***This article contains spoilers for The Wire***
The infrastructure of society is a complicated beast. Each distinct segment has its own playbook. As new players enter the game, those rules will shift and mold, playing off every other segment of society surrounding it. You don’t get to be free from politics just because you’re a cop. Nor do you get to be free of the illegal drug trade just because you’re a teacher.
In many ways, a society is the grand representation of what we call the “Butterfly Effect”. The butterfly effect is a phenomenon in which a small, seemingly insignificant shift within a vast and complex system can yield significant results somewhere else. This phenomenon is the driving force behind HBO’s popular TV show, The Wire. Seventeen years after its conception, The Wire remains one of TV’s greatest masterpieces, as it intricately explores various individual segments of society, showing how each one shifts when it comes into contact with the others. As The Wire so astutely observes, society is the ultimate manifestation of the butterfly effect, because what system is more vast and complex than society?
Perhaps the clearest recognition of this butterfly effect is made by Carver, one of the shows recurring characters. He and his friend, Herc, spent much of the early seasons playing the dumb, abusive, incompetent police officers. They often rushed into action, which at times ruined the real policework that needed to be done. Carver grows throughout the seasons, in the end becoming a pretty good cop. Herc, on the other hand, is eventually let go of his duties due to his incompetence. This incompetence is on full display when Herc mishandles the secrecy of a particular minor’s role as witness in an important case. Herc moves on, not even thinking twice about his rather innocent mistake. Carver, on the other hand, is faced with the cold hard reality of the devastating results that little mistake had on the kid’s life. This kid, Randy, is beaten and bullied for being a “snitch”. It eventually gets so bad that his home is burned down and he is forced into a group home, where the bullying only intensifies. Despite Carver’s promises of safety to Randy, he was unable to protect him from the violence of the streets.
It is this very situation that leads Carver to make a tough decision later in the series, writing up and reprimanding one of his subordinate officers for attacking an innocent man on the street. Despite the fact that some cops in his unit would see this as a betrayal of loyalty, Carver makes the hard choice. Why? He makes the answer clear one night over beers, when he makes an insightful confession to Herc. “It mattered. It all matters. We thought it didn’t but it does.” Here is the fascinating nature of the butterfly effect on display: every choice matters. It’s the little moral choices that define who a man is. It is those choices, good or bad, that begin to pave the path for who you are going to become. More than that, though, the little choices could mean crushing results for someone else. Especially when you hold a position of power. Every time Herc and Carver beat on the corner boys in season one, that mattered. It mattered for them and their policework, but even more importantly it mattered for those kids. Though the secrecy of Randy’s position as a witness seemed like a minor oversight to Herc, it meant a change of life for Randy.
To live in such a complex civilization is a game, and as the refrain from the show goes, “The game is rigged”. No one is truly free from the effects of these various structures, because we’re all caught up in that giant butterfly effect. In this life, sin will inevitably find a way to weasel itself into every sector of society. And just like fire, it often also rises to the top. This is precisely what we see take place throughout The Wire. No one is safe. Whether it be from themselves, from others, or from the system itself. The game always wins.
“I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. It’s all in the game though, right?”
– Omar Little
One of the more interesting aspects of The Wire is how it carefully uses each one of its characters to craft a unique story with a unique point. No character is wasted, which is a hard feat to pull off for any fictional medium. Each character they introduce is playing their own part in this Grand Game (their own little game within the game, if you will). The corner boys are simply trying to survive a hard life within the drug trade. The cops are trying to navigate doing real policework that pays off in the longterm, while also playing the politics of orchestrating short-term success. The politicians, of course, are doing what they do best: inspiring people with hope, but ultimately giving way to compromise so that they can climb to the top. Teachers try to teach, but can’t forget that their money relies ultimately on the government, which means test scores and fixed attendance rates.
