The Wire - Season 5 - Contains Spoilers (The Wire - The Complete Fifth Season (DVD))

Member Name: Lichfield1979

Product:	The Wire - The Complete Fifth Season (DVD)
Date:	08/08/08 (291 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's the best TV show ever made

Disadvantages: Fewer episodes than other seasons

*** Open Spoilers ***

It has long been fashionable to lavish praise on The Wire, to call it the greatest program in the history of television, to compare it to classic works of literature. The encomiums are deserved. Although season four may well endure as the show's dramatic zenith, season five does not disappoint, and the huge ensemble cast is as excellent as ever. Head writers David Simon and Ed Burns peel back another layer of the onion to examine how the media reports on the issues they have so far documented - and what that means for the modern city and any chance it has to reconstitute itself. Even though the grammar of the show, not only in the dialogue but also the construct of the storytelling, remains as dense and as challenging as ever, it never loses its sense of humour. A kid believing a Xerox machine is a lie detector, a crook quoting Greek tragedy on the courthouse steps, and a superhero plunging off a balcony are just three of the funniest scenes of the series.

In the final season, The Wire gambles some of its social realism. Baltimore homicide detective Jimmy McNulty returns to drinking and womanising with a vengeance and fabricates a series of homeless killings in order to redirect funding for "real police work" in the wake of budget cuts from city hall. Mayor Carcetti lacks the resources to underwrite both the Baltimore police department and its public school system, and is unwilling to trade the political capital he needs for a future run at the senate, even if it would alleviate his problems now.

Naturally, the non-existent "serial killer" is fraudulently reported on by an unscrupulous young journalist, Scott Templeton, who although closely scrutinized by his editor Gus Haynes, ignores the eduction beat in order to chase prizes and win favour with the upper management of the Baltimore Sun; itself bedevilled by financial difficulties. The resulting media fire-storm sends shock waves through the infrastructure of all the human systems within the city, and provokes several crises of leadership. Proposition Joe, Maurice Levy, Rhonda Pearlman, Cedric Daniels, Ervin Burrell, Bill Rawls and Clay Davis try to weather the storm, and have more in common with each other than they think. Cheese, Slim Charles, Herc, Sydnor, Carver, and Kima should be thankful for just being part of the rising rank and file, for the moment.

Meanwhile, those two fine products of the Baltimore schools, Omar Little and Marlo Stanfield, go to war with each other on the streets. The city may not really have a serial killer like "Dexter", but it does fashion killers out of children. Both men are looking to their futures now, wondering whether they will ever truly transcend the drug game they have known their whole lives, and won, before it costs them everything. But although McNulty and Lester Freamon are finally closing in on Stanfield, they have passed far beyond the limits of the law themselves.

Almost knocked off course by the circus created by his former partner McNulty, Bunk Moreland continues his more conventional investigation into last year's murders committed by Snoop and Chris Partlow - into whose world the teen-aged Michael has now been initiated, leaving his friend Dukie to forge his own path. Finally, the aching soul of the whole series, Bubbles, continues his road to rehabilitation, and considers an offer to tell his story.

This being the final run of episodes, there are plenty of short cameos from familiar faces, including Bunny Colvin, Nick Sobotka, Namond, Wee-Bey, Randy, Poot, Cutty, Beadie, Valchek, Vondas, the Greek, Prez, and Avon Barksdale. Chillingly, it's left to the eleven year old Kenard to deliver the most shocking moment of the whole series.

It is ironic that the British actor Dominic West was largely absent during the pinnacle of the series in season four, because he had always been figured the star of the show, in as much as one person can be singled out, playing a much beloved character and the closest thing the The Wire had to a protagonist. In many ways the break was necessary to allow his character evolution, and it further aided David Simon's emphasis on the heartbreaking story of the four children, a decision which elevated the narrative to its greatest heights. Although ostensibly each season has had a new milieu to explore - crime, industry, government, education, journalism - Jimmy McNulty is very much back at the heart of season five.

