Like most people who know their stuff I too love The Wire. But like another big chunk of people who also know their stuff I love The Sopranos even more. In many ways my heart should be torn betwixt two lovers but it kinda isn't. So though I do love both shows, and though I even compare them all the time and consider them to be cousins, my heart rests firmly on the belief that The Sopranos is and always be the king of kings. There are a few reasons for that, some of which are bound to be personal and therefore subjective, but since I often come across casual debates about this topic in a variety of comment sections, I figured I'd write down something about it. For that reason, this isn't really meant as a take-down or anything of the sort, not even close. It's really more of a nitpicky thing, basically pulling apart five reasons why The Wire is just a bit lesser than the titan that is its rival HBO show. I picked five reasons because it's a round number, but even still it wasn't all that easy to come up with them because the simple truth is that both shows put together are top dogs, and likely always will be. It's just that while both shows are undoubtedly masterpieces, when drawing comparisons someone is bound to come second.
5. Sociology isn't all that, especially when compared with psychology.
Maybe my most contentious point and one that, to be honest, I'm not all that confident about. But in a nutshell, I think it's safe to say that The Wire is all about sociology. Of course some of its key characters have elaborate psychological portraits to be explored, and the two areas of knowledge aren't that far apart to begin with, I think... But at the end of the day the essence of the show is the game, it's all about these circles wherein very specific and often cutthroat rules are in play, often leading to violence and corruption. It's not just about the drug trade but it's also the police, the politicians, the lawyers, the industry, and so on. It then seems to me that for this reason, The Wire will always be inherently dated, and a time may come when it's not all that relevant or relatable. It might instead turn into a document of great historical value written by a genius reporter, something great indeed but sadly a victim of circumstance. When society changes, so will the story.
With The Sopranos on the other hand, the mafia aspects are somewhat secondary. It's more about the characters and their psychological portraits, all of which will always be relevant as long as human beings are around. Or in other words, in one show, the general aspects are ultimately secondary, seeing as the story and characters would still work even if set a thousand years before their time or a thousand years after, while in the other show, characters sending a text message is seen as a strange new thing on which a big piece of the story hinges... I suspect, or maybe I fear, that a day will come when The Wire isn't all that prescient, but I just don't see the same thing happening for The Sopranos. Still, I can see how this is a bit of an unfair criticism, or maybe I'm wrong and there's a lot about the so-called game that is far more universal than it seems.
4. A bit dense and hard to follow.
This one is maybe less contentious but it does admit my own ignorance on the topic... Having gone through the show a few times helps me understand things a bit better, but it is still difficult to know who is who as far as the politicking goes. Major, colonel, commissioner, deputy, councilman, senator, all tough stuff to follow. Then you have hoppers, runners, re-ups, the connect, and whatever else, all of which demands quite a lot of attention before you can get more than just the gist of it. Then again, the show does intend to make itself more demanding and cerebral, and it's all-around very verbal too, even to the point of requiring its own glossary. In some ways it's not that different than The Sopranos but it is more demanding and dense. In part I see this as a slight impairment especially because, when coupled with some of my following points, it does make some events harder to follow. And at the end of the day, if you ain't got eyeballs going over your work, you ain't got nothing.
I myself wouldn't be such a big fan of the show if I hadn't given it a second try, and then a third for good measure, and then a fourth after falling in love with it. Still, it don't take long until I'm a little forgetful of who is who and what goes where. Then again, like a lot of these five points, I can't really blame the show. It is essentially another nitpicky thing and it's more as if I'm venting here rather than anything else. But I think there is something to be said for how complexity breeds disinterest. Then again, you shouldn't really watch The Wire only once, and you should never watch it while flicking through your phone or whatever. Actually, come to think of it, you shouldn't use your phone anyway.
3. Slightly uneven episodes.
Any dedicated fan of the show can think of characters like Avon, Stringer, D'Angelo, Omar, Marlo, Bubbles and many others, and he can have almost perfect memory of all of their scenes. In fact, a ton of those scenes are uploaded onto YouTube, which makes us fans go through phases where we surf through them until we have watched a huge chunk of the entire show... or so we think. This is because while The Wire is full of memorable scenes, it also contains some snippets or fairly boring moments of story and character development. Avon and Stringer talking about business? Marlo arranging hits? Bubbles' own journey? All fun stuff. But Kima struggling to be a mom? Pearlman seemingly jealous of McNulty's endeavors? Not all that fun or memorable... Watching the show from beginning to end often makes me come across scenes I had no memory of, and sadly it kinda makes sense why I wouldn't remember them anyway.
