10 Things The Wire Fans Couldn’t Get Enough Of
5. The Depth Of Each Character
The Wire operates in shades of grey. From the mayor and chief of police, all the way to the corner gangs and criminal organisations, no character is ever quite what they seem at first.
Characters are never championed or thrust upon the audience, and are driven by understandable and thoroughly fleshed out motives. Audiences love that throughout the show, quite literally every character is believable. The world feels dense and full of life which only aids the narrative it's trying to portray.
In the earlier seasons, this is perhaps best exemplified by D'Angelo Barksdale. He's a high-ranking drug dealer within his uncle's Organization, but he's a thoughtful man, and the consequences of his actions play heavily on his mind. That crisis of conscience eventually causes his death.
Such moral complexity runs through almost every character. Rawls having no dialogue in a scene which reveals his sexuality, or Bubs' endless struggle to pull away from a life he knows is wrong, these are moments which enhance the world ten-fold, allowing you to understand each character on a more tangible level.
As fans we can't get enough of the wealth of fully fleshed characters, and that does nothing but enhance our viewing experience.