Grid Effect

Kima’s snitching! Marlo’s in cuffs! Snoop’s dead! The world is on its ass! What a penultimate episode, which some are calling the best ever (can’t agree, but it definitely rates). Tristan Wilds and Jermaine Crawford damn near made me cry, the only time I thought I’d cry over a male teenager is when my future son inevitably killed himself in a drunk driving accident or something as a result of my lackluster parenting skills.

But in all honesty, has this series ever produced anything as tragic? The only thing rivaling it is Wallace’s death, and we never got to see Wallace pre-game involvement. Seeing Dukie go from desolate, to hopeful, to dropped out, to prosperous and misplaced, to now homeless, the whole journey has seemed like nothing more than a delaying of the inevitable. Fuck you David Simon for teasing me with your semblance of hope and whatnot. We haven’t seen the finale, but since it leaked online we won’t make any predictions about the fate of any of the characters, lest someone assume we’re just “guessing” as opposed to guessing. But after watching 59 episodes of The Wire, it seems quite obvious what is going to happen to Dukie.

I think even more painful than Dukie’s departure was Bug’s. Here’s a kid who doesn’t even have to speak to be devastating, he wants nothing else than to be with his brother, even if that means staying in west Baltimore and not out in the suburbs. And for someone who’s been an adult since he was thirteen, seeing Michael choke up really brought home the degree of tragedy that we were privy too.

You could make a claim that Michael was born in the wrong decade. Had he come up with the Barksdale’s running the westside drug trade, he might have had a chance at growing a la Bodie, given that there operation was ran with a little more intelligence and a little less brutality. But, just like for Bodie, the game is rigged for Michael as well. Nothing more than pons in the whole scheme of things. I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen to Michael, so speculation isn’t even worthwhile. But after the way he took out Snoop (which some people were conflicted by, but I couldn’t have cared less, to be honest) he is certainly a marked man.

Michael did get a little validation, though. When asking Snoop why he was being setup, she told him the truth, they never thought he cooperated with the police but even under the remote possibility he could have, he signed his death warrant only to be the first soldier to get the drop on Marlo’s crew since Slim (where the fuck is he?) and Cutty. At least Snoop realized, deserves got nothing to do with it. Even though she totally does. One thing is for certain, Marlo does run a tight ship.

People have always thought Jamie Hector was playing Marlo poorly as opposed to efficiently. Ever since his introduction Marlo’s sole purpose was to consolidate power, never wanting to talk about it, never had any other interests or goals like we see with so many of the other gangsters on this series, running and operating the Baltimore drug trade has consumed his entire being, and he’s accomplished just that without any emotion and certainly no remorse, which made his scene in lockup with Chris, Cheese and Monk all the more powerful. For anyone who never understood why any of these soldiers took orders from him, there is your explanation. All three of those stone cold killers did nothing more than cower in the wake of his outburst. Even with Omar’s demise, there is still plenty of room for drama and complications in the game.

Speaking of which, while we understand why Kima did what she did, we certainly do not condone it. From a pragmatic standpoint, it makes little to no sense. The publicity surrounding the homeless murders would have eventually gone cold, as they did with the vacant murders, good police work would continued to get done and police would continue to get paid. Some manpower would have been wasted, sure, but no more than what was wasted doing meaningless street rips and low level arrests.

Kima has always been unwilling to cut some of the corners that McNulty was. Even when she was nipping at his heels in season three going outside the MCU orders and investigating Barksdale, she seemed more reluctant than the enthusiastic McNulty. And granted, we know she interviewed the homeless victims families, so she is closer to the living consequences than either McNulty, or Freamon and Sydnor, but now that the Stanfield crew has been brought to justice it just seems ill-timed and pointless. If she wanted to turn him in she could have done it immediately and saved everyone a lot of time and money. We really hope nothing happens to the Bunk for staying disapprovingly loyal, that would render Kima unforgivable, which is unfortunate because like everyone in that homicide department she is simply trying to do the right thing.

McNulty, we fear, is at a crossroads. Remember from season three how he came up under Bunny Colvin’s command? Well, like mentor like protege, or something. If Bunny is capable of turning something like Hamsterdam, then it’s not terribly surprising how McNulty developed the capacity for these shenanigans. Albeit they are completely different schemes, one was a tactical liberty that everyone underneath him was (begrudgingly, in some cases) complicit in, McNulty is putting the entire city in fear, desecrating bodies and devastating families. Something Bunny was specifically attempting to avoid.

It’s good to know that the man who’s going to turn this season on its ass we will be immortalized in Arby’s commercials.

Never the less, it worked, at least in the short term. And probably only for the short term, even if they can somehow make the charges stick against Marlo and Co., we have no idea how — with Levy now knowing full well that the information was attained by an illegal wire tap — any of them stay in prison. Thanks to Herc, more lives will be ruined by his incompetence. We’d be angry with him if he had any idea what he is capable of and the repercussions of his actions. It’s like watching a monkey throw knives into a crowd full of people.

Going off the street and into the NA meeting, Andre Royo gave his most tear-inducing performance yet as Bubbles. Outside of Bodie, this is our favorite character arc from the beginning of the series. Did Fletch contribute to his full recovery? We have to believe he did, someone he can reflect on without judgment or pity. Just being able to share his story and regrets on a daily basis has to have been cathartic. Fletch and Alma are supposed to represent the antithesis to Templeton, and while most of them have been deemed stock characters by the masses (something we thought was almost unavoidable due to it being a shortened final season), we’ve found the growth Alma and Fletch have shown this season to be satisfying.

Gus surely sees this, but is more concerned with the Templeton’s of the world. Hiring the bureau chief from London as some sort of PI seems practical, at least his bias will no longer interfere with his decision making, even if his bias is rock fucking solid. Again, while some have complained that Gus has been portrayed as too saintly and infallible (something we also disagree with), Gus Johnson has played the hell out of that role. At no point did we feel like we were watching a rerun of Homicide on WGN. Seeing the reaction to the realization that McNulty duped the paper like everyone else in the city will be climactic, but again, we’ve seen enough of The Wire that we can probably guess what happens.

So this is it, five seasons, six year of almost flawless storytelling with the crumbling American city as its muse. We have 90 minutes left, appreciate it, respect it, but most importantly try to enjoy it. Because with maybe (and that’s a big fucking “maybe”) the exception of Mad Men, I don’t know if we’ll ever see another drama this good on television. Or in film, for that matter.