You shouldn’t be reading this right now. You should be watching “The Wire” finale. If you aren’t and are reading this shame on you. But we should be safe posting this as the conclusion begins as everybody should be watching it as we speak (and those that aren’t likely don’t care – too bad for them). So, to reiterate, if you haven’t seen the finale Wire episode, stop reading now.
“It does have a certain charm to it. They manufactured an issue to get paid. We manufactured an issue to get you elected governor. Everybody’s gettin’ what they need behind some make-believe.” — Norman Wilson
So Episode 60, entitled “30,” (a newspaper term for a story’s logical conclusion) was the last “The Wire” episode we’ll ever see and in true David Simon, ‘Wire’ fashion, the finale was appropriately anticlimactic. That isn’t to say it wasn’t exceptional and satisfying, it was, but those surprised by how staid the conclusion was should think back to almost every single ‘Wire’ season final.
If you think back, the antepenultimate and penultimate episodes of each season are where all the action, the deaths and the major events of each season took place and the finale was a quieter affair that wrapped up all the loose ends and usually acted more as a post-script or denouement than a typical, edge-of-your-seat episodic television show and this finish was much the same.
There was no thunderous climax, but if you were looking for one all this time, you might have asked yourself if you’d been paying attention all along. That said, “The Wire” epilogue did feel somewhat anticlimactic and semi unfulfilling, but this is because even eggheads like ourselves have been conditioned to expect something big. The story dictated that we had to be robbed of major catharsis and we were, but it was probably for the best.
The End Game
As you probably expected, life goes on for most of the players in Baltimore city drama. The overarching theme being: nothing really changes; these problems are systemic and aren’t going to go away any time soon (and this is probably what frustrated viewers the most). With this in mind, it made sense that Micheal became the new stick-up kid-like Omar on the block and Dukie sadly went on to become the drug-addict street kid like Bubbles used to be.
The Hall/The Law
As you imagined, bureaucracy and the powers that be got in the way, desperate to protect their self-interests with all the damage control they could muster (and in many ways this robbed the conclusion of major dramatic fireworks). The insubordinate and reckless Detectives McNulty and Freemon were done, but not in the loud ball of fire way you might have thought they’d end. Mayor Carcetti couldn’t let the fabricated homeless fiasco touch his precious gubernatorial run, so the two were dispensed quietly and without fanfare (and some good fortune interjected to soften the blow in the copycat serial killer/nutty homeless guy). In the end, the only principled moralist here was former Lt. Cedric Daniels, who decided he’d rather quit his new position as Police Commissioner than juke (fake) crime-rate stats to appease the soon-to-be mayor and enable the systemic problems in the police force.
The Street
While David Simon isn’t very sentimental nor does he give in to the audiences desire for justice, karmic retribution and comeuppance, some of these elements were somewhat delivered if in mannered ways. Cheese Wagstaff (Method Man) got his at the hands of Slim Charles for payback on the way he betrayed his uncle Prop Joe, and while subtle, there were many a lingering shot on the people and skylines of Baltimore that belied Simon’s tough and unsentimental exterior.
But life basically went on though (nothing changes) and while story lines concluded, they were also often open-ended (where does McNulty go from here?). Slim and co. were seen dealing with the Greeks (the drug trade goes on), scumbag attorney Eugene Levy walked cause assistant district attorney Ronnie couldn’t close the courthouse leak on him (though he did have leverage) and drug kingpin Marlo Stansfield seemingly returned to the street after a very brief tenure as a gone-straight businessman (or at least we’re to assume the suit and glad handing life wasn’t for him, no matter what potential consequences; Simon says it’s intentionally ambiguous). [ed. OK we thought that Judge Phelan was going to be the courthouse leak, but it turned out to be a non-major player]. Chris Partlow of course had to eat all the murders in the vacancies and got life in prison, but at least Wee-Bay has a pal in the clink.
