- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
I liked The Sopranos, but there were episodes that felt like one big arty indulgence - and times when I wanted to scream at Chase, "Yes! I get the $&*(@! point!" And the famed humor was there, but I think The Wire every bit as darkly funny. However, the latter show's humor is far more complex, real and bitter, and never veers towards the easy slapstick that Chase sometimes used.
There hasn't been a Wire episode that didn't have a moment or a bit of dialogue that took my breath away. How the writing of so many characters, each of them so multifaceted and real, can continue to be so true amid the chaos of the world portrayed is something of a miracle.
I think of the writing for Meadow, who got a decent amount of screen time in Sopranos, and then I think of Brianna Barksdale, who by contrast is a comparative blip on The Wire. Yet, there's a scene Brianna has with McNulty, where she learns the truth about her son's death, and you learn more about her (and McNulty) in that scene than you ever do about Meadow.
