The Wire
The Detail
TV Flash files “The Detail” as hour 2 of 60 in the TV Flash guide — The Wire (2002–2008) on HBO, season 1, episode 2, aired 2002-06-09, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E02: listed hour 2 of 60 in the The Wire guide, hour 2 of 13 in season 1. It aired 2002-06-09 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “The Target” (S01E01). Next is “The Buys” (S01E03).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
The witness who testified against D'Angelo is killed and the Barksdale organization is suspected. In light of Phelan's pressure, a detail is formed to investigate their activity in the towers and the pit. However, the detail's lieutenant, Cedric Daniels, is concerned with the quality of the team assigned by Deputy Ops. Ervin Burrell, while McNulty is concerned with the department's plan for the investigation, believing the approach of "buy busts" won't get them anywhere near the high-ranking members of the organization. The operation begins with Daniels' protégé Kima Greggs using Bubbles to identify who's who on the street. Meanwhile, McNulty and his partner, Bunk, try an unusual interrogation approach with D'Angelo, while Burrell tries to keep the death of the witness out of the press. Later, Daniels' suspicions about his team prove correct when an unauthorized late night foray into the towers by Herc, Carver and Prez goes awry.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Detail sit in the The Wire guide?
S01E02 is listed hour 2 of 60 — hour 2 of 13 in season 1, season 1 episode 2.
When did The Wire S01E02 air?
The Detail aired 2002-06-09 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start The Wire?
Episode one of season one. The show is a five-volume novel; skipping the corner season to “get to the good part” is how you miss the grammar.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch it as a civic novel that happens to be television: each season a new institution, the same city refusing to be solved. Characters function inside systems, not merch. Start at the corner; stay for the report card — and for a newsroom closer that still argues with the first wire.
Open on a street that is already an argument. The first hour of The Wire does not introduce a hero so much as a jurisdiction: a corner, a courtroom, a police department already lying to itself about what it can solve. David Simon and Ed Burns write Baltimore as a set of interlocking machines — drugs, docks, City Hall, schools, the newsroom — and then ask television to behave like a novel that refuses a narrator’s mercy. If you came for an antihero origin story, the text will starve you politely. If you came to…
Filed against
- Dominic West as Jimmy McNulty
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- Idris Elba as Stringer Bell
Idris Elba’s Stringer Bell is The Wire’s MBA language trying to colonize a street that will not be colonized — civic instrument, not brand extension. David Simon’s Baltimore treats institutions as leads; Stringer is the corner with a…
- Wendell Pierce as Bunk Moreland
Wendell Pierce’s Bunk Moreland made The Wire’s homicide hour feel like a civic novel with a cigar — David Simon’s Baltimore in five institutional volumes, the corner never the point, characters inside systems rather than merch. On TV…
- Lance Reddick as Cedric Daniels
Lance Reddick’s Cedric Daniels is The Wire’s institutional still center — David Simon’s Baltimore as interlocking machines, a novel in five civic volumes, the corner never the point. Badge as ethics, not as merch. On TV Flash he is cable…
- Sonja Sohn as Kima Greggs
Sonja Sohn’s Kima Greggs made The Wire’s detective work feel like a civic novel, not a merch cop show — David Simon’s Baltimore in five institutional volumes, the corner never the point. On TV Flash she is the badge inside the system:…
- Clarke Peters as Lester Freamon
Clarke Peters’s Lester Freamon made The Wire’s detail work look like poetry — dollhouse miniatures, quiet fury, institutions as characters. Novelistic HBO crime needed his patience. On TV Flash he’s the detective who always had a longer…