Grid Effect

With the series finale for The Wire on the horizon this week, set aside the exception of a Survivor recap on Thursday, this site is going to be nothing more than a retrospective for what I’ll concede is the greatest drama of all time (it’s this or The Sopranos, and really you could flip a coin to determine which is more praiseworthy).

Today, since it’s the furthest from the finale, we’re going to countdown the top five triumphant moments in Wire. Those rare instances in which our beloved characters overcome all the injustice and institutional bureaucracy to seek out a better life for themselves and those around them. Going back through the years, it’s hard to pinpoint five specifically (and it should be noted that we are making this up as we go along, so if there are any glaring omissions, please let us know).

Side note: If we don’t have a link to a clip, it’s because we couldn’t find one.

5) Season five, episode 59: “Late Editions”
Bubbles comes to terms with Sherrod’s passing.

He’s looking to be one of a handful of characters with a atypically happy ending. In last night’s episode Andre Royo delivered about as great of a performance as anyone on the series and his confession to NA about his contribution in Sherrod’s death just about confirms his well-being. Part of why this carries so much weight is Bubbles has always been the face of drug addiction for a series that revolves around the drug trade. The hope for recovery, the capacity for rehabilitation is something that David Simon needed to acknowledge, and you could argue that he did with Waylon, but seeing Bubbles do so was something I wasn’t expecting this season.

4) Season four, episode 50: “Final Grades”
Bunny convinces Wee-bey to let him adopt Namond

In what we consider to be the greatest season of dramatic television ever made, the season finale did not disappoint. In what was mostly an hour and fifteen minutes of death and despair, Simon & Co. gave us this one silver lining, highlighted by a humble, hat in hand police captain asking a convicted murderer to adopt his son from his ungodly bitch of a mother. The bonding over Baltimore drug wars, relating them and the ever changing game to Namond’s incapacity to maintain in such an environment, led to a chance given to at least one of our four young protagonists.

3) Season three, episode 31: “Homecoming”
Cutty leaves the game

Cutty was introduced as an old Barksdale soldier coming out of Jessup in season three, appropriately the season chronicling reform. Finding the straight life ever more difficult for an ex-convict whose done some unspeakable shit in his day, Cutty eventually devolves and resigns to his life of thuggery. Only to rise up on Fruit and his corner to discover that he is now a grown man in his thirties being asked to kill high-schoolers. Or rather, would be high schoolers. He refrains from killing Fruit and subsequently retires. Though he doesn’t now live the lavish lifestyle that most Americans hope for, it’s honest and decent. And involves coaching boxing — the only pure thing he’s ever known — to mostly troubled youth.

2) Season one, episode five: “The Pager”
Prez deciphers the Barksdale pager code.

Check out the big brain on Roland Pryzbylewski.

A smaller moment that the others on this list, but for someone who had been nothing but a fuck up charity case at the behest of his father-in-law, him making a significant contribution while being suspended from street work turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As he produced solid case work on three high profile arrests…at least before shooting an undercover officer. Lets just move on.

1) Season two, episode nineteen: “All Prologue”
Omar testifies against Bird

In his everyday fear mongering attire, Omar takes the stand to put Bird in prison for the Gant murder, the series’ first at the end of the pilot episode. In the span of five minutes, he puts the jury in stitches, publicly indoctrinates Levy for his role in the game, and convinces everyone and their mother that he indeed, saw Bird shoot Mr. Gant (whose death is recognized in a community meeting in season three) in the back of the head. Despite the entire scene being predicated on that lie, we saw a murderer put away and Baltimore’s robin hood exalted by citizen and lawyer alike.

There were a couple of other scenes we toyed with throwing on here, some more nuanced than others. But when it came down to it, a hefty amount of the encouraging moments were followed by some sort of catastrophe directly relating to that specific scene, so we had to discard them. Like anything with D’Angelo including the “Where’s Wallace?” scene and his last conversation with his mother.

If you will notice, we didn’t even mention McNulty in the top five here, which considering all the proactive police work he leads the helm on, is pretty astounding. Obviously it has to do with the self-destructive nature his police investigations seem to enable, and speaks to the lack of sympathy many in the audience seem to have for his fifth season antics. This would make it all the more depressing should he go to prison. In The Wire, the right thing done the wrong way is probably going to render the worst results.