Ray Hecht's Blog

The Wire vs. The Shield

This is not a timely post at all in the year 2026, but it happens to be currently interesting to me, so here I go:

As a young man in the 2000s, it was almost my duty to watch these two gritty cop shows about crime and corrupt authority figures. When the Shield came out on cable in ‘02, I used to watch it every week on the FX channel. In those early days of prestige TV, it was gripping television unlike anything I’d seen before.

I’ve never been one to watch regular cop shows, with their quickly solvable mysteries of the week, it just wasn’t an interesting genre to me. I’ve always preferred long-running dramas that take a lot of work for the audience to keep track of ambitious storylines over the course of months and months—perhaps that’s why I’m also such a fan of comics—so those other shows where they catch the murderer in under 45 minutes aren’t particularly interesting nor rewarding. I want stories of a higher caliber, and the Shield didn’t disappoint.

The Wire also premiered in 2002, and I had heard a lot of buzz about it over the years, but I didn’t have HBO and it wasn’t something I followed as it was coming out. Only after the entire series concluded did I finally get around to watching it on DVD in the late 2000s, and it has stuck with me ever since. Perhaps it was better to binge, anyway.

The Wire famously struggled with ratings, ever on the cusp of cancellation, and it never even won any awards. But history has been kind to creator David Simon, and now his masterpiece is regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time.

It may be apples and oranges, but I had always found the argument about which show is better to be very interesting. Some say the Wire is a deeper more complex story, a novel dissecting the degradation of an entire society. Others say the Shield has more intense drama, Shakespearian in its betrayal and moral corruption. What a fun debate, and whichever is the “winner” still leaves the other comparable to the best of the best.

When the HBO Max streaming service came to Taiwan in late 2024, I was initially most excited to re-watch the Wire with my partner and experience that world all over again. Before writing for TV, David Simon was a journalist in Baltimore for over a decade, and his experience shows. The thing about the Wire, is it was never just a cop show. It was about the entire system, from the laws of elites on high all the way down to the drug lords running those in poverty. It was about the criminals as much as the police chasing them, and that made it so fascinating. The gangbangers led by Avon Barksdale and the fan favorite Stringer Bell (played by Idris Elba before anyone had any idea he’s British) had as much screen time as Detective Jimmy McNulty and his team of wiretappers. Michael B. Jordan played a lowly drug dealer kid Wallace when he was only fifteen years old. I also loved Detectives Bunk, Freamon, Kima, and even Herc. The queer perspective was shown with stickup artist Omar. It had everything.

One of the most interesting characters, with an absolutely heartbreaking performance, was that of Bubbles the down-on-his luck junkie. Even the drug addicts where given three-dimensional humanity in this, something very rare in American media. An incredible ensemble cast, featuring the citizens of Baltimore from every class ranging from mayors to the most unfortunate of the poor.

At first, the show seemed to star McNulty—played by the also-British Dominic West—as the cynical detective who’s smarter than everyone else and gets chewed out by the bosses. A bit clichéd, admittedly. Slowly, as the ensemble cast expanded and was further developed, and there was less of a focus on him until he all but disappeared. He did come back in the end, but the star was always the entire city of Baltimore as a whole more than anything one individual.

The second season was about crooked unions down at the docks, which was less centered on the Black experience, and had mixed reviews from some for that reason. The third season went back to focusing on gang warfare, then with more politics, and the fourth season was definitely the best about the institution of education and failing schools. Watching those arcs will break anyone’s hearts. And even if the fifth season wasn’t as well liked, despite Simon’s expertise on newspapers, the finale didn’t take away at all from what came before. I loved re-watching it all. The Wire is eminently timeless. It will always hold up.

Now, earlier this year I felt I finally had time to re-watch the Shield. I’m halfway through, and I have some thoughts on that old debate. I am now totally sure of the winner. In fact, in retrospect, it’s been really easy to choose.

The Shield, from it’s very first episode, was trying its best to be as outrageous as possible. Detective Vic Mackey of the Strike Team is shown to be dirty cop, who cheats on his wife because of course, and there’s always blaring music to let you know how messed up everything is. There’s a subplot about a pedo ring, Kid Rock music in the big climax, and then Vic kills another cop (who looked like he’d be a main character) for a final twist. It was a bold introduction from the get-go.

The Shield was indeed cool, but one thing it is not is timeless. It is extremely a product of its time. Specifically, a product of the 2000s, and was just trying too hard to be edgy. The shaky camera and raprock soundtrack is constantly trying to shock the audience, and it isn’t a smooth experience. Although the Wire on HBO was allowed to say “Fuck” and show nudity, it was shot in a more conventional way and sometimes showcasing society’s ills in a more understated style actually leaves one with a deeper impression.

