Every Season Of The Wire Ranked Worst To Best

The Wire has always been a show about the class systems in the USA, and season two is its most explicit on that theme. Taking a hard left turn after the cops and criminals-led first season, here focus turns to the working men eking out a living on Baltimore’s docks.

Employed in a dying industry, we see that these people have been left behind almost as badly as the kids on the streets, and unsurprisingly turn to criminality to support themselves. The docks story presents some great characters, most notably Frank Sobotka, a union boss, father, and one of The Wire’s more heroic (though flawed) figures.

It’s here that we meet The Greek, a mysterious crime boss who brings the drugs into the city in the first place, who’ll remain a significant figure throughout the series.

Season two also features perhaps the best case the detectives tackle, as a shipping crate containing a dozen dead women turns up on Sobotka’s dock. It’s a deep and winding story, one which is expertly fleshed out from the perspectives of both the perpetrators and the investigators.