We have finally reached the end of my look back at The Wire through
the lens of my personal Top 50 characters. This final Top 10 sees a
healthy dose of Season 1 in it. All but one of these characters was
introduced in S1. While that may not seem strange, with a show like The
Wire that literally added 10 guys in each season, it says a lot about my
favorite moments and memories of the show. As a better look at the
extreme ability of the show to replace and introduce characters, four of
these ten characters are dead by the end of S4. Two more are in jail
for a long time. That said, other than my ridiculous love for one
character, all of these are truly brilliant characters that I would
think are on any sane viewers' personal Top 20. They aren't all Top 10
for most, but they are all brilliant characters that would probably be
the deepest, most complex, best written, most multi-dimensional
characters in most dramas. As I mentioned when I started this, Breaking
Bad is the 2nd best drama series I have ever seen. The only Breaking Bad
characters that would touch this Top 10 are Walter White and Gus.
Jessie would be close, and actually I might put him over my man crush
character that probably shouldn't be here, but whatever. The point is,
this show is fucking awesome. Watch it now. Watch it whenever. It is
like reading an incredible novel, but on TV.
10.) Wee-Bey Brice
He's the guy that probably shouldn't be here. He's the one that probably should be back around #30, and would be on most people's lists. He is the one character on the Top 10 who's story is told in one season (other than brief spots in S4) and who that story doesn't end in death. Wee-Bey Brice, the Barksdale's top enforcer, was the most lovable assassin I have ever seen. What I loved about Wee-Bey was that he was a man committed, but not defined, by his deadly role in the game. When he wasn't killing, he was a charismatic partyer. When he was on the job, he was focused and efficient. Wee-Bey was the only man in "the game" to hit Omar. Stanfield had three enforcers corner Omar in an apartment and Omar was able to escape. Wee-Bey was able to go from eating chicken to a shoot-out with Omar seamlessly. That said, it was his unending peculiar charisma. The way he was so confident he could be GM of the Knicks. The way he loved his fish (real or, when in prison, plastic). The way he thought he could handle the hot sauce. The way he took on extra murders during sentencing to save friends just for some extra food. Wee-Bey was awesome. That's why he's on the list.
Memorable Quotes: "Fuck it then... for another pig sandwich and some tater salad, I'll go a few more." (0:35) "He fuck with my fish A', he didn't have to go there man." (1:40) & "
9.) Bodie Broadus
Bodie was by far the least impressive, likable character of the original pit crew. After Season 1, Poot was a far more interesting character than Bodie (Poot was probably the biggest omission from my list, but I can't really go back and do it now). It was what Bodie became in the later seasons that made my really start to enjoy him as a character. The Wire built a lot of characters to replace the old guard as a symbol that the life of a city goes on, and Bodie was really built to be the new Avon, but he just died too soon. Bodie was smart, but it took him a long time to realize it. Bodie was a true soldier, and in a weird way, a hero, but it took us a long time to realize it. With Bodie's death really was the death of the Barskdale organization. He was the last man standing, and he was, as McNulty poignantly put it, "a soldier." (1:27 - but the whole clip is great). Bodie embodied everything that made Avon great (Avon just had it to a higher degree). He toed the line perfectly between smart businessman (he was the soldier who was able to suggest the correct method of competing with the shitty product, that they should create fake competition amongst the towers) and loyal soldier. He had the calm and wit to joke and jest with Carver. He learned to play the game well. He was an arrogant SOB in Season 1 who was so caught up in The Game that the only thing he took out of DeAngelo's chess lesson was that the pawn (Bodie at the time), if he played it right and made it to the other side of the board could become the queen. He decided to forget the fact that the pawns, "got capped quick." He wanted to be Avon, and in many ways, he became just that. He was cocky, but smart (witness him immediately realizing that he was a victim of entrapment). He was nice when he needed to be and a cocky motherfucker when he needed to be. Both are evidenced in the scene when Carver comes along for his daily visit to Bodie's corner. He is soft and welcoming to McNulty's compliments, but plays with Carver, whom he feels he is smarter than. Bodie loved The Game, but he loved The Game he was bred in, the Barksdale game, when a druglord was smart and loyal and effective, but not overtly ruthless. Bodie became a brilliant character. Other than possibly Prez, I don't think any character developed as much as Bodie. I couldn't believe that I was miserable that Bodie, the same man who was such a bitch in S1, was killed. That said, he went down fighting, being the only man to stand up to the Stanfield crew and fight them, and not follow Chris and Snoop into a vacant with his tail up his ass. No, he went down fighting, which considering he was the same man not tough enough to kill his friend on orders in S1, is saying a lot.
