How The Wire explains Lebanese politics

Posted By Mitch Prothero Thursday, August 18, 2011 - 6:26 PM Share

At the end of the third season of The Wire, the fictional HBO series, a Baltimore drug gang led by Avon Barksdale is arming up to take revenge on a rival gang for the murder of his top lieutenant, Stringer Bell. Barksdale, however, knows that Stringer wasn't killed by the rival gang, but rather had fallen as part of a conspiracy of his own making and tries to explain to his top enforcer what really happened.

But the enforcer, Slim Charles, doesn't want to hear it. Knowing that the gang is in the other room, arming up to go to war over the murder and with a canny understanding of the tribal vengeance dynamic that's in play, Charles cuts off his boss.

"If it's a lie," he empathically tells Avon. "Then we fight on that lie."