AMA with George Pelecanos, a writer and producer of The Wire

George Pelecanos:

We worked it out together in the writers room. A lot of discussion and sometimes arguments. When it got heated, it came from a place of passion, and I think it was reflected in the final product. Yes, often times I had to fight for what I thought was right in a script. And sometimes David stood firm and saved me from my own worst instincts. I was given the penultimate episodes—the ones where bad, violent shit happens—because David thought I did a good job of similar scenes in my books. I did not write the celebrated chess scene; that was David, I believe. I wrote the deaths of Wallace, Frank Sobotka, Stringer Bell, and Snoop. Also, I wrote the scene in the park between Bunk and Omar. That, and the rooftop scene between Stringer and Avon, are my personal favorites of what I actually wrote. There are others, like the paper bag speech written by Richard Price in Season 3, that I’m still in awe of.