Sorry, man. I couldn't wait. I promise I'll buy the DVDspollo said:oh wtf, you've all seen the last episode already?
Nicodimas said:Sad to see the show is over...No neat finish..like the crtics were saying...
Everyone is corrupt in the end.
gketter said:not everyone just the ones that move up
lol you say that like it's a good thing.pollo said:You can make an argument that Slim is now on top instead of that shitbird Cheese...
gketter said:i just love the symmetry of how it all ends. Everytime a piece of the machine is removed another fills that void.
Kima is the new McNulty
Sydnor is the new Lester
Michael is the new Omar
Dookie is the new Bubbles
etc
its sad that the show is over, but i'm also glad a show like this got to exist for 5 years, and from beginning to end was simply awesome. Not many shows can say that. Its by far HBO's best work, and it'll be looked on even more favorably now that its over and on DVD than when it was airing.
When it premiered in 2002, series creator and former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon set out with grand ambitions of social commentary and novelistic storytelling. An ''angry show,'' he's called it, aimed squarely at the problems in our cities and our inability to solve them.
Looking back, Simon doesn't believe ''The Wire'' has changed anything. Instead, he says the days are gone where fiction altered the political landscape, like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852 or Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in 1906.
''I actually have lesser expectations for storytelling, even for journalism in modern times,'' says Simon. ''The best journalism and the best storytelling used to outrage people. In these times, people are inured to outrage.''
gketter said:i just love the symmetry of how it all ends. Everytime a piece of the machine is removed another fills that void.
Kima is the new McNulty
Sydnor is the new Lester
Michael is the new Omar
Dookie is the new Bubbles
KdoubleA said:Wait....How is Kima the new McNulty?? If anything, that's Sydnor...He's the one going behind the brass's back to talk to the judge now...In fact, Kima is the total opposite of Jimmy "Vic Mackey" McNulty.
I think he's saying that because of the scene at the end with Kima and Bunk, in which Bunk gives her a speech similar to one he gave Jimmy. But, yeah, I agree with you that Sydnor is represented as the new McNulty. Kima is good police, but she's content (with a good mood or bad) to stay within chain of command -- something that's outside of McNulty's personality.KdoubleA said:Wait....How is Kima the new McNulty?? If anything, that's Sydnor...He's the one going behind the brass's back to talk to the judge now...In fact, Kima is the total opposite of Jimmy "Vic Mackey" McNulty.
gketter said:Bunk chastises her for taking the call and "giving a fuck when its not her turn". Thats the same lines he used on McNulty. Also her personality about sleeping around and hell even that scenario where she's trying to build that ikea furniture was a callback to Season 1 McNulty.
Sydnor is going behind the back, but thats something Lester did as well(way before Season 1). Plus he's been trained by lester and will be one all about the wiretaps and following the money
I think one comparison being overlooked is Carver as the new Daniels. They both had a shady past with drug money (Daniel's file; Carver pocketing drug money) before becoming straight and quickly moving up the ranks). Both ran the Western toogketter said:i just love the symmetry of how it all ends. Everytime a piece of the machine is removed another fills that void.
Kima is the new McNulty
Sydnor is the new Lester
Michael is the new Omar
Dookie is the new Bubbles
etc
its sad that the show is over, but i'm also glad a show like this got to exist for 5 years, and from beginning to end was simply awesome. Not many shows can say that. Its by far HBO's best work, and it'll be looked on even more favorably now that its over and on DVD than when it was airing.
That's a stretch. Daniels must've done something really bad.sangreal said:I think one comparison being overlooked is Carver as the new Daniels. They both had a shady past with drug money (Daniel's file; Carver pocketing drug money) before becoming straight and quickly moving up the ranks). Both ran the Western too
Battersea Power Station said:That's a stretch. Daniels must've done something really bad.
I'm sure you can be a straight cop and still pocket a stash of street bills; that's probably a given for them.
Tyrone Slothrop said:what happened to marlo on the street corner at the end? i was distracted and only sawblood on his sleeve. And there was something on the ground on the sidewalk. did he get shot in the arm or something?
Nicodimas said:My burning question is: Where does McNulty go from here? I honestly think he would go the fbi route via his buddy, but the show implied hes going to be a family man and I did not buy that. Everyone I can slot preety well except him.
Oh, come on. The Wire fans have been part of something truly special and something, like you say, that will never come again. Let's not fuck it up with infighting. People can have a different favorite season, often because of personal reasons.BenjaminBirdie said:How are people playing like this wasn't the best season of The Wire, hands down?
Clevinger said:The show made the point a few times that McNulty is a decent man when he's not in Homocide, but when he is it easily consumes him and his life.
