All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire

by Jonathan Abrams

It’s going to require work and it’s going to require struggle. It’s not going to come naturally. Nothing comes naturally that’s this complicated. It doesn’t mean you don’t have talent. It means this is going to require work.”

seismic

My mom is more okay with me seeing somebody get shot on the show than actually letting me watch people have sex, which I still talk to her about today. “Mom, I can watch Stringer Bell get killed, but I couldn’t watch Kima’s sex scene? I couldn’t do that? You wouldn’t let me?”

When I looked at the menu, because I think they had asked us if we wanted to eat, I looked at the menu, I had no idea what was on the menu. It was very real. It was very real. Scenes like that—I didn’t realize how important they were until I was older.

In staying outside more, hanging around with the older folks, he developed that old soul, that old wisdom of the streets and power and leadership.

enigmatic

emote

For example, if you take Season Four, if you came up the way I did, you’ve been hearing all your life, “Why can’t these kids just pull themselves up by their bootstraps to get out of the ghetto?” Like it’s easy. I think in that season, we showed America why it’s very difficult for them to do that, because of everything they’re up against. That’s really what I’m proud of, is that we articulated on film the mechanics of why things are the way they are.

That’s the power of television. For everybody who reads a book, one hundred people go to the movies; for every one hundred people that go to the movies, ten thousand watch a TV show. It’s a numbers game.

don’t seize defeat from the jaws of victory.

didactic

That’s what he is. He’s the hope that runs through the show. It’s a heartbreaking story, but somebody has to come out okay.

I think that’s the real beauty that you find in every human being that scares you. When a human being stops trying, when we don’t give a fuck, when we say, “Ah, fuck it. I don’t care,” once that aspect comes into the human psyche, humanity is lost. You got to want to try. Whether you know you’re pushing that rock up a hill or you’re going to bang your head against a brick wall, the idea to not try cannot seep into our society. We got to try.

The fascinating and great thing about The Wire is that it shows you how people become the people they’re going to become, whether that’s good or bad. We get to humanize these people, despite the horrific or great things they do. Because I’m into that type of storytelling, and it’s most reflective of real life, I totally understood and bought how Kenard could be the person who takes out Omar, and how Kenard is the person that Omar doesn’t see coming.

That story couldn’t have been ironed out no more perfect, because that’s what society is about now. It’s about choices. You just sat up there and watched all your friends get killed or locked up. You had a choice, whether you’re just going to stay in the game or whether you were going to get out the game, and he chose to get out the game.

nihilists.

bloodlust

diminution

When he said that, it just gave him a little extra swag. He’s not just a black man, but he’s a black man that’s well rounded.

All of us that were involved in The Wire, we’ll always talk about how we were a part of educating and entertaining and inspiring people at the same time, which back then was rare for television to do all three, a scripted television show to do all three and not be over the top about it, but be as real as possible.

A lot of people got their heads buried in the fucking sand.

There are two kinds of people in the world. People who have seen The Wire and people who haven’t seen The Wire.

What has that become? Nothing but car chases and fucking pie contests.

If we wanted to, we could change our cities if more people got involved, but that’s a big stretch.

It’s hard to make a casserole and watch The Wire in the background à la Law & Order.

I’d rather be part of something that was acknowledged in my time than in my moment. Moments pass.

iconoclastic

caustic,

scabrous

eclectic

To me, it was a human show. It’s just most of the people happen to be black.

His intellectual muscles, he can go from zero to sixty in an instant, and I think TV gave him that, because it’s the same low-key sense of crisis every minute.

The only cool thing that came out of it, as far as I know, is that when they hit the pharmacy and they got all the pills out, my daughter was working, at the time, at the VA. She’s a clinical psychologist, and she had to walk up to her car, which was two blocks away from the VA in downtown Baltimore. The price of Oxycontin and all those things, which was, at one time, fifty dollars a pill after the riots, it was down to ten dollars a pill and slowly went back up to fifty dollars as the supply ran out. She was like, “Well, something happened. Something good happened out there.” I love that story.

But come to Beverly Hills and start looting like that, they gonna shut it down quick, and that’s just what it is. So, if you’re going to do that, not that I’m condoning it, do it where it matters. That’s why I’ve never been a big fan of the whole rioting stuff, because I think it’s stupid. I feel like when they do that, they’re not really about the cause. They’re just trying to get some free shit. If you’re really about the cause, you’re going to go where it matters. If you’re mad at white people, then go where white people live at. Don’t loot where we live.

parochial.

“If you get on the wrong train, running down the aisle backward is not a solution. You have to get off the train.”

Somebody brought [me and Jamie Hector] to meet Russell Simmons once at a party or something like that. The elevator doors opened, and there was Russell. I guess he was going someplace and we were going to meet him. It was like his breath stopped and he took a step back before he realized it was just us. I always forget the power of us being together because so many people have seen us together in certain circumstances, and it’s usually not good.

egomaniacal

What mattered was that over this period of almost twenty years now, is that it’s still alive and that the best compliments we ever get is not, “I loved your show.” It’s happened to me several times, actually, when people have come up to me at book signings and stuff and said, “I became a teacher because of The Wire” or “I joined the Peace Corps because of The Wire.” That, to me, is the highest compliment that you can get.

Ella Thompson Fund,”

Your greatest resource that you have in a democracy is its people.

“What happens next is what you imagine.”

“How much time have I got?”