Grid Effect

And would that be Levy or Carcetti?

Well, that was very anti-Sopranos of David Simon and Clark Johnson, wasn’t it? The characters stories couldn’t have been more finalized than if they tied a pretty red ribbon on them. The point was certainly made, though, the American city trudges forward in a circular path of destruction until everyone is consumed serving their master: The institutions.

But on a personal level, virtually every character who deserved one received a happy ending on some level, sans Dukie and Michael, which is just too tragic for words and a reason I’m thankful they didn’t spend too much time dwelling on their downfall, particularly the formers. But that’s been the concept the entire series though: the cops, the politicians, the kingpins aren’t the victims of the game but the benefactors. They build careers and make lives off of it. Sure, some may have lost their jobs or been forced out of the game by either circumstances or actions, but ultimately no one was irreparably damaged. Shit, Freamon and McNulty weren’t even bitter towards Kima after she admitted to airing their plan to Daniels, who was so far removed and so jaded by the system he became a defense lawyer. Now his enemy is his former alliance.

He’s been around but you may not recognize him, Mr. Dipasquale is the sole reason all our protagonists stayed out of prison.

McNulty was forced to retire, and even he seemed to recognize it as a blessing in disguise. He isn’t able to do police work ever again, which hurts the city but saves his soul. With his retirement, one would think we’d never see another drug lord put cuffs, but like every empty slot left in any institution, there is always someone to fill it. For McNulty, that someone is Sydnor.

I’m reminded of a quote from Carver in the first or second season, when he’s staking out the Barksdale crew with Herc, he leans over to his equally dim partner at the time and says. “this is why we can’t win, we fuck up, we get pensions, they fuck up and they get beat.” After this stunt and despite all the excellent work he’s been apart of, so it is true for Freamon, and McNulty to a lesser extent (he didn’t get the full pension). The police are rarely effected by their involvement in The Game by any other means than professionally, they have fail safe’s and an entire institution willing to protect them, the same can’t be said for Chris Partlow or Dukie or Sobotka, because they’re not part of the city elite.

But the unstoppable beast ruining the American city continues its cyclical pattern. Carcetti eventually sold out every single principal he started his mayoral campaign with to become Governor, where he will be doing the same for an eventual run in federal politics, Naresse became his successor, Valchek becomes commissioner (a spot politically available to him with a black mayor, I suppose) and Daniels is forced into defense law. Thing is, as far as the politics are concerned, nothing really changed, and if any of us thought so we were just as naive as your typical Clay Davis backer. If you’ll recall in the third season Royce had every intention of firing Burrell but it was never politically feasible to do so, it wasn’t until he juked the stats one time too many that i was politically viable to fire Burrell and begin the final grooming stage for Daniels.

Even though the city is going to hell in a hand basket, we at least got to see Cheese take one to the dome. It was even more satisfying that Slim pulled the trigger in front of the newly reformed co-op, the only institution to weed out all its bad apples, at least for the time being (see Carver’s season one quote mentioned above).

We’ll have much, much more coming later this week if not today, including character synopsis’, a recap of the series finale and maybe one or two more top five’s for the greatest series in the history of television.