Hopefully, those one-minute recaps we posted yesterday will have whetted your appetite for some more choice moments from The Wire. And so, with no further ado, here are 10 of our favourite scenes…
Please feel free to let us know if there are any others you think we should have included.
1) “The king stays the king…” (Series 1, episode 3)
D’Angelo Barksdale shows slingers Wallace and Bodie how to play chess, explaining the role of each of the pieces with reference to members of his uncle Avon’s drugs business. He, Wallace and Bodie, he explains, are like the pawns: “They get capped quick… They be out the game early.” He was proved to be right. Each in turn would die – not at the hads of the police or rival gang leaders, but on the orders of their own leadership.
2) “F**k!” (Series 1, episode 5)
Warning: This clip is most definitely not safe for work. Jimmy McNulty and Bunk work an old crime scene, uttering nothing but variations on the F-word.
3) Bodie and Poot kill Wallace (Series 1, Episode 12)
Still one of The Wire’s most harrowing scenes after all these years. The sound of Wallace whimpering for the mercy of his friends still haunts to this day…
4) Prez punches Valchek (Series 2, episode 10)
Valchek gets what’s coming to him… One of those few moments watching The Wire when you got up off your sofa and cheered.
5) “There’s never been a paper bag for drugs… until now” (Series 3, episode 2)
Police district commander Bunny Colvin recounts how the cops once spent all their time arresting people for drinking on the streets, until some enterprising wino came up with the idea of putting the bozze in paper bags. Bunny would go on to create his own version of the paper bag – ‘Hamsterdam’ – a deserted part of town where the police would allow the drug dealers to go about their business uninterrupted on the condition that they keep to the area and don;t start killing each other.
6) “How far we done fell…” (Series 3, episode 6)
The Bunk. Omar. A bench. What more could you ask for?
7) “Us” (Series 3, episode 11)
Avon and Stringer reminisce about when they were kids. Unbeknown to each other, Avon has set up Stringer to be killed by Omar, while Stringer has fed the police information about Avon that will eventually lead to his arrest.
Omar meets Brother Mouzone (Series 3, episode 11)
Two men with strict codes of honour go head to head… ”I admire a man with confidence,” says Mouzone (or Bow Tie, as Omar calls him). ”I don’t see no sweat on your brow neither, bro,” responds Omar.
9) Snoop buys a nail gun (Series 4, episode 1)
Oh my, that voice…
10) Bodie and McNulty’s heart-to-heart (Series 4, episode 12)
Another brilliant bench scene. “This game is rigged,” says Bodie. “We’re like little bitches on a chess board.” A few hours later, he would be dead at the hands of Chris and Snoop…
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Great choices. Thanks for reminding me.