Memorable Quotes: "The game is pretty rigged man. We like them little bitches on the chessboard." (from the first clip), "This is my corner. I ain't running nowhere." (the last clip), "Nigga kill motherfuckers just cause he can. Not cause he snitchin, not cuase its business. But cause this shit just comes natural to him... Fuck Marlo man. Fuck him, and anybody who think it right to do people this way."
8.) Proposition Joe
Proposition Joe. What to say. For a man who really had just one scene is S1, where he is the coach of the East Side Project team in teh East vs. West basketball game, and dons a suit and carries a blank clipboard to "look the part", he became such a key member of the series. He was really just a mix of Stringer and Avon. He had Avon's heart and loyalty to family and the new kids in the game. He had Stringer's business sense, as he always saw a 'proposition' in any situation, and saw that the best way to play the game was to combine the resources, to use each group's comparative advantage. Prop Joe was damn smart. That said, the only reason he is close to this high is because of the fucking brilliant lines he got. That's the key take away of Prop. The man could speak.
Memorable Quotes (there are a lot, so I'll bullet point them)
7.) Bubbles
These last seven are just out-fucking-standing. All of them. They are collectively the greatest character group I have ever seen. Bubbles starts us off because he was the sleeper. He was in every season, but he was never really a lead until S5. Had S5 never happened, and he was just a capering CI that was as charming as he was fucked-up, he probably ends up in the 20s on the list, but it was his incredible journey that he took that all led up to the speech he gave at the NA meeting about poisoning his boy. Bubbles earned that moment, earned the tears that any human (including me) would shed while watching him break down himself. This character had one large pay-off and five seasons of build up, but God Damnit if the whole thing wasn't absolutely worth it. Bubbles was instantly likable from the beginning as the jokester, the man who would charm drug dealers into letting him put hats on their head that identified their important-ness to the cops. He was the man who could sweet-talk his way into an extra $5 from McNulty or Kima for a job well done. He was the likable fiend. But over time, his incredible ability to struggle with that addiction made him a wonderful character.
It wasn't until late S1 that we saw Bubbles first attempt to lay off when he goes to an NA meeting and takes a sobriety ribbon because "he wants to be alive." He wants to live a good life, to be like his sister (comfortably living in a modest middle-class home). His look at his sister shielding her daughter from even talking to Bubbles is a killer. It shows that Bubbles truly hates himself and the position he has put himself in, and that he wants to get better, but that it is going to be really, really hard. His frequent relapses into drug use were usually masked by his increasingly entrepreneurial spirit, as he goes from stealing scrap metal to selling white t-shirts to fiends in Hamsterdam. Of course, it really was S5 that made Bubbles the character incredible. Whether it was his getting constantly beaten by the same fiend (which got so incredibly hard to watch, I will admit I fast-forwarded through some of those at times), or him slowly coming to terms with killing Sherrod, or the scene of him beautifully just sitting on a park bench, struggling to not only feel free in the world but free as a human. But the real show-stopper was that incredible speech he gave. He stood up there and basically slayed every demon he ever faced. Bubble's had some memorable scenes, but truly that moment is what defined Bubbles, 58 episodes in the making.
Memorable Quotes: "Thin line between heaven and here." (2:30), "much obliged" and that incredible scene (too much to write it down, but it is amazing)
6.) Frank Sobotka
My God. What to say. I am basically having that reaction for all of these characters in this last Top-10. Frank Sobotka might have been the best casting the show did. He was just so effective at conveying the depression and angst of a man fighting an inevitably losing fight. He was both the most honorable crook and villain, as well as the most misguided. His love for the union, for a slowly, but surely, withering part of the fabric of the American city, and his constant belief that what he was doing was for the good of everyone but him made him a man of great conviction. That said, it was his blind faith in what he was doing, and his inability to see everything else from the depth of The Greek's business as well as the personal lows that his own son was falling into, made him cold and dark. Chris Bauer played the role incredibly. Season 2 was all about the death of blue-collar America in the US City, and the embodiment of that was Frank. He saw signs all over that his way of life, the life he grew up in because of the spiraling tunnel-vision in the International Brotherhood of Stevedores, the way he taught his son to be. He saw Rotterdam port replacing his job with machines. He saw the political red tape that needed to be dealt with to get a canal dredged. He saw the area where he worked, which he loved, being turned into high-priced housing.
