r/TheWire • u/silkycamel8 • 3d ago
Re watching for the 2nd time
I finished the wire for the 1st time late last month and it is hands down the best show I’ve ever watched.
I’ve seen alot of people saying S2 is their favourite season however upon my 2nd re watch I still can’t get into it.
Can someone explain to me what they love about S2 specifically?
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u/SamTom79 3d ago
Season 2 is not my favourite season, but I do love it.
I love the Sobotka family dynamic and the Chris Bauer's portrayal as a sympathetic crininal. I love Ziggy as an incredibly broken person.
I love that season expands on Baltimore in important ways: showing is the life of blue-collar workers, introducing the Greek's organization. I love that we see the depths of Valchek's pettiness and spite.
I love that the show broke out of a mould before that mould could even form: changing up the theme song, giving us a drastically different locale, and criminals with a different motivation/operation. Every season of The Wire expands on the show's lore and tells us more about the city and Season 2 plays a huge role in doing so.
And I love getting to see hints of McNulty growing as a person, but not enough to actually change his fundamental character, one of the themes of the show.
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u/Desperate-Cream-6723 3d ago
I love the change in focus/location/characters. The other seasons are all so similar, focusing on the drug trade. Also thought the acting was tremendous by the dock workers actors.
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u/silkycamel8 3d ago
You’re right, S2 is so different that when you start S3 you really start to feel what the series is about
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u/Desperate-Cream-6723 3d ago
Loved the entire series, but it would have been interesting to see them go a different route every season. I wish the last season was about an actual serial killer not the fake one.
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u/Disastrous_Animal_34 3d ago edited 3d ago
S2 still isn’t my favourite but I found on rewatch, the shock of the setting change didn’t take as much of my focus as the first time around, and I’m able to really enjoy the trafficking investigation.
ETA: even though I don’t like their characters, I’m blown away more and more each rewatch at the incredible performances for Frank Sobotka and Stan Valcheck, I’ve grown to just really enjoy watching their scenes.
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u/silkycamel8 3d ago
Thank you for your perspective, I agree the 2nd time watching S2 I have a different perspective on the series as a whole I just can’t get around to liking it as much as other people do
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u/Dracula_Bit_My_Balls 3d ago
I'm in nearly the same boat as you
Finished my 1st watch this week, and S2 wasn't my favorite.
I'd say S4>S3>>S1S2>S5
I do everything I can to avoid spoilers, so I stayed off the subreddit entirely until I finished my first watch. Then I kind of binged reddit searches on various aspects of the show. People seem to really like Zig here, but to me he was almost cartoonishly unbelievable. In a show that felt so grounded in reality for the first 4 seasons he really stuck out like a sore thumb.
Frank and Nicky were great though, especially Frank. You really felt for the guy. Honestly one of the better characters in the show- which is saying a lot considering he wasnt around very long.
Valchek made my blood boil everytime he was on screen, I think I hated him more than The Greek.
S2 was still good, but to me it can't compare to the brilliance of S4 and S3. The overly long bar scenes with the dock workers and Zig screen time really bring it below S1 for me, but the rest is comparable in quality.
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u/PickerelPickler 3d ago
Valchek getting trolled with the surveillance van was pretty funny though
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u/Dracula_Bit_My_Balls 3d ago
100%, I just wish it would have damaged him somehow lol
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u/PickerelPickler 3d ago
Yeah, he was a big winner in the end, and you just know his reign was more damaging than useless.
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u/silkycamel8 3d ago
That’s so interesting, I got into the wire based off shorts/reels I saw and in heinsight I spoilt a lot of the main points throughout the story line without even knowing but watching it through for the 1st time was such an incredible experience
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u/No_Arugula_6548 3d ago
S2 isn’t my favorite because every season is my favorite lol. Actually really enjoyed season two. The Sabotkas are amazing characters! Poor Frank. Poor Ziggy.
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u/_sympthomas_ 3d ago
From someone who loved it since the first watch:
Some part of me believes that it has the right amount of late stage capitalism for me to relate to. I am a designer - so not too much simularity to dock workers. But for example the scene to scene parallel from Hercs Bug in a Rug Fuzzy Dunlop "isn't technology a bomb" while Frank asks how many workers are clocking hours in Rotterdam is exactly what we experience with AI at the moment.
The acting is very good - especially Frank.
I think there are so many iconic scenes, like the courtroom scene with Omar (one of the best for Omar), The Hot shots (one of the best and most ruthless power moves by Avon) the death of D (one of the key murders that defines the relationship and sets a time bomb for Avon and Stringer), we are introduced to Beadie who I love... that everything starts with a window is really funny to me. The "Fuck you - AND YOUR WINDOW" part is really what gets me. I think "Malaka" is one of the quotes I use in my day to day since then.
