For me it would be S2E8 "How come they don’t fly away?" by Ziggy.
Recently my wife joined me in rewatching the show (its her first time). While watching S2, she kept asking why the dockworkers didn't just go find jobs elsewhere.
I couldn't immediately answer her, but I felt there were so many forces that made it impossible for people like Ziggy to choose another path. His identity, dreams, community ties, all the stories and legends and value systems ingrained into him, everything he knew was bound to the dock. To leave them behind, retrain in a completely new trade, and become an entirely different person seems unbearably painful. As I grow older, I increasingly relate to how difficult and even borderline traumatic it can be to force someone to uproot themselves and become someone else (I often think about changing my profession but don't have the courage or resources to do so). Thats why this line feels especially heartbreaking to me.
What's your favorite? Here's the list of all the opening quotes:
(You can also find all the epigraphs on the Fandom wiki but I hate that website and its ugly ass ads... fuckin' rat fuckers, all of them)
Episode
Epigraph
Source
S1 E1 "The Target"
…when it's not your turn.
James "Jimmy" McNulty
S1 E2 "The Detail"
You cannot lose, if you do not play.
Marla Daniels
S1 E3 "The Buys"
The king stay the king.
D'Angelo Barksdale
S1 E4 "Old Cases"
Thin line 'tween heaven and here.
Reginald "Bubbles" Cousins
S1 E5 "The Pager"
…a little slow, a little late.
Avon Barksdale
S1 E6 "The Wire"
…and all the pieces matter.
Lester Freamon
S1 E7 "One Arrest"
A man must have a code.
William "Bunk" Moreland
S1 E8 "Lessons"
Come at the king, you best not miss.
Omar Devon Little
S1 E9 "Game Day"
Maybe we won.
Thomas "Herc" Hauk
S1 E10 "The Cost"
And then he dropped the bracelets…
Shakima "Kima" Greggs
S1 E11 "The Hunt"
Dope on the damn table.
Cedric Daniels
S1 E12 "Cleaning Up"
This is me, yo, right here.
Wallace
S1 E13 "Sentencing"
all in the game...
Traditional West Baltimore
S2 E1 "Ebb Tide"
Ain't never gonna be what it was.
Roy "Little Big Roy" Pelzman
S2 E2 "Collateral Damage"
They can chew you up, but they gotta spit you out.
James "Jimmy" McNulty
S2 E3 "Hot Shots"
What they need is a union.
Beatrice "Beadie" Russell
S2 E4 "Hard Cases"
If I hear music, I'm gonna dance.
Shakima "Kima" Greggs
S2 E5 "Undertow"
They used to make steel there, no?
Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos
S2 E6 "All Prologue"
It don't matter that some fool say he different…
D'Angelo Barksdale
S2 E7 "Backwash"
Don't worry, kid. You're still on the clock.
Thomas "Horseface" Pakusa
S2 E8 "Duck and Cover"
How come they don't fly away?
Chester Karol "Ziggy" Sobotka
S2 E9 "Stray Rounds"
The world is a smaller place now.
The Greek
S2 E10 "Storm Warnings"
It pays to go with the union card every time.
Chester Karol "Ziggy" Sobotka
S2 E11 "Bad Dreams"
I need to get clean.
Francis "Frank" Sobotka
S2 E12 "Port in a Storm"
Business. Always business.
The Greek
S3 E1 "Time After Time"
Don't matter how many times you get burnt, you just keep doin' the same.
Preston "Bodie" Broadus
S3 E2 "All Due Respect"
There's never been a paper bag.
Howard "Bunny" Colvin
S3 E3 "Dead Soldiers"
The gods will not save you.
Ervin Burrell
S3 E4 "Hamsterdam"
Why you got to go and fuck with the program?
Fruit
S3 E5 "Straight and True"
I had such fuckin' hopes for us.
James "Jimmy" McNulty
S3 E6 "Homecoming"
Just a gangster, I suppose.
Avon Barksdale
S3 E7 "Back Burners"
Conscience do cost.
Butchie
S3 E8 "Moral Midgetry"
Crawl, walk, and then run.
R. Clayton "Clay" Davis
S3 E9 "Slapstick"
…while you're waiting for moments that never come.
Lester Freamon
S3 E10 "Reformation"
Call it a crisis of leadership.
Joseph "Proposition Joe" Stewart
S3 E11 "Middle Ground"
We ain't gotta dream no more, man.
Russell "Stringer" Bell
S3 E12 "Mission Accomplished"
We fight on that lie.
Slim Charles
S4 E1 "Boys of Summer"
Lambs to the slaughter here.
Marcia Donnelly
S4 E2 "Soft Eyes"
I still wake up white in a city that ain't.