Also, here's a new David Simon interview about the seires/finale.
http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2008/03/10/simon/
Battersea Power Station said:Oh, come on. The Wire fans have been part of something truly special and something, like you say, that will never come again. Let's not fuck it up with infighting. People can have a different favorite season, often because of personal reasons.
Is it true that Donnie (Andrews, the inspiration for Omar) in real life jumped off a balcony the same height that Omar did?
Actually, two floors higher.
Two floors higher?
The Murphy Homes. He also jumped off the rail bridge at Poplar Grove, onto the rail bed. That was probably about three stories. And he hurt his ankle. It's just true. Those jumps, by an athletic person, can actually be made and are made, routinely. By a non-athletic person? if I made it, I'd be all over the pavement and they'd pick me up with a spoon. If you made it, they'd pick you up with a spoon. When 28-year-old Donnie Andrews makes that jump because he has to, sometimes he makes it. It's funny: I'm doing this thing now with recon Marines, "Generation Kill." And some of them had no problem with the jump. They just started telling stories about recon training. I don't know whether to believe them or not, but I do believe Donnie.
It was a story I actually used, I wrote about the first time back in 1990. That story was all through the ghetto: "They had him cornered, and motherf---er jumped off the railroad bridge and kept running. Did not want to die that day." But we did want it to feel a little bit mythic, and "What the f--k?" because it fit with the general arc of Greek tragedy.
BenjaminBirdie said:This one is really really REALLY fantastic:
http://blog.nj.com/alltv/2008/03/the_wire_david_simon_q_a.html
Q: Do you think you could have gotten The Wire on HBO today, or was it the halo effect of "Sopranos" and other shows at the time that made it possible?
A: They signed the deal with me to write it, and "Sopranos" wasn't on the air yet. Obviously, Sopranos was on the way. But I was coming at it after "Oz." "Oz" was, to me, the groundbreaker and the one that made me believe that "The Corner" could be on HBO, and "The Corner" gave me entree to talk to Carolyn about a continuing show. When "Sopranos" came out, we were already working on "The Wire," I believe.
Having said that, there was a notion that they could almost put anything over, that if it was good enough they could sell it to everybody. And I think there was a little hubris in that, because "Check me out, dog. My cast is 60 percent black and my story is all this dysfunction and I'm filmed in Baltimore and nothing makes sense until episode 4. Come get me." I think I disproved the theory that HBO could sell anything to everybody! I taught them a lesson, didn't I?
BenjaminBirdie said:God damn.
There's never going to be another show like this, my friends.
I have to say, the scene that gutted me the most was McNulty in The Tank with Homeless Killer. Just devastating.
Couldn't think of a better, more satisfying ending, or a better season.
How are people playing like this wasn't the best season of The Wire, hands down?
Timbuktu said:I watched the finale early and it's still sinking in. I was surprised by the symmetry that a proper (non-Sopranos) ending gave the series. I some parts it feels a bit heavy-handed e.g. Sydnor talking to Phelan, Michael becoming Omar because I felt that those misfit characters are unique and would only come along once in a while. What I loved was how subtly Marlo brought back memories of Stringer and Avon, how Cedric made the right choice or how Slim Charles shot Cheese in the head. So many characters landed on their feet against all odds. No everyone got what they deserved, but almost no one we cared about ended up completely devastated, which seemed impossible a few episodes back. I was pretty upset about Dukie and feel gutted for Alma, but overall I felt people ended up better off than they would in reality. How much is The Wire like McNulty's homeless killer story? It's more real than Dexter, which it drew references to this season, but still it is a piece of fiction. "Everybody is getting what they need behind some make-believe. as Norman says. And I think The Wire is alluding to itself somehow, showing itself as a piece of fiction and being comfortable with it, asking us why we're caring so much about the show and what it takes to make us care about the real thing.
.Tim Goodman said:"The Wire." The end.
It's fitting that David Simon dubbed this episode, "#30#" - old school journalism for the end of the story. There was a lot that was fitting in the last episode. So much to write about. And yet, not. I could probably go on and on - yeah, like I haven't already on this blog and in The Chronicle - but at some point you can't say anymore. I wonder if Simon and his stable of writers ever thought that. They did one of the best jobs of telling a complete and compelling story as has ever been done on television. It was thorough and detailed and nuanced and complicated and touching and pointed - on and on. I'm not sure another season would have added more glory to the gold.
And, after putting this last episode off for a very long time - I just couldn't bring myself to watch it early - it's incredibly sad to see it go. And when it was over, I just sat back, arms crossed, and thought on it. And the best I could really come up with is, "Great as usual. What else can you say?" I mean, I may ultimately end up writing more and more about this as the weeks pass, but I honestly don't have too much to say other than the last episode ever didn't let me down. There's something comfortable in that. This series went out as brilliantly as it came in, and I say that knowing finales to seasons are difficult enough, but finales to series are impossible to pull off. No one will ever be entirely happy - perhaps not even the series creator or the writers themselves. Endings are hard. Everybody knows that.