Showrunner Shawn Ryan deserves a lot of credit for his show, which started out inspired by the real-life Rampart police scandal in Los Angeles. In fact, the show was almost called Rampart but that would have gone too far. Police corruption is a serious issue, and does make for excellent drama. Michael Chiklis’s performance as Vic Mackey was award-winning, deservedly so. There was a great cast too, over at the fictional Farmington division station, with the other officers such as Dutch and CCH Pounder’s Claudette standing out. Walton Goggins as Vic’s messed up partner Shane was the breakout role, and the show’s biggest legacy might be Goggins’s eventual stardom.

But overall, the Shield was almost always about Vic. It was his relationships with the other cops that made for the strongest conflict, fighting with his captain, along with his dwindling homelife with his (ex-)wife, his disabled kids, even his prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold friend. It’s interesting, and the grimy parts of L.A. do make for dynamic filmmaking. On every level it is a strong show. It’s just not a broad dissection of American life, not quite that level of epic. That’s still a pretty high bar.

I’ll happily watch all the way up to the seventh season, I’ll be thoroughly entertained by the Shield, for sure, but I’ll never again compare it to the Wire. It’s the latter series that truly understands a major American city from top to bottom, with all its tragic failings. And thus, to re-watch and to study the Wire, is to truly understand America.

Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), directed by Shih-Ching Tsou, is a movie you should have watched already. It was released last November on Netflix, at least in America. However, the theatrical run took longer in Taiwan and it was only recently released in its country of origin for streaming. Therefore, this review has come a bit late. But considering it is now the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, a good time to catch up on movies at home, I think it’s a fitting time to share my view.

With gorgeous visuals, Left-Handed Girl takes the audience on a tour of the city of Taipei. The crowded night markets, the flurrying scooter rides, the steaming servings of noodles—all make for a wonderful setting that feels authentic to locals and a fascinating introduction to anyone who hasn’t been before. It’s quite something to learn that it was all shot on an iPhone.

Director Shi-Ching Tsou (鄒時擎) is a frequent collaborator with Sean Baker, who directed last year’s Academy Award-winning Anora. Baker, who also co-wrote Left-Handed Girl, is of the Dogme 95 movement which espouses naturalistic filmmaking without special effects and studio interference. Baker and Tsou make a powerful team fulfilling the ethics of that movement. She’s produced many of his films, but hasn’t directed since Take Out in 2004 which was Baker’s first film which they co-directed together. Left-Handed Girl is shot with lots of confidence, and one would assume the director must have had ample experience.

The story centers around I-Jing, the titular main character, who is a naïve little girl surrounded by adults with problems that she can’t understand. Her single mother struggles with money as the family starts up a noodle stand in Linjiang Night Market, while her rebellious older sister I-Ann works at a betel nut shop.

Sean Baker’s films are often about sex workers, such as the aforementioned Anora, and working at a betel nut shop is at least adjacent to this line of work, although that may not be clear to those who don’t know as much about Taiwan. It’s a semi-sleazy job, known as a “betel nut beauty,” who dress provocatively to sell a kind of stimulant. But they don’t necessarily do offer any other services. Seeing the personal lives of the girls who work at such a place is very humanizing, and of course makes for drama in the larger plot.

There is a multi-generational theme throughout the film, with four generations in all but to say more would spoil the main revelation in the end. The grandparents are also central to the story, as the grandfather insensitively tells little I-Jing that it’s sinful to use her left hand, causing the poor girl to have a crisis of her own. The climax of the film takes place during the grandmother’s 60th birthday party, where terrible family secrets come out and there is much losing face. Even for Western audiences, it’s a cringe scene and the drama is pure cinema.

There’s lots of tragedy, but there’s also lots of love. When I-Ann steps up to take care of I-Jing, it’s very heartwarming and moving. There’s also a certain strange, almost surreal atmosphere in the world of this struggling family. For a while, they have a pet meerkat of all things. Apparently, the director is left-handed and was shamed by her own grandfather about using the wrong hand. In some criticism of the film, it’s been said that no one in Taiwan today, even the elderly, would demonize left hands anymore and that’s from a long-gone era. But in the world of Left-Handed Girl, where everything is a little weird and hard to understand from the point of view of a child, it works well and feels fitting.

Left-Handed Girl will be the Taiwanese entry for Best International Film in the forthcoming 2026 Academy Awards, and I wish the movie great luck. It’s good exposure for Taiwan, and it’s also good exposure for artistically dynamic films about real people in the real world. Definitely worth watching.