To be honest - the list is pretty endless. Although I would say, the list is almost the same lenght for most seasons... thats why the Wire is my favorite show. Season 3 isnt on top because I love Hamsterdam but its the only season where I want to see more from one plotline and less from the political plotline. Season 4 is not on top because I am too much of a softy to see kids suffer and enjoy it on the same level.
Oh - and I am a huge Tom Waits fan. My favorite songwriter.
So having the original on season 2 is like listening to my favorite artist before watching my favorite show.
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u/silkycamel8 3d ago
Damn you’re so right, as I’m only on my 2nd watch I thought all that happened in S3 but you’re so right.
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u/_sympthomas_ 3d ago
yeah - the guys here have done such a great job talking about the theme and the shift, etc...
So I thought I just list some stuff thats great, merely because its great plot-writing and why I personally relate.
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u/Capt_reefr 3d ago
A different family dynamic compared to the other seasons. More insight into the bigger players/import side of dope. American union workers struggling can be more relatable to some, this was especially relatable to me.
Initially S2 was very meh when I watched it 20 years ago. Recently watched again and it's my favorite.
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u/KennyShowers 3d ago
With S2 people mostly focus on the docks/union stuff which does all work for me, I think Chris Bauer has ine of the best performances in the series especially, but it also has some of the best street storylines.
We get Omar in court, the climax of D’s storyline, Avon working stuff inside, Cheese’s introduction, lots of classic stuff from that angle.
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u/epw4 3d ago
Season 2 sets the landscape for the rest of the series. Characters like Agent Koutris are only shown for a handful of scenes, but are integral to the storyline.
During my first watch, I really liked seasons 1 and 4 the most, 3 was great, 2 was good, and 5 was fine. After a few rewatches, 2 is my favorite, 1 and 4 are incredible, 3 is great and 5 is good. It's all splitting hairs IMO.
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u/kent1146 3d ago
Because the characters in Season 2 are relatable.
They are civilians.
- Season 1 was about cops & drug dealers.
- Season 3 was about politicians.
- Season 4 was about schools.
- Season 5 was about newspapers.
Season 2 was about civilians, frustrated by their shitty jobs, just trying to get by, feeling powerless against the larger forces outside their control that dictate their future.
That sounds... just like a lot of us.
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u/WryTurtle1917 3d ago
Civilians? They decide to play the game just like the hoppers, even though facing a lesser threat.
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u/BaronZhiro "Life just be that way I guess." 3d ago
Besides everything else, I think s2 has the most smirks and giggles. The Wire’s levity is very important to me, and I think s2 finds the most sublime balance of it to the drama.
And god, Bauer as Sobotka is just incredible.
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u/CuriousTurtle5 3d ago
Season 2 isn't my favorite, but it's not like it's terrible. It opens the story up to the supplier side of the trade and serves a purpose in expanding the story as a whole. Everything is connected in The Wire and you wouldn't have a great of a show without S2.
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u/Legitimate-Spot-6425 3d ago
Some people like shows about white people more than shows about black people. S2 had highest viewership of the 5 seasons on HBO. Might explain how a convicted sexual abuser got 77 million votes.
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u/SweetLeafAced 2d ago
I love season 2. Though I'm on my 8 or 9th rewatch and didn't really respect it til like my 4th. That's just me tho.
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u/WoodpeckerGingivitis 1d ago
Wow that’s wild to me. Season 2 is incredible. Watching the crumbling blue collar work is so prescient. They tie it back seamlessly to the drugs. Omar on the stand. Dee getting killed. The sheer tragedy and cyclical nature of it.
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u/PaulaDeenSlave 1d ago
For me, season 2 makes it clear that The Wire is telling a grander story than a police procedural. And every second it spends expanding my understanding of what it's trying to say and get me to ask is done sublimely, in my opinion.
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u/KindMan93 3d ago
What I think makes Season 2 so divisive is that it asks us to shift our gaze away from the characters we’ve just spent a whole season bonding with and suddenly care about a completely different world. Now on the surface, that feels like a detour. But it’s actually just an expansion of the map.
The Wire builds a city, and then shows you how every institution is both siloed and interconnected. Season 1 was about the street-level drug trade, Season 2 shows us the decline of the American working class, the stevedores on the docks are fighting for relevance in an economy that doesn’t need them anymore. The drugs are still there, but now they’re freight containers instead of vials. And that’s THE gut punch because the system doesn’t change, it just shifts who it chews up.
Frank Sobotka feels trapped by forces bigger than him. He wants to save his union, his men, his way of life. But his choices spiral into corruption, betrayal, and tragedy all the same. In that sense, Season 2 is showing us that the game is universal. You don’t have to be on a West Baltimore corner to be swallowed by it, you can be a longshoreman with generations of family behind you, and it still won’t protect you.
The season is also the most elegiac. It’s about vanishing. Vanishing jobs, vanishing communities, vanishing dreams. By the end, the Sobotkas are broken, the docks are lifeless, and the city moves on. And THAT connects to the larger theme of The Wire, institutions grind forward, indifferent, while individuals get crushed under the weight of history.