Widely considered one of the greatest television shows of all time, The Wire (2002-2008) charted an era when the American empire began its decline in earnest. Seen through the lens of institutions like city newspapers, police departments, schools, port worker unions, and city governance, The Wire revealed an America quickly descending into a modern dark age. One where social bonds and social capital faded in favor of unfettered, late stage capitalism.
Despite its cynicism towards failing institutions, and what was happening to the country, The Wire was never cynical towards individual people - its creator, David Simon, made sure of that. Simon described the show as a ‘love letter to Baltimore’ (where The Wire took place). For me, the show wasn’t just a love letter to the city it called home; it was a repeated acknowledgment of the dignity of the people that lived there (and human beings in general). This is what made the show special.
In the past I wrote about how the show seemed to me as not quite postmodern, but not quite metamodern either. It was a kind of bridge between the two; figuratively and literally. The cynicism and hope in the show didn’t oscillate or intertwine in a metamodern fashion. Instead they were juxtaposed. Amid the overall creeping sense of decline and failure in the show, there were moments of genuine human feeling. Whether that was the redemption of an inner city drug addict, the reminiscing of childhood innocence by hardened drug dealers, the mayoral candidate who begins to genuinely care about making a difference, or the inner city school kid who just wants to live a normal life.
The last episode of The Wire aired in 2008. This was also the year of former President Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign; which some feel marked the beginning of the new metamodern age. Despite Obama’s message of hope and change, as the years went by it became clear that the overall decline of the American empire had a momentum of its own. The toxic effects of this decline came to fruition in 2016 with the election of President Donald Trump. Large parts of the American public had become so angry, demoralized, distracted, financially stretched, and misinformed that they willingly gave their vote to an autocratic demagogue.
If there were still any doubts about America’s decline after President Trump was elected in 2016, there were none left after he was elected to the presidency again in 2024. The trajectory that The Wire had laid bare had reached its fruition. The country had become a place where corporate power, government corruption, and unfettered capitalism shaped the life of the average citizen. This in turn had created (along with digital mediums) a social landscape littered with frayed bonds, and individual crises of meaning.
This new reality, or American dark age, was captured in ‘Wire-like’ fashion by the television show The Pitt, which debuted in 2025. Coming twenty years after The Wire, The Pitt portrays the machinations of a Pittsburgh hospital emergency room with the same accuracy and realism that The Wire portrayed police departments, schools, and newspapers. Like The Wire, The Pitt juxtaposes societal level cynicism with individual human dignity and meaning. Yet unlike The Wire, the cynicism in The Pitt doesn’t flow from a society trending backwards. It flows from a society that has reached its final destination at a place of dysfunction and disrepair.
Mass shootings, cyber attacks, violent patients, a broken healthcare system, and digital misinformation serve as indicators of the societal malaise that backdrops the show. When The Pitt does shift its focus to the individual dignity of the people in the show, the nature is a bit different than The Wire. The immediacy of life and death on a busy day in a city emergency room means earnest moments can be short lived. If The Wire was a long book when it depicted the human soul, The Pitt is forced to do so in spaces that feel like a scroll through social media - rapid transitions from one subject to another.
Both The Wire and The Pitt have main characters who convey the societal dysfunction of the time, the despair at not being able to fix it, and an earnest empathy towards human beings.
The Wire had homicide detective Jimmy McNulty, while The Pitt has Dr. Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch. In The Wire, McNulty served as a kind of shepherd for the viewer. His actions through the seasons let the viewer see that no matter what, the societal decline had a momentum of its own. In his imperfect way, McNulty would try and try to fix systems beyond his reach. It was no accident that the show began its first season with a McNulty scene, and ended its last season with the same.
In The Pitt Dr. Robinavitch is the leader of the emergency department. He moves through the show with a disdain for the corporate bureaucracy of hospital administration and anything else that hinders the quality of patient care. Like McNulty, Dr. Robinavitch is consumed by a desire to fix what is broken. Yet while McNulty was trying to right a sinking ship, Dr. Robinavitch is trapped inside a vessel that has sunk to the bottom of the sea intact. But instead of a massive ocean, the pressure on the walls of his emergency room comes from the broken society outside.
McNulty and Dr. Robinavitch also serve as examples of how the individual metaphysical state of a human being can relate to the society at large. The nature of the human condition is constant as it relates to the nature of our evolved minds. But the conditions outside of our minds are forever changing, which in turn can affect our being. For McNulty and Dr. Robinavitch, the condition of the society around them, and their insatiable desire to fix it, leaves them in personal despair. A despair that many Americans can relate to in the face of modern society and late stage capitalism.
