Through the wire....

I got hooked on the HBO show The Wire last year. I had heard of it earlier, and was curious about it since it was filmed in Baltimore, but I didn't start getting HBO until last year.

It's interesting to see Baltimore in it, although there haven't been a lot of familiar stuff since most of it takes place in the southern part of the city, and much of the second season centered around the docks. But the last two weeks have been good - last week included a mention of Loyola where one of the characters mentioned he went to college, and this week featured two locations near my apartment - Linden Liquors on North and Linden, and the Druid Hill resevoir fountain.

One other thing I realized is how significant things in a show become when you have some familiarity with where it takes place. For example, in last week's episode, two characters are discussing where they grew up - cop McNulty mentions he grew up in Lauraville, while political consultant Theresa D'Agastino says she grew up in Homeland. If you've never been to Baltimore, that's meaningless - but if you know that Lauraville is fairly blue collar, working class while Homeland is way upper class. This tells you a little more about their background.