History Awesome / TheWire

** Delegate Watkins finally gets fed up with Mayor Royce's hypocracy and lets him have it in a lengthy rant about the corruption he's displayed while in office. He then quits Royce's re-election campaign and storms right out of the building, which looks all the more impressive as he's paraplegic.

* During the second season:

* There are quite a few of these moments in the HBO show ''TheWire''. In the first season:

** D'Angelo Barksdale teaches the rules of chess to Bodie Broadus and Wallace. That's it. It's {{Better Than It Sounds}}.

** I'm not sure if this is the right season to place this under, but the moment Butchie, Omar's blind friend and confidant, absolutely refuses to talk when Chris Partlow and Snoop torture him to find out Omar's whereabouts. Chris and Snoop offer to let him go without harm if he gives up Omar. He says no, even when Chris explicitly tells him that it will get messy if he doesn't talk. Snoop shoots him in the kneecap, and even screaming in pain, he refuses still. Then ''they shoot him in the'' ''[[GroinAttack groin]]'' and ''he still refuses.'' Chris and Snoop kill him, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome but they didn't get one shred of information out of him before they did.]]

* Omar could've done a lot of damage in the military. This is no more evident when he layed down a trap for Bubbles using a scrapped radiator.

--->'''Daniels''': You do what you feel. You wanna pull Avon in on half a case, you go ahead. You wanna put my shit in the street, feel free. But the Eastern had a lot of stories - mine ain't the only one. A lot of people came through that district. If you were gonna do me, I'd already be done. But there ain't nothin' you fear more than a bad headline, is there? You'd rather live in shit than let the world see you work a shovel. You can order warrants, and I'll serve 'em. But as long as I have days left on those dead wires, this case goes on.

--->'''Daniels''': You do what you feel. You wanna pull Avon in on half a case, you go ahead. You wanna put my shit in the street, feel free. But the Eastern had a lot of stories - mine ain't the only one. A lot of people came through that district. If you were gonna do me, I'd already be done. But there ain't nothin' you fear more than a bad headline, is there? You'd rather live in shit than let the world see you work a shovel. You can order warrants, and I'll serve 'em. But as long as I have days left on those dead wires, [i]this case goes on[/i].

--->'''Daniels''': You do what you feel. You wanna pull Avon in on half a case, you go ahead. You wanna put my shit in the street, feel free. But the Eastern had a lot of stories - mine ain't the only one. A lot of people came through that district. If you were gonna do me, I'd already be done. But there ain't nothin' you fear more than a bad headline, is there? You'd rather live in shit than let the world see you work a shovel. You can order warrants, and I'll serve 'em. But as long as I have days left on those dead wires, <i>this case goes on</i>.

** Bodie Broadus' final moments deserve mention for the simple fact that unlike every other corner boy faced with the prospect of the specters of death that are Chris Partlow and Snoop descending down upon him, Bodie refused to run away or simply let them kill him, instead opening fire and refusing to leave his corner. Sure, he didn't make it out of the firefight alive, but at least he went out like a true soldier. "You ain't puttin' me up in one of them empty-ass houses, neither!"
-->'''Bodie:''' Yo, this is my corner. I ain't going nowhere.

** The XanatosGambit Tommy Carcetti pulls on Burrell. Establishes the character as someone not to be taken lightly.

** I'm not sure if this is the right season to place this under, but Butchie, Omar's blind friend and confidant, absolutely refusing to talk when Chris Partlow and Snoop torture him to find out Omar's whereabouts. They offer to let him go without harm if he gives up Omar. He says no, even when Chris explicitly tells him that it will get messy if he doesn't talk. Snoop shoots him in the kneecap, and even screaming in pain, he refuses still. ''They shoot him in the'' ''[[GroinAttack groin]]'' and he still refuses. Chris and Snoop kill him, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome but they didn't get one shred of information out of him.]]

