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The Sopranos is just Mario Puzo's stream of consciousness. The length of it shows us more than we've ever seen of the mafia, but episode for episode, The Wire holds more clips, is better stylized, and leaves the audience not just stunned, but breathless.
The world that The Wire offers is more likely to have The Sopranos in it, than the other way around.
You won't find The Wire anywhere else. Its a world hinted at in books and films, not unfolded for us and examined from every angle. No where else on tv have I gotten the POV from not only the cops and robbers, but the politicians, the lawyers, the street riffraf, AND the kids who live there.
The Wire won my heart when it showed us the black boy's world. No where else on television has the drama that is young, disenfranchised, black, poor boys' lives been sifted through and understood.
This isn't a rap video about big pimping, grillz, naked girls, or the fantastic glamour of selling drugs. Its little black boys who don't know how to sell drugs, the mothers who make them do it, and the jail bird fathers who'd rather give them up for better, then hold them down for worse.
The Sopranos is a well spun caricature, so fantastic that it blinds. The Wire speaks to what I've seen and how I've lived; it takes the blinders off.
