WARNING - THE WIRE SPOILERS ALERT - LOTS OF SPOILERS HERE SO BEWARE

After being extremely disappointed in the series finale of Rome, furious at the premature "ending" of Deadwood, amused by the pathetically contrived ending of Oz, and wanting to gouge my eyes out after the last three seasons of Sopranos (which I had already invested so much time watching that I _had_ to see how it ended), I have to say The Wire is the first HBO series I can recall that finished strongly.

Okay, for those of you who don't know, The Wire is a cop/crime/political drama centered around the drug scene of inner city Baltimore, MD.  I think it's innovative in the fact that each season tried to address a lot of issues (politics, crime, news, etc.) without coming off as preachy or apologistic.  My favorite was Season 4, which centered on the school system, specifically a group of friends and the choices they were faced with as they entered their teenage years.

All the boys showed a lot of promise, but by the series finale, only one was able to "break out" of the street scene and do something constructive with his life, largely with the blessing of his jailed father and the help of his new foster parents.  Sadly, the others either became victims of the system or victims of the choices they made.  

One of the boys you sympathetized the most with was Michael Lee.  He is an overall good kid who is fiercely protective of his little brother.  His friends look to him for leadership, and you get the feeling that he's the one who is going to be able to break free of the streets (you want it to be him), but a series of horrible events at home force him to take his brother and join up with his new family, a criminal organization led by a drug lord named Marlo Stanfield.  

Stanfield's rise to power begins in Season 1 and is one of the central stories in The Wire.  Stanfield's most loyal lieutenant and trusted advisor Chris Partlow takes the young Michael under his wing and teaches him a variety of paramilitary street tactics, especially how to shoot and kill someone.  Michael is given his own "corner" to run drugs and is called up for backup when it's time to shoot someone, but he's always considered something of an outsider.  Rather than blindly following orders, he starts to question Stanfield's decisions to the point where you really get the sense that he doesn't want to be a criminal, but he has to take care of his brother and so he doesn't see any other choice.

Michael is just one of many deep characters in this series, but I'm going into more detail with him because of how he relates to Omar Little.  

Omar Little is perhaps one of the coolest characters I've seen in a long time.  He grew up on the streets of Baltimore, but you get the sense that he hated seeing drugs take over and destroy the community.  At some point, he became a stickup man who began robbing drug dealers and other criminals.  He was ruthless, but he lived by a personal code where he never harmed civilians (those not associated with the drug trade).  Among the dealers, he became one of the most hated and feared men in Baltimore, and several contracts were put on his head, but he made a point to go after anyone who did so.   Since he knew the neighborhoods so well, he was almost impossible to track down. In a lot of cases, just his appearance was enough to make street dealers run in fear or give up their drugs or money.  

Omar walked around (sometimes in broad daylight) wearing a bulletproof vest, with a pump action shotgun slung under his black duster--now, if that image isn't cool as hell (and doesn't scream RPG character), I don't know what is.  About halfway through the first season, you find out that he's gay.  I think this came as a huge shock to a lot of folks.    Another interesting note is that Omar's character is based on a real person from Baltimore who also made a living robbing drug dealers (I don't think he was gay, though).

Getting back to the series finale, I think it did a great job of wrapping up the numerous storylines that had developed over the years, and most of them ended as expected and/or felt "right."  I think the weakest endings involved 1. a newspaper copy editor (Gus) who took a stand against a "golden boy" reporter who had been fabricating stories and 2. one of the boys from Season 4 who had been hardended after being forced into an orphanage.  I spent so much time describing Omar, that I have to say he dies in the second-to-last episode, and the way he dies is absolutely infuriating.

 Omar was on his latest crusade to take down the Stanfield organization after Stanfield's men tortured and murdered one of Omar's friends.  He was raising all kinds of hell challenging Stanfield to come after him and disrupting Stanfield's business until Partlow (Stanfield's resourceful lieutenant) and a few soldiers (including Michael Lee from above) tricked Omar into walking into a carefully prepared ambush that Omar _barely_ escaped (jumping from a 5 story window and shattering his ankle in the fall).  

