… and all the pieces mattered (spoilers included)

Fear not, after this post, this place will cease its masquerade as a Wire blog. The finale was last night. It’s over, it’s ended, and the story ran its course. Circular in some aspects, redemptive in others, bleak and frustrating in part, David Simon & Co.’s fractured depiction of Baltimore and its denizens now retreats into television lore. I’ve said my pieces on it – the show juxtaposes the failure of all instutions (and sheer cruelty of life) against personal challenge and growth – and to me, it was masterful.

Like a wondrous novel, The Wire is something I’ll return to time and again. Doesn’t happen often, and while I’m sad it’s gone, I’ll continually admire its ambition, cunning, authenticity, and layers. It was never perfect, rather, it hinted at the imperfection of all its characters, subjects, and plots, which made it fantastic, absorbing, and deep.

Others delve into series finale with excellent deconstructions and recaps which capably describe and laud the show much better than I can. In fact, see below, we’ll just let them do it. (Maybe someday, I’ll write about this show again, and I’ll be similarly profound. Or not.) Oh, and, spoilers may occur.

• First, in a Q&A with Newark Star-Ledger TV Critic Alan Sepinwall on his blog, Wire creator Simon describes the possible lack of cynicism in his show’s arcs, which I touched on yesterday. Simon is more eloquent, of course:

I think it’s a misuse of the word “cynical.” I think it’s a dark show. I think it has a great deal of sentiment to it. I just don’t think it’s sentimental. I think it’s intensely political. I think if you want to suggest that it’s cynical about institutions and their capacity to reform themselves or be reformed, I would have to plead guilty to that. … I don’t think it’s cynical about human beings. I think that’s why viewers were so committed and loyal, because the human beings that were traversing this rigged game were entirely worth the time spent following them.

Well put. Of course, it is his story, and like David Chase and his landmark Sopranos ending, Simon gets to tell it the way he wants it. (FWIW, the described ambiguous ending of The Sopranos is fantastic, and The Wire‘s wrap-up style is also, conversely, excellent. So there’s room for both, people.)

• McNulty may have been somewhat cliched as a rebel cop, and his transgressions typical or atypical. However, Dominic West put more meat into McNulty‘s character this season – witness his eyebrow raise in Quantico, and his fantastic line to Beadie when he realizes he’s not the hero of the story. Also, on the precipice of break-up, Beadie revealed to Jimmy that “no one comes to your wake.” Well, as McNulty is no longer a cop, he got to have his wake, to see his wake, and to revel in all his friends, at his wake. And then he went home – maybe he learned that staying a different course allowed him that reward. Maybe he didn’t, however, and simply beat Beadie‘s logic.

Landsman’s send off (via TGTV): “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 patrolman’s 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. He’s natural po-lice.”

• Salon’s discussion on the show all year has been extremely entertaining, as well as this slice describing the show’s end and Method Man‘s surprising encapsulation.

…It was a salt-of-the-earth, newspaperman’s ending, one that acknowledges that we want to know how this, that and the other turned out, and Simon & Co. doesn’t get all snooty about our desire for old-fashioned closure. … It’s not a happy ending, though, is it? Just one that pulls far back enough to invite a weary acceptance. . . . I think the most sublime (if pitch black) comedy the series has ever exhibited comes when Cheese is making that speech about “There ain’t no back in the day. Ain’t no nostalgia. Just the street and the game” — spelling out the theme of the entire series — and then BLAM! And all anyone cares about is that the co-op is short $900,000! In some ways, that’s the real ending of this magnificent, uncompromising piece…

Cheese‘s little speech is fairly phenomenal, and his demise at the end is a subtext David Simon consistently hints at within the storylines – Don’t disrespect experience with youth. The game may roll on, but experience and proving oneself still matters. It showed in the Sun storyline (to our misguided chagrin), in the early police storylines and even, also, in Marlo‘s last couple of episodes. We may not always agree, but the theme is there.

• And even our friends at Slate got a little misty when decrying the final episode, predictably continuing to bitch about the newspaper storyline. (For what it’s worth, I’ve worked in newsrooms, and worked alongside certain bastions of integrity whom I considered role models. In short, like Gus. So he’s not unbelievable. The story isn’t perfect, but whatever.)

Too much has been made of the Dickensian nature of The Wire, but in this case the analogy is apt: What makes Dickens so incredibly satisfying—and occasionally so corny, sentimental, and heavy-handed—is his willingness to be explicit. But one side effect of the Dickensian method is that it ultimately values the overarching story more than any individual person. The internal lives of Dickens‘ characters are never quite as interesting or compelling as the whole shebang of plot, place, and social issue. The Wire has exactly the same glories and flaws.

Not sure that’s quite right, but he’s certainly onto something. I think the overall narrative, cynical as it may be, allows the characters, thin and thick, to develop themselves. Every character is gray and flawed and imperfect and sometimes crucial and other times worthless. Sort of like life. And like all of it, we move on. And, fuck, I’m getting misty myself, and no more eloquent with each passing word, so, well, we’re going to let this post end. Let’s go home.