In The Wire, McNulty is consumed by his desire for the ‘good guys’ to win in their battle with crime and bureaucratic corruption or dysfunction. His failing obsession leads him to an unfulfilled place where he turns to drinking and womanizing to fill the void. His actions lead to the loss of his marriage, and even threaten the job he cared so much about in the first place.
In The Pitt, Dr. Robinavitch bears the weight of keeping his emergency room afloat, being surrounded by constant death, and PTSD from working through the covid pandemic. He moves through the show with the demeanor of a man who knows he's trapped in a dark age - but still tries his earnest to make things right. Yet like McNulty, the storm happening around him erodes his metaphysical state. Dr. Robinavitch's mental health deteriorates to the point that he becomes nasty to his coworkers, and seriously contemplates taking his own life.
Both The Wire and The Pitt, depict the intersection of the individual ‘will to meaning’ (as Victor Frankl called it), human dignity, and society at large. The internal dismay of many of the characters in both shows reflects the state of the society around them. The corrosive effect of a declining society moving into a dark age makes itself known as the characters navigate their daily lives. Mental health suffers, and the existential vacuum (again Viktor Frankl) is made worse and worse.
In the second season of The Pitt, there is a scene which captures the underlying essence of the show and its predecessor The Wire. There is a semi-recurring character in the show named Louie. Louie is a ‘frequent flyer’ patient to the emergency room. Meaning he shows up regularly and is known to the staff. Louie's problem is that he's an alcoholic, and his resulting medical issues and blackouts result in repeated trips to the hospital.
Despite his issues, Louie is a sweet man. He treats everyone with respect and demonstrates a good soul and a good heart. As a result he endears himself to the emergency room doctors and staff. Almost like a neighbor you see sitting outside every time you leave for work in the morning. The doctors would tell Louie he needed to stop drinking, but he would just smile and make it clear that probably wasn’t happening. Louie was just doing the best he could.
Sadly, Louie eventually dies after another trip to the emergency room. His death came on suddenly, but it was obviously a product of years of alcoholism. The emergency room staff takes Louie's death hard as he was a friend to them at this point. Despite Louie's regular visits, much of the emergency room staff didn't know much about him. Did he have any family to call upon his death? What was his story beyond a sympathetic alcoholic who had seemed resolved to his fate?
The emergency room staff treated Louie's body with dignity; washing it, and allowing him to rest peacefully. They had done this many times before of course, but this time it was for a friend. Because of the relationship they had with Louie, they decide to have a brief gathering around his body to pay respects. It is here that Dr. Robinavitch delivers words that capture the essence of both The Wire and The Pitt.
The scene begins with nurses and doctors reminiscing about times they had with Louie. They remembered how he ‘always said thank you’, and how he asked about their families. One of the doctors holds up a picture he found in Louie's belongings of Louie with a woman. The doctor says ‘I didn't know he was married’. All the while Dr. Robinavitch watches quietly.
Eventually, Dr. Robinavitch interjects softly and says, ‘that's Rhonda, Louie's wife - high school sweetheart’. He goes on to say how Louie was born and raised in Pittsburgh and was a lifelong Steelers fan. Louie was also a groundskeeper at the Pirates baseball stadium until 1998. Dr. Robinavitch shares that Louie never wanted kids, but Rhonda wore him down, and when she finally got pregnant, Louie was excited. Yet about a month before the baby was born, Rhonda and the baby were killed in a car crash.
Dr. Robinavitch adds that ‘Louie never really came back from that’.
With this, a soft realization washes over the faces of the emergency room staff standing around Louie's body. It's as if now they realize something deeper about the reality they inhabit, and the man they cared for. Dr. Robinavitch finally says, ‘may his memory be a blessing’, and heads back into the tumult of the emergency room.
The essence of The Wire and The Pitt is that at the end of the day, despite all the bullshit happening around us, and all the failed institutions - human beings matter most. And that each human being has a story, each is suffering in their own way, and that many of the regular folks out there have been discarded as waste products of a late stage capitalist empire.
Louie's story wasn't so much about a society that let him down. It was more about a society that didn't see him. A society that sees the poor, addicted, weak, or mentally ill as masters of their own fate - or just the losers in a ‘fair’ game. When the reality is that the outcomes individuals face in life are in large respects out of their control.
The mental anguish McNulty and Dr. Robinavitch face was in large part because of trying to control something that couldn't be controlled. Yet their desire to fix things, to make things right for the average person, that is also what drives the humanity underlying each show. The human condition is constant; which is why its depiction resonates across the two shows despite the 20 year time difference. But it's the subtle difference, a society in decline, versus one in a dark age that makes the two shows markers in time. It's what makes the two shows bookends to the decline of the American empire.