All in the Game, yo.

This time last year I was knee-deep in The Summer of “The Wire.” Previously, the only thing I knew about the show was that Teri Gross of “Fresh Air” couldn’t stop talking about it, interviewing whoever she could from the show every chance she got. I’m sometimes I little late on pop culture phenomena (especially when they involve a cable premium channel I’d have to pay for), so the Wire craze sort of passed me by while it was actually on TV. That is, until my then-new boyfriend sat me down one night and introduced me to his favorite thing in the world. Within one episode, I was hooked.

What followed were three months watching the entire run of the show, episode by episode, DVD by DVD, season by season. I had to take a break between Season 4 and 5, trying to delay the inevitable end, but by September, we’d done it all. Carcetti was mayor, Prez had redeemed himself, you never quite knew what it was that it was Daniels did back in the day, Freeman was a detective once again, partnered with Bunk, Poot was off the corner and working at Foot Locker, Bubbles had redeemed himself…

Recently, Ben’s been trying to convince me to start over from the beginning again. I don’t know if I can handle a second summer in West Baltimore– I like having it as a memory, and I’m a little worried that watching it again, it would lose some of the impact it had the first time around– but in the meantime, I made a little homage to my new favorite show– Bunk Moreland, the cigar-chomping veteran homicide detective, and his unlikely match, Omar Little, the stick-up artist with a strict moral code (who is also, on a total sidenote, Barack Obama’s favorite character on his favorite show).