A few years ago, David Mills interviewed his friend David Simon, right after Simon had collected his AFI award for The Wire:
If you look at the outcomes for these gangsters — we devoured the Barksdales. They’re either all in jail or dead. Basically what we’ve said was, “If it seemed like they were controlling events, look again. This is a Greek tragedy. All their hubris, all of their vanity, all their sound and fury, it amounted to death and marginalization.” Much like the longshoremen, much like the cops who buck the system. The thing is a Greek tragedy.
So much of American drama — look at The Shield. Not to get into The Shield specifically, but nothing is more the quintessential American dramatic impulse than to make the individual bigger than the institutions which he serves. Vic Mackey, he is the id that rages well beyond the LAPD. It’s “What is he capable of? What is he not capable of?”
The Wire has not only gone the opposite way, it’s resisted the idea that, in this post-modern America, individuals triumph over institutions. The institution is always bigger. It doesn’t tolerate that degree of individuality on any level for any length of time. These moments of epic characterization are inherently false. They’re all rooted in, like, old Westerns or something. Guy rides into town, cleans up the town, rides out of town.
There’s no cleaning it up anymore. There’s no riding in, there’s no riding out. The town is what it is.