If The Wireyou’re not watching The Wire (The picture is from season 1. There are no ‘main characters’ at this point), you’re missing out on one of the great achievements of cinema/tv. I could was poetic about its astounding level of insight, direction, acting, and writing, but there’s no point. Tim Goodman, in my opinion the best tv critic in the country, can do it better. Read his review of the just-begun season 4 here. Forget what he says about the only current competitors on tv being the Sopranos and Deadwood. Both of those shows are able to rely on crutches like main characters. The Wire is an ensemble piece par excellence. Seriously, it’s one of the most impressive pieces of storytelling I’ve ever seen or read and it saddens me how far storytelling or story creating in games has to go to even be in the minor leagues compared to the Wire. The fact that I love the series isn’t what this post is about, though.

Tonight was the 2nd episode of the 4th season. One of the recurring themes throughout the Wire is the cynicism with which victims of the Baltimore system (both those working within the system and those dealing with it from without) are eventually filled, and the final couple scene in tonight’s episode kind of depressed me. There was an important debate in the race for city mayor going on (a big part of the plot), and there was a scene of a teenage gangbanger coming home, going upstairs to his room, and turning on the tv. The channel that was on is the debate for mayor, and they’re talking about how to solve the problems that Baltimore has vis a vis the children. For a moment, you think the kid might engage, but the Wire isn’t going to pamper us that way, and the kid turns on his Xbox. For a few seconds, we watch him play Halo, killing things with dual SMGs, then the closing music plays and it switches to the credits.

I’m pretty removed from the mainstream industry (aside from playing their games sometimes), and I strongly believe that there’s nothing wrong with video games that isn’t wrong with the evening news or the movies. I tell you though, for some reason, I was pretty affected by this moment. It scared me to think that someone with the ability to reflect reality as faithfully as David Simon (the Wire’s creator) does might view video games as a universally accessible metaphor for social degeneration and apathy. Maybe I’m just mis-interpreting. I kind of hope so, actually, because it was hard to feel that the scene was anything but representative.