All The Pieces Matter

If Snoop and Chris walked me into a vacant, an If Animal Trapped Call 410-844-6286 situation, and asked me for my favorite part of The Wire, I would be Bunk without a life jacket, Bubbles without pants, Lamar without Harper's....
For me, there is no single moment that I love above all others, no seminal scene. Rather, I have a collection of nuggets that keep me coming back again and again and again and again and again and again. My favorite part of The Wire is the simultaneous suffocating inevitability of the monolithic systems together with Honey Nut Cheerios. The ridiculous and the sublime, ultimately becoming indistinguishable and creating a synergistic feedback loop: the police force is rendered a farce while socks and tevas are revelatory.
These details are, to me, the heart of the show, giving depth, humanity and something like hope in the face of crushing heartbreak.
What am I talking about?

nail gun shopping

toasters

Lester's high tops flashed during a raid

the mesmerizing swirls of Omar's hair, different in almost every episode

Wallace's juice boxes

a shot and a beer

"These are my tetras. That's Kimmy, Alex Aubrey and Jezebel in here somewhere...she think she cute."

wagging fingers

"Tickle my fancy, Fat Man"

"For real? It's 85 fucking degrees out here and you're tryna be like fucking Pat Riley?" and maybe the best illustration of my point, the scene where McNulty loses his sons at the quintessential mid Atlantic market.

Why do I love this scene? Yes, it's entertaining to watch the young McNultys be dwarfed by Stringer's frame and yes, it is typical of McNulty's questionable parenting...dull dull dull. The real reason comes at 1:39...

Jimmy Mcnulty takes his boys to the market and sees Stringer Bell. They play "Front and Follow" and Mcnulty loses his boys. One of his son's writes down Stri...

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is loud. The kind of loud that happens when you are singing along at the top of your lungs because it's Saturday morning and you're going to eat a sandwich with your Dad. The kind of loud that happens when it's Saturday morning and you're going to eat a sandwich with your sons that you never see. The kind of loud when you don't care, you are alive and together with people you love and songs take on new meaning. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" that loud is real. And it is just one brief and brilliant moment in a narrative full of brief and brilliant moments.

Real fucking lights in the darkness.

Emma Impink is always giving a fuck when it ain't her turn to give a fuck.