Besides maybe The Sopranos, there’s no other TV show out there that’s quite as captivating or carefully constructed as The Wire. But, as with any long-running series, it’s not all roses. There are some flaws and downsides and weaknesses that stick out when you rewatch the show.

The Wire’s Opening Credits Sequence Is Really, Really Long

Way back in the pre-streaming days, as a boneheaded teenager, I first watched The Wire on DVD, so there was no “Skip Intro” button. Some streaming services still don’t have a “Skip Intro” button — like NOW TV, which carries The Wire in the UK — and that can be a problem when the opening credits sequence is really, really long.

The Wire’s opening title sequences are perfectly edited montages, summing up the themes and messaging of each season, and the show’s theme song (“Way Down in the Hole”) is great, and all five versions of it are bangers. But if you’re binge-watching the show, it can start to feel excruciatingly repetitive to sit through the same two-minute title sequence once an hour.

Wallace’s Death Is A Horrifying Gut-Punch Really Early On

The Wire didn’t mess around; it broke its audience’s hearts and left them empty and devastated before the end of its first season. In one of The Wire’s most heartbreaking moments, Michael B. Jordan’s Wallace, a teenage drug dealer who just wanted to do the right thing, is executed by his own friends.

It’s one of the saddest character deaths in TV history, and it gave us one of the greatest movie stars of the current generation. When you rewatch the show, you have to prepare yourself to relive the trauma of Wallace’s death really early on.

The Shift From Season 1 To Season 2 Is Really Jarring

When David Simon made The Wire, he essentially approached season 2 as a brand-new show, and it felt like a completely different show, with a new setting and a new cast. This became The Wire’s M.O. — unlike other TV dramas, it never settled into a status quo — but it was pretty jarring at first.

Subsequent seasons found a nice middle ground between exploring new areas of Baltimore and servicing the existing characters, but The Wire’s second season might have been a bit too clean a break from the first. Season 2 instantly abandoned everything that audiences had loved about season 1.

Brother Mouzone Is The Wire’s Most Unrealistic Character

Almost every character in The Wire is a nuanced, three-dimensional human being full of flaws and contradictions and the occasional redeeming quality. Almost every character feels like a living, breathing person plucked straight from the real world. Almost every character.

I know Brother Mouzone is based on real criminal figures associated with the Nation of Islam — and that, compared to some of those real-life figures, he’s actually been toned down a bit — but in execution, he comes off as a caricature. The way he walks and talks and acts is closer to the heightened reality of a Tarantino crime thriller than the almost documentary-like realism that The Wire usually strikes.

The Wire Is A Sobering Look At All The Problems In Our Society

While The Wire is a brilliant piece of art and social commentary, it’s also very heavy. At the end of a long day, when you put on the TV, sometimes you just want an escape from all the horrors of the real world, but The Wire is a sobering look at all those horrors. We see the financial circumstances that force people into a life of crime, we see the chaos of underfunded public institutions like schools and hospitals, and we see the harrowing experience of homelessness from the ground level.

As a citizen of the world, it’s important to understand all that stuff. But it does take a toll, especially when you’re binge-watching the show back-to-back.

It’s Always Tough To Watch The Episodes Where Bubbles Is Getting Bullied

There’s a lot of violence in The Wire, ranging from shootouts at Omar’s stickups to unreported instances of police brutality, and it’s all very brutal and very realistic. But the only violent scenes I really can’t stand are the ones where Bubbles is getting bullied by a local addict who pummels him and robs his stash every time he catches his eye.

Usually, when a character in The Wire is getting beaten up, they’ve done something to deserve it. But Bubbles is one of the sweetest, kindest, most well-meaning characters in the show, and it breaks my heart to see some thug terrorize him just for living his life.

The Wire Is Over Much Too Fast

When you binge-watch a show that ran for hundreds of episodes, by the time it’s over, you’re ready to be done with it. But The Wire only ran for five seasons, and they’re all incredible. Most TV shows experience some kind of decline by the time they finally call it quits, but The Wire was still in its heyday — its golden age — when HBO decided it was no longer profitable to keep it on the air.

The Wire, as it stands, is close to perfect. But there was so much more to explore in a sixth season; David Simon even had some ideas for The Wire season 6.

Almost All Your Favorite Characters Are Doomed To An Untimely Death

When you’re watching The Wire, the sprawling ensemble cast is a revolving door, with characters constantly coming in and out. And out of those dozens upon dozens of characters, there are plenty of standouts who become beloved favorites throughout the binge.

But, much like in Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, you can’t get too attached to your favorite characters, because they’re almost all doomed to an untimely demise. Even the ones who survive to the end, like Duquan, often end up with a fate worse than death.

The Fake Serial Killer Storyline Is A Bit Far-Fetched For The Wire

The Wire is as close to perfect as a TV series can possibly be, but it’s not quite flawless. The most common complaint levied at the show is that it becomes a bit too soapy and sensationalist in its final season. In season 5, McNulty and his fellow detectives stage a few murder scenes and create a fake serial killer to generate headlines and, ultimately, generate more funding for their department.

It was a compelling conceit to bring the press into The Wire’s purview, commenting on unreliable journalism and the death of newspapers, but it felt a bit too far-fetched for this show. A fake serial killer is the kind of storyline they’d do on the kind of trashy, traditional police procedurals that The Wire initially subverted.

The Wire Puts All Other TV To Shame

When you go back and rewatch The Wire, it’s just a bittersweet reminder that it’s head and shoulders above the rest of the television out there. Some shows have come close, but even The Sopranos had a couple of weird coma dream episodes and Breaking Bad had a whole episode where Walt is trying to swat a fly.

After watching The Wire, you’ve been ruined for other shows. After watching The Wire, if you go and watch something like Landman or House of the Dragon, you get whiplash from just how much weaker and lighter and shallower the writing is.