Sunday, March 09, 2008

The Wire, "-30-": Farewell to Baltimore

Moment of silence as we mourn the loss of the most amazing drama in TV history.

Okay. Very, very, very long spoilers for "-30-," the series finale of "The Wire," coming up just as soon as I find an up-and-coming TV critic to one day replace me...

(Also, if you're looking for the David Simon Q&A, click here. It's very long, and I'll have an abbreviated version both in the paper and on-line tomorrow morning.)

"Let's go home." -McNulty

Of course the final shot of "The Wire" is of Baltimore. Of course it is.

As David Simon says in our interview -- and as he has said throughout the show's run -- "We knew that the ultimate star of the narrative was Baltimore, and by extension the American city, and by extension America." No final image other than the Baltimore skyline -- particularly seen from the distance of the highway, a remote view seen by travelers who would be terrified to ever set foot in the West Baltimore the show has depicted for five seasons -- would have been appropriate.

The finale provided closure by the barrelful for all the human characters -- in many ways, it was the antithesis of "The Sopranos" ending -- but the one character whose fate remains very much up in the air is Baltimore itself. When the cycle turns round and round -- when a Bubbles escapes the junkie life only to be replaced by Dukie, when Carcetti sells out every last principle in order to become governor, when the keys to the police department are taken from Cedric Daniels and handed to Stan Valchek -- what can be done to save the city (and, by extension, America)? Can anything? Or was Bunny right last week when he said that there was nothing to be done?

I should say upfront that my experience of watching "-30-" will be different from yours. I got the final three episodes a few weeks ago, and after using a lot of willpower to tend to more pressing professional and familial obligations, I stayed up until 2 a.m. that night watching all of them. (And another hour past that, just trying to get my brain to stop replaying certain moments over and over.) So I view "-30-" and "Late Editions" and even "Clarifications" as one large chunk of the greater whole. (Ideally, "The Wire" is a show that should always be experienced at least three episodes at a time.) So my feelings about it are tied up with my feelings about "Late Editions," which in turn are tied up with my feelings about "Clarifications."

Stepping back and rewatching each one a week apart to take notes for blogging purposes, though, I can see how someone might find "-30-" (the title, for those who don't know, comes from a now largely outdated bit of newspaper shorthand to point out the proper end of an article) a bit of an anti-climax of "Late Editions." And, certainly, there's nothing quite as affecting as Dukie and Michael in the car.

But if you've been watching this show long enough to care about Bubbs' trip up the stairs (and, okay, I teared up at that) or Kima and Bunk presiding over a crime scene on the same sidewalk where William Gant was killed, then you should know by now that, like "The Sopranos," "The Wire" usually puts the emotional fireworks into the penultimate episode (The George Pelecanos Tearjerker Special) and then spend the finale on resolution.

And boy, there was a lot of resolution here. You can wonder about what might happen with certain characters -- specifically, how McNulty and Marlo each deal with becoming a man without a country -- but for the most part, we know exactly how everyone ended up, and if they've stepped into another character's role, then we have a pretty good idea what the future holds for them. Sure, Michael's having fun taking Omar's place as the Robin Hood of West Baltimore, but we also know that most Omars (albeit not all; see the real Donnie Andrews) wind up catching a bullet. The best case scenario for Dukie is that he drags himself out of addiction one day many years from now the way Bubbs did, but I don't even know if that's realistic; Bubbs had a sister who could provide the slimmest of support systems when he needed one, where Dukie has no one.

('Scuse me while I go find my David Simon voodoo doll.)

Now, some people I know who have already seen the finale thought it provided too much closure, that Simon tried to rush too many endings into 93 minutes -- or that he spent time spelling out fates (like Dukie and Michael) that should have been clear from previous episodes. I've also heard some complaints that too many characters get something too closely resembling a happy ending (McNulty seems okay with losing his badge, Daniels looks happy as a lawyer) or the direct opposite, that the ending is far too dark (Carcetti is governor, Nerese mayor, Valchek commissioner, Marlo is a free man, Jimmy and Lester and Daniels aren't cops anymore, Templeton gets a Pulitzer while Gus and Alma are demoted, Dukie's a junkie, etc.).

Me, I thought it felt just right.

First, some of the endings are ambiguous enough that they could be read as either happy or sad. Yes, Marlo is technically unpunished by the law for his role in those 22 murders (and many more), but Ronnie's deal with Levy winds up being the worst possible punishment for the man. In jail, he's still making money off the co-op (as Slim notes he could) and no doubt doing easy time like we saw Avon doing in season two, and his name lives on in the streets as the man responsible for all that killing. Death is something he was prepared for, too; as he told Vinson a season or two back, he knew his reign would likely be short and end in incarceration or death, but he thought it was his time to wear the crown.

But to be excommunicated from The Game? To be granted money and freedom but lose his power and his rep and the only world he's ever known or cared about? That's some "Twilight Zone" stuff right there. As Simon (who refused to elaborate on whether Marlo's return to the corner was a one-time thing or the beginning of his attempt to return to that life under the cop's noses) puts it in our interview:
Marlo is cut off from the source of his power, desperate to rescue his name. To me, the great irony is that Marlo ends up being granted what Stringer wanted -- and he has no use for it. To me, to a guy like Marlo Stanfield, hell is a business meeting with a bunch of developers. For Stringer, it was all he wanted.
Similarly, Jimmy's early retirement can be read as either his salvation or a cruel punishment. Throughout the series, it was suggested that his whole life was the job -- hence the mock wake when he had to leave it -- but we also saw, over and over, that the job was killing him. The policework fueled the booze, the booze fueled the anger, the anger fueled the work, and on and on. Stringer's death was enough of a shock to make Jimmy take a step back to at least something simple like going back in uniform, and for a while, he seemed happy.

But he was still a cop, still close enough to his old shenanigans that he was able to get sucked back in by the bodies in the vacants and his role in Bodie's death, and here he hit rock bottom. He drank, he whored himself around, and he invented this bogus serial killer that helped bust Marlo (sort of) but that also hurt -- and in two cases, resulted in the deaths of -- innocent people. Losing his badge was the very least he should have been punished, and yet it's also the best thing that could happen to Jimmy McNulty the man. When he sits with Beadie on her front steps, he looks a little lost (I can't see him taking a job like Herc's with Levy or the one Bunny had at the hotel) but not unhappy, exactly. If he wants to have a chance to be a real person with a real life, he needed to get away from that job, and his behavior this season guaranteed that he would. He can't bring back those two homeless men the copycat killed, but at least he went to the trouble to undo Larry's kidnapping and bring him home. When he tells Kima (in another moment that made my eyes a wee bit moist) that, if she thought she needed to turn him in, then she was right, he's not just trying to make her feel better; he believes that he shouldn't be a cop anymore.

As for the rest of it -- and I'll be hitting the fates of every major character at some point during this review -- I thought most of it worked perfectly. Some things may have felt rushed -- specifically Dukie's scam on Prez, which I'll get back to -- but others were perfectly-timed. The show spent a season-long story arc on whether or not a man would get to go up a staircase and through a door, and all the set-up was worth it for that brief glimpse of Bubbs bounding up the steps and sitting down with his family at the dinner table. You want to talk about earning a moment? That, there, is an earned moment.

Some characters got better than they deserve (Valchek, Rawls, Templeton, Herc and Levy, the politicans), some got worse (Dukie, Gus) and others came out about right (Cheese, Chris, Lester), but The Game is The Game, the system is the system, and life goes on. Until something fundamentally changes, there will always be another Marlo, another Omar, another Burrell, etc. The show has always been cyclical. Remember the end of season one, with Poot having absorbed some of D'Angelo's lessons about slinging and passing them on to the new version of himself? This is what the show is, was and always will be, because, as David Simon sees it, this is what the system is, was and always will be.

(Ironically, one of the episode's biggest victims is not a person but an institution. Think how much better off the Baltimore Police Department would have been with Daniels as its commissioner. Valchek's just another symptom of the same disease. In this show's fictional universe, what's done to the BPD is just as tragic as what happens to the kids who aren't Namond.)

Before I get to individual characters and moments from the finale, I want to say a few words about the Baltimore Sun story, which was supposed to be the spine of the season just as much as the kids were for season four, Hamsterdam was for season three, etc. Again, Simon is going to go into great length about this in the interview, but his fundamental argument is that all the stuff with Templeton is a smokescreen. As he sees it, the real problem at the Sun isn't what Scott's doing, but what isn't being done by everyone else: covering all the stories we're aware of this season, but that the Sun omits from its pages (Joe and Omar's deaths, the disbanding of the MCU, Carcetti pressuring the cops to cook stats, etc.).
"That is the last piece in the ‘Wire’ puzzle: If you think anyone will be paying attention to anything you encountered in the first four seasons of this show, think again."
And I see what he's saying, to a point. I certainly took notice of those various moments when Alma would pitch a big story (to us) to Gus and it would wind up as a brief, or out of the paper altogether. And I think the Templeton story did add some value, both as a parallel/aid to the McNulty story, and as a reflection of some of the bigger lies that have been foisted on us by politicians and the press in recent years. (Like so many things in "The Wire," the serial killer storyline can be read as an Iraq parallel, which I guess would make Marlo into Afghanistan, but maybe that's a stretch.)

My problem is that, especially from the moment Twigg took the buyout and left, the screen time has been so disproportionately in favor of Templeton making stuff up and against incidents of the rest of the Sun staff failing to adequately report what's really happening in Baltimore that the story completely overwhelms the subtext. Worse, it feels like it runs counter to everything "The Wire" is about.

Simon has said time and time and time again that network TV dramas take the easy way out and portray corruption and other villainy as an individual problem. Get rid of the one dirty cop on the force, the one crooked politician at City Hall, and everything will be fine. "The Wire" doesn't believe that, and yet it spent so much time in its final season on a story of one individual causing all these problems for his institution. Firing Templeton from the Sun wouldn't come close to solving the paper's many problems, but the amount of time spent on him makes it seem like it would, you know? "If only Gus didn't have to waste so much time chasing down this jerk's lies, things might get done around here!" And, yes, Scott is very much enabled by Whiting and Klebanow, and by what Simon sees as a prize-chasing culture that's now endemic to places like the Sun. But I feel like the problems plaguing newspapers and other media (and just in the week between "Late Editions" and the finale, I've heard of half a dozen friends at various papers either getting laid off or reassigned to jobs designed to make them quit, so it's bad, people) go much, much deeper than the various incidents of fabulism. I don't object to it being included -- my first editor at the college paper was a fella by the name of Steve Glass -- but I wish it had been balanced in with more incidents of why the Sun never properly tells the stories we know are out there.

Now, with a finale so wide-ranging and dealing with so many people, I feel the best way to proceed is to take it character-by-character (or group-by-group) and discuss their fates, what that implied, and whether I liked it, then hit some other unrelated points before opening up the floor to everyone else. Even though there's nothing remotely as baffling as Tony Soprano with the onion rings and the Journey, I imagine we're going to have a lot to talk about for a while, still. Since I largely dealt with Jimmy and Marlo above, let's start with....

Dukie (and Prez): I can't tell you the number of e-mails and comments I've gotten in the last week along the lines of "If they make Dukie into a junkie, I'm going to kill David Simon." If I was Simon right about now, I'd want to see if Donnie Andrews does bodyguarding work (or maybe some of the recon soldiers from "Generation Kill" can moonlight). Talk about a stomach punch. On the one hand, they absolutely set this up last week -- have been setting it up practically since they introduced Dukie as the one clean member of a family of junkies. (I'm far from an expert on addiction, but even I know that if you're raised in that environment, even if you hate it and understand how destructive it is, when things go bad it can be very hard to resist the temptation.) So I should have been prepared for the image of Dukie shooting up, or before that, of Dukie scamming money from Prez. But even so...

(stream of curses deleted)

(another stream of curses deleted)

(tissue box reached for)

One of the surprising things Simon mentioned in the interview was that the writing staff, early in season four, wasn't sure whether it would be Dukie or Randy who would wind up taking Bubbs' place. Randy was my favorite of the boys, so I'm not sure I could bear to see that, but Dukie stayed with us even longer, was even more innocent and more put-upon, and to have him go down the exact road his family did...

(resisting urge to curse again)

I do find it surprising, and yet not, how myself and so many other "Wire" fans seem most invested in the fate of the boys, who didn't even show up until the series was 60 percent over. It's a testament to the great job the writers and those four actors did with these characters, but it's also a mark that they're, well, kids. Tragedies suffered by anyone are bad, but by kids -- especially three nice, warm-hearted, well-meaning boys like Dukie and Michael and Randy -- the pain feels magnified a hundred-fold. I feel bad that D'Angelo and Omar died, that Bunny lost his pension, that Daniels had to retire, but few things on this show will ever sting as badly as seeing Wallace die, or hearing Randy yell down the hallway at Sgt. Carver, or seeing Dukie in that alley, tying off a vein.

If I have one issue with the story, it's what I alluded to above: I think, within the chronology of the episode, his scamming Prez should have come much closer to the end than the beginning. If we assume that the meeting in Carcetti's office is the morning after Daniels and Pearlman found out what McNulty did, and that Lester running into Ronnie at the courthouse takes place, at most, a day later (and more likely on the same day; I didn't think to check the wardrobes), then Dukie goes to Tilghman Middle either the day after he's dropped off with the Arabers, or the day after that. And while I have no problem believing he'd fall that quickly into the lure of dope -- given the hopeless circumstances, wouldn't you? -- I feel like running a con on one of the few remaining human beings who knows or cares about him is something he would have needed just a little longer to fall into. Again, I'm no addiction expert, and maybe Dukie's new mentor guilted him into it in exchange for letting him stay at the stables, but dramatically, I would have liked more passage of time for that.

Now, remember what I said a few weeks back about how I hoped we didn't see Prez again? At the time, I was worried he might get laid off as a casualty of the budget games with the serial killer, but even with his job secure, I still wish he hadn't come back. Sure, he looks to have gotten the hang of being a disciplinarian without losing his innate Prez-ness, but I didn't want to have to see him encounter Dukie that way. All season, and especially in the last week, people have been hoping that Dukie would go to Prez for help, and I'm sure the writers knew people would be thinking that, so they take our expectations and use them to club our heartstrings to death.

While Prez may be naive in some ways, he was a po-lice long enough to know what Dukie was up to from the minute he got a good look at him, but he went along with it, anyway, either on the minute off-chance that he was wrong, or, more likely, because he feels guilty for Dukie being in his current circumstances. Maybe, Prez thinks, if he had been warmer towards Dukie when he visited him with the little present at the end of last season, instead of taking Ms. Donnelly's advice to try to divorce himself emotionally from ex-students, Dukie would have come to him much sooner than this moment. And now, if he sticks to his promise to not want to see Dukie again, who does that leave for Dukie to run to if he decides he wants out? Nobody, goddammit. And I'm going to move on before I begin ranting and raving about the fate of a fictional character who from minute one was designed to break my heart, and onto the only slightly more optimistic fate of....

Michael: I'll admit it: while a lot of the commenters over the last two weeks (beginning with when "Late Editions" first played On Demand) have been predicting Michael as the new Omar, his raid on Vinson's rim shop took me by complete surprise when I first saw it -- and yet it was one of those glorious moments where everything makes such perfect sense that it put a big smile on my face.

It's funny how, for the better part of this season, and even last season, many people (including me) have been declaring Michael to be "the new Bodie," "the new D'Angelo," "Marlo in training," "Avon in training," etc. As some of the commenters last week noted, Michael has always been written and portrayed as kind of a mirror character. Other characters look at him and see something of themselves in him, which is why so many people were eager to mentor him last year. Bodie saw another great corner boy, Marlo a fellow self-made man, Cutty a great boxer, Prez a good student, etc. He has traits in common with other characters, but the one that's always defined him has been his independence, his lack of interest in being beholden to anyone. He worked Bodie's corner to make money, and willingly took instruction from Chris and Snoop, but that was to pay off the debt for them killing Bug's dad. He's always been his own man, even though he's still technically a boy.

So even though his path and Omar's only crossed twice, and neither occasion was what you would call a mentor/mentee opportunity, it makes perfect sense that this is the man whose footsteps Michael would ultimately choose to follow. Michael's too independent to function properly within any institution, and his experience of the last year or so has made him unfit to do anything but be a criminal, so that leaves a role that's in The Game but not of The Game. Plus, he's shown in the past a certain flair for the dramatic, notably in his plan to humiliate Officer Walker and his theft of The Ring from Walker. Is Tristan Wilds aping Michael K. Williams a little too much in that scene at the rim shop? Maybe, but Michael's young yet; I imagine he'll develop his own style over time. I doubt, for instance, that we'll ever hear him whistling nursery rhymes.

Reginald: Should we even call him Bubbles anymore? Is that the name he should be known by, or just the name he used when he was on the street? Last week, he introduced himself at the NA meeting as Reginald, but quickly slipped in a reference to his nickname. Names do have power on this show (just ask Marlo), and I like to think of the guy who read his story in the Sun, who wears sunglasses to keep his mind clear on a sunny day, who gets to go up those steps and through that door and eat a meal like a member of the family instead of an untrusted burden, as Reginald. In my dream world where HBO revisits "The Wire" every five years or so, I'd like to think that Reginald would barely factor into the new narrative, that he might get a cameo like Namond and Bunny to show how well he's doing, but that he wouldn't get sucked back into storylines and communities that he's graduated from. And I smile every time I think of him casually jogging up those steps, like it ain't no thing that he gets to do it.

Lester: Like Jimmy, he seemed at peace with retirement. He had already spent 13 years (and four months) in a kind of retirement in the pawn shop unit, and he had lectured Jimmy in the past about the importance of having a life outside the job. I'm sure Lester will miss the work, miss being able to pull off his usual investigative miracles, but he has his dollhouses, and more importantly has Shardene, who all but worships him. (Look at how happy she is just to be with him while he works on that tiny furniture.) I think Jimmy came to realize much sooner what a mistake the serial killer scam was, because he was at the center of it while Lester was just using it as a tool to focus on Marlo, but when Ronnie points out that he's the reason they lost the money trail, I think Lester finally gets it. This is, in fact, on him, and it's time to go and enjoy other things.

(With 20/20 hindsight, I suppose there was a way to pull off the scam without having it taint the Marlo investigation, but it would have involved a lot more patience and the hope that, as the money tap stayed on, he would have eventually been able to get approval for a legal wiretap. Then again, a legal wiretap might have gotten Levy's attention, depending on whether Lester had plugged the courthouse leak by that point. As with so many things about this show, I keep looking for ways that things could have turned out better than they did, but in "The Wire," the fates are the fates.)

Kima & Bunk : There remains debate over who did the right thing with their knowledge of the phony serial killer: Bunk, for keeping silent to protect his friends Jimmy and Lester; or Kima, for ratting them out and endangering the Marlo case in the process because it was the right thing to do. As I said last week, I have no problem with what Kima did, just as Jimmy and Lester themselves don't seem to by the end.

That said, whether or not Bunk tattled to Landsman, he and Kima were the straight cops of this season, Kima by telling the truth when she knew it, Bunk by finding a way to put a murder charge on Chris without having to resort to Jimmy-level shenanigans. So I like that they wind up as partners at the end (and, as mentioned above, are working a murder at the same location where Bird killed Gant for being a witness in D'Angelo's trial). But though Bunk quotes his "There you go, giving a fuck when it ain't your turn" line from the pilot, Kima isn't the new McNulty; she's the new Bunk. (Sort of.)

Sydnor & Carver: If there's a cyclical bit of recasting that felt a little abrupt, it was Sydnor as the new Jimmy. Until he got sucked into the fake serial killer scheme a few episodes back, Sydnor had always been one of the cleaner characters on the show, arguably the only cop with no dirt on him, or who never did things that he knew would hurt other people for selfish reasons. Once he got in with the plan, he certainly soaked up a lot of knowledge from Lester, but this is one of those things that probably would have benefited from an extra episode or two, so we could have seen some signs that Sydnor was starting to enjoy his role as a renegade cop.

I have no problem whatsoever, though, buying Carver as the new Daniels. (You'll note that, when Sydnor is bitching to Judge Phelan the way Jimmy used to, he complains about "Lt. Carver" getting the run-around from some major, in the same way Jimmy used to argue on Daniels' behalf. I'm sure Carver's just as in the dark about Sydnor's "help" as Daniels was.) Carver was Daniels' protege before he was Bunny's (and again after, when Daniels was running the Western), and I'd argue he's grown and changed as much as or more than any other character on the show. Season one, Herc and Carver were interchangeable. Now, Carver's a natural po-lice, the type who, in a less dysfunctional department, might make one hell of a commissioner some day. It's good to know that the department hasn't lost all of its good cops overnight.

Daniels: Again, Daniels for Valchek is one of the most lopsided trades this side of Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio, or Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano. It sucks that Daniels loses his shot at the top job -- and that the BPD loses an upstanding reformer in favor of the hackiest of all possible hacks -- but like Jimmy and Lester, Cedric at least has the love of a good woman (depending on your opinion of Ronnie), and he seemed okay with finally putting his law degree to use. (Interesting that he would choose to be a defense attorney, but I suppose staying away from the State's Attorney's office keeps him out of the sphere of influence of people like Nerese.) It's also interesting that he chooses to sacrifice his career for Ronnie's -- he probably could have fought Nerese and won, but at the cost of Ronnie's job (and maybe Marla's) -- where Ronnie isn't willing to sacrifice herself to blow the whistle on Jimmy, Lester and Carcetti. I'm not saying the situations are completely analogous, or that Ronnie should be forced to give up her job instead of Cedric, especially since she does put herself at considerable risk with Levy. And speaking of which...

Ronnie, Levy & Herc: ...where the hell did that Bawlmer accent come from in the Levy negotiation scene? A very odd choice. I can see where they were coming from with that -- in a completely desperate moment, when Ronnie's risking her career and even freedom to get some kind of justice for Marlo and company, she drops whatever cultured airs she's taken on over the years and reverts to the scrappy native girl I'm assuming she used to be -- but they've never gone into her backstory enough for it to quite work.

Still, I really enjoyed that scene and the way that Maury, once again, finds a way to turn an impossible situation to his advantage. Along with Clay, Maury's one of the true villains of "The Wire" -- people like him allow the Marlos and Stringers of the world to thrive -- and so it's appropriate that he comes out of the series stronger than ever, much as I would love to see him and Herc (who has now unambiguously sold what's left of his soul for more attaboys and brisket invitations) doing hard time for their various infractions over the years. A "Wire" where Maury Levy gets caught isn't the show we know, is it?

But back to Ronnie for a moment. I didn't catch it until the second viewing (a lot going on in this one, sorry) that her judgeship comes directly from Steintorf's promise that he and Carcetti would remember whatever she did to salvage as much as possible from the Marlo case (specifically, the conviction for the murders in the vacants). So her motives still aren't 100% pure when she goes to barter with Levy. But that seems about right for the honorable Ms. Pearlman. On a show full of characters who either battled in vain to change the way their institutions operated or who rolled over and supported the status quo, she was one of the few who fell in between those extremes. She usually did mean well, but she also never wanted to upset her bosses, or her pals across the aisle. This was about as heroic a Rhonda Pearlman as you're ever going to see. And whatever issues I may have had with the sudden appearance of the accent (not to mention the execution of same, though the locals can defend or assail that better than I can), I thought Deirdre Lovejoy did a great job in that scene where she defended herself and the plea to Lester and Jimmy.

Carcetti and company: Behold, the triumph of the hacks. Norman is now reduced to playing the jester (we only ever see him anymore when there's a joke to be made), while the odious Steintorf is the real power behind the throne. Tommy the reformer has become everything he swore he would fight against, and in the process has helped elevate fellow hacks like Nerese, Rawls and Valchek. Nothing will be done to fix Baltimore with those people in charge, and with half the state money already committed to PG County, and no doubt with Tommy already trying to position himself for a presidential run a few terms down the line. I cringe thinking about how I let the show lull me into believing in Carcetti's "new day" back in season four. And speaking of New Days...

Cheese, Slim & the co-op: The finale didn't offer much in the way of viewer gratification, but Cheese taking a bullet to the head certainly qualified. Excuse me while I get all action movie fan and say hell yeah!

I've noticed in some fan circles that Cheese evinces even more hatred than Marlo. No doubt it's because he betrayed his own kin, and after said kin had already risked his own neck to protect Cheese. (Remember, if Joe had given up Cheese to Marlo after Omar robbed the re-supply, Joe wouldn't have had to introduce Marlo to Vondas, and he might still be alive because Marlo didn't want to lose the connect.) So on that level, Cheese's death -- particularly at the hands of master-less samurai Slim Charles -- was awfully satisfying. There were many points during the series when I wanted to see Snoop dead, but the actual moment of her demise deliberately denied us any real visceral pleasure, because she took it with such dignity and because it was another part of Michael's slide into hell. But Slim putting a bullet in Cheese's head while Cheese was in the middle of a bile-filled monologue celebrating the lack of loyalty and nostalgia in the drug game... that was nice. After Bubbs walking up the stairs, it may have been the most uplifting moment of the whole finale.

("The Wire": a guy goes up some stairs, and another guy takes a bullet to the head for being an asshole, and these are the feel-good moments!)

It's unclear exactly how the new version of the co-op is going to work -- or even that it's a co-op, as opposed to Fat Face Rick and Slim somehow scrounging up 10 million on their own or finding some other way to get an in with Vondas. (Given that Slim was Joe's #2, and that Vondas had established with Marlo that he dealt with both bosses and their seconds, I wondered why Slim didn't just try to go directly to Vondas. Surely he knew him and where to find him, and it's not like Marlo was the most reliable of referrals given his current situation.) What really struck me about that whole part of the story was how much trouble these drug lords were having coming up with that much money, especially all together. From what I remember of Lester and Prez's calculations of Stringer and Avon's profit margin back in season one, those guys were much better with their money than the old hands in the co-op.

The Greek & Vondas: Same as it ever was. "Always business." With The Greek as the representative for pure capitalism, I knew there was no way the cops would even get close to him and Vondas. As with Levy, Clay, etc., a "Wire" where Vondas wound up in bracelets wouldn't be true to itself.

I know there was grumbling about why The Greek gave Marlo the okay to kill Joe (Simon explains it in the interview), just as I imagine there will be some more about why The Greek continues to do business in Baltimore given that they've lost two shipments (three, if you count the one they left on the docks at the end of season two) due to their various partners getting sloppy. And, again, I view it as The Greek deciding that these are acceptable losses and risks when weighed against the benefit of having the entire city all to themselves. If one distributor falls, even if a shipment or two gets taken, there will always be a new distributor, and enough demand for the product to make up for what was lost. And The Greek will always be so far removed from the action that he can easily flee for a little while should things get the slightest bit hot.

Chris & Wee-Bey: It oddly warmed my heart to see these two stone killers as prison yard buddies. There are, of course, many parallels. Both were their boss' top enforcer, just as both were either father or father figure to one of the boys to season four. Wee-Bey did the right thing by Namond in giving him up to Bunny, just as Chris thought he was doing the right thing by Michael in beating his stepfather to death and then training Michael to be a killer himself. (Hey, intentions count for something, don't they?)

Rawls: I know I mentioned him briefly in the passage about Carcetti, but I think Rawls deserves his own entry, if only for uttering one of the funniest lines in "Wire" history, when he asked McNulty whether he was really killing the homeless guys himself.

The thing about Rawls is that he's not a Valchek, someone who wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. There were plenty of signs over the years that Rawls knew what he was doing (him figuring out that the street signs at Kima's shooting had been turned, him being the first one at COMSTAT to understand what Bunny was doing with Hamsterdam), and even a hint or three that he might have been interested in properly fixing the department if the opportunity were given to him. (He didn't seem displeased to witness Daniels dressing down Steintorf last week, for instance.) But between his own petty grudges and the realities of the department and City Hall, he settled into his role as attack dog guardian of the system. Even McNulty, desperate to dig himself out of the damage he created with the serial killer scam, refused to go along with Rawls' order to coerce a confession to all of the "murders," and as Jimmy, Bunk, Jay and then Daniels all walked away from him, you could see that Rawls knew it was too much, too. Still, I doubt he'll run the staties any differently than his predecessor.

Templeton, Gus & The Sun: I discussed my larger beefs with this story way up top. In the end, things played out about as expected, given the show's worldview and what each character had done to this point. Gus doesn't get fired, but him being sent to the copy desk is every bit a waste of his talents as putting Jimmy on the boat or Lester in the pawn shop unit. Alma, who might have been a good cop shop reporter one day -- and who was still preferable to whatever rookie they throw into that beat next -- gets banished to the county bureaus, and I would even argue that putting Fletcher into Gus's job just as he was starting to show real talent as a reporter is a waste of resources. It's typical of Klebanow and Whiting that they get tumescent over this nonsense homeless series about which many obvious questions have been raised -- if nothing else, you would think the undercover cop's account of what really happened with the myserious gray van would have finally given those two some pause -- while completely ignoring what sounds like a tremendous piece of narrative journalism by a less-favored son.

(This, by the way, is one of those areas where telling a story about a newspaper on a TV show gets tricky. Were this a book, they could run some significant excerpts, if not the whole version, of Fletch's profile of Reginald/Bubbs, but instead we have to take the word of Gus, and of Walon, that it's so wonderful. Be a nice web or DVD extra if Simon were to bang out his own faux-profile under Fletcher's byline.)

As for Templeton, yes, he gets his Pulitzer. (And, while I initially questioned whether Klebanow and Whiting would risk submitting the story when several staffers could bring great humiliation on the paper by ratting it out, Simon said that in real life, Marimow and Carroll did submit the lead paint series written by the alleged fabulist.) But he has to live with the knowledge of what he did to get it, and that other people know, too. It was one thing for Scott to get so much attention for a situation where he thought he was making stuff up to add to a real story, but to find out that even the parts he thought were true were bogus -- to find out that he was played by a fabulist just as much as he played his bosses -- clearly messed him up. (Jimmy spilling the beans to Scott was one of the finale's highlights. "The Wire": a guy walks up some stairs, another guy takes a bullet in the head, and one liar tells the truth to another! The upliftingest show ever!)

And, sure, Gus could try going public with the file he and Robert put together, but it would no doubt get him fired -- and given the vast number of newspaper vets around the country who are suddenly in need of work, this isn't a good time to get yourself fired.

A few other random thoughts on "-30-":

-With Clark Johnson back in the director's chair for the first time since season one, we saw a couple of visual signatures that the show stopped using after he left -- specifically, the use of black & white surveillance footage (as in McNulty and Daniels on the elevator), security mirrors (Levy meeting with Marlo) and other viewpoints designed to show how often we're being watched -- and how many ways there are of seeing a single situation.

-Another obvious full circle choice was the use of the Blind Boys of Alabama's version of "Way Down in the Hole" from season one (still my favorite of the five) as the song over the final montage, which was itself filled with images, locations and people from seasons past. In addition to the final fates of all the above characters (and of Crutchfield busting Kenard for the Omar killing), we saw the original basement headquarters of the Major Crimes Unit, the low-rise courtyards where D'Angelo once ran things (plus, later, a glimpse of D's hand showing off the chess pieces), a Port police car (presumably Beadie's) driving through the stacks, the police boat on the harbor, and Old-Face Andre's corner store, among other familiar sights.

-Even more poignant was the interlude of sunrises and sunsets over various Baltimore neighborhoods that separated the episode proper (the resolution of the serial killer story and Marlo's case) from the extended epilogue. The city seemed so peaceful and beautiful in those shots -- a place worth fighting to save, you know?

-A number of people last week "guessed" that the business cards at Christenson's murder scene meant that the copycat was the homeless guy who collected cards. That was the closest anyone here came to posting something I worried might be a disguised spoiler, but I left it in because, frankly, they spent so much time on the guy earlier in the season that I suspected he would come up again, and as soon as we saw cards scattered at that first crime scene, I knew what was what. And I'm not so smart that other people couldn't have figured out the same thing.

-In case you were wondering, the courthouse leak was grand jury prosecutor Gary DiPasquale, played by Gary D'Addario, the Homicide commander during the year that David Simon was writing "Homicide" the book, and the inspiration for Gee on the TV show. He's popped up on "The Wire" a handful of times over the years (his most memorable appearance was earlier this season, when he heckled the guy who complained that he was too important to wait his turn). I'm fine with the leak being a very minor figure like that; the leak itself wasn't a major storyline, but rather a plot device to enable the deal Ronnie brokers with Levy.

-Look closely, and you can see David Simon in the Sun newsroom, typing next to Zorzi, at the very start of the scene where Scott tells Klebanow he doesn't feel well enough to write about the killer's capture. And the sign in front of Simon reads "Save our Sun."

-Among the many, many, many things I'm going to miss about this show is Lance Reddick's perfect posture and dead-eye stare, two traits he got to show off during several encounters with McNulty.

-I like how we transitioned from Jimmy, back in the good graces of Beadie's kids (if not Beadie herself), showing them "the dreaded crab claw," to Reginald and Walon eating actual crab claws.

-Whatever hatred I now have for Carcetti doesn't extend to Aidan Gillen's portrayal of him. Carcetti's struggle to find something, anything, to say about the truth about the serial killer was one of the most priceless moments all season.

-How much do you think everyone at the faux-wake knew about the real reasons for Jimmy and Lester's retirement? Is the serial killer/Marlo story going to become the cops' own version of the death of Omar, where the story keeps getting elaborated upon as time goes on, but no one from outside the culture ever hears about it? And I hope you caught, after "The Body of an American" came on one last time, that glimpse of the photos of Det. Cole (aka Bob Colesberry, late "Wire" producer) and Col. Foerster (aka late "Wire" actor Richard DeAngelis) on the wall at the bar.

-Two things of note from Marlo's return (temporary or not) to the corner: 1)The legend of Omar's death continues to grow and grow, now involving hitmen from New York; and 2)After three years of people questioning why Marlo had the power when Chris and Snoop were doing all the heavy work, we see that Marlo can handle himself just fine in a fight, thank you. Admittedly, those two corner boys didn't look like they'd been through Chris' combat training school, but winning one against two when the other two have a gun and a knife is still impressive.

Lines of the Week:
"I wish I was still at the newspaper so I could write on this mess. This is too fucking good." -Norman

"I believe he's about to have one of those 'road to Damascus' moments." & "See? The police commissioner done fell off his ass." -Norman

"Shit is like a war, ain't it? Easy to get in, hell to get out." -Bunk

"To be continued." -Daniels

"I remember 'clean.'" -Gus

"You're not killing them yourself, McNulty -- at least assure me of that." -Rawls

"You're mishpacha now." -Levy
"If you say so." -Herc

"Though had he lived, his dick would have been 134." -Carver

"Detective, if you think it needed doing, then I guess it did." -McNulty

"That was for Joe." -Slim Charles

"This sentimental motherfucker just cost us money!" -Tall Man

"There you go, giving a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck." -Bunk

"You just a boy." -Vinson
"BANG!" -Michael's shotgun
"That's just a knee." -Michael
Whew.

Well, that's all I've got for the moment, so fire away. I'm going to dearly, dearly miss this show, but I'll say this: in the '80s, I never thought TV drama could get better than "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere," and then it did. In the '90s, I didn't think cop shows could get better than the early seasons of "Homicide" and "NYPD Blue," and then they did. It's easy to look on the final episode of "The Wire" -- and of an HBO schedule that's now devoid of "The Wire" and "The Sopranos" and "Deadwood" -- and wonder if the latest golden age of drama is over. But I can see myself 5, 10 years from now writing something like, "I know this sounds like blasphemy, but (insert name of new show written by some guy named David here) may be even better than 'The Wire.'" Whoever wants to try to get to the top of this mountain has his or her work cut out, but I think it can be done. "Hill Street" taught people to watch TV in a new way, which in turn led to "St. Elsewhere" and "NYPD Blue." "Homicide" allowed "The Wire" to exist. I'm sure somehow, someone's going to figure out how to build on what Simon, and Burns, and Colesberry and Pelecanos and Price and Lehane and everyone else here created. And I look forward to watching and writing about that show when it comes. Watching "The Wire" may have made me terribly pessimistic about the future of our country, but it fills me with hope for the future of TV.

Months back, I said that I intended to immediately follow the end of the series with a rewind back to the beginning, so I could blog about seasons 1-3 in the same depth I gave to season four and season five. And I still want to do that, but, frankly, I need a break. As you can imagine, these reviews take a lot of time to do properly, and with the rest of primetime TV weeks away from returning, my schedule's going to get even busier in a hurry. I want to say that I'm going to try picking up with season one in two or three weeks (and I'd post them on Sunday nights or Monday mornings as if they episodes were still airing), but in case it takes longer than that, please understand. But I'm looking forward to going back to the beginning to see what other "Yo, my turn to be Omar"-esque moments were planted early, and to relive great moments like the chess lesson, the F-word crime scene, Bubbs on the park bench, etc. If everything about "The Wire" is circular, then it feels right as we come to the end to go back to the beginning, and very soon.

What did everybody else think?

240 comments:

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Anonymous said...

I don't think Slim capping Cheese was a "leader" move at all. It stemmed from pure irritation. Cheese was annoying and running his mouth too much. He also pulled a gun on Slim's new boss, Fat Face Rick. Slim just lost his temper (Prop Joe died on Slim's watch after all).

Slim was also promptly reprimanded by his employers for costing them $900,000!

Anonymous said...

This comment by Michael K. Williams (my emphasis added) over at the A.V.Club gave me a giggle (damn, I'm going to miss this show):

AVC: How did the final episode compare to how you thought the series was going to end?

MKW: It's quite accurate. I think it's spot-on.



http://tinyurl.com/2qzo3e

plot said...

Thanks for the link, dcdame.

Here's something - does anyone else wonder where all the nicknames and street names come from? Also, is it significant when a character doesn't have a street name?

Like Wee Bay. I LOVE that name, but damned if I can figure it out. Wee baby? Premature maybe?

Then there are Michael, Omar, Avon , Marlo, Chris, D'Angelo who have no nick name. Interesting.

Alan Sepinwall said...

So I checked with David Simon, vis a vis Slim and the co-op, and he said he considered Slim's current role to be "respected consigliere."

Anonymous said...

"but my rationale behind that is Slim popping Cheese in front of everyone was a "leader" type move where he was asserting himself."

I agree somewhat. It definitely didn't look like a planned hit as the other members of the co-op were genuinely surprised by Slim's actions. But I think Slim had been simmering for a while there, he's old school and what could be more repulsive to an old school hitter than a punk who sold out his flesh and blood and then has the nerve to make speeches like the king on his throne. It was a lot more effective than telling Cheese to shut the f**k up.

Unknown said...

It would be extremely interesting if the implication is that Fat Face Rick is actually running the co-op (with Slim as his #2) - because this also implies that: 1) the current Mayor of Baltimore has had business dealings with the primary heroin dealer in Baltimore; and 2) that she succeeded in becoming Mayor *despite* the public knowledge of these business deals via coverage in the Sun.

Talk about ignoring the important stories.

I also appreciate the study in contrasts that went un-realized by cutting out the Randy/Cheese subplot from S5. Cheese had only survived and thrived in the game due to the generousity - and (over)indulgence - of his uncle Joe , who had only assisted and put up with his nephew (who he pointedly did not trust or find responsible) because Cheese was his "sister's boy". That's how much Joe, the old schooler, respected blood ties.

Whereas we know how his nephew repaid Joe's family loyalty, and Cheese himself doesn't support or even acknowledge *his own* son Randy's existence. This is how low and ruthless the new order is. And he has doomed Randy in the process, not that Cheese cared.

That's why we cheered when he went down, decrying the old ways and nostalgia.

(I like to comfort myself in thinking that wise Joe had his estate protected, and that the small "legitimate" fortune that would have been left to Cheese will now be inherited by Randy. With his unexpected windfall, Randy gets out of the home, buys a unicorn, and rides in to Dukie's rescue.

Might need a Burns or Zorzi rewrite though.)

Anonymous said...

But I think Slim had been simmering for a while there

Wasn't he also the only one who knew for certain that Marlo, not Omar, had Prop Joe killed? That had to boil over sometime.

As for Chris: He so rarely showed emotion that it's hard to say what he felt about Snoop's death (not that it will keep me from making a guess) :-)

Anonymous said...

"Hugh, Just play the damn song"

OK so we got to replay one of the greatest Wire moments, Cole's Wake and enjoy The Pogues--who wouldn't want to hoist a few at Kananaugh's?

I want Jay to do my eulogy and every one singing The Body of an American

The Wire is a mosaic--a collection of thousands of moments woven into a story so intricate and compelling that it redefines television.

Some that come to mind:
Rawls in the gay bar-redefining "a man's man"
Richard Belzer (from Homicide) cameo in the bar
Steve Earle/Walon hugging Bubs in the hospital
Anything Omar & Bunk - is he the real hero of the Wire?
Clark Johnson (Gus) directed the final episode-nice work there

just so many small pieces that define a piece of work so elegant.

Thanks
brianc

Unknown said...

2 things that nobody has brought up:

1. Is Marlo destined to be killed by the Greeks? He's screwed them over multiple times and managed to beat his prison time rather easily. The Greeks can't know all the details of how Marlo got off and may decide to cover their backs by murdering him.

2. The last line of the episode meant a lot to me. The key word was "home." After everything that the characters (and the viewers) experience during the 5 seasons, Baltimore is still a home to so many people.

girl said...

this was am amazing post, thank you for writing it out.

Anonymous said...

http://tinyurl.com/2fu3fm

Sigh.

Anonymous said...

First, let me just say that this was one of the most satisfying finales of any show ever. That being said, was anyone else bothered by the Herc twist? If he was in on it with Levy from the start, why did he need to go through Levy's Rolodex secretly to get Marlo's number?

plot said...

Anon - I don't think Herc and Levy had a master plan, and Herc gave away Marlo's cell# according to Levy's orders. Did you notice how he snuck into Levy's office to get it?

Herc was completely amoral. His forces could be good or evil, depending on the circumstances. Like so many of the characters on The Wire, all Herc wanted was to be taken seriously and allowed to be one of the gang. If that gang was Levy's family or the cop tribe, it didn't matter to him. Herc just wanted to be on the inside of something without having to work very hard at it.

Andrew - I doubt very much The Greek cares what happens to Marlo. Marlo didn't have enough info to implicate The Greek, and very little to catch Thanos. What conversations were recorded or papers used that could be used as evidence?

the Greek has been in the business long enough to know some shipments are going to get confiscated by the cops. He also made sure that no one could trace it back to him even if Marlo turned on him. The Greek killed no one unless it was absolutely and completely necessary. He had no street honor to protect - no name to defend - after all, he wasn't even Greek.

Anonymous said...

plot, that's what I'm talking about with Herc. Why would he need to sneak into Levy's office to get Marlo's number if he was doing it on Levy's orders?

Anonymous said...

My take is that Levy communicated his intent to Herc in a way that gave Levy plausible deniabilty. Levy made a big show of putting the # in the Rolodex and commenting about future business in the event of a wiretap.

If he gave Herc the # and knew that Herc would give it to the BPD based on Levy's expressed desire to bring in more business, Levy would be disbarred assuming the facts came to light (or at he least could be).
Instead, he put the # where it would ordinarily be, but tacitly communicated his intent.

This way, if his client's peril is traced back to Levy, he could defend against the bar by pleading mere negligence (not that it would help him if Marlo was the one who found out). Meanwhile, he'd earn $$ by getting the result he wanted (Marlo being in legal hot water).

plot said...

dcdame, interesting. But then why did Levy seem so honestly confused by the question of who leaked the tap? Obfuscation?

No, Levy was honestly going through the process of figuring out how the cops got the wire tap so early. If he had planned on Herc giving the cops the number, then he wouldn't have gone through that process of wondering how the cops figured out Marlo's clock code so quickly.

Levy pointedly inserted that Rolodex card because he hadn't had such a profitable client since Avon Barksdale (Prop Joe never provided those big fee legal cases of Avon or Marlo.) Levy was savoring a new gold mine.

Anonymous said...

Of course it's too late for this, but for all the loose ends that have been tied up, one remains dangling.

No one has any idea what McNulty is going to do next.

Anonymous said...

As most others really enjoyed the finale, but I think the 'circle of life' theme was a bit overplayed and a bit heavy-handed - yes we get that things go on, but did we need to have someone stepping in to virtually every major character's role to get the point across? It was like being told, then text messaged, then getting a singing telegram, then beaten over the head with someone yelling do you get it yet?

While Michael stepping into Omar's role was fitting, perhaps it could have been a bit more subtle and not copied Omar to a 'T'... I half expected him to get sliced up a bit so he could get a scar as an identifying feature!

Unlike most I enjoyed the Prezbo-Dukie scene and felt it was fitting. Many said how could he fall for it, or if he knew it was a scam, why did he give him the money? I think it showed he wasn't completely beaten down and brought back the hope (or naivety?) that he showed starting out as a teacher in Season4. This was a good contrast to his handling of the students and depiction that he was getting the disciplinarian role of being a teacher. It tied in some of the hope (idealism?) in an earlier scene where he said he just wanted to work good cases and didn't care about making rank.

The Bubbs ending was phenomenal - though I was on the fence on whether he would slip back into his old habits. Yes it would have been harsh and went against what everything seemed to be leading to, but I think that change in direction also would have fit into the shows theme. Balancing this out with Dukie, though was in keeping with the show's philosophy.

Great write up!

Anonymous said...

Critics love the show, but Andre Royo, among many others, are Emmy-less. Why haven't voters embraced this remarkable cast in the way that they did so with The Sopranos? One can say that awards don't matter, but for actors they undoubtedly do. It's time for these folks to reap more than critical claim and audience love. The question is, how?

plot said...

Since the Emmys have seen fit to reward terrible shows like Will And Grace, and Desperate Housewives, and ignore The Wire, Buffy, Homicide, I don't even WANT one of their cheap little statues besmirching the best TV show ever.

Anonymous said...

I feel that Slim shooting cheese was stupid now there coming up short on the money at least wait till you get your funds strait then shot him idiot. Plus I liked Cheeses character Some say he was a backstabbing asshole or whatever but what true gangster isn't he did what he had to to get his money and even though it wasn't the most respectful route he did what he had to do

Anonymous said...

yeah 4:59, I think maybe you're looking for the HBO forums.

J. Pitts said...

I must have missed something, how did omar's legend extend to nyc hitmen?

Anonymous said...

Alan, You have often referenced the Greek's method of the Boss and his second.

My knowledge of Trivia of Simon's Baltimore or exact scene is nowhere near that of most people on this forum, but I do remember Cheese dealing with some of the Greek's minions who were pretty high up. One example would be Omar's stick up.
Viewing Slim's background mainly as chief enforcer in the Barksdale organization, and keeping in mind Cheese's more distribution related role during the entire season, it would be conceivable that Cheese was the Second who got to deal with Vondas and the Greek.
One argument lies in both Cheese and the Greek's camps activities: the actual transaction of drugs, in contrast to Slim's originally more enforcement related role.
Another argument for this would be that Cheese simply has been with Joe longer and after the Boris/Ziggy incident might have come into contact with the Greeks outfit.
Finally, I see Slim Charles' move of declaring that he is not CEO-material as mere anticipation. Marlo's approach to the Game as a dictator brought with it an expiration date for Marlo himself.
Slim was experienced enough to see that Marlo was to quote Frank: 'a HAZA'.

"This is a fundamental difference between the “old heads” (Avon, Slim, Omar, Rick) and the new generation (Marlo, Chris, Snoop, Michael, Kenard). It’s why the game got more fierce.

If I were Slim Charles, I would always keep an eye on those children. Never sleep on the kids. One of them just might blow your head off while you buy a pack of cigarettes."

Nas brought to this to our attention in 1994:

So now I'm jetting to the building lobby
and it was filled with children probably couldn't see as high as I be
(So whatchu sayin?) It's like the game ain't the same
Got younger niggaz pullin the triggers bringing fame to they name
and claim some corners, crews without guns are goners
In broad daylight, stickup kids, they run up on us
Fo'-fives and gauges, Macs in fact
Same niggaz'll catch a back to back, snatchin yo' cracks in black

If it wasn't Marlo who ended Joe, it would've been a rising Micheal, a surviving Bodie, colder after yet another war or some other young thug, a Randy out of the Group Home at 18, a Spider or Kennard.

What did Joe in was the exact same thing that has been praised by so many fans of the show. His illusions of a peaceful business model in a violent business.

The commentary on the parallels are very rooted in what I can only call old television viewing habits. Have we learned nothing from the Wire?
It is not about Micheals dissimiliarities in character with Omar. It is about the role he gets to play in the game as a stick up man. The irony of getting so much from the game: his skills, his income, the roof over his head, safety from his former molester, and his unwillingness to accept those things, his tendency to only take and question.
Snoop correctly observes that he was never like Snoop or Chris. Micheal did not sell his soul. He took the advantages, but still wanted to pass judgement, question command, and rebel against the institution that fed and protected him. Micheal's hesitation makes his superiors question his loyalty.
His independent spirit landed him into the role of a stick up man.
He never had the loyalty of a Monk, a Wee-bay, a Chris or a Snoop.
Him getting rid of Dukie, who was destined to be a Junkie, in the same way Wallace was, for being weak in this concrete jungle, was him finally becoming a man. Dukie was of no use to anyone, never stood a chance and anyone who cared the slightest bit about someone like him, is completely unfamiliar with innercity life, drug epidemics or today's generation.

Marlo is one of the greatest single characters this show has spwaned, because he is the total personification of our generation. Where 2pac and Nas had their revolutionary backgrounds and their introspectives, 50 Cent has a billianaire dream.
Where Micheal Jordan played golf and had a Charismatic off-court personality, LeBron James is a basketball mercenary who gets rich off the game, and whose only team spirit comes from a better understanding of the effectiviness of the basketball machine.
Where Al Pacino and Kevin Spacey would take time off million dollar projects to do Shakespeare in theater and Travolta flies his jets across the globe, Christian Bale lands himself the lead in two of the most lucrative franchises in film history.
Tristan Wilds' critical Wire performance landed him a starring role in the biggest music video of 2007 and the most hyped mainstream TV teen show in years. Not to mention right onto Forbes young entertainers list for 2009 or 2010.
Larry Gilliard Junior was last seen on Hollywood boulevard carrying a 'will act foor food'-sign.
Jamie Hector landed a role on Heroes and in Max Payne. I love Wood Harris, but can't say that he capitalized on the chances he had.

In short, the new generation is more effective, if less likeable and the Wire, and this episode in particular reflect that perfectly.

Jake said...

Alan, I have been watching the entire series on DVD, and following along with the recaps you've done for three of the seasons. Just wanted to say thanks for doing this--especially because I'm not watching at the same time as the rest of the internet, it has been helpful and interesting to read these along the way. If you ever get around to seasons 2 and 3 I will probably have to start the series all over again (so I hope you do!).

And yeah, it was a fitting finale for a pretty great show.

Anonymous said...

I wanted to see an Avon scene where he's running things from jail. It would have been cool for him to be the one who gave the $$ to Slim ro run things until he got out.

Karen said...

Wow. Just....wow.

I went through all 5 seasons in about 16 days. I am FRIED.

First of all, thank you, Alan, for making the experience of watching this amazing show so much fuller through your insightful reviews.

Or, maybe, first of all, thanks to David Simon (and Ed Burns and Richard Price and Dennis Lehane et al.) for such a powerful and brilliant experience.

So, some thoughts.

On Rawls and homosexuality: I think it's kind of cool that Simon didn't go with Chekhov's maxim about the gun in the first act. I did keep expecting the "gun" to go off in the third act, and was expecting it to be part of the Steintorf/Rawls "road to Damascus" moment: I thought Steintorf was going to blackmail him with it (it seems implausible that no one else has ever discovered this fact about Rawls). So, when the last shot faded and I realized that they never bothered to address it in any substantive way, I actually thought that was kind of cool. It gave us more information about Rawls, it made him a more textured character, but it never had to become an issue.

It was interesting that the one thing that got Marlo agitated was the notion that his name had been tarnished. His name was so important to him, his reputation was so important--but when he went back on the streets in his business suit, those kids weren't talking about him, they were talking about Omar. (Sigh. My beloved Omar.) Omar's is the name that's going to live on in the Bawlmer streets, and Marlo is already forgotten.

The progression from Avon, who had more than his share of personality, to Marlo, who seemed as cold as a gangster could get, to Kenard was shattering. Kenard was cold from the start, from the first scene he was in. Marlo showed some gentleness in his final scene with Prop Joe; one senses that Kenard would never display any softness at all. Each generation on the street gets raised by the colleagues and the victims of the previous generation--there's no possible forward progress there. There's not even stasis. I shudder to think what the kids of West Baltimore will be like by the time Kenard and his ilk are running things.

As some others have mentioned, the complaints about "parallelitis" aren't entirely strong: it's not that Dukie is the new Bubbles, it's that he's an example of yet another bright, promising, personable kid who--for whatever reason--gets sucked into the life of a fiend. Over the seasons you could see how smart Bubbles was and what a sweet soul he had; what must he have been like as a teenager! His tragedy is not unique, so Dukie is not stepping into his shoes. They both stand in for hundreds, if not thousands, of other great kids whose lives are cut short by this plague on the streets.

Karen said...

And Michael--yeah, he was an independent thinker, which kept getting him in trouble with Snoop and Chris. Omar must have been a pretty independent thinker, too. And a pretty tempting model, as well. What other models does Michael have for creating a life outside the drug trade AND outside the law? What options does he have for a normal life? It makes sense that he would take Omar as an example. At least he wasn't wearing a duster.

Daniels would never have gone to work as a prosecutor, I don't think, because it would have meant working within that same corrupt system--answerable to the corrupt mayor, beholden to a politics-playing DA, etc. It would have eaten him from the inside. It's true that being a defense attorney means he's working to put back on the street the guys he used to spend his life trying to put away--but, as long as he doesn't become a lowlife like Levy, it also allows him to uphold the purest goals of the Constitution, which is that everyone get a fair trial. He likes ideals, and if he picks his cases well he can still uphold them, and maintain a certain independence.

I was surprised not to see Clay in the closing montage. Was our last view of him really flipping on Gary Dipasquale in a cocktail lounge? It seems a squalid end for him; I expected to see him holding up someone's arm in triumph in front of some graft-riddled city project.

And finally: the railroad tracks. To me, they always represented another death in Baltimore--one of the first great industries to die. The B&O railroad was one of the nation's great institutions; one of the oldest railroads in the country. The B&O helped build Baltimore into a great shipping and manufacturing center. But then it went bankrupt, and then came the interstate highway system, and now most of those rail lines that brought such prosperity to Baltimore are just rusted and overgrown. And that's where Jimmy and Bunk--and Lester, and Kima--hang out. To me it was always very fitting, and I was surprised no one ever mentioned it.

Karen said...

Oh, geez, one last thing that I didn't see anywhere in the comments--the pleasure Daniels took in awarding Carver his promotion to lieutenant was in many ways a tribute to the way he handled Carver being Rawls' mole in the unit so many years before. That lecture he gave Carver, and the seriousness with which he delivered it, clearly took with Carver, as we saw him embrace community policing, get to know the street kids, and stand tall as an example to his men. It must have been particularly sweet to be the commissioner overseeing Carver's latest success.

I'm going to miss this show so much--but it will be nice to go back to normal life, too!

Andy Hutchins said...

Running through a list of comments/explanations:

We just have to accept that while Avon and Stringer needed each other to control the West side, Marlo can succeed—in a quotidian sense—because he had Chris and Snoop, with no other details.

Chris and Snoop killed 22 people in the most coldly efficient manner anyone on this show was killed. The generated fear -- and the removal of just about every mid-level player who could have been a threat if Marlo had let insult come to injury -- isn't enough to keep the hoppers in line?

On Chris and Wee-Bey being buddies, but not Avon:

Both Chris and Wee-Bey are doing murder bids (or bits; the show uses both words) while Avon's in on, of all things, weapons. I know Wire B'more is screwed up enough that prisons might be too, but I can accept that murderers and weapon-carriers might be in different parts of the prison system. Also, Avon, as we saw him earlier this season, does not fit with those two; they are serious and he is, as he always was, healthily infatuated with being both the clown prince and the king.