Still, that's not to say it's horrible stuff. It's still The Wire, so it's always fairly well-written. But it does feel a bit off, almost as if it's trying to give other characters some much-needed development only to then realize it's not that much-needed after all. It makes it so that most individual scenes are absolute aces, and for that reason they are made easily accessible by fans on YouTube, but some episodes from beginning to end have their spotlight characters almost stuck, just going through bits of story that wouldn't have made it to the screen if the show had been adapted from a book.
2. Fairly uneven seasons.
The first two or three episodes of The Sopranos are a tad weird, true, what with some awkward camera techniques and some character traits that were a bit dropped or retconned later on. Still, once it picks up speed it never stops until the very final episode. At least I speak for myself when I say that I have no preference for seasons, I just go through the episodes one by one until the end, enjoying every single bit along the way, both the important moments as well as the meandering and seemingly boring ones, all the way until that awesome Journey song.
Sadly though, the same thing doesn't quite happen with The Wire. Seasons one, three and four are absolute aces, no one will dispute that. But two and five? Widely considered to be skippable at the very worst, and acquired tastes at the mild best. Still, after acquiring the taste you end up liking both seasons a ton, as I sure do now, especially season two since it just makes sense in the grand scheme of things but also because there's just something weirdly cozy about it. Maybe that's just nostalgia... But anyway, season five has its moments but it's unfortunately culled from thirteen episodes to ten, and a lot of the wiretap work is mostly Cool Lester Smooth running on his own after McNulty illegally swoops in with the dollars. Then you have other things that were likely cut due to time. For example, you have the aforementioned boring scenes with Kima and the baby, but absolutely no scene between Kima and Bubbles. Quite the heartbreak indeed if you ask me. I guess there were lots of moving pieces, and while all the pieces matter, not all of them got to shine.
1. Jimmy McNulty
McNulty is a gaping annoying fella, I have to agree with my lord Caesar on this one... In many ways, Baltimore is the true main character of the show, but in a more basic way, McNulty is the main character. He's the hero, or rather the anti-hero, as his character is arguably the trendsetter for many similar characters that came after him, such as Rust Cohle, for example. In that sense he's not all bad, the fella had his moments, but at the end of the day he's no match for Tony Soprano.
I might say that a lot of the reason why comes from a weird inconsistency with how the show portrays him. Indeed, it's a bit strange how The Wire approaches the topic of addiction with the character of Bubbles, who's arguably the heart of the show, but then treats McNulty's life as a bit of a joke. One minute he's being all funny and cool, the next minute he's being a screw-up and getting told off by everyone, but still at times this telling off comes across as one of those fake humble-brag situations. I'd go as far as saying that some moments feel as though McNulty was written by an edgy sixteen-year-old kid. For example, there's a scene where he's stone-drunk, crashes his car twice, cuts his hand, then finds himself in a diner where he meets a young woman with whom he immediately sleeps with, leaving her sheets all bloodied from his hand wound. Then there's also a scene where he emerges from the bathroom after vomiting to immediately go kissing some lady he was previously talking to... Hell, maybe I'm assuming too much from these ladies, maybe they're female McNulties in their own way, but it does feel strange how the show seemingly treats McNulty as such a cool cat, what with the women, the drinking, the expert police work, like a tortured genius almost, but then it treats him like a total screw-up, only to then alternate between the two constantly and inconsistently. And incidentally, those scenes are from seasons two and five respectively...
In part, the reason for this inconsistency stems from the actor's desire to work fewer hours during season four, but then it leaves the show with a weird continuity whereby he spends all of season four clean and sober, only to want to get back to work with the conscience to stay sober, but then by the very beginning of season five he's on tilt and back to his old ways. And then by the end of season five he's seemingly all back to normal, although we all know full well he'd likely go back to drinking if a season six existed, which sadly it doesn't... And speaking of drunkenness, they say acting drunk is a remarkably difficult thing for actors to do, and I'm inclined to believe it because Dominic West's drunk acting is some of the worst I've ever seen. But hey, that's just my opinion.
So yeah, rant over... I can't say I'm a big fan of this McNulty fella but I can say I am indeed a huge fan of The Wire. Problem is I can't look away from these small things, all of which amount to, in all honesty, very little, because the show is still easily one of the greatest ever made. Just not THE greatest ever made because that title belongs to, and always will belong to, The Sopranos.
Comments
Post a Comment