I’m jealous of all those people with HBO who can watch the final season of The Wire. According to many critics, it’s one of the best TV shows of all time. At its most basic, The Wire is about drug gangs in Baltimore and the cops who chase (or fail to chase) them, but really the show is much broader in its ambitions, managing the remarkable feat of both empathizing deeply with the struggles of each and very character and understanding deeply the institutions that shape and limit those individuals.

Recently I watched the fourth season on DVD. The storyline centered around four boys who clearly could accomplish great things if they were growing up in a more nurturing environment. You look at Randy’s entrepreneurial skills, Duquan and Namond’s intelligence, and Michael’s heart, and then you wonder what might have been if those talents had not been beaten down by the streets or (in Michael’s case) diverted to criminality. This is a running theme in the entire show: The indisputable organizational and entrepreneurial genius that the drug kingpins (above all, Stringer Bell) show could have brought about so much good in society, but instead leads to more sickness and squandering of talent. 

This is what The Wire shows us: the incredible waste — economic, social, and moral — that results from this tangled knot of poverty and criminality, and our collective failure to do anything about it.

Do yourself a favor and catch The Wire on HBO or on DVD. Did I mention it’s hilarious, too? It’s like Greek tragedy with jokes.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen