For the past few months I've been thinking about and reading about The Wire as much as I could (including writing a couple entries here and A rough guide to the connections between HBO's The Wire and Baltimore hip hop over on Gov't Names) without exposing myself to spoilers, waiting for the episodes to actually air (or at least go On Demand the week before airing), that it feels kind of weird to not only no longer fear spoilers, but have to warn of spoilers for the sake of others before talking about it.
The Wire has always made a big deal of not being episodic in the sense of traditional TV, ramping up gradually to a climax toward the end of the season, which usually involves a lot of really horrible shit going down, so that you go through the season with a combination of suspense and excitement and dread. Recently I Netflixed the first season, thinking I'd seen every episode on HBO reruns already, and realized that I'd never actually seen the first finale, and was pretty bowled over by it. And maybe that's the only reason why the Season 4 finale left a little of a bad taste in my mouth. I'm glad they made a little longer than the usual episode (79 minutes), and I don't mind the unresolved strands they leave at the end of every season, especially now that we know there will be a Season 5 (I would've been pretty unsatisfied if this had turned out to be The End, though), but it all seemed so compressed that I wish they'd pushed for a full two hours, or backed some of the developments into the penultimate episode.
But mostly, the finale gave into my least favorite tendency of The Wire, the glib shorthand, the hackneyed metaphor. The heavy-handed LIFE IS A CHESS GAME, DON'T YOU SEE shit from the first season came howling back in Bodie's chat with McNulty, the ring that was passed from Anthony to Marlo to Omar to Officer Walker to Michael, who Marlo sees wearing it around his neck, all the obvious circles and parallels. Jay Landsman had a lot of great moments this season, but that speech about Romans and Huns just made me cringe. And there were some scenes that should've been great but fell completely flat, like Burrell's quick and completely cliche'd "you came after my thrown, don't let it happen again" speech to Rawls. Not that the episode was without subtlety. I particularly liked Prop Joe telling Marlo that Omar wanted 30 cents on the dollar after Omar said 20, still putting one over on someone to turn a little profit even in a desperate situation. And pretty much any scene that features Omar's boyfriend listening to El Zol.
In the second to last episode, Sherrod's death didn't hit me as hard as I think it was supposed to (and there's usually very clear signs in The Wire of what deaths we're supposed to be upset about and which ones are all in the game, just events that move the plot forward), mostly because, unlike the 4 main kids, he seemed doomed from the start and was never given much characterization (on a similiar tip, I don't think we were shown enough of why Miss Anna was a good foster home for Randy to be in to really get a sense of what a loss it was supposed to be when he was seperated from her). Plus as soon as Bubbles got the cyanide idea I knew it was going to happen, it was just too predictable. On the other hand, Bubs hanging himself hit me like a ton of bricks, even after they cut him down and he lived to hate himself some more. My guess is that in Season 5, Sherrod's death will play out as Bubbles' 'rock bottom' moment that finally forces him to clean up, although I want to give The Wire more credit than to give a shiny happy ending to its beloved junkie.
I kind of liked the way the Season 4 finale brought back some characters and plot strands that had been kind of forgotten; The Greek turning out to be Prop Joe's connect, Steve Earle's annoying AA counsellor guy coming back to dispense more folksy wisdom about addiction, McNulty finally getting off the bench to do real police work again after spending the whole season as a uniformed beat cop, setting the stage for the inevitable return to McNulty-centric police plotlines in Season 5 (which I admit I'm a little bummed out about considering that one of the biggest thrills of Season 4 was finally putting Cool Lester Smooth in charge). Add to that the rumors that Avon's coming home again next season, and it looks like they're setting up a big crowd-pleasing Season 5 full of familiar faces, after taking the risk of introducing a ton of new characters in Season 4 (which ultimately, paid off since a lot of those new characters turned out to be crowd-pleasers).