“As I look back over a misspent life — I found myself more and more convinced I had more fun doing news reporting than in any other enterprise. It really is the life of kings.” – H.L. Mencken
The Paper
In the newsroom, desk editor Gus Haynes‘ play to shut-down fabulist Scott Templeton mostly backfired. But in typical reserved Simon fashion, Haynes attack didn’t exactly blow up in his face either (he didn’t get the axe like we thought it’d go down). Instead, he’s seemingly demoted and competent reporter Mike Fletcher (the Bubbles profile writer) takes his role as the mover and shaker in the newsroom.
The writers know it’s too simple to kill off or destroy careers. It’s the easy out and there was no pandering in this finish. As in real life, people aren’t always exonerated, shitcanned and or the good guys don’t always win, there’s always more textures and shades to it all. Of course Templeton won the Pulitzer and the bosses were happy, but at the expense of Alma Gutierrez who became the real scapegoat for trying to assist with the ousting of the bullshiting reporter (similar to how it went down in real life; Simon’s very-real fabulist nemesis was tolerated).
Uneventful? Not quite. Bereft of emotion? Not necessarily, but again, if you were looking for the powerhouse plays and killer scenes like Dukie saying goodbye to Michael forever, or Snoop asking how her hair looked before she got got, this episode didn’t (naturally) deliver them kind of goods.
Same shit, different day? Hell yeah. How about that quick scene of Detective Leandor Sydnor griping to Judge Phelan the same way McNulty did in Season 1. That was a nice touch.
“Everything was there for a purpose. We said exactly what we intended to say,” series creator David Simon told the A/V Club. “I know it might not be what other people wanted to hear, but it was exactly what we intended.”
Meanwhile, the pugnacious Simon (who made a Hitchcockian-like cameo in the episode) is still duking it out with the media. We didn’t pay enough attention to Slate’s thorough ‘Wire’ coverage this season mainly because while very on-point usually, brevity isn’t their forte, but the Kansas City Star reminded us of a particular incident when Slate got under Simon’s skin.
Slate’s David Plot accused Simon of “obsession bordering on monomania” about his former [Baltimore Sun] employer and Simon was slightly vexed when offhand comments he made at a wedding were used against him. He sent a long, defense to Slate arguing that, “given the basic ethics of newspapering, I don’t know how not to be angry” at the state of the Sun. “You write about schools, education, the police — and you can’t get off the entertainment pages,” Simon said of “Wire” scriptwriters. “But you write about other journalists and they start screaming like cats in an alley.”
Simon took a pretty valid shot at the media’s dislike of this media-heavy final season. “I’m content with what I said,” he explained. “I just wish the same degree of interest was there when we took on No Child Left Behind or the fraud of the drug war. [Journalists] don’t give a damn unless it’s about them. It’s so onanistic”
Which is really fucking true having been on that side of the fence; it’s sort of like the music industry not giving a shit about every movie that goes by until one of them dares mention musical pop culture and a self-absorption shit-storm erupts (and all of a sudden they’re giving their boisterous two cents: see “Juno”)
Though just cause a slow and steady ending is the way it probably should end, some are likely going to be disappointed and we’re betting come tomorrow morning there’s going to be a lot of griping. One of the first major salvos? Why, the Baltimore Sun of course. They call the finale, “a cop-out.” Youch, watch for sparks to start flying mañana and Simon to grind out a few angry emails in response. The New York Times’ headline review was, “So Many Characters, Yet So Little Resolution.”
For those that thought there wasn’t enough retribution for certain characters, Simon has a response for you too. “I don’t know what else to say if people didn’t realize after this many seasons that they were watching a Greek tragedy, writ across a modern city… And if they thought that there were going to be redemptions and [awarding] of the Fates, they need to get up with their Medea and Antigone and their Oedipus. I don’t know what else to say.”
Simon makes an interesting point about this final season in an interview with Salon that reiterates the idea of not delivering the predictable notes and the swallowing of bitter pills that might have left the audiences disatisfied. “I think what [audiences really didn’t believe was that their favorite characters [like McNulty] were behaving in an unethical way. That bothered them. I think TV shows are supposed to deliver on certain things. Omar is supposed to go down in a blaze of glory. McNulty is supposed to either lose and suffer or finally win, but he’s not supposed to walk away from the rigged game and do something that bothers viewers.”
Amen.