** I'm not sure if this is the right season to place this under, but Butchie, Omar's blind friend and confidant, absolutely refusing to talk when Chris Partlow and Snoop torture him to find out Omar's whereabouts. They offer to let him go without harm if he gives up Omar. He says no, even when Chris explicitly tells him that it will get messy if he doesn't talk. Snoop shoots him in the kneecap, and even screaming in pain, he refuses still. ''They shoot him in the'' ''GroinAttack groin]]'' and he still refuses. Chris and Snoop kill him, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome but they didn't get one shred of information out of him.]]

** After Ziggy gets in debt to Cheese, the latter steals his Camaro and burns it. Nick uses his connections with the Greek to not only settle the debt, but ''gets Prop Joe to pay him the difference from the Blue Book value.'' Not even ''Prop Joe'' can believe he has the balls:
--> "If not for Sergei here, ya'll would be some '''cadaverous''' motherfuckers."

** Kimmy, one of Omar's associates, gets her crowning moment after the accidental death of her girlfriend Tosha in a shootout between Omar's crew and a group of Barksdale soldiers who had gotten the drop on them in the middle of a stickup job. After Tosha is shot, Kimmy goes to check on her and a Barksdale soldier attempts to fire at her while she's distracted. In response, Kimmy simply turns around with absolutely no concern for having been shot at, and kills him with ''one shot.'' And she probably would have gone after the other Barksdale crew members had Omar not dragged her away from the fight.

** When Brother Mouzone and Omar Little (a BadassBookworm and BadassLongcoat, respectively) team up in the last two episodes of the season. They have a MexicanStandoff and then [[spoiler:team up to kill Stringer Bell, who was responsible for killing Omar's boyfriend in the first season and then, in the second season, duping Omar into thinking that it was ''Brother Mouzone'' who had done as a means of [[LetsYouAndHimFight attempting to get rid of both men]]. To his credit, Stringer himself almost has his own crowning moment when finally forced to face his own imminent demise, eventually resigning himself to his fate and yelling at the two to get on with it before he's shot to death]].

** Marlo, having gotten out of the game, leaves an up-scale party to mess with dealers on a street corner. They don't recognize him, and one of them puts a gun to his head while the other slashes him with a knife... at which point the unarmed Marlo owns both of them in the space of several seconds and sends them running. He checks some blood on his arm and then stands there smiling to himself. Made even more impressive because it had been preceded by a season's worth of accusations from Omar that Marlo was afraid to get his hands dirty, and this is the first and only time we've ever actually seen him have to use physical force instead of a subordinate.

** [=McNulty=] goes to a bar, gets totally smashed, and attempts to drive home, while blasting The Pogues' "Transmetropolitan". He crashes his car into a highway beam, gets out, re-calculates his trajectory, and ''redoes his own car crash''. Later in the same night, he manages to pick up a waitress, despite being heavily drunk and with bandages on his hand. He's ''that'' good.

** [=McNulty=] of all people is sent in undercover to confirm that a hotel suite is actually a high-class brothel owned by a smuggling ring (''"Takes a whore to catch a whore"''- Kima). He's told to give the signal for the police to start raiding the suite only after he's been set up with a hooker. [=McNulty=] elects to wait until two hooker have already started a threesome with him before giving the signal. Later, in the official paperwork, he actually writes down in what happened half-honestly, claiming "There was two of them, I was outnumbered!". Three Seasons later, other cops who've never even met [=McNulty=] are still talking about it.

** The montage at the beginning of the tenth episode, which shows off just how much information the team has gathered on their targets, and how they go about gathering it. Set to Johnny Cash's ''I Walk the Line'', and ends with Prez contentedly admiring the by now ''packed'' corkboard and going "Fuckin' A!". Roll credits.

** Bunny Colvin's "Paper bag" Speech or His telling Rawls "Get on with it,Motherfucker" when He is firing Him.Pretty much anything with Bunny Colvin

**** According to Marlo Stanfield this CMOA doesn't make Omar the goddamn ''{{Batman}}'' but:
-->'''Marlo:''' "Don't seem possible"
-->'''Chris:''' "Don't..."
-->'''Marlo:''' "Some {{Spiderman}} shit there."
** The look Marlo gives to Chris after Chris points at the floor Omar jumped from makes it even more awesome.