Mal Sparks 'The Wire' Vs. 'Snowfall' Debate, Twitter Joins In

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In the great pantheon of gritty crime dramas, The Wire might be near or at the top for most viewers. Mal, who most may know as a previous co-host of The Joe Budden Podcast, sparked a debate asking if the Baltimore-based series is better than the Snowfall and the discussion is still ongoing.

On Wednesday (April 14), Mal tweeted, “Snowfall is better than The Wire in my humble opinion,” and the retweets, replies, and quote tweets came in at a rapid clip.

The Wire has the unique backdrop of Baltimore, Md., a favorite subject for the show’s creator David Simon who worked as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun newspaper. As one of the first major shows to use a dizzying number of characters with often stories that often intersected, it could be said that The Wire paved the way for shows like Snowfall and gave HBO a significant boost in the cable television wars when it first started in the early 2000s.

The plot of Snowfall examines the rise of drug kingpin Franklin Saint and the crack epidemic that ravaged the nation in the 1980s. The sunny backdrop of Los Angeles in 1983 focuses viewers on Saint’s slow transformation from a petty hand-to-hand dealer to later commanding a significant portion of the drug trade. Like The Wire, Snowfall employs an ensemble cast with a number of corresponding plotlines too vast to trying to explain.

The Wire went on for five seasons, ending in March of 2008. Snowfall is currently in its fourth season on FX and is set to return for a fifth so there will be more Franklin, Teddy, and the rest of the gang.

We’re taking no position on this current debate but plenty of folks on Twitter have their input. The comical part of this discussion is that people are trying to come at Mal’s intelligence with petty insults, which if anyone remembers his time on the podcast, he’s most likely unphased and dropping money bags across the timeline going about his day.

And in fairness, Mal told his followers and the timeline point-blank that this is his opinion, not a declaration. As we all know, social media has difficulty with nuances at times.

Check out the reactions below.

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Photo: Getty