Yes, it does show gangster activities. It also shows the effects of those activities, how good people and bad people on both sides of the law get caught up in institutions they can't control and make compromises.

It also links together widely disparate criminal groups -some more greedy and vicious than others-some just trying to make a (dishonest) buck. It shows folks from the white importers, for whom drugs are just one business of many, to the interlocking major Black organizations, to the slowly dying waterfront unions, down to the street level thug.

But ultimately The Wire is really about the city of Baltimore-though it could be any large city.

What I like most about it is that it doesn't neatly divide people up as good or bad. It's also got the strongest writing on TV as well as some of the best acting...