Us: 5x10 - "-30-" [***** Spoilers Within *****]

chalkitdown1

I can't believe I'm about to watch the last ever episode of this wonderful show.

I think I'm gonna cry.

Ronanom

Yea, d/ling it now

chalkitdown1

Man, what a wrap-up.

The standout scene for me was the "funeral". Absolutely hillarious, and we got to see everyone together for one last time.

Some other highlights-

-Pretty much everyone getting away with everything. Templeton winning an award
-A cleaned up and very respectible looking Bubbs sitting down to dinner with his sister. I felt so happy for him.
-The minute-long montage of the city about halfway through the episode, and the one at the end. What better song to use than the one that started the show.
-Michael turning into the new Omar and Sydnor the new McNulty.
-Slim Charles avenging Pro Joe. I actually jumped at this moment. Caught me completely by surprise.
-Marlo walking away free, but finding out that he wasn't made for the straight life.
-Kenard the little shít, getting arrested.
-Rawls & Daniels confronting McNulty over what he's done. It was an incredible scene. So too, was the one just prior to it, with Jimmy & Cedric in the elevator. "To be continued"
-Dukie

And so much more besides.

Still can't believe it's over.

chalkitdown1

Just realised that I forgot to add a poll.:rolleyes:

If a moderator could be so kind......

tvnutz

In the process of getting it,probably won't have a chance to watch it until after work at 11pm tomorrow night

Part of me doesn't want to watch it because it is the end of the best tv show ever made.

DeepBlue

Just finished watching it a short while ago.

It seemed a little un-Wire-like (if that makes sense) with quite a few long shots of Baltimore scenes almost as if the show was saying goodbye to Baltimore itself and the final episode (or at least the second half of it) seemed quite subdued.

delanec8

Cant believe i wont be able to see any more of the wire. Best show ever!!

Dukie:( Bubbles:)

AnCapaillMor

An almost perfect ending for a perfect show.

Poor old dukie, bubbsII, pissed over Daniels, lol'd when i saw Valchek, what chalk said about mcnulty II and omarII. Cheese getting i was jumping out of the chair crying yes!!!!. Chris and webay at the end. so many things.

Good to see it stayed true to itself no perfect fairytale ending.

Sherifu

Very good ending, some great scenes
Glad I wasn't the only spotting the circle of life bit
Michael->Omar
Sydnor->McNulty
Dookie->Bubbles
Didn't expect Daniels to fall on his sword. Chris having a chat to Weebay in prison.
All the shots of the city, the main theme seemed to be life moving on. Great ending.

ixoy

wahhh!

No it's over!! Great ending and the whole circle-of-life theme was well played. I think my favourite thing almost was just seeing Bubbles sit down to dinner - aww, he made it

Lester and McNulty being forced to retire is fine - there's no other way they could do it. It's also interesting to see how Carcetti let power corrupt him - his willingess to let the dirt go unanswered for is far from the idealistic candidate we saw in the third season.

Marlo walking away? Yeah, figured it would go that way. He'll go down in the streets though. His time is limited - there's no other life he can live.

Also the mock funeral - excellent scene.

Could go on but it's late and I won't. Great ending, superb show.

jArgHA

Great wrap-up and nice to see closure on all the sub-plots. Not going to spoiler the text below as "spoiler" is in the thread title.

The thing that broke my heart most was seeing Dukie asking for money from Presbo (nice to see a him reappear and seemingly he has adapted very well to the ways of a teacher and has got respect from his students), and then the snapshot at the end where he is shooting up with that fecker he has been hanging out with. But on the other hand we see Bubs is being re-integrated into his sister's life by her leaving the door open to him (I guess the Baltimore Sun article finally opened her heart to him again).

The funeral scene was excellent, for a split second I was fooled into thinking oh no McNulty's gone and topped himself. Also it was nice to see Lester and cNulty's reaction to Kima owning up to having spilled the beans, and welcoming her to drink with them.

Wasn't expecting McNulty to come off as well as he did at the end of this series, but guess that shows how unpredictable it was. Who knows he may actually stay faithful to Beadie and the civilian life may calm him down a bit.

Good to see Cheese get taken down and like ixoy says there's no way Marlo can do anything else except life on the street, and if so he probably won't last long.

Poor ol' Dukie

Now to get my girlfriend into this series and start watching the whole thing over again from Season 1...