America has supremely lost the plot. As everyone knows, there was a tragic shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 7th. Renee Good was shot in the head by masked ICE agent Jonathan Ross, which has inspired protests throughout the city.

On the face of it, the shooting looked completely unjustifiable. There is video evidence from multiple angles, and it’s frustrating that ICE is even doing traffic stops harassing citizens in the first place. This whole thing shouldn’t have happened, and the argument that the officer felt threatened for his life makes little sense when there isn’t even sufficient reason why federal agents need to be in cities like this making “Kavanaugh stops” which contribute nothing to public safety.

These kinds of shootings which become viral on the internet are always disturbing. It’s sadly become commonplace to watch what are essentially snuff videos in this day and age, both because of the prevalence smartphone videos that everyone has and because of the epidemic of police shootings in the violent landscape that is America. People shouldn’t have to see this, and people should be mad when they see this.

But what may disturb me the most, is that the online discourse is so vitriolic and so incoherent. You’d think people could at least agree this was a tragedy? Social media websites have been right-leaning for a long time, and there’s even been new data showing that many accounts spewing the talking points are bots from third-world countries that make money by boosting engagement. All that being said, one can usually expect so-called debate no matter what the issue is, even when citizens are needlessly shot in the head by masked secret police.

It’s not 2020 anymore, back when there was at least something of a consensus that law enforcement outright murdering people on video is wrong…

But this era has become increasingly insane. There’s no other way to put it. Decent human empathy has gone out the window, and every site seems to be flooded with monstrous sociopathic comments about how this woman deserved to die. There are lies after lies about her, much of it obvious nonsense and misinformation simply making up notions about how she supported terrorism or whatnot, yet strangest of all are the lies contradicting all the videos we have seen. Serious journalists have analyzed the angle of the vehicle and the gunfire and all that, it’s worth getting deeper into if someone is serious about understanding what happened. Even still, just on the basis of having eyes, it’s easy to see that the shooting was unnecessary and this man’s life was not at risk.

Right-wing sources recently leaked a video from the point-of-view of the agent, which they claimed somehow proved he was in the right. It infuriates me to no end, because I really can’t understand the mindset of people who think this way. It’s been pointed out that the video was actually released not to exonerate Jonathan Ross, but to mock Renee Good because her queer wife is in the video talking back and that apparently proves they are bad people.

Overall, the narrative online is basically that anyone who doesn’t comply with the police deserves to be killed. Again and again these comments boil down to: If only you’d comply with orders then you will not be killed. Disturbing enough in a supposed free society already. What I find most bizarre about this take, is that it’s well-known that police are only supposed to shoot if they’re life is threatened. Isn’t that common knowledge by now? That’s what the eventual legal court case is going to be about. All this muddying of the waters, going on and on about compliance and victim-blaming, it’s all besides the point. And this is the incoherence of the era we live in now.

America is in a dark place. The far right government is failing and life is getting objectively worse for the majority of people, we can all see it happening, and the only policy that motivates their base seems to be the killing of “libs” and the worship of corrupt and incompetent law enforcement. The reasons why don’t matter at all, the reasons why get made up and all sorts of motivations are thrown like shit against the wall, and the truth eventually gets lost amidst all the screaming and bad faith flooding of the zone…

This is the real Putin-esque strategy in order to get people to disengage politically. It’s often not actually about getting people to believe in lies. It’s about getting people to give up trying to figure out what the truth is, so that there is no such thing as the truth and the people become apathetic. This is what authoritarian government wants in the end.

I have a terrible fear that it’s working. America is in a goddamn terrible place right now.

This is my Year in Books on Goodreads.com

I read less than last year (which was a record), this time at over 34,000 pages – 140 + books. But that was more than in 2023.

As usual, lots of manga and superhero comics. Which is kind of cheating, admittedly. There were rereads of Grant Morrison’s DC and Jim Starlin’s Marvel work, lots of Daredevil in anticipation of the show this year, Chris Claremont’s X-Men through the ages, and Star Wars comics on Marvel Unlimited. And read all of Dandadan. Several high-brow indie comics in there as well.

Science fiction: the last two Expanse books, the Foundation trilogy–because of the show, several Neal Stephensons including Master of Revels the sequel to Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. Also reread Robert Anton Wilson, and his excellent biography Chapel Perilous.

The biggest feat was definitely the six months of reading War & Peace. Got some more good literary fiction here and there too. My favorite of all might be the brilliant Power Fantasy graphic novel by my new favorite writer Kieron Gillen, and my favorite (nonfiction) audiobook was Black Pill by Elle Reeves.

Looking forward to reading more in 2026!

