Grid Effect

That title is just a morass of punctuation. It’s how I imagine Clark Kent wrote all his columns for the paper he worked at. Not merely written prose, but prose so complex that only people who could fly are able to decrypt it. Anyway, here are my last thoughts on the characters and themes of The Wire finale and series, we’ll try to wrap it up and be as inclusive as possible, but we’re not certain everything will be covered. Email or comment if we left out something imperative.

We just watched the pilot episode the other day, and one thing we were surprised by is there was never a Bubbs-Kima reunion. She always joked that if Bubbs ever cleaned himself up that he wouldn’t be useful to her, so we suppose their lack of a reunion is emblematic of Bubbles progression. But still, they seemed to have a partnership that extended past po-lice work, my guess is this is a result of the shortened season.

Speaking of Kima, we’ve spent little to no time contemplating her decision. We didn’t like it, but can understand. She always had a moral center that McNulty, in matters of policing, seemed to lack. For all the grooming, or expected grooming of her as the next McNulty, she turned out to be the next Bunk, which is probably a healthier lifestyle. The final scene with her and Bunk at the terrace homes where Ron Gant (the series’ first murder victim and the closing scene for the pilot episode) was murdered, was a nice callback and typified the parallelism the finale seemed to hinge on.

Carver as the next Daniels, and Daniels as the next, uh, Levy? I guess, was unexpected if you are currently rewatching the first season like I am. Carver always did demonstrate a little more competency and concern than Herc, but certainly did represent the best and brightest in the western. Then again, we know Daniels was skimming money off the top in his early days in the eastern, and is all but responsible for why he’s a lawyer now, but the contrast of personalities really resonates when he, Prez and Herc go about their flaccid raid on the franklin terrace.

We’ve been almost mute on the newspaper story because it is what everyone expected it to be (tired football reference: They are who we thought they were!), but we thought they capped it off appropriately, even if expectedly. At least Fletch was promoted to fill Gus’ position, even if Gus being demoted and Alma being outsourced is completely unjustified, they at least put some nobility in the assistant editors position. Clark Johnson played the hell out of that role, his speech about being “too simple-minded” to Alma and his outrage at Klebanow were the two defining newsroom scenes. The latter got him demoted, and the former explained why he stayed. Fuck Templeton. It’s a shame McNulty never got to bond with Gus.

Other thoughts:

-The old MCU has reverted back to nothing more than a phone in an empty room. Since Lester was the face of major crimes, I supposed it makes sense he is back to focusing on his dollhouse miniatures.

-Slim Charles finally became a CEO, the last refuge of recognizable, regular street characters still on the street.

-Chris and Weebay bonding in prison…sounds about right. Their lack of remorse, like they completely expected to spend the majority of their lives in prison, is disturbing, if not profound on a thematic level. If Prison Break was done with these actors, characters and writers, we might watch it.

-It was somewhat astounding that we didn’t get a shot of Cutty in the final montage. A small complaint, since its been summarized what he is and will continue to do. But a snippet of him coaching in the gym with women offering large servings of food would have been a nice finishing touch. Of course, I could lament the same thing about Randy, or Namond, or Bunny or Ziggy or Nick or any other number of characters throughout the series. But it was still beautifully executed.

That’s it. The greatest series in television history comes to a close on a strong note with a demand for more storytelling. It encompassed everything that is dismal and depressing about this country but had an addictive quality to it that is almost beyond comprehension. We suppose it has something to do with the character development or the intertwining storylines that almost never cross paths. We went through three seasons with multiple characters who were only connected through other characters, and no one ever mentions it. Who did Slim Charles ever associate with outside of the street? Or Cutty outside of the gym? Or Daniels outside of the department? Or Carcetti outside of politics?

This series really should usher in a new form of television a la The Sopranos, but it is so much trickier to market. How do you present an ensemble cast regularly exceeding fifty characters to a public that typically lacks the attention span to even read a news article? It’s impossible. So in a way, having it exalted in unreplicated semi-obscurity for dorks like me and the majority of my fellow Wire brethren, almost makes the series that much more unique and memorable.

Have a good weekend, y’all.