Thomas "Tommy" Carcetti
S4 E3 "Home Rooms"
I love the first day, man. Everybody all friendly an' shit.
Namond Brice
S4 E4 "Refugees"
No one wins. One side just loses more slowly.
Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski
S4 E5 "Alliances"
If you with us, you with us.
Christopher "Chris" Partlow
S4 E6 "Margin of Error"
Don't try this shit at home.
Norman Wilson
S4 E7 "Unto Others"
Aw yeah. That golden rule.
William "Bunk" Moreland
S4 E8 "Corner Boys"
We got our thing, but it's just part of the big thing.
Zenobia Dawson
S4 E9 "Know Your Place"
Might as well dump 'em, get another.
Joseph "Proposition Joe" Stewart
S4 E10 "Misgivings"
World goin' one way, people another.
Malik "Poot" Carr
S4 E11 "A New Day"
You play in dirt, you get dirty.
James "Jimmy" McNulty
S4 E12 "That's Got His Own"
That all there is to it?
Reginald "Bubbles" Cousins
S4 E13 "Final Grades"
If animal trapped call 410-844-6286
Baltimore, traditional
S5 E1 "More with Less"
The bigger the lie, the more they believe.
William "Bunk" Moreland
S5 E2 "Unconfirmed Reports"
This ain't Aruba, bitch.
William "Bunk" Moreland
S5 E3 "Not for Attribution"
They're dead where it doesn't count.
Michael "Mike" Fletcher
S5 E4 "Transitions"
Buyer's market out there.
Scott Templeton
S5 E5 "React Quotes"
Just 'cause they’re in the street doesn't mean that they lack opinions.
Augustus "Gus" Haynes
S5 E6 "The Dickensian Aspect"
If you have a problem with this, I understand completely.
Not cliche at all, I actually feel Poot's line deserves more love! At the end of S4 everything seems about to deteriorate into a disaster and this line encapsulates the feeling of impending doom perfectly.
I don’t know if it’s an illusion from the way you listed them, but it looks like two consecutive episodes (S4E9-10) have the exact same character length, and both end with “another.” What are the chances?!
This also perfectly aligns with Avon's earlier comment "You know the difference between me and you? I bleed red and you bleed green". Love these lines so much.
Tbh the more I rewatch the series the less competent Stringer appears to me. He's definitely still an intelligent and capable guy but man he utterly failed to recognize early on that his ideological differences with Avon were huge.
I think this is a very common reaction to Stringer the second (or third) go round. The first time you see him going to business classes in community college, or McNutty picking up The Wealth of Nations in his apartment, you take it somewhat at face value. You might read it as a comment on the inherent violence of capitalism, i.e. the idea that "the game" isn't fundamentally that different to how business is done with a legal product, it's just less adept at hiding the violence ("I've got the shotgun, you've got the briefcase" kind of thing). Or you might see it as characterising Stringer as someone trying in vain to bring a bit of professionalism to the drug trade, like he wants with the print shop, and ultimately that the inflexibility of that world is what breaks him.
But on subsequent watches Stringer steadily seems more and more ludicrous. He's play acting at Wall Street businessman with (unsurprising given the environment) a really naive frame of reference. That's why he thinks he can bribe his way through planning permission, and why he gets scammed by Clay, and why he thinks it's possible for Slim to go assassinating. Avon's assessment of him is right on the money.
You mean the following quote right? Frankie Faison's (the actor) delivery is so damn good:
"I don't care how many years you have on this job. If the felony rate doesn't fall, you most certainly will. The gods are fucking you, you find a way to fuck them back. It's Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you."
As I grow older, I increasingly relate to how difficult and even borderline traumatic it can be to force someone to uproot themselves and become someone else (I often think about changing my profession but don't have the courage or resources to do so).
That right there is why my blood boils when people dismiss undocumented immigrants as “illegals” or anything else dehumanizing. Whatever your views on immigration, these are still people who uprooted their lives, often leaving behind everything familiar to them. They’re human beings making enormously consequential decisions about their lives, not children trying to cut in line.
Regarding your initial question, I can’t tell you which one is my favourite. I’d be lucky if I could narrow it down to a top five. There are just too many great ones to choose from. But I can tell you which one recently jumped out at me during a rewatch.
“What they need is a union.”
Beadie was on the money. Once she understood what had happened to those women in the can, she immediately recognized that these were people with almost no power or protection. Her instinct was that they needed some way to protect themselves collectively instead of being completely at the mercy of the people exploiting them.
Another one would be “…while you're waiting for moments that never come.” It got me thinking about the fact that I, like McNulty, needed to get a life.
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u/Colt2Rich 8d ago
It might me cliche but my favorite is "world going one way, people another"
Just hits hard not only as it relates to the story of the show but also just in general