If you’ve never watched The Wire by HBO, do it. Turn on your TV now. It’s Dickens for contemporary politics. It’s a kind of wasteland of joy. It’s beauty all wrapped up in cocaine and heroin. It’s the best TV show I’ve ever seen.

Michael K. Williams died this week. He played Omar Little, the vigilante of the show. Selling drugs and evading the cops and his many enemies in the drug world, he was a tough gunslinger and an anarchist wrapped up in an enigma.

It’s the story of Baltimore. It’s the story of life on the streets, and the children who are gunned down or sold into slavery of a kind, peddling a product that soothes and kills.

Watch all seasons! Believe me, it’s worth it.