To play the game, moral compromise is often required. One feature that is woven throughout the series, but only fully revealed in the end, is how the characters at the beginning of the game ultimately reflect those at the end. In fact, many of them are actually destined to become the same pieces that we see at the end. Society is stuck in an endless cycle. Some characters we meet in season one are only at the beginning of this cycle, while others are much further along. But slowly, as each season progresses, the chess pieces start to move around the board as various characters are promoted, demoted, enter a new stage in life, or die. We get to watch this cycle play out over five seasons, but when it’s all said and done we realize that no matter how you played, everyone eventually reaches the same solemn end. As Omar Little, another of the show’s leads, so perceptively pointed out: “At the end of the day, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”
This cyclical story is most distinctly told through the lives of the four junior high boys we meet in season four: Randy, Michael, Duquan, and Namond. Randy’s fate was already discussed above: lost and neglected within the foster system. Michael has a brief foray as the mentee of Marlo’s two top henchmen, Chris and Snoop. They are training him to be a killer. In the end, though, Michael is betrayed by Marlo because of something he didn’t do. Fortunately, Michael realizes what is being done and takes out Snoop before Snoop is able to take out him. Now, Michael is on his own, left to use his only skills as a means of survival: killing. What is Michael? He is the new stick-up boy, a role previously held by the legendary Omar. Duquan, a close friend of Michael, is left alone without any real skills or support system after Michael goes on the run. As a result, he becomes partners with a drug addict, eventually succumbing to the drug addiction himself. Duquan is the new Bubbles, a character whom the audience followed throughout the show as he struggled with the consequences of his own addiction. Finally, Namond is the only boy of the four to be given what might be considered a happy ending. After a long struggle with discovering who he is and who he wants to be, Namond eventually leaves behind the life of a corner boy. He is taken in and raised by the former police major Howard Colvin. He escapes a life on the street, but not without a long road of hard work and a whole lot of fight, from both himself and a few others around him.
The roles that are on display in The Wire do not go away. The only thing that changes is who, exactly, is occupying each of those roles. This cyclical nature of society puts one other facet of human nature on display: the slow fade. No one simply falls into a life of moral bankruptcy. Instead, it takes place slowly, as we make the little compromises, often even for the “greater good”. Early on in the show, we meet a few different characters of whom we are predisposed to disapprove. They are the kind of hacks, sell-outs, and liars that no one likes. Such characters include the police commissioner (Burrell), the commanding officer of the Baltimore Homicide Division (Rawls), the mayor (Royce), and perhaps the sleaziest of them all: Senator Clay Davis. Each of these characters will hide dirt, play the political game, proudly act as a sellout, and make morally destitute choices for the good of their careers.
Meanwhile, we’ve got a contrasting set of hopefuls who we long to get behind: Detective Jimmy McNulty, with his “Screw the man!” mentality; Lt. Cedric Daniels, who refuses to play politics with police operations; mayoral candidate Tommy Carcetti, who displays a passion for justice and genuine desire to help; and Lester Freamon, the seasoned detective who has a knack for excellent policework.
By series’ end, however, this set of characters demonstrates just how easy it is to end up like the guys we were rooting against. An honest reflection on the series should leave every viewer with a new sense of humility. Yeah, it’s easy to hate on the likes Burrell, Rawls, Royce, and Davis when all we get to see is the end of their lives — who they became after all the poor choices were made. When we’re faced the meager beginnings of McNulty, Daniels, Carcetti, and Freamon, though, it gets a whole lot harder to judge.
McNulty and Freamon, in season 5, break a multitude of rules by faking some murders in order to obtain the resources for a real police investigation (it’s a long story). The right reasons, sure, but a giant moral compromise to say the least. All of the sudden, our do-gooders are left with careers in which they are the ones hiding the dirt.
“You start to tell the story, you think you’re the hero, and then when you get done talking…” – Jimmy McNulty
Mayor Carcetti, who was a personal favorite of mine, demonstrates the same moral decline. When he is first elected, the audience feels a collective sentiment of hope. This guy is going into this for the right reasons: he wants to help and he’s going to do what’s necessary to change the city of Baltimore for the better. Soon enough, however, Tommy realizes the difficulties that come with political leadership. Immediately he is hit with the realization that he is coming into a 54 million dollar deficit in the education department. Naturally, life as mayor got hard fast. On top of that, Carcetti has his sights set on the governorship. A perfectly fine aspiration, morally speaking. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to move forward in your career, especially when a higher position will allow you to do even more good for others. Nonetheless, his sights slowly shift and his “no-compromise” stance begins to fall apart as he is rather innocently roped into the political corruption that he swore to avoid. Anyone coming into the Thomas Carcetti of season five is surely to have some of the same ill-feelings the rest of us had upon meeting Mayor Royce.
