The Wire Planned To Kill Kima In Season 1 (Until An HBO Exec Stepped In)
Few series from HBO's golden age can claim the kind of pedigree that "The Wire" has. David Simon's seminal series is the kind of top-to-bottom examination of a city and what makes it tick that makes it truly a one-of-a-kind crime drama. While the series explored all manner of issues in relation to Baltimore, the city's police force remained a central focus of the plot throughout.
Through this enduring aspect, characters like Shakima "Kima" Greggs (Sonja Sohn) became deeply explored and thoroughly layered. However, while most fans of "The Wire" will recall that Kima was there through all five seasons of the show, this wasn't initially the plan as far as Simon was concerned.
In fact, according to Time, when Kima was shot during a sting operation in Season 1 of "The Wire," that was meant to be the end of her character. When Sohn found out, though, she went to Simon directly, and though he admitted that was indeed the plan, thanks to the intervention of HBO executive Carolyn Strauss, Kima was ultimately saved from her deadly fate.
Strauss asked David Simon to save Kima from death
Like a fellow HBO series from this time period, "The Sopranos," "The Wire" is infamous for knocking off one key character after another, including fan favorites. This long list of casualties almost included Sonja Sohn's Kima Greggs as well, but Carolyn Strauss saw more potential in the character and urged David Simon to keep her alive, a request that Simon ended up agreeing to.
While it's unclear why Strauss wanted to save "The Wire" character, the most obvious reason would be that Kima represented an underseen demographic at the time, being that she is a queer woman of color. Regardless of the reasoning, though, Kima lived to fight another day and ultimately survived until the end of the series.
When Sohn found out that it was Strauss who intervened on her behalf, she was ecstatic. "Girl power!" she exclaimed. Though Sohn initially admitted that she found the series a tad slow, she ultimately bought into Simon's grand vision for the story and was happy to have remained on "The Wire" for all five seasons.