As of today, Jonathan Abramsâ highly anticipated oral history of one of TVâs most lauded series, HBOâs The Wire, is now available. We were big fans of it, but if youâd like a little taste of the book before scooping it up, Vulture has published an excerpt chronicling one of the seriesâ most memorable scenes. That scene, for anyone whoâs seen the series, can be summarized with one word: Fuck.
Fairly early in season one, detectives Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) and Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce) are investigating the cold, unsolved murder of a young woman in the hopes of getting closer to drug kingpin Avon Barksdale. As they sort through the piss-poor work of the detective who originally investigated the crime, the pair come upon a series of new clues that help them make sense of what really happened. One might think a scene such as that would require a great amount of hand-holding, the pair breaking down each new discovery. Instead, creator David Simon had the duo utter nothing but variations of the word âfuckâ throughout the scene.
As the excerpt outlines, the âfuckâ conceit was inspired by Detective Terry McLarney, who Simon chronicled in his book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. According to Simon, McLarney once joked that â[one] day weâre going to get to the point where weâre all going to be able to just use the word fuck to communicate.â On its surface, it all might sound simplistic, but that combination of pathos, humor, and trust in both the audience and the performers serves as a microcosm of everything that made The Wire such a special show.
Also, Pierce asserts that the scene features some of his best acting. He also reveals that there are even more fucks scattered across the cutting room floor.
WENDELL PIERCE (DET. WILLIAM âBUNKâ MORELAND):I think itâs an example of one of the best displays of my acting in the whole series. I tell folks, âStudy that if you want to study what intent is,â because everyone understood exactly what we were doing at every moment, even though we were using just that one word or [a] variation thereof. That was one of the best-acted scenes that I did on the show. The one thing they cut out that I regret is we said, âFuck. Fuck me. Mother fuck. Fuckity fuck,â all of that. Then we were [being] watched the whole time by the super. âFuck. Motherfucker. Fuck.â We go outside and we find the casing, and the super says, âWell, Iâll be fucked.â They cut that out, though. I was like, âOh, man, they should have left that in.â
Not everybody loved the idea, however. Part of what makes The Wireâs look into crime, economic disparity, and systemic oppression within the city of Baltimore so powerful is that Simon filled his writerâs room with locals who lived the stories he sought to tell. But heâs also said that were he to portray the cityâs struggles honestly the show wouldâve simply been too depressing to watch. Comic relief was necessary, but not everybody got the joke.
Take co-creator Ed Burns, a former cop whose career inspired much of the series, who sounds downright peeved with the fucks.
ED BURNS (CO-CREATOR): Terry is an amazing guy. He might even still be on the force. He was telling David, basically, these homicide things are so matter-of-fact, it just becomes a matter of grunts. I wrote it, and I used four variations of the word fuck: âWhat the fuck? Oh, fuck. Fucked up.â But just four, and the actors were uncomfortable with the four lines, so then he was like, âFuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,â and I asked the director, âJust give me the one. Get them to do the fucking job that theyâre being paid for,â and I went to them and I said, âWe need the one.â It turns out that David used the âFuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,â which, to me, is like, wait a minute, the scene is about this harmony of doing an investigation and theyâre so used to it. But we ended up with the âFuck, fuck, fuckâ because it was a little bit, apparently, more fun. I didnât particularly see it that way, but it was fine.
Watch it above and decide for yourself.