Lastly, we have Lt. Cedric Daniels, who is given the position of Police Commissioner at the end of the show. Thanks to the shenanigans of McNulty and Freamon, along with some past mistakes of his own and the growing pressure of Mayor Carcetti, Daniels is almost immediately faced with a difficult choice: begin to hide the dirt and rig the stats, or get out. In his mind, it isn’t a choice at all. He refuses to play the game and slowly chip away at his morality. Rig the stats for one quarter, and you’re bound to do it again. In fact, it is actually Burrell himself who makes this tragic observation in a conversation with Bill Rawls: “You might think it’ll be different… when you sit here… but it won’t. You will eat their s***. Daniels, too, when he gets here.” Daniels eventually does discover this. No matter who sits in the commissioner’s chair, things won’t be different. As a result, he chooses to resign, realizing that there are lines he won’t cross. “I’ll swallow a lie when I have to; I’ve swallowed a few big ones lately. But the stat games? That lie? It’s what ruined this department. Shining up s*** and calling it gold so majors become colonels and mayors become governors. Pretending to do policework while one generation trains the next how not to do the job.”
In this grand cycle, some die, some are freed from a cycle of destruction, and still others are caught up in a web built up of deception and ignorance. No matter what, politicians lie, lawyers exploit, drug lords rise, corner boys fall, addicts give in, police give up, kids get neglected, and cheaters get praised. The system as a whole never changes, because sin never lets go. Even the goodhearted mayor or dedicated detective won’t be enough. So how do our characters survive, and hold on to hope, in what seems like such a hopeless situation?
The Wire is not a depressing show. It doesn’t leave its audience with a total sense of hopelessness or despair. Instead, it simply leaves us with that which is real. It simultaneously lays out the path for total transformation and shows you why that path is a futile one. Unfortunately in a system that is so deeply corrupted, total reform can never come. The game truly is rigged.
But where does that leave us? One option is simply to take the path of McNulty. For much of the series, he spends his nights drinking and whoring around. The bitterness and rage that come with the recognition that nothing ever changes leads him to despair. Eventually, he realizes that he is happiest when he is out of the game altogether. He lets the detective work go and digs into a family life. There, he is happy. Some may see it as giving up. And perhaps it is. But it’s an honorable position to take nonetheless. After all, is fighting a fruitless war really worth sacrificing a life of peace? Is it worth sacrificing a family?
“A life, Jimmy, you know what that is? It’s the s*** that happens while you’re waiting for moments that never come.” – Lester Freamon
Others in the series take a different path, though. They come to terms with the fact that complete renewal will never come. Nonetheless, there are still little victories to be had. The drug trade won’t go away, but people like Stringer Bell or Snoop will face justice. The police department will never be what it is supposed to be, but some solved cases will make a little difference. The education system will forever fail our kids, but a few will end up in the hands of teachers that care. The problem with these little victories, though, is that they take a hell of a lot of work. The teachers, the cops, the public servants, the politicians, the recovering addicts, and the news reporters that end up making just a small difference, put in an immense amount of effort. Howard Colvin’s efforts to institute a new program for the troubled kids in school didn’t change the education system. Instead, it left him with the opportunity to change just one life: Namond’s. Pryzbylewski, despite all the hardship and work that came with teaching in a rough neighborhood, wasn’t able to prevent Duquan from becoming a drug addict. But he was able to give him a few months of love and care.
Sometimes, we set our sights on changing the world, but in the end we only get to change a neighborhood, a life, or even just a day. And perhaps we all need to realize that the world-shattering effort was still worth it in the end. We make peace with the little victories, because those little victories matter too.
There’s much more that could be said about The Wire. It’s a piece of art with endless depths to be explored. I haven’t even touched on the Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale saga, or the complexity of Omar Little, or the life of Bodie, or the redemption of Bubbles, or the countless other stories within the story. That’s part of the beauty of it all, though. The Wire is a storytelling masterpiece, leaving its audience with endless opportunities for reflection about society, mankind, and most soberingly — ourselves.