He was a Stevedore at heart. That was who he was, and his desire to save that way of life, to save that America, to freeze it in time, the America of industrialization and hard work. It was symbolic that he was killed by the men who represented pure capitalism (The Greek) on the show as his union's work was killed off by, what else, capitalism. That said, even after he lost everything, he did what he knew was right. He worked. Till the very last day. He was one damn hard working Polak, and an extremely beautifully constructed, complicated and deep character.
Memorable Quotes: "We were here through Bobby Kennedy, 'Tricky' Dick Nixon, Ronnie "the Union Buster" Reagan, and half a dozen other sons of bitches. We'll be here through your weak bullshit no problem." (1:05), "You know what the trouble is, Brucey. We used to make shit in this country; build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket." & "Help my union? For 25 years we've been dyin' slow down there. Fry dock's rustin', piers standin' empty. My friends and their kids like we got the cancer. No life-line got thrown all that time, nothin' from nobody, and now you wanna help us? Help me?"
5.) Wallace
Season 4 may have been about the four kids (at least that was arguably the best part), but the best child character on The Wire during its run was Wallace. He was all four of those kids rolled into one. He had the smile and innocence of Randy. He had the sympathetic situation of Dukie. He had the poise and respect of Michael. He had the haunting realization that he both wanted life on and outside The Game that was similar to Namond. He was every character combined, and he had to die for it. Wallace was the first horrible, heart-shattering death on The Wire. And not only was he the first, he was definitely the most tragic. String dying was justice in a way. Frank Sobotka dying was no less sad than his union and industry dying. Bodie dying was sad, but was a fitting end for a man who was told by a cop was a 'soldier.' Wallace dying was just a crime. And having his two friends do it was even worse. Seeing Wallace, tears streaming down his face, pleading two his buddies that he is hard, that he is "your nigga", that he deserves to die, and seeing his friends staring back with tears running down their face. That was a powerful scene.
Wallace was the only innocent man in the crooked game. He had to be a man, as he was given the task of caring for the youngn's so they could avoid a group home. He had to wake them up, give them food and drink for school, get them out of the house, and then even teach them math. But he was also a child. He was playing with action figures off to side while Poot and Bodie were debating if one of them could get HIV from oral sex. He was a man who was man enough to call Stringer directly to tell him he had spotted Brandon, but innocent enough that he was horrified at the display made of Brandon, so much that it basically set in motion the events leading to his death. Wallace fighting with the guilt of giving up a boy who would be brutally murdered was one of The Wire first great character pieces. Every shot of Wallace, every scene of him questioning what it is he was doing, why he felt that he had to do what he did. His turn into drugs, and ultimately to the police was beautifully penned. Wallace was also perfectly acted. That face. That God Damn innocent face, quivering in fear that his life was over, a life that was lived in perfect innocence. He didn't know how far The Game could go, and how much his actions would hurt him. And how could he? He didn't know how to play chess, just young checkers.
Memorable Quotes: When talking about Brandon's "His eye was blowin out, and the other one was open. And Yo D, it fucks me up. It's like he's looking out, like he sees everything, you know." (4:38 - but the whole clip is brilliant) & "I'm yo nigga yo... We boys. Ain't gotta be like this... I'm you nigga... It's us man..."
Actually, The Top 4 deserve a different post (plus, it will be really lengthy to include them here), so I'll stop here. Other than Prop-Joe and Wee-Bey, this list includes four of the most deep characters. Three of them suffered tragic deaths, all in the penultimate episode of a season (which is no coincidence - thriller/mystery novelist George Pelecanos wrote the penultimate episode of every season, which always included a death; the other two being Stringer and Prop Joe). They all had incredible moments. They were all some of the most captivating characters on TV. The other was Bubbles, who might have been the best redemption story of a drug-addict I have ever seen, real or fake. God, what an incredible show... and there's four more brilliant ones left.
