Season 3.
** Don't forget Jimmy 'I'm the smartest asshole in three districts' McNulty.
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* [[Those Two Bad Guys]]: Chris and Snoop in season 4.
* [[Those Two Guys]]: Bodie and Poot in the first two seasons; Herc and Carver throughout the series
* [[Took a Level In Badass]]:
** In the series finale, we find out that {{spoiler|like many rookie teachers after a few years, Prez has become a pillar of authority, with a [[Badass Beard]] to boot}}.
** Between the third and fourth seasons, Carver also [[Took a Level In Badass]] after {{spoiler|taking to mind Major Colvin's lecture about needing to know something about the street, and not just bust heads.}}
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* [[Ubermensch]]: Omar Little, personal-code warrior
* [[Utopia Justifies the Means]]: Bunny Colvin's Hamsterdam project can be considered a mild example. It greatly improved public safety and quality of life for Baltimore citizens, but it involved allowing criminals to peddle drugs unhindered, and ''brutally'' [[Disproportionate Retribution|punishing the dealers who refused to move to the free zone]].
* [[Viewer-Friendly Interface]]:
** Apparently, on The Wire, ''[[Halo 2]]'' features [[Title Drop|its title at the bottom of the screen at all times]] during gameplay.
** 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.
* [[Villain with Good Publicity]]: Senator Clay Davis.
* [[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.
** Marlo screaming into an empty corner at the end of the series.
** Stringer has one in "Middle Ground", unfortunately for him it gets cut short by {{spoiler|Brother Mouzone and Omar showing up.}}
* [[Villains Out Shopping]]: Several times. In the Third Season, Herc and Carver run into Poot and Bodie while all four of them are on dates. The fourth season opens with a hilarious scene of Snoop buying a nailgun at Home Depot. In Season 1 McNulty catches Stringer Bell out grocery shopping and has his children tail him, a fact that doesn't impress his estranged wife.
* [[Vomiting Cop]]:
** McNulty in season one, when he listens to {{spoiler|the tape of Kima getting shot}}. Slightly different from most examples in that he's not even at the scene, and when it actually happened he kept his cool. It's only in reliving the experience when he loses it.
** 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.
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* [[We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future]]: Averted: On the eve of the election, Mayor Royce distributes flyers near polling places that show Carcetti with a notorious slumlord. Even though they immediately determine them to be fake, Carcetti doesn't have the time to properly debunk them.
* [[Wham! Episode]]: Usually the second-to-last episode of each season; most memorably, the eleventh episode of the third season.
* [[What Could Have Been]]:
** Apparently, there was another season of ''The Wire'' planned which would have dealt with immigration and the large influx of Hispanic immigrants in Baltimore. Since none of the writers spoke Spanish nor knew enough about the immigrants that lived in Baltimore, the season was cut.
** During season 3 the idea was floated of spinning off the political subplots into a separate show called ''The Hall''. Instead the political side was folded into subsequent seasons.
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* [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]]: seen at the end of each season, with an extra-length one at the end of season five.
* [[Where Were You Last Night?]]: In season 5, McNulty has such a scene with his lady, who knows he's cheating.
* [[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.
** White Mike is a mid-level dealer who seems to have a better grasp of the game. Given his nickname, he apparently associates with black gangs.
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