One thing that's always been clear to me about the show, but never more so than this season, is that The Wire's only real unambiguous villains, people that the writers openly despise and want you to despise, are the bad cops. Unit-destroyers like Marimou, victimizing beat cops like Officer Walker, and to an extent ambitious dickheads like Rawls (who, admittedly, is too much of an asshole to not be kind of charismatic and fun to watch). Even the dealers and killers who don't have cute quirks and humanizing moments to make them likeable or at least admirable, have some kind of steely reserve, like Marlo, that makes you root for them in a way you'll never root for Walker.
Although I'm sure David Simon and company roll their eyes every time someone brings up the Carcetti/O'Malley parallels, they get harder and harder to ignore every time Tommy's inevitable gubernatorial run is invoked. They're already hinting that it's in 2 years, right around the time the next season comes, but I kinda wish they wouldn't rush it like that, since the thing about O'Malley that they'd be the best to address is the fact that he sought a higher office after several years as mayor without being able to bring down the homicide rate that was his big campaign promise. Even if Carcetti screws up in the same way, which I imagine he will, he won't have been in office long enough to be accountable in the same way O'malley is.
What I'm most disappointed about, though, might be the way the finale handled its inevitable death of a major character. Bodie's actual scenes in the episode, chess metaphors aside, were pretty good, with him coming to terms with the fact that the institution he serves is fucking everyone over for no good reason. But the set of circumstances that brought about his demise seemed a little convoluted to me. I know it was supposed to underline how random and unjustified deaths like that can be, but seriously: Bodie, as much of a hothead as he admittedly is, getting so mad at Marlo that he kicks in the window of a cop car with police everywhere? Doesn't make any fucking sense. And someone being there at the right place at the right time to see him get in a car with McNulty too seemed a little connect-the-dots. Still, I never necessarily liked Bodie as a character that much but the episode really made me connect with him and feel mad about his death, so in that sense it was pretty effective.
If I sound mad or overly critical, it's mostly because I'm sad that the season is over, and because ultimately, though I definitely think it's the best show on television, all the "best show ever" praise has gotten kind of out of hand, especially considering this was probably not The Wire's best season, in my opinion (which for my money, would probably be Season 3, although time and repeated viewings may change that). That last episode just left a bad taste in my mouth is all, which I'm sure will wash away after I digest the whole season for a while and think back about how great it was.
The Wire has always made a big deal of not being episodic in the sense of traditional TV, ramping up gradually to a climax toward the end of the season, which usually involves a lot of really horrible shit going down, so that you go through the season with a combination of suspense and excitement and dread. Recently I Netflixed the first season, thinking I'd seen every episode on HBO reruns already, and realized that I'd never actually seen the first finale, and was pretty bowled over by it. And maybe that's the only reason why the Season 4 finale left a little of a bad taste in my mouth. I'm glad they made a little longer than the usual episode (79 minutes), and I don't mind the unresolved strands they leave at the end of every season, especially now that we know there will be a Season 5 (I would've been pretty unsatisfied if this had turned out to be The End, though), but it all seemed so compressed that I wish they'd pushed for a full two hours, or backed some of the developments into the penultimate episode.
But mostly, the finale gave into my least favorite tendency of The Wire, the glib shorthand, the hackneyed metaphor. The heavy-handed LIFE IS A CHESS GAME, DON'T YOU SEE shit from the first season came howling back in Bodie's chat with McNulty, the ring that was passed from Anthony to Marlo to Omar to Officer Walker to Michael, who Marlo sees wearing it around his neck, all the obvious circles and parallels. Jay Landsman had a lot of great moments this season, but that speech about Romans and Huns just made me cringe. And there were some scenes that should've been great but fell completely flat, like Burrell's quick and completely cliche'd "you came after my thrown, don't let it happen again" speech to Rawls. Not that the episode was without subtlety. I particularly liked Prop Joe telling Marlo that Omar wanted 30 cents on the dollar after Omar said 20, still putting one over on someone to turn a little profit even in a desperate situation. And pretty much any scene that features Omar's boyfriend listening to El Zol.
