There will be no re-up. No new connect. “The Wire,” is down for good and yes, we’re still giving the show an extended eulogy (to paraphrase Sgt. Landsman on McNulty, “when they were good, they were the best we had”). Most people’s reminiscing is over, but there’s a few pieces we just had to include. MTV has done a great job of charting where the extended Bmore players will land and Entertainment Weekly put together a nice photo essay on the show’s top 15 moments. Some selects from both in a minute.
The finale was apparently watched by 1.1 million people and according to HBO, another 700,000 viewers watched an 11 p.m. replay, making for a 1.8 million total viewers on Sunday night. By comparison, HBO’s “The Sopranos” conclusion brought in 11.9 million viewers, but let’s face it, “The Wire,” never really got its due or had the same cultural sweep as Tony and his pals did (but the Baltimore drama was seriously a much, much deeper investment).
The 6th Season That Got Away: Simon Wanted To Get All Latino On Your Ass
There even could have been a sixth season had series creator David Simon and his writers had more time to invest into the show.
“I would’ve love to include a season that was thematically about immigration. I’ve said before, none of the writers are familiar with Latino culture–we don’t have any Spanish speakers among the veteran writers of the show–but more than that, we would have been willing to learn and to embrace it. The problem was by the time we thought of it, we were working on Season 4, and–as you can see from the last season – Season 5 had to be the concluding season. So we would have been inserting the immigration theme as the penultimate season and we’d been off the air long enough at the time we thought of this that to do the research properly we would have remained off the air for a year and a half, two years. And at that point, it becomes problematic–to hold the actors, we needed to speak to what we had at hand. But having said that, that is a theme that I think would have been really fruitful.”
Two of our favorite scenes from EW’s 15 picks is the brilliant and completely hilarious, “Fuck bullets scene” from Season 1 Episode 4. As they wrote:
Watching Bunk, chomping on his cigar, and McNulty methodically work a crime scene was one of ‘The Wire’s richest pleasures. In the victim’s kitchen, their whole dialogue is one variation or another on a most satisfying swear word [fuuuuuck]. Actors Wendell Pierce and Dominic West, brilliant both of them, make it sound like Shakespeare. Suck on this, network crime procedurals.
Another classic sequence was the Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell come to jesus meet at the end of Season 3. The two best friends basically talk around everything they actually mean. Both of them can smell it in the air too; they know that the other knows. The subtext is goodbye before the big betrayal.
EW: Just a couple of old friends, brothers really, reminiscing over a good view and booze. ”I told your ass not to steal a badminton net!” Avon remembers telling Stringer when they were kids. The love flowing back and forth is really a goodbye, as Avon knows he’s setting his friend up. ”Us, motherf—er,” he says, hitting Stringer’s fist. ”Us, man.’
Another heart breaker was the Bodie/McNulty scene practically taken straight out of Loony Toons cartoon where Wile E. Coyote and The Sheep Dog take a time out from trying to kill one another to sit down, share lunch and chat like civilized people. “This game is rigged,” Bodie says foreshadowing his own demise and realizing the game has outgrown him via a newer generation with an lesser street code than the one he valued. As painful a scene as you’ll see on television.
And of course pretty much every scene with the former-asshole cop turned redeemed teacher Prezbo and his fated, too-smart-for-the-streets pupil Dookie were always hard to watch.
It’s interesting to see where you’ll see these amazing and thoughtful actors next and MTV has done a great job of charting their next projects.
Jamie Hector aka Marlo Stanfield might have finished the show at the crossroads of the street and his new business life (“the great irony is that Marlo ends up being granted what Stringer wanted — and he has no use for it.,” David Simon explained) apparently will have a part in the Biggie Smalls biopic “Notorious” as Notorious B.I.G.’s best friend, Damien “D-Rock” Butler and also has secured a role in Mos Def’s upcoming film “Bury Me Standing.”
Melvin “Cheese” Wagstaff otherwise known as Method Man obviously has a hip-hop career, but he also shines as a Jamaican weed connect in the hip-hop heavy 1994-set drama “The Wackness” which is due in the summer.
Namond and Poot both have burgeoning hip-hop careers, (Namond will actually use the characters name for his MC tag; Poot has already cut his first album and single), and Michael (nee Tristan Wilds) will take time away from being a face of Jay-Z’s Rocawear clothing line to appear next to Queen Latifah in the adaptation of “The Secret Lives Of Bees.”
And then there’s Omar (Michael Kenneth Williams). He’ll appear in Spike Lee’s upcoming World War II drama “Miracle at St. Anna” with James “Tony Soprano” Gandolfini and an appearance in this summer “The Incredible Hulk” relaunch. “Let’s just say old Omar goes toe to toe with the Hulk,” he joked.
Godspeed to them all.
