The finest show in American television history ended last night. HBO’s The Wire expressed life in Baltimore City this B-more girl and proud Westernite can testify is our truth. Props to David Simon for knowing Charm City, loving her, for bearing witness to her contemporary life. Props to David Simon for knowing how to write the panties off the series finale. He made love to the main character – Baltimore – with a stunning montage as the show winded down to the last half hour. He cuddled in a cinematic afterglow with the last montage – a series of images that seemed to spring out of McNulty’s head and offered the visual equivalent of a praisesong for the folk that make the city hum. Those scenes worked the way the camera celebrated the people of LA’s Watts community in the 1973 documentary Wattstax. Indeed, Simon, director, DP, and crew elevated television to the level of film last night. As usual, the acting was so superior that the industry should be ashamed for not honoring the cast.
And the story was tight. I was mourning the end of the series like I mourned the loss of Omar. Like a member of the Church of The Divine Wire. I feel satisfied, though. Like we crossed over to life without The Wire with grace. Like we are redeemed. Like last night we sang the final redemption song.
Dukie haunts me, though. Maybe because I taught elementary school in Baltimore City for several years during the 1990s Crack Era, the children from last season represent all those beautiful brown babies I taught to multiply, to spell, to know the meaning of the red, the black, and the green. To me, teaching is an expression of my impulse to activist work, and I want to bring all those babies home with me, the way Bunny took in Namond. To see Dukie shoot up broke my schoolteacher heart… but it made perfect sense to me as a writer.
Dukie came from a biological family of addicts, so, when the family of peers he formed in 8th grade fractured, when the last brother from his neighborhood crew was displaced by the violence of the corner they couldn’t turn, it logically follows that he would join a non-biological family of addicts. And it makes sense that Prez, older, harder even, and bearded to express his experience, would drive off, would have to drive off.
It also makes sense to me that the strongest, Michael, would evolve into the new strongman on the streets, would replace Omar, and the loudest and most seemingly at-risk (though they are all equally vulnerable), Namond, would be rescued. It makes sense that the sweetest, the abandoned, Cheese’s son Randy, would have to become the meanest, to make up for the softness that made him so heart-breakingly vulnerable last season.
It makes sense that when Carver was promoted off the streets, Little Kenard appeared, for his final scene, in handcuffs. Carver said that, as long as the handcuffs can slip off their little arms, he thinks cops still have a chance at just talking to the boys. He knows this because he was one of those boys, but now he’s grown, now gone from the place where he did the most good, where he interacted with these younger versions of himself. And tried to save him.
It all makes sense, and yet…
The genius of the show is the truth it expresses in the most perfectly crafted way. That truth is America’s truth, of course, and nothing that makes sense in this country, nothing that has to do with our most vulnerable in our communities, really makes sense.
Of course it makes sense that Alma, the only Latina sister at the paper, would get shipped to Anne Arundel County for exposing Templeton’s empty notebook. And yeah it makes sense that Templeton would win the Pulitzer despite this exposure. But, of course, that shouldn’t make sense at all.
It makes sense that last season Parenti received high praise for his presented paper on inner city schooling, and that this season Bunny got none for going beyond Ivory Tower theory to actual practice, to actually save one child. But it doesn’t.
Of course Clay ducks and dives and keeps his position, and Levy drinks champagne while the folk who made his pockets fatter languish in jail or are eaten by worms six feet under. Yeah, that makes sense, but not really. Yeah I’m glad Slim took Cheese out, but not really. I really want Slim to claim Randy and remember his family line.
Upton Sinclair hoped The Jungle would launch a new revolution in this country. Instead, all we got was the FDA. The Wire is similar in its ambition, its achievement – and in the fact that little will change in the real-life dynamics the show explores.
Lemme tell you what I loved:
I loved that Bubbles, the heart of the show, gets his tribute: the front page of the Sunday paper. That Gus mentors Mike to produce our authentic truth – Bubbles’ truth. That this silenced, disenfranchised addict’s story is told (after years of him telling the experiences of everyone else on the streets). That Mike bears witness to the marginalized, and Gus centers him in the public discourse.
I loved that Marlo ran from the high rise overlooking the streets to taste his own blood and breathe in deep the humid funk on the streets. I loved that Pearlman had to recuse herself as her first act as a municipal judge because Colonel Daniels appeared as a lawyer in her courtroom. I loved that Freamon and Kima had that drink. I loved that McNulty sat, silently, with his wife on the back porch of their home.
And I loved – LOVED – the Freamon and McNulty storyline. Freamon retired still dignified, still elegant, the craftsman in the loving embrace of his wife. And McNulty got his ceremonial farewell, and the love, and the drunken eloquence, and the redemption of his pissy-drunk, whore-mongering, FBI-profiled soul. An amazing homegoing, to put a Black cultural spin on an Irish tradition. After all, Black and Irish lift their mugs, tear, laugh, celebrate, and mourn not simply McNulty, but the phenomenal journey we all took along The Wire. His service was the show’s glorification, the show’s magnificent eulogy. Perfect.
Comment(s)
your prose on the wire were so eloquent and heart-felt that i find myself tearing up as i write. words can’t express the love and most importantly, the appreciation i had for that show. it really tells the story of any small time city but of course it was particularly endearing to me because i am from b-more. i loved the montage i call “with love from balitimore” but i especially loved the montage of the regular people of b-more mixed in with the characters in mcnulty’s daydream. it is those people and their stories that are often ignored in everyday life even on an entertainment level, so to see them be able to shine just for a matter of seconds shows the commitment david simon, ed burns, & company had to them and also to us as audience members.
yes there is an “urban” genre in movies and even literature (that’s obviously soooooo urban and hip it’s called “lit.”), but even though they are “keeping it real” they are not real to the urban or people of color experience they say they represent. they are sexed up, explotive, and some ways dismissive to their audience. the wire never fell into that. strong stories, strong acting, production details . . . what more can i say? it will truly be missed!!!