PS just on the circle of life thing, did anyone notice in the credits sequence of Series 4 the prevalence of wheels / things spinning (especially the last 15 seconds or so) - I always wondered what the significance of this was

Dennis the Stone

Everything has been said. What a nice beard Prez has now.

tvnutz

Damn. Tis over! The best tv show ever made has ended and you have to wonder will there be anything else like it again.

I thought it was a great ending. I can see that people will be upset with some aspects,like how it kind of seemed a bit condensed,but with 10 eps instead of 13 it was always going to be like that anyway.

I loved how they portrayed the circle of life idea. And that is realistic. No matter what happens,it will all happen again because nothing really changes. Syndor is the new McNulty,which you can easily see could happen. Michael the new Omar,which again you can see. he is tough and streetwise but he does have a moral side to him as well. A man must have a code.

Lestor and Jimmy don't go to jail but have to retire,a better ending than I could have hoped for them. i reckon Jimmy will settle down with Beadie now. when he didn't have the big cases in season 4 he was a different person,he is back to that now.

I laughed my ass off when valchek got the commissioners job. Brilliant! haha Again with the theme of nothing changes. I have been rooting for Daniels to make it to the top since season 3 because he might just change things. But carcetti is just another politician and he gets to be gov and again nothing changes.Daniels falls to whatever he did that we never found out about and never really expected to.Fair play to him for not becoming another sheep within the department,but it doesn't exactly help the department either because he is gone. He becomes a lawyer,Pearlman becomes a judge,Levy gets off,Marlo can't escape the street and so he will fall one way of the other. Chris is in for life and they cleared all 22 vacent murders on him.

Templeton gets his award for lying and the good reporters get nothing or get fired in Alma's case. I loved when McNulty confronted him and told him he was a joke. Loved the montage of scenery in the middle and then the montage at the end.

Then you have the happy and the sad. Great to see Bubbles made it,having dinner with his sister and daughter. Then you have poor Dukie becoming an addict. Good to see Prez back and good to see he has become a good teacher but I had some outlandish hopes he would take Dukie in,but Dukie has become the new Bubbles and so the circle of life goes on.

I think that is mostly everything! Kennard getting arrested yet we again see omar's legend still reigns on because apparantly he was taken down by 3 guys with Ak-47s! Kind of wanted another Clay Davis appearance but I guess they wrapped him up last week.

And how I could I forget Slim Charles putting a bullet in Cheese's head. That SOB deserved it and I cheered. You gotta love Slim Charles. "If its a lie,then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight"

A very good ending to an amazing show that hopefully people will find out about and watch it through. The End

Lafortezza

I would have preffered if one or two more people got screwed. It annoyed me that Daniels got fcuked over while everyone else got away pretty much scot free, or at least got what was expected.

Bubbles/Carcetti/newspaper people/Lester/McNulty/Rhonda/Levy/Valchek/Prez. They all come out pretty well. Some of them like Bubbles and Rhonda deserved a good ending, but imo McNulty, Carcetti and Templeton should have gone to jail, disgraced in the media, and fired respectively.

I liked the way the gangsters/drugs circle continued though. There was shades of Stringer Bell when Marlo was at the party meeting the business people, but when he gets back on the street it's obvious it was never for him, and he couldn't have succeeded at it. You just can't quit the Game etc.

Best scenes were McNulty/Daniels/Rawls in the interrogation room, McNulty and Daniels in the lift, McNulty and Templeton confrontation, and Bubbles at the dinner table.

Such a shame it's over.

jor el

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet, it's over!

jArgHA wrote: »

The funeral scene was excellent, for a split second I was fooled into thinking oh no McNulty's gone and topped himself. Also it was nice to see Lester and cNulty's reaction to Kima owning up to having spilled the beans, and welcoming her to drink with them.

I thought the same thing about the funeral too, thought maybe the strain got to him and he took one in the head. It was one of the best moments in it, that and all the face off scenes in the elevator, interview room with Rawls and Daniels and McNulty with Templeton. Also nice to see Jimmy say to Kima, "if you think it's gotta be done, than it probably did", which is exactly how he's always looked at things.

tvnutz wrote: »

I laughed my ass off when valchek got the commissioners job. Brilliant! haha

Suddenly made sense who Sydnor/McNultyII was talking about when he said the new commish wouldn't know police work if it kicked in his front door with a warrant. Never thought Valchek would make it, but nice to see him again.

All the wrap ups were good, it really did stick to the way it has always portrayed things with no real happy endings, nothing ever gets done and the good ones always seem to have to pay the price.

