Our recap of the very last episode of HBO’s critically acclaimed drama, The Wire.
If The Wire‘s finale was all over the place and doing a little bit too much and a little too neat, it was pretty consistent with the entire final season, where points and details that used to be made subtly were now made over and over again, and pointed out explicitly in case anyone still might have missed them.
But as uneven as this show was in season five, it was still leaps and bounds funnier and smarter and moving than anything else we’ve ever seen on TV, and even that wasn’t enough to help it win over audiences.
Writes Matthew Yglesias: “Here, though, in a somewhat Wire-like irony, the show’s very success may be television’s downfall. After all, it’s hard to imagine any future show securing substantially more free publicity in the form of critical and media attention – and yet the show was a commercial failure anyway. The very same show that taught us that, yes, episodic television can be great drama also teaches that there’s no business sense in bothering to try. This is television, where greatness will not save you.”
Finales are usually uneven affairs. How do writers stay true to a show’s tone without eschewing the sentiment everyone’s feeling — or letting that sentiment overwhelm everything else? (How many people have gotten a finale right? The Cosby Show? Buffy/Angel?)
The Wire, for all its constitutional bleakness, actually does sentiment pretty well. It initially felt like Prez’s conversation with Dukie ‘about getting his G.E.D.’ was a bit much, an excuse to bring Prez in for a final bow. And it was a little bit. (I didn’t think Dukie’s fellow A-rabber needed to say they were going to get testers, for instance. Hell, I think after the way last week’s episode ended, the intimation of what was gonna happen to Dukie was more affecting than actually showing it happening.) But the way the vice principal didn’t recognize him? The look of resignation on Prez’s face when he dropped Dukie off? Very nice touches.
Contrast that with Bubbles sitting down for dinner at his sister’s kitchen table. A very hard-won victory, told in one shot. Dopeness. (McNulty’s ‘funeral’? Not subtle at all. But it was still a pretty dope moment. I’m not mad.)
Okay. We have to deal with the newspaper stuff, though I’d really rather not. There were so many ways to really dig into how and why issues don’t get covered, and the show’s writers went with journalistic fabulism and prize-hungry top editors instead of, say, not covering something because of the threat of petty recriminations by powerful people. Templeton was an effigy for Simon to mollywhop and wasn’t given any personality trait besides weasely-ness, and that scene where Jimmy tells him off was way too much. Likewise, we never understand why the top editors are so enthralled with dude; they just are. But they’re supposed to be villains, too. In the end, Scott wins a Pulitzer and both Gus and Alma get demoted for calling his credibility into question. Corny. Just…ugh.
In this episode, so much seemed a little too neat — Michael becomes Omar, Sydnor becomes McNulty, Dukie becomes Bubbles.
What were your thoughts?
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