Season 2 of The Wire is such a massive change of gears from season 1, it can be really jarring to first-time viewers, and a lot of people see it as an outlier and a departure from the core of the show, but once you've seen the whole series, its placement makes way more sense, and people who've rewatched it consider it one of the best.

In general, I'd also recommend people starting The Wire understand that it's super dense and will require a high degree of attention. If you're second-screening or doing other stuff while it's on in the background, you'll have a really hard time getting into it.

Mr. Robot's season 2 has a similar issue. The whole season revolves around a big twist, making everything feel weird and just generally off, and most people seemed to find the twist cheap and that's when the general popularity of the show disappeared, but I think seasons 3 and 4 are excellent and even if 2 seems like a slog, it's worth pushing through. Similar to The Wire, I also find Mr. Robot S2 to be more effective upon rewatch.