As a young man in my twenties, I devoured Haruki Murakami. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, Sputnik Sweetheart, IQ84, and more. Seventeen at last count. The dreamlike fantasies of other worlds, the magical realism, the meticulous prose of the English translations, the lack of plot and the melancholic atmosphere, I found great comfort in reading book after book. And then one day, after the author went past his prime, I started finding them repetitive and I stopped reading. Perhaps my tastes have changed, perhaps they weren’t as sophisticated as I once thought. I like to think my standards have improved, but who knows? In any case, it can’t be denied that Haruki Murakami is among the most successful fiction writers on earth and has had a great impact on literature.

I also happen to be a fan of Japanese manga comics. So therefore, a manga adaptation of Murakami short stories should be right up my alley. I have now finally read Haruki Murakami Manga Stores Volume 1, which adapts the author’s short stories “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” “Where I’m Likely to Find It,” “Birthday Girl,” and “The Seventh Man.”

I’m not totally sure these always work, but it’s certainly an interesting idea to adapt these stories into another medium. (There have been several successful film adaptations of his works, in fact.) The term manga in the title, however, does not really lend itself to assumptions about heroic shonen adventures and cutesy anime girls. Perhaps this should be thought of more as artistic indie comics.

The first story, “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” is a weird tale of a Super-Frog. With a typical Murakami protagonist, a dull businessman/sarariman type having an existential crisis, it’s unclear in the story if the frog is real or just a figment of his imagination. In that way, it’s a good introduction to the vibe of this collection. I also don’t know what to make of it. Is it good literature? Is it just weird for weird’s sake? For more depth, I’d have to read the original prose short story to analyze. The comic version, with decent colorized art, is as confusing as it is anything else.

“Where I’m Likely to Find It” is in black & white, which is more typical for manga, albeit using a bit of color in some scenes in which a mirror seems to show an alternate world. This is what Murakami often writes best, a subtle fantastical mystery without any true resolution. In a sort of neo-noir genre, an amateur investigator explores a staircase to find a missing husband. There’s something of satisfying conclusion, but of course what really happened is never quite explained in the end.

“Birthday Girl” feels different in starring a female character, and probably has the most dynamic art. Maybe it’s clichéd that the main character is a waitress, but it’s suitable for the purposes of the plot. She meets an old man, they have a drink together, and she gets a birthday wish granted which the reader doesn’t get to know. It does inspire imagination, which is ultimately the point of this kind of style.

The final one is “The Seventh Man,” and it is the most haunting of them all. A story-within-a-story, a nameless man speaks about his childhood from a less modern era. There is nothing necessarily supernatural, when he experiences a typhoon and its horrifying aftermath. A childhood friend drowns, which is expressed with sadness and mystification. A good meditation on trauma. Like the rest of the stories, this may not be a good read for everyone. The overlap of Murakami and literary comic readers is rather specific, but for me I’m glad I gave it a try.

Order Visions of Taiwan # 1 – 4

If you’d like to order any of the 4 issues of the anthology comic series Visions of Taiwan, whether in digital eBook format via the Kindle app or paperback, all the information is here…

Firstly, the entire series is available on Amazon

Visions of Taiwan # 1

Visions of Taiwan # 2

Visions of Taiwan # 3: Festivals of Taiwan

Visions of Taiwan # 4: The Artists Issue

For those based in Taiwan, I will happily mail you a copy. Just email me at rayhecht@gmail.com

The prices are as follows — # 1: $150 NTD, # 2: $180 NTD, # 3: $180 NTD, # 4: $250 NTD

Bank Information: 007 First Bank
Account: 208-68-113763

I am proud to announce the publication of Visions of Taiwan # 4 – The Artists Issue

This is the final issue and the biggest one yet, at 98 pages with a whopping 14 stories!

Read all about them, each story an original comic highlighting life in Taiwan as an international artist… Free to download this weekend only

Check out all four issues now, via Amazon for the Kindle

The Artists Issue

Featuring:

“The Sketch of Self Doubt” by Erique Chong

“Facezine # 183” by Joel Fremming

“Younger Man Eat More” by Kristin Foss and Paulina Olejnik

“Artist Residency in Taiwan” by Fabienne Good

“Makin’ Comics” by Ray Hecht

“My Black Hole” by Patty Hogan

“Thai in Taiwan” by Thai Martin

“A Day in the Life” by Daniel Martinez Sierra

“The Concept” by Stefano Misesti

“Sweat & Blood” by Daniel C. Moore

“Changes” by Jon Renzella

“Bonds” by Angela Sauceda

“Finding Faces” by Bronwen Shelwell

“Worries” by Royce Widjaya