I suspect people might be split into two camps - loving the extended montages that wrapped up so many storylines (which held true to "Wire" tradition) and those who might have preferred a more "Sopranos"-esque ending that left more up to interpretation and left characters and storylines in the ether. Me, I liked the tidy ending because it has been done in the past and hasn't detracted from the quality and, more importantly, why not reward people who have watched five seasons of the most complicated, novelistic stories ever told on television? Hell, "The Wire" is hard work. Always has been. There's no shame in a reward for the effort.
Two things: 1) It ended as about as satisfying as I'd hoped. I loved it. I wanted no more from it - or at least I feel that asking for something more and better and different than what we got would be some unseemly shit. So yeah - I loved it. Period. 2) As a television critic, I hate to see "The Wire" go. Because even though I have faith in other storytellers - and in tales heretofore untold, at least with "The Wire" I know I've seen the best. Everything else to this point is 2nd best. So that passing - it's never good. As a critic, I want to be able to dissect the best that television has to offer. And for five seasons, that was one unbelievably great run. So, without question, it's a little bit of a downer knowing that the crown is retired.
Onward...
A very quick recap, just to credit the writers for deftly closing so many of the complicated plots they uncorked at the start. This was an ambitious season, storytelling-wise, and though many people (including me) had doubts early on, I think all the strands came together just beautifully and were told supremely well. And the wonderful aspect to it all is that most of the main players don't get the justice or end-result they most deserve because it would collapse the machine from the inside. Institutional failure through and through. We saw that in Season 1, Ep. 1. And we saw it here in the series finale. Ass covering of the highest and lowest order. Let's start in reverse this time. Seems fitting.
Once the lie gets found out and the damage is not exactly done - please say you didn't expect swift and complete justice - all that's left is the accounting:
+ McNulty quits. He appears to make good with Beadie. As his last televised act, he brings the homeless guy back home. The question is, of course, what next? We'll never know. Is he happy? Can he NOT be po-lice? Make of it what you will.
+ Lester retires. He's looking pretty happy with those miniatures.
+ Marlo's out of the game. And into real estate? Somewhere Stringer Bell had a good laugh. But that was never Marlo's role. He was never meant to play that. So he gets back in the game. No need to guess what will eventually happen if he lives past the election. There's only two options.
+ Herc is buying drinks using the expense account, like Levy said. Looks like he'll be doing whatever Levy says from now on and forever. Still mucking it up in the future - no doubt.
+ Scott got his Pulitzer. The bigger the lie.
+ Greeks in business with Slim Charles, et al. The game goes on.
+ Carcetti wins. The sell-out is complete.
+ Fletcher takes over when Gus is moved to the copy desk. But Gus is proud of him. And Gus, well, he bleeds ink. Journalism is what he does. Anyone who thought he'd just walk - forget it. This is more real.
+ Alma's in the deepest of bureaus. Punished for trying to mess up the glory.
+ Valchek! Man, that was one big laugh. Fits like a glove!
+ Dukie shooting up. The evolution into the new Bubs is complete.
+ Pearlman as a judge. Daniels as a lawyer. And happy together.
+ Chris getting with Wee Bey - a lot of muscle coming together. Two lifers standing strong.
+ Michael as the new Omar. Savvy fans saw this and the Dukie fate coming a while ago.
+ Bubs at the dinner table. Finally.
+ Kennard busted. Inevitable.
Corruption and politics, lies concealed, same as it ever was...Yep, this was the grayest of all grays, this series. It nailed human behavior and the actions of institutions and the people within them pretty damned well.
Tidbits from the episode (see, I knew I couldn't be as short as I promised....)
+ Carcetti apoplectic in the opening scene as the lie, in full bloom, was explained to him. A fine job of acting there.
+ Everybodys getting what they need behind some make believe. Norman.
+ I wish I was still at the newspaper so I could write on this mess. Its too fucking good. Norman.
+ Oh, I wouldnt worry about Bill Rawls. I believe hes about to have one of those road to Damascus moments. Norman, absolutely owning the front of the show
+ The Prezbo cameo. A bearded man. But also a wiser man. Jaded? At the very least, he knew that was the last time he'd ever help Duquan.
+ Short of any new leads, what can I do? I cant make shit up, can I? McNutty. Oh, that was rich.
+ The look on Jimmys face when Freamon says they know everything.