On "The notebook was blank" and Scott's fabulism being an individual failure:

You remember the seven seconds we got in the early stages of this season, when Alma wakes up after a night with Scott and goes to get the Sun? They were dating, and she never asked him about the notes? That's a bias that contributes to the problem. So is the London bureau writer not wanting his name on the background work. So is Twigg getting bought out -- as someone else noted, the cop saying there was no grey van could have been seized on, but Landsman notes that he was fending off calls from anguished citizens, and he surely wasn't going to spend time talking to the newspaper whose building he wanted to burn down, but Twigg, just maybe, could have gotten a higher-up on the horn. (Scott burning Daniels, likewise, hurt.) Basically, the newspaper storyline made a lot of sense to me, as a lot of little things, bits of self-preservation here and economic realities there, contributed to letting a guy write fiction and win a Pulitzer.

It wasn't all on him, and it wasn't all Gus heroically trying to save the franchise of journalism, either.

I don't have too many quibbles with Simon/Burns setting S5 in a news world that only briefly touches on the Internet, but it seems to me like a Gus Haynes figure in 2008 and onward would be able to out a fabulist/plagiarist on a blog and take the possible loss of job without reeling, the media-obsessed media's attention helping him stay on his feet.

On Marlo going legit:

Man, did I ever have a flash to "Ozymandias" after Marlo dispatched the corner boys. "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair" indeed. Can't imagine he stays straight forever: He'll get burned how Stringer did, and try to get back with vigilante justice, and that won't end well.

On Slim:

Slim-as-samurai works so well that it's hard to poke holes in it, but it's also true that Omar put a gun to his neck because Cheese let Joe get got. Revenge? Maybe.

On Valchek:

I don't believe I have laughed harder at The Wire than when I saw Valchek get named Commissioner. It's a perfect, perfect cap to the BPD bungling everything. But, as Alan often notes, it's instructive to wrap your head around the idea that the germ of the reason he is now Commissioner is because his daughter married Prez. That's why Prez, then considered the hump of all humps for shooting up his own car, gets detailed to the Barksdale case in the first place, remember?

On this show:

Best I have ever seen, and probably the best I will ever see, should I let sentimentality get into it. Thank you, Alan, so much, for your painstaking care to evaluating this piece of art both as fan and critic, and shepherding an Internet full of part-timers through Balmer with only a few scars.

Unknown said...

Just finished up watching the Wire for the first time. Just wanted thank Alan (and everyone) for the great conversation. This made it much easier for me to follow everything that was going on in this series. In turn I got more out of the episodes because I knew all the characters/plots.

Chess said...

Hey Alan,
I also just started and finished the series in the last month and want to say thank you and that your write-ups were a great companion to the series. I do have a question about this last episode, and though I know this forum comment page is ancient, I didn't really know who or how else to ask. Is that Raylene's (Michael's mom) body in the scene where Kima and Bunk are investigating a murder on the sidewalk where William Gant was killed? I thought that right away when I was watching it (before I realized the significance of the sidewalk) but I have seen no mention of it by you or anyone else online. Is my mind playing tricks on me or was that her?

Anonymous said...

Also chiming in WAY late (yeah, I was one of those people who got "The Wire" via Netflix and it transfixed my summer and transformed my life ...

Amazing analysis, review and thoughts here and though it's crazy and small stuff, wanted to share my two "wishes" for what might be ...

A) Was it my imagination but or in the scene when Slim killed Cheese, had Cheese said that he had the extra money for the co-op because he'd inherited Prop Joe's house? If so, my fantasy is that when he dies, Randy is his sole heir and is able to get out of the foster home and find new life.

B) I also, for some crazy reason, got a vibe (never confirmed) that in the final ep when Shardene is looking over Lester's shoulder as he works on his miniatures, she is pregnant and that his mini's will go to a dollhouse for their little girl.

Yeah, I'm a sap.

Ahmedkhan said...

I have to offer my opinion about the most heartbreaking scene in the entire series, because it differs with any opinion I've ever seen posted on-line, on this or any other forum.

Ahead of even the murder of Wallace (Gawd, I still hate those two "bitches," Poot and Bodie, for doing that), and the kick-in-the-gut shot of Dukie about to shoot up, I would place at the top of all the heartbreaking scenes the opening scene of Season Two, Episode 9, in which the mother comes upon her dead 9 year old sun who has caught a stray bullet from that senseless gun battle precipitated by Bodie's turf war with the other drug dealer. (Two of my top three heartbreaking scenes involve Bodie and guns - that's some bad juju, Preston).

Here is an ordinary, decent American mother trying to raise her kids responsibly, getting them ready for school, and this falls on her. This is reality and it is almost more than I can bear.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Alan I know Im ridiculously late to the party but Ive read all your reveiews since season 2 and your reviews are all incredibly insightful. I wouldh have never caught half of all the clever meanings behind storylines, heck I would probably not even know Sydnors name if not for the reviews. Great job, keep it up!

Anonymous said...

I just finished the entire series (very late to the game) and watched the finale tonight.

I am sad and happy for Lester at the same time. Happy for his ending, but sad that a department has to let someone that brilliant go. Same with Cedric, but glad he still has Ronnie, and look at her in those judge's robes! :) The department lost all those who could bring good and keeps those who are ineffective. The same exact thing happens often in the schools, in the world of teaching.

How stupid is Herc to give Carver Marlo's phone number, then blow the entire deal to get on Levy's good side? Makes NO sense to me. And how stupid is Carver to trust dumb Herc? Really, Herc has to be the most ignorant character on the show, and he did not deserve anything remotely close to a happy ending.

Thank goodness Bubbs not only survived, but thrived. I feared for his life all through the show. I wish I could have seen Kima reading the article about Bubbs.

My anger at Mr. Simon is with the fate of the boys (and I still wish Carver had gone back for Randy!!), but more than anything I am angry that Herc and Levy didn't get theirs. THAT is what I was waiting for....but I honestly was not holding my breathe. This is The Wire, after all.

Melack said...

Subtle and realistic is overrated sometimes. The show has done subtle and realistic better than any other show ever, they deserve to put some more on the nose, deliberate storytelling and melodramatic stuff in there too. Greek tragedies and myths are an influence after all. Personally I absolutely loved the Michael as Omar scene, just as an example. Him using a shotgun was more deliberate than the show usually is, but that doesn't make it less awesome.

I'm weak for that full/endless circle storytelling and that's what The Wire has been about since the beginning. And this last episode is all about going full circle and tying things together. Even straight out mirroring scenes and lines from the first episode, when done great as it is here, it's damn exciting and satisfying storytelling.

Anonymous said...

watched s1-s3 about 5 years ago when s5 was starting off i believe and it was known then s5 would be the last one.

loved s1-s3.
dived into each episode head first.

then waited 3 years to watch s4 though i had the whole series.

why? I didnt want the wire to be over.


3 years i waited and was rewarded with the excellent s4. the penultimate episode was devastating. i couldnt believe it. i knew i had to delay s5 as long as i possibly could.

only was able to hold out 1 year, (hopefully Reginald can hold out much longer), finally saw s5 over these holidays.

loved it as well.
amazing series.
not enough can be said about it.
perhaps we can get Templeton to come up with the words.

Thanks David Simon.
And Thanks Alan for the wonderful companionship via your reviews, it made it feel as i'm watching and discussing with a good close friend reading your reviews in between every few episodes.

GillE said...

Wow, The Wire...I have nothing to add that hasn't been said before by people more eloquent that me. Thank you, Alan, for the reviews of each of the episodes - surely your magnus opus?!?!

DD said...

I just finished a 6 week rewatch of the series. I looked forward to Alan's episode recaps as much as I did each episode. An amazing television series all the years later.

I chuckled at the comment about Hill Street Blues in the 80's, Homicide in the 90's, The Wire/Sopranos/Deadwood after that. Little did we all know at the time of writing coming soon were Mad Men, The Americans, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul.

Here's to another 30 years of great television.

Thank you, Alan.

DD

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