"The Wire" Turns 21 Today So It's Time To Pay Some Respect To The Greatest TV Show Ever Written

I already know what's coming in the comments and I don't want to hear it. If you haven't seen The Wire or don't consider it the top dog TV drama of all time then I can't take your opinion on television seriously.

Save all your Breaking Bad, Sopranos, Succession, and Mad Men sack gargling for another blogger. I'm a card carrying member of the The Wire super fan club and I'll go full blown Marlo Stanfield on your ass if you try to disrespect the greatest show ever written.

I watch The Wire every single year during the winter. As soon as the weather turns cold I fire up HBO, or HBO Max, or Max, or whatever the fuck those idiots are calling that janky ass app these days and start the five season trek through the gritty streets of Baltimore and the even grimier sheets of Jimmy McNulty.

And when that opening scene from Season 1 Episode 1 hits...

I'm officially locked in front of my TV for three hours a night until I plow through the entire series.

Shit, it happened last night. I stumbled across this Twitter thread of great scenes from the show and didn't go to bed until 3:30am. I seriously contemplated throwing on the episode 1 and getting after it. Very glad I didn't because I would be operating on zero sleep right now and talking like a Baltimore corner boy at my brother's birthday party tonight. I'm a junkie no different than Bubbles or Dukie I guess.

The Wire has THE greatest character of all time in Omar..

THE greatest scene of all time…

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THE greatest lovable villain duo of all time…

THE greatest meme of all time…

Giphy Images.

And THE realest ending of all time. I won't spoil it here but if you hate the ending then you just hate how life works. And The Wire was the most accurate representation of street life, police work, and the political landscape surrounding both ever put to film. 

The fact that creator David Simon was a police reporter before he wrote the show gives it an ultra realistic feel even in some pretty unrealistic situations. And I don't want to hear any slander for Season 2. If you live in a city where the economy at least partially revolves around dried up dock work and is filled with ethnic drunks then you know Season 2 is the tits. It was basically written for the people of Baltimore and Cleveland.

I could go on and on but if you haven't watched The Wire you should start tonight and if you have then you should restart it tonight. What the fuck else are you going to do? The NBA Finals are a joke and baseball isn't even close to becoming interesting yet. Wake me up after the all-star break.

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And if you have to watch one more episode of "Is It Cake?" with your stupid girlfriend you might just end up hiding a body in a vacant. So do yourself a favor and celebrate the GOAT TV show turning old enough to drink. You know McNulty would.