CARLTON FLETCHER: Book details ‘The Wire,’ TV’s best show ever

When you walk through the garden, you gotta watch your back.

— Tom Waits

I’ll never forget my introduction to “The Wire.”

I was at home alone on that Sunday night in 2002, and I was basically flipping channels on the TV, looking for something to pass the time. I happened to hit HBO at just the right moment, heard the Blind Boys of Alabama singing Tom Waits’ “Way Down in the Hole” and decided to stick around.

I hadn’t seen a promo for the show, not one, hadn’t even a hint that this new show was coming on the air. Thirty minutes in, though, I was entranced, drawn to a show like I’d never been before and have not been since. I tried to tell others about this amazing show that was more than a slice of real life, it was the whole pie. Thing was, I didn’t quite know how to describe it.

“It’s like these very real characters, people I’ve met before, and it’s a situation where the young drug gang has a better grasp of the technology of the time and is actually smarter than the cops who are always a few steps behind them. They use that generation’s cellphone capability — beepers, burner phones — to control the streets and the corners of Baltimore right under the underfunded and overworked police department’s noses.” … “The dialog is absolutely street and real, not some ‘hip’ white guys approximation of what drug runners sound like.”

My initial assessment of “The Wire” turned out to be spot on. The show became — and remains — the absolute best TV series ever made. Better than “Hill Street Blues” — its direct police procedural forefather. Better than “The Office.” Better even than “Andy Griffith,” “The Sopranos” and “Seinfeld.”

America finally caught on to “The Wire” a season or so before it ran its five-season course, and suddenly this TV show about real real-life crime, politics and urban decay in one of the country’s showcase cities became the watercooler topic everyone couldn’t wait to talk about. Unfortunately for those late to the party, though, they missed out on what was a magical first couple of seasons.

Writer Jonathan Abrams has put together an absolutely must-read book for Wireheads that takes you inside the making of the show. His “All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of the Wire” gives the reader information that’s as entertaining as it is educational, just like the show itself. Some stuff is for fans who followed the show from the beginning, but even the casual viewer who came to the party late just to see what everyone was talking about will find themselves marveling at the world created by David Simon and Ed Burns, Simon a former Baltimore Sun cops reporter and Burns a former police officer and school teacher.

Real-life stories from Simon’s and Burns’ earlier careers inform “The Wire” throughout the show’s five seasons, which focus on the rise and fall of an inner-city drug gang and the cops who finally caught them, smuggling on the city’s docks, the reality of sleazy politics (can’t bail out the failing school system because “kids don’t vote”), the frustration of that failing school system, and the politics of the newspaper that covered crime in the city.

The show delved into the lives of some of TV’s best-written and -acted characters ever: Robinhood-like gangster Omar Little (Michael K. Williams), a notorious hood who stole from the drug dealers and, oh by the way, was openly gay; deep-thinking detective Lester Freamon (the late Clarke Peters); brainy businessman gangster Stringer Bell (Idris Elba, who has since emerged as a superstar leading actor); drug-addled informant Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins (the soul of the show, as played by Andre Royo); lone-wolf detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West); real-life street gangster Felicia “Snoop” Pearson, the astounding beginning of the acting career of Michael B. Jordan, whose Wallace was beloved by the show’s fans.

There are dozens of other “pieces” that Abrams discusses in his book: best-selling authors like George Pelecanos and Dennis LeHane, who wrote scripts for the show; performances by celebrated actors/artists like Amy Ryan, Method Man, Steve Earle, Wendell Pierce; and the dozens of unforgettable characters like “Bunk” Moreland, Brother Mouzone, psychopath Marlo Stansfield, Frank Sobotka, Bodie, Avon Barksdale, Kima Greggs, Chris Partlow …

Unbeknonst to me as I was marvelling at the writing, the acting, the direction of “The Wire,” the show was — Simon tells Abrams in the book — in danger of cancellation after each subsequent season. In fact, the show creator pretty much had to use all of his skills of persuasion to convince HBO suits to keep the show on the air. Apparently, one of the “drawbacks” was the idea that this was a “black” show that had no appeal outside that demographic. Indeed, many of the greatest, most unforgettable characters on “The Wire” — Omar, Stringer Bell, Bubbles, Bunk, Snoop, Marlo — are African American.

But this show, from the very beginning, transcended race. This was the quintessential American show, a show that neither Simon nor Burns allowed to sway even an iota into sentimentality — or contrivance — at the expense of the story being told.

There will probably never be another TV show like “The Wire.” If you didn’t follow it closely during its run, haven’t watched it on DVD or thought about its impact on TV and, indeed, on our country’s psyche, a good place to get back into it is “All the Pieces Matter.” The book will reinforce for you just how great this series was.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ABH_Fletcher.