But whilst recently McNulty had seemed to be something of a reformed character, the last run of episodes sees his demons return. And this time it's not self destruction through drink. One set of scenes goes so far as to explicitly draw an unexpected parallel between McNulty and the sleazy politician Clay Davis. During his grandstanding trial scene, Davis says how he always begins with full pockets but by the time he's finished they're empty. At the same time, McNulty is handing out the police department budget he shouldn't have to the other cops hand over fist. From a certain point of view, both can justify their conduct. Davis claims he broke rules to allow important deeds to be paid for in the community. And McNulty is trying to facilitate legitimate investigations which would otherwise be shut down. But it's weak. Because maybe that's how it starts, altruistically, before so many favours and strings become attached that nobody any longer knows which way is up and which way down in the original lie, and all that is left is self-gratification and preservation.

The fact that Lester Freamon too, through McNulty, indulges exactly the duplicitous behaviour exhibited by those whose money he has traced in painstaking investigations, which seem to have culminated now with nothing more than him knowing how to perpetrate better evasions himself, without much risk of being caught, is a remarkable fall from grace, no matter how sophisticated the justification. The ends may indeed justify the means, but that does not mean you have not become part of the corruption you were trying to eradicate, and which others will continue to fight after you. Clay Davis is right when he stands on the courthouse steps and holding a copy of Prometheus Bound misquotes Aeschylus. "In the words of a-silly-ass, no good deed goes unpunished."

The scene very near the end, when Freamon blackmails Davis, having seen him walk free and unable to bring his most substantial case, and in which Davis admits he once ran a confidence trick on Stringer Bell, is breathtakingly complex. In one sense Freamon has the upper hand and deceives Davis and gets what he wants. But he's been forced to play a game that Davis has known forever, and Davis can live with this latest iteration, and even tells Freamon how it works. That a senator and a drug lord had once been business associates only underscores the ethical quagmire - just as the earlier revelation that Commissioner Burrell and Proposition Joe were contemporaries from school had seemed mind boggling. Freamon has spent the best years of his career attempting to unravel connections like these, and now Davis is casually telling him secrets, because he takes Freamon to be part of that world. And it's true, although Freamon does not seem sinister or corrupt to us, and has no plans except to retire, finally having found a justice of sorts.

To me, most of all, the final episode of The Wire really maps out a scheme in which which some characters are willing to face personal sacrifice to get what they want, and others aren't.

Pearlman and Daniels aren't willing to fall on the sword to see Stanfield go to jail, because Rhonda convinces her lover not to wreck her career and hard fought place in the establishment. Daniels to some extent absolves himself of this sin by making a stand on another issue, and sees that he should remove himself from the system. Even this is triggered partially by Nerese's machinations to become mayor after Carcetti becomes the Govenor of Maryland. But it is too late. Because they were more interested in shielding themselves from blame for McNulty's insubordinance, Levy is able to see that Marlo walks. But there is no responsibility to be taken. Pearlman is promoted to judge, and Daniels, who was briefly promoted to commissioner of the police department, falls back on his law degree. Similarly Burrell and Rawls both land on their feet with cushy new jobs after years of juking the crime stats, and Valchek is somewhat improbably appointed the new commissioner.

Stanfield meanwhile walks out of the business junket Levy takes him to because he knows he doesn't belong in the establishment. This is when we are finally shown how before his name was his name he was able to rise to the top by risking his own life on the corners. He actually seems to have more pride in who he is and what he is doing than he does in the status his actions confer on him. It's just that his force of nature has been systemically targeted at a self destructive environment.

Similarly, McNulty, Freamon and Partlow face the consequences of their actions, and retrospectively, this actually informs the manner in which they conducted themselves whilst attempting to achieve their goals. Bunny Colvin too.

