the game is the game
I didn't finish this series. I didn't make it past the middle of the fourth season. And if I were to never return to it again--which nothing short of death would permit--I'd have something as small as a single line in a show exploding with indelible dialogue, genius monikers, and unique, lasting, radiant phrases burn inside me forever: "The game is the game."
I can't think of anything I've ever heard that is simpler or truer.
The whole show is about the dynamics between police and perp, yet what we come to discover throughout the work is that dynamics are simply a game, a constant cat and mouse --though more in the vein of Tom and Jerry--a constant chess match, and, most importantly, a perpetual one-upmanship. Each season of The Wire features a separate environment of malfeasance: low-level street perpetrations, political deviation, illegalities through importing and exporting, disorder in public school systems. And though each season features a different scenario, the nitty-gritty never changes: McNutty and Baltimore still chase Avon Barksdale and narcotics. The game never changes, regardless of where it is or how it's presented. Ask Cutty.
The Wire's beauty is in the subtleties. And those subtleties are beyond anything I've ever experienced. A simple line in a nondescript softball game illuminates not only the crux of a television program but the mastery of an entire history of politics, violence, addiction, ethics, and law. "The game is the game."
Pat Marino appreciates watching tv series in one mind-numbing, eyeball-melting, bourbon-swilling go.