10.) Wee-Bey Brice
He's the guy that probably shouldn't be here. He's the one that probably should be back around #30, and would be on most people's lists. He is the one character on the Top 10 who's story is told in one season (other than brief spots in S4) and who that story doesn't end in death. Wee-Bey Brice, the Barksdale's top enforcer, was the most lovable assassin I have ever seen. What I loved about Wee-Bey was that he was a man committed, but not defined, by his deadly role in the game. When he wasn't killing, he was a charismatic partyer. When he was on the job, he was focused and efficient. Wee-Bey was the only man in "the game" to hit Omar. Stanfield had three enforcers corner Omar in an apartment and Omar was able to escape. Wee-Bey was able to go from eating chicken to a shoot-out with Omar seamlessly. That said, it was his unending peculiar charisma. The way he was so confident he could be GM of the Knicks. The way he loved his fish (real or, when in prison, plastic). The way he thought he could handle the hot sauce. The way he took on extra murders during sentencing to save friends just for some extra food. Wee-Bey was awesome. That's why he's on the list.
Memorable Quotes: "Fuck it then... for another pig sandwich and some tater salad, I'll go a few more." (0:35) "He fuck with my fish A', he didn't have to go there man." (1:40) & "
9.) Bodie Broadus
Bodie was by far the least impressive, likable character of the original pit crew. After Season 1, Poot was a far more interesting character than Bodie (Poot was probably the biggest omission from my list, but I can't really go back and do it now). It was what Bodie became in the later seasons that made my really start to enjoy him as a character. The Wire built a lot of characters to replace the old guard as a symbol that the life of a city goes on, and Bodie was really built to be the new Avon, but he just died too soon. Bodie was smart, but it took him a long time to realize it. Bodie was a true soldier, and in a weird way, a hero, but it took us a long time to realize it. With Bodie's death really was the death of the Barskdale organization. He was the last man standing, and he was, as McNulty poignantly put it, "a soldier." (1:27 - but the whole clip is great). Bodie embodied everything that made Avon great (Avon just had it to a higher degree). He toed the line perfectly between smart businessman (he was the soldier who was able to suggest the correct method of competing with the shitty product, that they should create fake competition amongst the towers) and loyal soldier. He had the calm and wit to joke and jest with Carver. He learned to play the game well. He was an arrogant SOB in Season 1 who was so caught up in The Game that the only thing he took out of DeAngelo's chess lesson was that the pawn (Bodie at the time), if he played it right and made it to the other side of the board could become the queen. He decided to forget the fact that the pawns, "got capped quick." He wanted to be Avon, and in many ways, he became just that. He was cocky, but smart (witness him immediately realizing that he was a victim of entrapment). He was nice when he needed to be and a cocky motherfucker when he needed to be. Both are evidenced in the scene when Carver comes along for his daily visit to Bodie's corner. He is soft and welcoming to McNulty's compliments, but plays with Carver, whom he feels he is smarter than. Bodie loved The Game, but he loved The Game he was bred in, the Barksdale game, when a druglord was smart and loyal and effective, but not overtly ruthless. Bodie became a brilliant character. Other than possibly Prez, I don't think any character developed as much as Bodie. I couldn't believe that I was miserable that Bodie, the same man who was such a bitch in S1, was killed. That said, he went down fighting, being the only man to stand up to the Stanfield crew and fight them, and not follow Chris and Snoop into a vacant with his tail up his ass. No, he went down fighting, which considering he was the same man not tough enough to kill his friend on orders in S1, is saying a lot.
Memorable Quotes: "The game is pretty rigged man. We like them little bitches on the chessboard." (from the first clip), "This is my corner. I ain't running nowhere." (the last clip), "Nigga kill motherfuckers just cause he can. Not cause he snitchin, not cuase its business. But cause this shit just comes natural to him... Fuck Marlo man. Fuck him, and anybody who think it right to do people this way."