I think even Clay Davis comes across as somebody who is not afraid of a fight, because he can talk himself out of any situation he gets into, whereas others have to obfuscate the facts to avoid ever getting into a fight. By the time he talks to Freamon, he seems to be honest about how things work, in a way that Carcetti for all his supposed good intentions, will always be in self serving denial. Carcetti does want the city of Baltimore to be improved, but not as much as he personally wants to be the person who improved the city of Baltimore. The sad thing with Carcetti is he clearly knows what the appropriate behaviour is, and even demands personal responsibility from underlings when the writing's on the wall, but he is a hypocrite, corrupted by power, because you know he would never sacrifice himself.

At every turn, the lines are impossibly blurred between becoming an honest crook, or a dishonest idealist, and nearly every outcome is the same, regardless of the individual's choice, so long as they continue to travel through the system.

The message seems to be this: The systems will never be changed by particular individuals trying to write their own stories. The systems will only be changed when the majority of individuals have a type of internal integrity that informs the group behaviour, so that everybody who should fall on their sword does it when they need to. The system needs to have its own ruthless natural selection of the virtuous. A leader needs to be the agent of the culture, instead of the culture being the agent of the leader. Only then will the next generation be freed from unspeakable dilemmas in order to get by.

At times, the street level gang members are shown as having these positive attributes more so than the professionals charged with disrupting them. Similarly a strange contrast seems to be alluded to at the top of the organizations. To Marlo, his name is being known for being who he really is, whereas for some of the political characters, their name is creating a false impression of who they really are. In his last scene, Marlo walks away from the protection invoking his name would bring, but who he really is still shines through regardless, in his actions alone, as he wins back one corner with his bare hands. Then, intriguingly, you have Omar, who by the end seems to exist more tangibly as a myth than as a man. Omar almost transcends being an individual to become the embodiment of some strange new institution.

Strangest of all, for all they invoke their names in relation to one another and their status on the streets: O MAR LO.

Surprisingly in the end it's the ruthless Marlo who appears to achieve the ambitions which had eluded the business minded Stringer Bell. He has the chance to go legitimate, to be a business man. Yet it's a complicated picture. One strange ambiguity is that when the lawyer Levy and the politician Davis boast about how much money they make from bleeding the drug kingpins - with shady business opportunities - they come off as slimy and corrupt parasites. And yet consider the parallel with Omar Little - a robber with a shotgun - who has been bleeding the drug kingpins all series and comes off as weirdly noble.

At times it feels like a criticism of civilization encroaching on the wilderness and competing with natural law, one that could come straight out of a western. Omar has always been the one character that The Wire has allowed any romanticism. At times his mythology seems a bit incongruous with the rest of the world around him. But after riding off into the sunset at the end of season four; after cheating death with his Spider Man leap from a tower block window - and still managing to terrify everybody on crutches - this felt like the only way his story could end. After several seasons of prowling the streets like an old time outlaw, it only seems right that Omar gets a version of the most famous gun-slinger death of all - that of Bill Hickock and Jesse James - shot in the side of the head by an eleven year old kid as he buys cigarettes at a convenience store.

Marlo actually seems put out to be reprieved from a duel with Omar. Instead we expect him to be taken down on another front. But whilst Marlo unwisely eschews the financial guidance of Proposition Joe for that of Levy, he actually also does something else that's quite sophisticated. Effectively he takes the rest of the dealers for ten million dollars. He steals the drug connect from Joe and sells it back to Joe's underlings for ten million dollars, and then he gets out of the game. Marlo doesn't get Stringer's happy ending after all. He gets Omar's happy ending, but he uses Levy to do it. Levy thinks he's bleeding Marlo instead of bleeding Joe, but really Marlo is using Levy to keep on bleeding Joe. And then at the end he even walks out on Levy. Just like Clay Davis, he's managed to get past the lawyer. And his last act on that street corner when he's challenged by somebody - who fails to recognise him so doesn't know his name - shows he wasn't afraid of going out onto the street and confronting Omar, because actually they're quite alike. In a striking visual image, Marlo symbolically ends the season as Omar in a business suit.