+ Why arent we fired? Why arent we in fucking bracelets? McNutty. I loved this moment of suspended animation, when we all realized that the lie meant everybody was going to hit the ground a little softer than expected. Bounce, even. It was situational ethics across the board.
+ I like how the direction went back to the black and white surveillance camera shots of yore.
+ Governor restores homeless cuts and the Sun takes credit for it based on its coverage when it was really Carcettis politics in play.
+ I expect to be back in the pawn shop unit and you my brother are gonna ride the boat. Or not, Freamon. And maybe the "not" was better than expected, too.
+ Bubs moral complexity is great. Mans making me seem special for doing what the fuck I need to be doing. He doesnt want the good stuff to get out. Doesnt think hes worth it. This is Bubs cross. Who knew he was Irish?
+ How long before Scott might have killed one of the homeless himself for a story?
+ Bunk: How are you not in jail? McNutty: I dont know. The lie is so big, people cant live with it, I guess.
+ Scott: Youre not serious? McNulty: No. Im a fucking joke. And so are you.
+ The shot of the door closing after Scott walks out of Homicide thats a call back to the very first episode when the director was trying to help explain who the hell everyone was - a series of closing doors suggested which department they were in - as this rapidly unfolding series pandered to no one from minute one.
+ Levy explains the details to Marlo: You understand? Marlo: Give up the crown.
+ Herc: Just doing what I do. Yeah, Herc, screwing it all up royally.
+ The tree that doesnt bend breaks, Cedric. - Marla Daniels. Bend too far and youre already broken. - Cedric Daniels.
+ Slim Charles killed Cheese. That was for Joe.
+ There you go, giving a fuck when it aint your turn to give a fuck. Bunk to Kima, both of them back out doing police work, by the book.
+ Sydnor going to Judge Phelan, ala Jimmy in the first season. Just keep my name out of it. Yeah, that will happen.
+ Marlo turns into Stringer Bell? Ha. And Clay Davis there to see it. No doubt hell get his hands in one of those deep pockets. But Marlo walks out. Its not him. He wants to be back running corners, maybe back to the beginning, the thrill of it all. Bloodthirsty, for sure. Rebuild the crown maybe?
+ And Michael becomes Omar. Shotgun, too. On purpose no doubt.
+ Lots of loving shots of Baltimore on the montage. A final nod. A city that gave its all to great television.
+ Nerese and the Daniels file. You knew it would pop back. And Daniels would have stayed put if not for his ex's career ambition. A fine man, even in the end.
+ Natural po-lice. - Landsman at McNulty's fake wake. McNulty did the right thing, too. He walked away. It gave everyone the chance to remember the good. Landsman's send off: He was the black sheep. The permanent pariah. He asked no quarter of the bosses and none was given. He learned no lessons. He acknowledge no mistakes. He was as stubborn a Mick has ever stumbled out of the North East parishes to take a patrolmans shield. He brooked no authority. He did what he wanted to do and he said what he wanted to say. In the end, he gave you the clearances. Hes natural po-lice.
+ That, of course, will have a lot of people talking. McNulty's fate. His decision. How he was sent out and remembered and, apparently, forgiven. Only right, then, that he forgave Kima (so did Lester).
+ The shot of McNulty laughing on the table great.
+ Lester's time in: 32 years. 4 months.
+ McNulty? He gave us 13 years on the line. Not enough for a pension .
+ Landsman: Brother, when you was good, you were the best we had.
+ And with that, it's time to put on "The Body of An American" by the Pogues and sing it like you mean it.
+ Here's to "The Wire." When it was great it was the best we ever had.
Phantast2k said:Superb finale for an amazing tv drama, although the resolution for Dookie's story was very tragic.
Now I'm interested in the next big HBO crime series. They must be planning something, right?
Oz (1997-2003) -> The Wire (2002-2008)/The Sopranos (1999-2007) -> ??
Otherwise all the actors who migrated from Oz to The Wire will be out of work :/
Lester's girl? They've been shown together a few times since season 1.DaCocoBrova said:Anyone else peep the stripper from Season 1...or was it 3? Anyway, that's 'Charlene'.
Last I read, Milch is doing a 70's era cop show in NYC for HBO.BenjaminBirdie said:After Generation Kill, Simon is pitching a show about musicos in NO. Milch, I believe, also has something in the cooker.
Cornballer said:Last I read, Milch is doing a 70's era cop show in NYC for HBO.
:lol I know, sounds like a good setup for him, as does the New Orleans concept that David Simon is working on.BenjaminBirdie said:Last I read, I need a new pair of jeans, pronto.
Cornballer said:I'm watching McNulty own Templeton again. Soooooooo good!
"You're not serious..."
"No, I'm a fucking joke. And so are you. Now get the fuck out of here."