8.) Proposition Joe
Proposition Joe. What to say. For a man who really had just one scene is S1, where he is the coach of the East Side Project team in teh East vs. West basketball game, and dons a suit and carries a blank clipboard to "look the part", he became such a key member of the series. He was really just a mix of Stringer and Avon. He had Avon's heart and loyalty to family and the new kids in the game. He had Stringer's business sense, as he always saw a 'proposition' in any situation, and saw that the best way to play the game was to combine the resources, to use each group's comparative advantage. Prop Joe was damn smart. That said, the only reason he is close to this high is because of the fucking brilliant lines he got. That's the key take away of Prop. The man could speak.
Memorable Quotes (there are a lot, so I'll bullet point them)
- "I got motherfucking nephews and in-laws all up in my shit, and it's not like I can pop a cap in they ass and not hear about come Thanksgiving Time" (4:29)
- "Fool, if not for Sergei here, you and your cousin both would be cadaverous motherfuckers." (5:58)
- "Was you listening. Omar the one side holding a spade, and Marlo to the other side holding a shovel. Just this moment I managed to crawl out my grave, no way I'm gonna crawl back in." (2:05)
- "West side dope been weak for a while. Every dope fiend in the city know that Avon been putting out piss and calling it shit... let me put a point on it. My shit is right String... Shit is just business String. Buy for a dollar, sell for two. You got the towers. I got what goes in 'em." (0:34)
- "It ain't right for you to be head of our table of you can't call of your dog. Call it a crisis of leadership." (1:58)
- "I've got a proposition for ya..."
7.) Bubbles
These last seven are just out-fucking-standing. All of them. They are collectively the greatest character group I have ever seen. Bubbles starts us off because he was the sleeper. He was in every season, but he was never really a lead until S5. Had S5 never happened, and he was just a capering CI that was as charming as he was fucked-up, he probably ends up in the 20s on the list, but it was his incredible journey that he took that all led up to the speech he gave at the NA meeting about poisoning his boy. Bubbles earned that moment, earned the tears that any human (including me) would shed while watching him break down himself. This character had one large pay-off and five seasons of build up, but God Damnit if the whole thing wasn't absolutely worth it. Bubbles was instantly likable from the beginning as the jokester, the man who would charm drug dealers into letting him put hats on their head that identified their important-ness to the cops. He was the man who could sweet-talk his way into an extra $5 from McNulty or Kima for a job well done. He was the likable fiend. But over time, his incredible ability to struggle with that addiction made him a wonderful character.
It wasn't until late S1 that we saw Bubbles first attempt to lay off when he goes to an NA meeting and takes a sobriety ribbon because "he wants to be alive." He wants to live a good life, to be like his sister (comfortably living in a modest middle-class home). His look at his sister shielding her daughter from even talking to Bubbles is a killer. It shows that Bubbles truly hates himself and the position he has put himself in, and that he wants to get better, but that it is going to be really, really hard. His frequent relapses into drug use were usually masked by his increasingly entrepreneurial spirit, as he goes from stealing scrap metal to selling white t-shirts to fiends in Hamsterdam. Of course, it really was S5 that made Bubbles the character incredible. Whether it was his getting constantly beaten by the same fiend (which got so incredibly hard to watch, I will admit I fast-forwarded through some of those at times), or him slowly coming to terms with killing Sherrod, or the scene of him beautifully just sitting on a park bench, struggling to not only feel free in the world but free as a human. But the real show-stopper was that incredible speech he gave. He stood up there and basically slayed every demon he ever faced. Bubble's had some memorable scenes, but truly that moment is what defined Bubbles, 58 episodes in the making.
Memorable Quotes: "Thin line between heaven and here." (2:30), "much obliged" and that incredible scene (too much to write it down, but it is amazing)
6.) Frank Sobotka
My God. What to say. I am basically having that reaction for all of these characters in this last Top-10. Frank Sobotka might have been the best casting the show did. He was just so effective at conveying the depression and angst of a man fighting an inevitably losing fight. He was both the most honorable crook and villain, as well as the most misguided. His love for the union, for a slowly, but surely, withering part of the fabric of the American city, and his constant belief that what he was doing was for the good of everyone but him made him a man of great conviction. That said, it was his blind faith in what he was doing, and his inability to see everything else from the depth of The Greek's business as well as the personal lows that his own son was falling into, made him cold and dark. Chris Bauer played the role incredibly. Season 2 was all about the death of blue-collar America in the US City, and the embodiment of that was Frank. He saw signs all over that his way of life, the life he grew up in because of the spiraling tunnel-vision in the International Brotherhood of Stevedores, the way he taught his son to be. He saw Rotterdam port replacing his job with machines. He saw the political red tape that needed to be dealt with to get a canal dredged. He saw the area where he worked, which he loved, being turned into high-priced housing.
