Credit: The Wire
The debate for the greatest TV show of all time has raged for a long time, and for a while now, it has been narrowed down to The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and The Wire. While there is a lot of evidence to say why one is better than the other, the undeniable fact is that all three shows have a set of particularly iconic episodes. In this article, we will be looking at the 10 best episodes of “The Wire” of all time.
10. “A New Day” – Season 4, Episode 11
It really is a New Day when newly elected mayor Thomas Carcetti discovers that all the promises of reform he used to run his campaign might end up being false promises, just like his predecessor. First, Carcetti discovers that outgoing Mayor Royce has left him in a deep hole with a completely disastrous education system in deficit. Second, the promise to raise police pay now doesn’t seem feasible anymore with the school budget being what it is. Third, and most importantly, Lester Freamon has just discovered that the vacants all over Baltimore are tombs where Marlo and his gang have been dumping bodies, and worst of all is that Carcetti doesn’t have a clue that this bombshell is about to wreak havoc on his homicide stats.
9. “Old Cases” – Season 1, Episode 4
Nothing gives words more power than an actor who understands and recognizes when and how to say them. In possibly the greatest 5 minutes of televised investigation in a TV show or film, Detectives McNulty and Bunk recanvas a cold crime scene, and with the use of only “f words” and their variations, uncover how the crime happened and where the evidence they need to apprehend the perpetrators is. Solving a crime using dialogue the way they did seems impossible from a script perspective, and yet these two actors pulled it off so suavely. This is the scene where the audience realizes they are watching a work of art.
8. “Cleaning Up” – Season 1, Episode 12
The Wire never lets a good chance to remind the audience of the stakes of life in the drug world go to waste. In one of the most agonizingly difficult scenes to watch, pit boy Wallace is marked as a liability to the Barksdale organization by Stringer Bell, and his childhood friends are handed the task of silencing him. Despite pleading for his life and peeing his pants in fear, Wallace is shot mercilessly and dies with the last faces he sees being his closest friends pointing their guns at him.
7. “The Cost” – Season 1, Episode 10
The episode where Wallace’s countdown to his fate begins is also the episode where we learn that neither a pit boy nor a cop is safe in the streets of Baltimore. After the police higher-ups question the essence of the Major Crimes unit, forcing them to revert to old-school buy-bust tactics that are heavily opposed by Lieutenant Daniels, Kima Greggs ends up in an ambush while undercover and gets shot twice in one of the most shocking scenes of the series.
6. “All Prologue” – Season 2, Episode 6
“All Prologue” is another stand-out episode that demonstrates the art of beautiful storytelling. After a disarming scene where the great Omar Little comically dismantles a crooked attorney and effectively helps the DA put Bird behind bars, D’Angelo Barksdale is cruelly strangled by an assassin acting on orders from Stringer Bell. Well done, David Simon.
5. “Mission Accomplished” – Season 3, Episode 12
What makes The Wire truly incredible is the ability to build a story so carefully, piece by piece, and then completely obliterate it and start from scratch again. “Mission Accomplished” shows the aftermath of Stringer Bell’s death, McNulty’s anticlimactic investigation of him, Avon processing the decision to give Stringer up, and Bunny Colvin’s ingenious Hamsterdam solution being demolished by the police department.
4. “Final Grades” – Season 4, Episode 13
While Brodie’s change of heart, candid conversation with McNulty, and inevitable death might be the highlights of this episode, what wrings our hearts more is Bubbles’ guilt for unintentionally causing the suicide of his partner and apprentice, Sherrod. After he turns himself in to the Homicide department, the guilt weighs too heavily on his heart and he tries to hang himself in the interrogation room but gets rescued just in time.
3. “Bad Dreams” – Season 2, Episode 11
Season 2 was unfairly judged and got a bad rap for no sensible reason. Switching up the story to the ports, Season 2 introduces one of the best characters in the show: Frank Sobotka. However, “Bad Dreams” sees his time on the show come to a brutal end when he walks into a meeting to save his son’s doomed life but instead loses his life ultimately.
2. “Middle Ground” – Season 3, Episode 11
Two brothers-in-crime, reminiscing about their childhood on a balcony overlooking the Baltimore skyline, with betrayal hanging over their heads for what comes next. This was the best scene in the entire show, and that’s saying a lot for a show riddled with violence and corruption. Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale both betray each other, and although they don’t share an equal fate, the consequences of their actions resonate throughout the rest of the season.
1. “–30–” – Season 5, Episode 10
Journalists have used “-30-” to indicate the end of a story or article, and it fits the title of the series finale, which marks the end of a long journey in which everything changed and yet remained the same. Dukie becomes Bubbles, Michael becomes Omar, Marlo becomes Stringer Bell, and ever so slowly, the world keeps spinning on. Nothing is permanently fixed, and isn’t that how the world has always and will always be?
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