And perhaps he was all along. What fundamentally is the difference between Omar and his gang robbing kids on street corners and Marlo, Chris and Snoop taking over the entire Barksdale organisation, other than a question of scale? Omar left bodies too. Omar is the village corner shop - and that's where he dies. Marlo is Wallmart. It may be Omar's name that spiritually haunts the night, but Marlo owns it. They have become entwined.

Very similarly, McNulty's confrontation with Templeton is important, because effectively he is confronting himself, and what he has become. Both are culpable for the human misery which has stemmed from their twin deceptions. The only difference is that Bunk allowed McNulty's deception to continue even though he disapproved, whereas Haynes tried his best to get Templeton's fraud shut down, but to no avail. Even worse, Freamon, who should be the voice of rational experience, teaches McNulty how to make his scheme more elaborate. They do at least have a wider purpose than Templeton's mere ambition and his bosses greed, but their fall into moral aporia compromises what chance they have to accomplish their goal, so what difference does their motivation really make? Marlo walks away a rich man and The Greek is still free to sell drugs through new partners - Slim Charles shoots Cheese and takes over the connect. Just like the Baltimore Sun has done nothing to solve the real problems of homelessness, McNulty and Freamon were doomed to failure anyway. Taking out Marlo was never enough, and Freamon should have known this, even before he starts fraternising with his former foe Davis.

Templeton actually wins a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the homeless and Haynes is demoted for criticising him. The city will never heal itself if it cannot examine itself accurately and honestly. The scene where McNulty and Kima go to Quantico and listen to the FBI behavioural scientists deliver a profile of the serial killer that perfectly matches McNulty, as he squirms in his chair and struggles to look anybody in the eye, is utterly hilarious. McNulty at least tries to make amends by helping the disabled man he kidnapped, and solving a copy-cat killing inspired by the serial killer news stories. But it's not nearly enough, and his family life has suffered. Meanwhile Bunk brings Partlow to justice through honest police work, despite being impeded by the circus, and an honest Sun reporter manages to run a legitimate piece about Bubbles.

Bubbles parallels everybody to some extent - he exemplifies how every man or woman or child can contain the potential to hit the depths of depravity or to be guided by an inner conviction of integrity - and this is true of junkies, cops, teachers, politicians, dealers, stevedores, journalists, stick-up men... The future of the kids is shown to be determined not by the roles they adopt but rather by their conduct. So although the briefly glimpsed outcomes for Randy and Namond might seem capricious and final, they're anything but. The last shot of Dukie is heartbreaking.

Marlo's lieutenants are less fortunate than him. Zombie Chris is delivered into the arms of another system - prison. But even this might not be the fate it seems. Avon Barksdale has already been shown to be doing very well for himself in prison - in stark contrast to his nephew D'Angelo in earlier seasons, or, one presumes, Ziggy Sobotka. The last shot we see of Partlow, now with Wee-Bey, leaves little doubt he will be a man to be feared and respected here as well.

Which leaves the saddest scene of all. Snoop's interaction with Michael before he shoots her is an important coda to the whole school storyline, because it re-enforces the notion that while they're young the kids fall through the cracks because the system cannot give them the structure they need, and so they rebel against the system, but ultimately come to find structure within the drugs organisations, to which they uniformly conform where the correct authority figures failed to teach them. Except Snoop confirms that Michael is a misfit in both worlds - perhaps not unlike McNulty, the only person who openly rebels against the hierarchy of the police department, and who is exposed by Kima. Snoop and Kima both understand the rules of how their respective systems work, and know that these rules cannot be safely broken. Michael on the other hand is left with a choice of whose paradigm to follow, Marlo or Omar, but you wonder what McNulty would have chosen in another life. That an execution scene could be so touching, or that any femininity and humanity could return to Snoop at all, right at the end, is unexpected. Perhaps Michael has to do what he does because otherwise Snoop would kill him, but he has already failed Dukie, and you can't help but recall the fate of Wallace back in season one.

The parting montage of the city finishes with McNulty, who has miraculously disentangled himself from his troubles with the police department, but will have to face his own conscience.

Summary: The lasting influence of The Wire on other artists will be immense.