Peter James Mann
LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!
There are always constant comparisons in media. Which show reigns supreme is a common trope I find, and there have been few as compared as Breaking Bad and The Wire.
Okay, maybe The Office vs Parks and Rec, but someone already wrote that article on here…
It’s an easy comparison, from a 50,000 foot view, why these shows are put in the ring now and again. Both, seemingly, deal with the War on Drugs, criminals and cops both at work and at home, the seemingly futile effort to change anything, and most importantly, quotes on quotes on quotes from snappy, poignant dialogue.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started.
Major Theme
Each of these shows have both capital T and lower case t themes, but the major theme is very different. Breaking Bad is primarily about personal destruction through addiction, whether addiction that is meth, money, heroin, more money, even more money, or power, addiction will destroy everything around you, isolate you, and then kill you.
The Wire on the other hand is about the failure of anyone to solve the revolving cycle of violence, crime, and destruction within the American Rust Belt, an area of the country that encompasses former factories and industrial plants that left in mass for cheaper, concrete pastures. While the War on Drugs is 100% a part of that problem, it is one of several that The Wire tackles, each highlighted in a particular season.
So which theme is better: a long-form story about addiction or a long-form story about the American Rust Belt where addiction is a symptom?
For this one, I’m going with The Wire. Having a defined symptom in each season and actively fighting the urge and pressure to continue along the same lines from season 1 was a massive gamble that, at first, didn’t pay off. It confused viewers initially, causing a dip in viewership that in the short term never recovered. But when the show was fully complete and people saw the seasons as pieces of a greater whole, the satisfaction level, critical acclaim, and cult following were overwhelmingly quick in its reception.
Character Arcs
Whoo-boy, this one is a doozy to do. Breaking Bad and The Wire both do this spectacularly. But, does the scale of the latter affect its running against the former? Well, kind of.
The Wire has an amazing list of characters that can only really be rivaled by another HBO show, Game of Thrones. When that show came out, it was originally compared to The Wire, due to its political nature, heavy themed dialogue, and the large cast. I mean MY GOODNESS, CHRIS! And while each character has a nice arc, most end up, well, like swiss cheese at a gun range.
And while that’s great for a “who’s going to die next, no one is safe!”-style show, it doesn’t really lend itself to satisfying arcs outside of the ones who survive. Breaking Bad has amazing deaths of characters, but particularly the enemies of Walter White. It can, sometimes, jump the shark with how perfectly random McGuyver Macguffins pay off.
But those incredibly impossible odds still made you question who was going to make it, especially since so many people kept dying around Walter and Jesse. The ones surrounding Jesse were particularly heartbreaking. And when that final season landed and main characters started dying off, really losing everything, getting what they deserved or sometimes didn’t deserve, it all hurt. It hurt in the way the other format wants you to feel, but through shock value and the feeling of wanting more.
Point for Breaking Bad. But let’s get to an interesting way these shows tackle…
Addiction
This is even tougher. Breaking Bad really does a fantastic job at one thing: showing the degradation and dehumanization of addiction. The Wire does a very similar thing with several characters, but three come to mind for me: Bubbles, McNulty, and Stringer Bell. I’d even argue that they are actually distilled sides to Walter White.
Bubbles and McNulty both exhibit a traditional, DSM-V definition of addiction. They have substance dependency (Bubbles’ is dope while McNulty’s is Jameson), both have self destructive behaviors, dreams of grandeur or paranoia, and a seeming overconfidence in their ability to survive the given situation and still be loaded.
Stringer Bell, on the other hand, shares Walter White’s love and addiction for power and money. They also both believe in the idea that crime is the only way to that goal quickly enough to solve all of their problems. But where Walter White shares the self-destructive and egotistical behavior of a McNulty, Bubbles and Bell are actively trying to change their circumstances and be rid of the criminal side of Baltimore for good. However, there are forces that keep them within their situations that are godlike in power, and Bell humbly attends community college to learn more about business and real estate in an attempt to go straight. But that didn’t really work out. Man this swiss is great.
Bubbles aligns much closer with Jesse, and not just because of their drug of choice. It’s because they don’t actually want to be addicted to anything. They invited the pain onto themselves, but through a toxic relationship, or a wanting to be connected to, well, anything. And of course there are elements of escapism in both characters.
What makes them even more similar is their on-again, off-again relationship with recovery. They genuinely have a desire to quit and be clean, but find their current situations and the system in place to support them don’t always add up. Neither can actually leave their situation until much later. They each also spend an entire season basically locked in a basement (maybe not under the same circumstances, but it’s still kind of crazy to think about).
In the end, I believe Bubbles probably has the better ending. Jesse’s neo-noir life is very, very tough. And if I am not including the epilogue El Camino, Jesse just getting to escape into the darkness like Eastwood in Unforgiven doesn’t beat Bubbles being able to come up and get to have a family dinner with his estranged sister and her children. But they both deserved something similar to that outcome.
Folks, this one’s a tie. Which means we’re still tied. Let’s do a fun tiebreaker round.
Memeability
The memes for both these shows are SO REAL, FOLKS. I mean, you may not know the name Wee-Bay off the top of your head, but you’ve seen him reacting in Twitter feeds for years.
It’s transcended the show. And I put this at the top for a very, very particular reason. You may know that gif, that meme, and you may not even know it’s from Season 1 of The Wire. But if you were to do that with a gif from Breaking Bad…well, you see, you can’t. You actually can’t. “Yeah, Mr. White! Yeah, science!” or the legendary pizza throw onto the roof, Or the fly episode, or “I am the one who knocks!” What about Jesse’s favorite word for the swear jar? All of them are tied to the show, intricately.
Spongebob SquarePants is such a memeable show because it can be in context for so much and not be tied to a particular moment or scene in a show. The memes transcend the show. The Wire has done the same, albeit to a lesser degree.
So, by the power of memes, I bequeath the 1st winner of this new column I made up a few days ago to…
THE WIRE!!!
Do you agree or disagree? Let’s discuss down below in the comments. Just keep it clean, keep it cordial, keep it cool, and we’re good. That shouldn’t be too hard, right? Right?…Good! Phew, had me worried.
