Greek Gods in Baltimore: Greek Tragedy and The Wire

[We've] ripped off the Greeks: Sophocles, Aeschylus, Eu ripides. Not funny boy—not Aristophanes. We've basically taken the idea of Greek tragedy, and applied it to the mod ern city-state. [...] What we were trying to do was take the notion of Greek tragedy, of fated and doomed people, and instead of these Olympian gods, indifferent, venal, selfish, hurling lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no good reason—instead of those guys whipping it on Oedipus or Achilles, it's the postmodern institutions... those are the indifferent gods.3