He then went into hiding while Stanfield's men scoured the streets looking for him, unable to believe he had actually survived the fall.  Once Omar could walk (with a limp), he once again began taking it to Stanfield's organization.  After an interesting scene where he robs a corner, and then seems confused as to why Stanfield is not coming out to answer his challenge, he limps into a convenient store to buy some cigarrettes.  Then a punk "corner" kid of about 12-13 years old looking to make a name for himself walks in and shoots Omar in the head--Omar saw him come in, but maybe because of his personal code or because of the boy's age, he didn't recognize him as a threat.  And there ended the life of one of my favorite characters of all time.  I was ready to write some scathing things about The Wire after that.  They had just killed one of the few characters who actually stood for something, and his death seemed very anticlimactic.  In my eyes, I couldn't see any way the season finale could redeem the show.  But guess what--it did!  

The cops pull Michael Lee in for questioning in the murder of his abusive stepfather (Partlow actually killed him) just before the police arrest Stanfield and the key members of his organization.  This prompts Stanfield to believe that Michael has ratted them out, so he orders Michael's death.  (It is interesting to note that even to the end, Michael's mentor, Chris Partlow, never believes Michael has turned on them). Anyway, Michael realizes he's been targeted and kills the person that was supposed to kill him (in a memorable scene).  He then takes his little brother to live in the suburbs with their aunt, while he goes into hiding.  

The next time you see Michael is near the end of the series finale.  He and an accomplice walk into a store belonging to one of Stanfield's drug dealer's and rob the dealer at shotgun-point--when the dealer acts defiant, Michael even shoots him in the leg to show he means business.  Before leaving, Michael quotes one of Omar's favorite lines "Nice doing business with you gentleman," leading you to believe he's taking on Omar's role.  

This is a fantastic ending to his story, and it totally softened my anger over Omar's death.  Like I said, Michael was a "good kid" who always seemed like the outsider among Stanfield's hardcore criminals.  In retrospect, he and Omar were a lot alike, and the fact that he became the "new Omar" is just all kinds of cool.  

So, I think The Wire ends on a high note.  The series addresses a lot of different issues from a lot of different angles and has a lot of depth, so you have to watch it from start to finish and pay attention all the way through.  Overall, I could have done without a lot of the political maneuvering of the politican (Carcetti), but I would recommend this series to anyone looking for a good drama, or crime drama in particular.    

Now I'm just hoping that The Shield doesn't let me down. . .

Pete

Not even reading anything but I just wanted to say that I will be and will be posting.  Man, we just finished watching episode 9 last night and that was as good if not better than most season finales.  So many highs and lows!

Quote from: walkerpNot even reading anything but I just wanted to say that I will be and will be posting.  Man, we just finished watching episode 9 last night and that was as good if not better than most season finales.  So many highs and lows!

Yeah, I'm not reading the OP either - mine is on TiVo and awaiting my perusal.

Dammit walker - this is going to have to end or you'll never get your Revenge!

Yep, pspahn, wow.  What an ending.  I'm still reeling a bit.  Bill Simmons has a great podcast where he and his guest discuss the show and they talk about how Seasons 4 & 5, in showing the lives of the children also show how the adults in the first 3 seasons came to be.  It adds depth to the first three seasons.  

Really an amazing show.  We named our cat after Omar.

Quote from: James J SkachYeah, I'm not reading the OP either - mine is on TiVo and awaiting my perusal.

Dammit walker - this is going to have to end or you'll never get your Revenge!

I suspect you are a man of taste and principle.  You don't have to play D20 just because all the other kids are!

I don't know if you guys saw this, a pretty thorough interview with David Simon just before he wrapped up the last episode:

http://blog.nj.com/alltv/2008/03/the_wire_david_simon_q_a.html

The Wire was truly one of the best TV shows ever made (even if I felt that parts of this season were a little weak - specifically, the newspaper subplots).  And like you, I worry about whether or not the Shield will let me down like The Sopranos did (oh, did the Sopranos finale ever annoy me - and I don't mean the fade to black, I mean wasting hours on AJ, a character absolutely no one cared about or who showed any growth whatsoever).

I would, however, argue that Six Feet Under had the best series finale of any TV show, ever.  It showed how everyone ended up dying in the haunting last couple of minutes.  You can't get any more final than that.

Great show, I loved all five seasons-amazing acting, great writing. All around class act story telling. I can't recommend this series highly enough.