Rewatching The Wire after 10 years and it hits different now

I first watched The Wire back in 2013 when I was 23 and working construction. Back then I thought season 2 with the dock workers was boring and skipped half of it. My old crew boss who ran roofs for 30 years told me I missed the whole point about working class people getting squeezed out. I rewatched it last month and he was dead right. How many seasons do you give a show before you decide if it's worth finishing?

2 comments

2 Comments

rowan7251mo ago

Rewatching The Wire after 10 years and it hits different now" - yeah, I'm gonna push back a little. The show's great, don't get me wrong, but I think people oversell how it "hits different" when you get older. Sometimes a show is just what it is. Season 2 was always good, you just had bad taste at 23. Happens to everyone. But I wouldn't say you're missing some deep wisdom by not rewatching it. A lot of the themes are pretty straightforward if you're paying attention the first time.

the_anthony1mo ago

Man I gotta disagree with you on this one. The Wire definitely hits different when you've got more life experience under your belt. The first time I watched it I thought Season 2 was boring too, but now I see it's actually the most important season because it shows how the system breaks everyone, not just the drug dealers. The themes might seem straightforward but actually feeling them after you've seen how real world politics and economics screw people over makes a huge difference. You catch the little details in the dialogue and the way characters talk past each other that you just gloss over when you're younger. It's not about having bad taste at 23, it's about having more context for the world the show is describing.