Wendell Pierce and Michael Kenneth Williams in season four, seen by many as the shows high point. Photograph: Allstar/HBO
The Wire deals with every element of society, from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high, says Faison. Sometimes the good people are not so good and sometimes the bad people are striving to be good. It was something a great deal of people could identify with. We never pulled back. We met everything head on and dealt with the truth.
That fundamental truth, which explains why The Wire illuminates the era of Trump and Black Lives Matter just as it spoke to Hurricane Katrina and the financial crisis, was best summed up by Simon in a 2007 interview with Nick Hornby. This is part of the country you have made, he said. This, too, is who we are and what we have built. Think again, motherfuckers.