In the second to last episode, Sherrod's death didn't hit me as hard as I think it was supposed to (and there's usually very clear signs in The Wire of what deaths we're supposed to be upset about and which ones are all in the game, just events that move the plot forward), mostly because, unlike the 4 main kids, he seemed doomed from the start and was never given much characterization (on a similiar tip, I don't think we were shown enough of why Miss Anna was a good foster home for Randy to be in to really get a sense of what a loss it was supposed to be when he was seperated from her). Plus as soon as Bubbles got the cyanide idea I knew it was going to happen, it was just too predictable. On the other hand, Bubs hanging himself hit me like a ton of bricks, even after they cut him down and he lived to hate himself some more. My guess is that in Season 5, Sherrod's death will play out as Bubbles' 'rock bottom' moment that finally forces him to clean up, although I want to give The Wire more credit than to give a shiny happy ending to its beloved junkie.
I kind of liked the way the Season 4 finale brought back some characters and plot strands that had been kind of forgotten; The Greek turning out to be Prop Joe's connect, Steve Earle's annoying AA counsellor guy coming back to dispense more folksy wisdom about addiction, McNulty finally getting off the bench to do real police work again after spending the whole season as a uniformed beat cop, setting the stage for the inevitable return to McNulty-centric police plotlines in Season 5 (which I admit I'm a little bummed out about considering that one of the biggest thrills of Season 4 was finally putting Cool Lester Smooth in charge). Add to that the rumors that Avon's coming home again next season, and it looks like they're setting up a big crowd-pleasing Season 5 full of familiar faces, after taking the risk of introducing a ton of new characters in Season 4 (which ultimately, paid off since a lot of those new characters turned out to be crowd-pleasers).
One thing that's always been clear to me about the show, but never more so than this season, is that The Wire's only real unambiguous villains, people that the writers openly despise and want you to despise, are the bad cops. Unit-destroyers like Marimou, victimizing beat cops like Officer Walker, and to an extent ambitious dickheads like Rawls (who, admittedly, is too much of an asshole to not be kind of charismatic and fun to watch). Even the dealers and killers who don't have cute quirks and humanizing moments to make them likeable or at least admirable, have some kind of steely reserve, like Marlo, that makes you root for them in a way you'll never root for Walker.
Although I'm sure David Simon and company roll their eyes every time someone brings up the Carcetti/O'Malley parallels, they get harder and harder to ignore every time Tommy's inevitable gubernatorial run is invoked. They're already hinting that it's in 2 years, right around the time the next season comes, but I kinda wish they wouldn't rush it like that, since the thing about O'Malley that they'd be the best to address is the fact that he sought a higher office after several years as mayor without being able to bring down the homicide rate that was his big campaign promise. Even if Carcetti screws up in the same way, which I imagine he will, he won't have been in office long enough to be accountable in the same way O'malley is.
What I'm most disappointed about, though, might be the way the finale handled its inevitable death of a major character. Bodie's actual scenes in the episode, chess metaphors aside, were pretty good, with him coming to terms with the fact that the institution he serves is fucking everyone over for no good reason. But the set of circumstances that brought about his demise seemed a little convoluted to me. I know it was supposed to underline how random and unjustified deaths like that can be, but seriously: Bodie, as much of a hothead as he admittedly is, getting so mad at Marlo that he kicks in the window of a cop car with police everywhere? Doesn't make any fucking sense. And someone being there at the right place at the right time to see him get in a car with McNulty too seemed a little connect-the-dots. Still, I never necessarily liked Bodie as a character that much but the episode really made me connect with him and feel mad about his death, so in that sense it was pretty effective.
If I sound mad or overly critical, it's mostly because I'm sad that the season is over, and because ultimately, though I definitely think it's the best show on television, all the "best show ever" praise has gotten kind of out of hand, especially considering this was probably not The Wire's best season, in my opinion (which for my money, would probably be Season 3, although time and repeated viewings may change that). That last episode just left a bad taste in my mouth is all, which I'm sure will wash away after I digest the whole season for a while and think back about how great it was.
Labels: Baltimore music, hip hop
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