James Ransone, RIP

The second season of The Wire is incredibly underrated. People who loved the first season were perplexed–why was this season about white people? Even worse, unions? Where’s the gangstas???? This massively missed the point David Simon was making in The Wire. Meanwhile, in public discussions of the show, media types rave about the deeply flawed fifth season because they like the story about the media, which I find unwatchable as Simon decided to settle old scores against the Baltimore Sun. But Season 2 is really great. In painting a larger picture of Baltimore, the decline of the white working class and industrial jobs and the desperation of those trying to hang out to what they had was a perfect addition to the larger discussion of city and its role in America that Simon offered.

Season 2 would not have been the same with James Ransone, who played the idiotic Ziggy Sobotka, an inept relative of the local union leader who was a disaster, in way over his head, and trying to be a big man when in fact he was a pathetic little twerp. Hard to see how that role could have been played better. Ransone committed suicide this weekend and is dead at the age of 46. His work in that role is well worth remembering today.