Continuing my deep and almost rabid love for the greatest story to ever grace our television screens here's my review of the second season. I give you David Simon's The Wire.

The second season begins a while after the first season's final events. McNulty's insubordination and disrespect of authority have landed him in exactly the place he didn't want to be, working in Baltimore's harbor patrol. Stringer Bell has taken over running Avon's empire, the detail has been disbanded, Omar is still robbing gangers, Bubbles is still struggling with his addiction and Kima has been switched to a desk job after getting shot last season. In short - despite the triumph - life goes on exactly as it did before.

Things begin to change when McNulty fishes a floater out of the water and decides to screw with the homicide division by pinning it on them. They don't want it as floaters are almost impossible to solve and that means the name would stay in red on their case board, lowering their clear percentage. Then the head of the local Stevedores Union, one Frank Sobotka manages to p**s off the wrong person by donating a stain glass window to a church when Major Valchek wanted to do the same thing (in the same place). It's these two events that start the ball rolling, Valchek decides he wants to take out Sobotka and when thirteen imigrant women are found dead in a container the heat begins to turn on the docks.

The second season can be something of a shock to the viewer when you first get into it, as the show has mostly moved away from the ghetto area of Baltimore and deals with the dock area and the plight of the American blue collar worker. But familiar faces make appearances and we still get to see how things are going for Avon, Bodie, D'Angleo, Stringer and the rest. So it's not a complete jolt. The season's theme music has changed from the Blind Boys of Alabama's cover to Tom Wait's original rendition of "Way Down in the Hole".

But make no mistake, these changes are purely superficial, the show is still every bit as fantastic as the previous season and you'll soon come to love the new characters introduced. You'll laugh at Omar's star turn as a witness against Avon, you'll find Spiros and The Greek intensely interesting and Frank Sobotka will grow on you as he shows what he's made of. The second season is different from the first, but it's every bit as good. It also helps that by now the viewer will be used to the style of the show, the hardest part of "The Wire" is getting into it in the first place and the only reason that I'm not giving this season a 10/10 is because the later seasons are even better, which is amazing because the bar has been set so high already.