RIP ‘The Wire’

What a satisfying ending to the greatest show in television history. The homeless killing plot, derided by many, was weaved perfectly into the show's central narrative. Here's Scott Tobias: The massive cover-up of the murders in City Hall and at the Sun might seem outlandish, but it’s all been worked out to where everyone has to bottle up: If Rawls doesn’t talk, he gets a plum job at the statehouse. If Daniels decides to blab, then he takes down his lover and his ex-wife, and he loses his shot at being Police Commissioner. The Stanfield case can’t go to trial or else the dirt behind an illegal tap and a non-existent “source of information” gets exposed, and maybe more with a little digging. And I’ve already gotten into what Templeton’s fantasies might have cost the Sun. The whole plot has been ingeniously devised to maintain the status quo, and ensure that the system remains broken indefinitely. Agreed. Some will undoubtedly argue that the individual character arcs were tied up too neatly, but most felt pitch perfect to me. For one, they weren't cheap; many were years in the making. And Simon and company have always been concerned with the cyclical nature of our failing institutions, so it's only natural that we literally saw Slim, Sydnor, Michael, and Carv fill the cogs when Prop Joe, Jimmy, Omar, and Daniels went down in one way or another. Of course, the show's central character is Baltimore, or the American city more generally, and in that sense, we have even less closure than we did six years ago. For more Wire related reads, check out Alan Sepinwall's Q&A with Simon, Shoals at Heaven and Here, and Cook's article from last issue.