The Wire: Difference between revisions

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[Crapsack World]]: Almost every aspect of the setting.

* [[Creator Cameo]]: David Simon plays a reporter during Frank Sobotka's arrest, and briefly at the Baltimore Sun in the final season. Other writers and producers have appeared in minor roles on the show, including [[Dennis Lehane]] as bored cop Sullivan in the special equipment room in the season 3 episode "Middle Ground" (with a porno magazine called ''Irish Lasses'', no less).

* [[Cultural Posturing]]: Facing a serious challenge from Carcetti (who is white), Mayor Royce (who is black) redesigns all his campaign materials in African colors to inspire racial solidarity at the ballot box. Even lampshaded by Carcetti.

* [[Da Chief]]: Commander Rawls, who rips his underlings to shreds with gusto.

** 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.

* [[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.

** Snoop.

* [[Generic Ethnic Crime Gang]]

* [[Gilligan Cut]]: An incredibly drunk McNulty in "Duck and Cover":

{{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 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.

* [[Hooker With a Heart of Gold]]: Shardene.

* [[Homage]]: the opening scene of the fifth season copies (almost shot for shot) a sequence from ''[[Homicide Life On the Street]]'' (another David Simon series) in which two detectives use a copier to fool a suspect into telling the truth.

* [[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 Bug]]: inverted; Herc hides a camera in a brick wall during the fourth season, which is then immediately found by a drug dealer and placed in a pigeon cage. In the 2nd season, that same cop buys a small microphone from <s>his own</s> his partner's money, intending to record some incriminating evidence quickly and then return the mic for a refund. They place it in a tennis ball in the gutter next to the dealer's street corner, but he unknowingly picks it up and throws it into traffic out of boredom. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

** 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}}.

* [[Not So Different]]: During a trial {{spoiler|Omar}} destroys {{spoiler|Levy's}} attempt to discredit him as a witness by pointing out that his description could [[Insult Backfire|very easily]] be about himself.

{{quote| I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. ''[[Nothing Personal|It's all in the game right?]]''}}

** 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.

* [[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 [[SU Vs]].

* [[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.

** 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.

* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]: Happens more often than the average show. McNulty has gotten more than one over the course of five season, even Rawls slipped one in while trying to console Jimmy in the wake of Kima getting shot. Omar got a nasty one from Bunk in Season 3. Carver got a rare lenient one from Colvin on how he isn't much of a police officer. Even Avon calls Stringer out when he grows tired of him trying to avoid war even after Avon is almost killed. The best one had to be Nick Sobatka slapping Frog hard with his "You Know You're White?" speech.

* [[Theme Music Power-Up]]: Omar whistling "[[Ironic Nursery Tune|The Farmer in the Dell]]".

{{quote| ''You ain't got the floor. Chair don't recognise yo ass.''<br />

''Nigga, is you takin' notes on a motherfucking criminal conspiracy?'' }}

* [[Trademark Favorite Food]]: Omar loves his breakfast cereal, particularly Honey Nut Cheerios, which he finds hard to get.

* [[Tragic Hero]]: Frank Sobotka

* [[True Companions]]: A lot of the cops might hate each other. In fact, a lot of them do. But when {{spoiler|a cop gets shot,}} the ''all'' forget their differences and ''all'' work together.

* [[Twofer Token Minority]]: Korean-African-American Lesbian Detective Kima Greggs is at ''least'' a twofer, though her tokenhood is questionable given the show's diverse cast.

* [[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]].

** 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]].

* [[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.}}

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[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.

** 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.

[[Category:Crime and Punishment Series]]

[[Category:HBO]]