Only one thing irked me in the end, Herc. He gave Marlo's number to Carver in order to kick off all that investigation, then dropped the ball with Leavy and allowing him to get Marlo off the hook. Hard to tell where he was at, maybe that's just Herc, bit of an idiot?

JPA

It was disappointing to see Levy get off scot-free. He was the constant in all the seasons and like Omar said, he lived off drug dealers.
But then I suppose that's realistic. Drug Lawyers do their thing in a morally corrupt world and go home to their mansions.

Placebo

some one explain marlo thing to me, is he gonna stay true to the street ? the business life not for him? DANG.
i give it 4/5, it was amazing and nice to see that **** go jail for omar but i think some other episodes were more 5/5 like when omar came back !

Jim

Placebo wrote: »

some one explain marlo thing to me, is he gonna stay true to the street ? the business life not for him? DANG.
i give it 4/5, it was amazing and nice to see that **** go jail for omar but i think some other episodes were more 5/5 like when omar came back !

You don't, really, its up to you to decide.

The fact that he lied to Levy so he could leave, he was obviously bored and didn't really care about all the important people Levy was trying to introduce to him. Then when he got back to the street he nearly got killed, but you could see the smile on his face afterward. The gangster life is what he loves, not the business life. So the strong suggestion is that he will eventually go back to crime.

Jay Ru

can't believe its actually over, and what an ending! there is one or two things i'd have a problem with but as far as ending goes, i couldn't of asked for more. the speachless expression on Carcetti face to begin the ep was priceless and hats off to Norman for calling a spade a spade and laughing his ass off at the whole situation. its a shame Carcetti sold his soul in the process of becoming the gov, i had high hopes for him.

i'm glad McNulty didn't end up in jail, he might of deserved it but look at how many others made there career off Jimmy's back. Loved the funeral scene, it was very fitting, nice way to say goodbye to him and Lester. fair play to both of em for being man enough to admit Kima was right to rat them up. R.I.P. Detective Jimmy McNulty, as Jay Landsmans said he was "a true muurda polece".... great speach by Jay to!

i knew Levy wouldn't end up in jail and that Marlo wouldn't do the full stretch but i didn't think he'd walk all together. in response to the question bout him "staying true to the street" i don't think he'd be able to go back to hustling without Chris & Snoop and the rest of his muscle, plus he sold the connect so where wud he get drugs from. i cheered out loud when Slim Charles put a bullet in Cheese's dome, man i wanted to see him dead for a long time.

good to see Carver climb the ladder, he really came good in series 3. shame we can't say the same for dumb old Herc, can't believe he told Levy bout the wire tap. What a wanker.

the 2 montages where class, i really loved the first one. gave us a chance to say goodbye to the parts of Baltimore some of us have grown to love over the 5 series. the second one was every bit as good and balanced, just the way life really is, Bubbles finalling getting to go up stairs was heart warming then we get to see Dookie pushing that **** into he vein's, it devastated me. out if all the characters i really wanted Dookie to get off the streets and get his **** together. poor kid!

theres been enough talk bout the circle of life already so i won't go on about it but i do like how Micheal ended up being the new Omar and i loved "its been a pleasure doing business with u, gentlemen" pure Omar. The king is dead, long live the king.

i hope Templeton get hits by a bus on his way to his next interview!

one last thing,

why did they show Bill Rawls in a gay bar in series 3 and then never bring it up again?

"ALL TOLD!"

Jay Ru

can somebody explain the relevance to the episode title?

DeepBlue

Jay Ru wrote: »

can somebody explain the relevance to the episode title?

-30- is apparently what reporters put at the end of a story they file with their editors to indicate that whatever is above the -30- is the story and whatever is written below the -30- is not to be included and just perhaps notes and annotations for the reporter's own use.

In short -30- indicates "end of story" and thus is a fitting finale title for the Wire.

Lafortezza

Jay Ru wrote: »

c
one last thing,

why did they show Bill Rawls in a gay bar in series 3 and then never bring it up again?

"ALL TOLD!"

I think it was to show that all the characters had more to them than you might have thought at first. It would have been stupid to include this facet of Rawls in the overall storyline, but it's good to know that his character is more rounded than just being the dick Deputy Ops.

PDelux

It never said what the dirt was on Daniels and his wife, did it? I thought it would be interesting to know what they did.

It was funny the way Avon sold the "connect" to Marlo for $100K and Marlo sold it to the co-op for $10m!! That's some ROI!

Found it strange too that the cops never found out about the co-op, with all they knew about Marlo and Prop Joe etc. they never discovered it.