He was a Stevedore at heart. That was who he was, and his desire to save that way of life, to save that America, to freeze it in time, the America of industrialization and hard work. It was symbolic that he was killed by the men who represented pure capitalism (The Greek) on the show as his union's work was killed off by, what else, capitalism. That said, even after he lost everything, he did what he knew was right. He worked. Till the very last day. He was one damn hard working Polak, and an extremely beautifully constructed, complicated and deep character.
Memorable Quotes: "We were here through Bobby Kennedy, 'Tricky' Dick Nixon, Ronnie "the Union Buster" Reagan, and half a dozen other sons of bitches. We'll be here through your weak bullshit no problem." (1:05), "You know what the trouble is, Brucey. We used to make shit in this country; build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket." & "Help my union? For 25 years we've been dyin' slow down there. Fry dock's rustin', piers standin' empty. My friends and their kids like we got the cancer. No life-line got thrown all that time, nothin' from nobody, and now you wanna help us? Help me?"
5.) Wallace
Season 4 may have been about the four kids (at least that was arguably the best part), but the best child character on The Wire during its run was Wallace. He was all four of those kids rolled into one. He had the smile and innocence of Randy. He had the sympathetic situation of Dukie. He had the poise and respect of Michael. He had the haunting realization that he both wanted life on and outside The Game that was similar to Namond. He was every character combined, and he had to die for it. Wallace was the first horrible, heart-shattering death on The Wire. And not only was he the first, he was definitely the most tragic. String dying was justice in a way. Frank Sobotka dying was no less sad than his union and industry dying. Bodie dying was sad, but was a fitting end for a man who was told by a cop was a 'soldier.' Wallace dying was just a crime. And having his two friends do it was even worse. Seeing Wallace, tears streaming down his face, pleading two his buddies that he is hard, that he is "your nigga", that he deserves to die, and seeing his friends staring back with tears running down their face. That was a powerful scene.
Wallace was the only innocent man in the crooked game. He had to be a man, as he was given the task of caring for the youngn's so they could avoid a group home. He had to wake them up, give them food and drink for school, get them out of the house, and then even teach them math. But he was also a child. He was playing with action figures off to side while Poot and Bodie were debating if one of them could get HIV from oral sex. He was a man who was man enough to call Stringer directly to tell him he had spotted Brandon, but innocent enough that he was horrified at the display made of Brandon, so much that it basically set in motion the events leading to his death. Wallace fighting with the guilt of giving up a boy who would be brutally murdered was one of The Wire first great character pieces. Every shot of Wallace, every scene of him questioning what it is he was doing, why he felt that he had to do what he did. His turn into drugs, and ultimately to the police was beautifully penned. Wallace was also perfectly acted. That face. That God Damn innocent face, quivering in fear that his life was over, a life that was lived in perfect innocence. He didn't know how far The Game could go, and how much his actions would hurt him. And how could he? He didn't know how to play chess, just young checkers.
Memorable Quotes: When talking about Brandon's "His eye was blowin out, and the other one was open. And Yo D, it fucks me up. It's like he's looking out, like he sees everything, you know." (4:38 - but the whole clip is brilliant) & "I'm yo nigga yo... We boys. Ain't gotta be like this... I'm you nigga... It's us man..."
Actually, The Top 4 deserve a different post (plus, it will be really lengthy to include them here), so I'll stop here. Other than Prop-Joe and Wee-Bey, this list includes four of the most deep characters. Three of them suffered tragic deaths, all in the penultimate episode of a season (which is no coincidence - thriller/mystery novelist George Pelecanos wrote the penultimate episode of every season, which always included a death; the other two being Stringer and Prop Joe). They all had incredible moments. They were all some of the most captivating characters on TV. The other was Bubbles, who might have been the best redemption story of a drug-addict I have ever seen, real or fake. God, what an incredible show... and there's four more brilliant ones left.