Sherifu

No, we never found out. Marlo is good but the Greeks are a different league.

JPA

Sherifu wrote: »

No, we never found out. Marlo is good but the Greeks are a different league.

So good in fact that he's not even Greek!

Sherifu

JPA wrote: »

So good in fact that he's not even Greek!

Indeed. We shall never know more about him either.

godtabh

Just watched it there. Fantastic. I dont think you could have asked for a better based on The Wires past form.

I like the way that all the main players over the last couple of years got aome sort of cameo. I thought that was good.

Defo a 5 out of 5 for me.

I also think that they have let it open for a spin off. Dont think it will be in the same format as the Wire but I reckon there is potenital for another show with the same people.

If the same writers and directors were involved it could be another hit.

THe one thing that could top this off now is if it winds some awards. I dont follow that kind of thing but the people involved defo deserve a couple

tvnutz

If season 4,the best season of any tv show i have seen didn't get any awards,I don't hold hope for this great show getting any awards this season.

ixoy

tvnutz wrote: »

If season 4,the best season of any tv show i have seen didn't get any awards,I don't hold hope for this great show getting any awards this season.

Aye - same. When "Grey's Anatomy" gets constant nominations and "The Wire" gets nothing, you know there's something fundamentally screwed up about the nomination process (the fact being not enough people have seen it to nominate it).

Sherifu

It's too good for its own good.

jor el

Sherifu wrote: »

Indeed. We shall never know more about him either.

kearnsr wrote: »

I also think that they have let it open for a spin off.

Hmm, a light hearted comedy spin off like "My Big Fat Greek Dope Deal" perhaps, or "At Home with the Greeks"?

Maybe not.

godtabh

jor el wrote: »

Hmm, a light hearted comedy spin off like "My Big Fat Greek Dope Deal" perhaps, or "At Home with the Greeks"?

I was thinking more like a spin using some of the lesser used people and introducing new people. It could just fall back on murder police or drugs. Keep the same writing style that is (or was)The Wise. I'll leave the witty titles up to you!

jor el

kearnsr wrote: »

The Wise. I'll leave the witty titles up to you!

eh..... What a time for a typo. It was a rather wise show I guess.

billstraighten

Sad to see it end, but it ended so good

not gonna go on about the whole circle of life thing etc etc,

5/5

Im re watching 1-4 over the easter holidays

Vic Vinegar

The end of an era! great show, great ending.

Wertz

Wow, just wow. It's come full circle. Michael becoming Omar, Marlow looking like he was headed in Stringer's footsteps, so much other stuff. Really loved how they brought back previous characters for small walk on parts in the closing two episodes.

I'm so sad that this has ended but so happy that it never went downhill or seemed forced....the perfect series. I hope the producers go on to turn their skills to some other social commentary disguised as drama.
Bravo. Encore.

markyboy

Jay Ru wrote: »

one last thing,

why did they show Bill Rawls in a gay bar in series 3 and then never bring it up again?

"ALL TOLD!"

Amazing ending. Watching the scene when Rawls was intimidating McNulty and said to Mrs. Me that one of the most amazing scenes of the series, and there were many, was that shot of them panning the camera around that bar. That was the genius that was that series.

Twiki

kearnsr wrote: »

I like the way that all the main players over the last couple of years got some sort of cameo.

Agreed, David Simon even gave himself a cameo appearance in the newsroom in that final episode.

jArgHA

I've been watching 6-part mini-series "The Corner" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0224853/) for the past week and am pretty sure David Simon gave himself a cameo in that too in a courtroom sequence (sitting in one of the front rows and appears to be laughing).

Its a pretty damn good series too, a lot of parallels with The Wire although it differs in that it focusses solely on the junkies and the corner boys. Kind of reminds me of that gritty series that was on RTE years back called "The Family" in that it takes a different central character for the first 4 ep's, all from the same family.

regi

Its over

Oh well - bestest show ever.

Ardent

Great show, good ending. Thought season 5 was one of the better seasons, if not the best. Was also the most humourous for me, laughed a lot through it.

The only thing that irked me about the finale was the way Daniels, after his meteoric rise to the post of Comissioner, chucked away his career in one fell swoop because of his ideals regarding the department. Found that to be totally unrealisitc and a big stretch of the imagination.

godtabh

Ardent wrote: »

Great show, good ending. Thought season 5 was one of the better seasons, if not the best. Was also the most humourous for me, laughed a lot through it.

The only thing that irked me about the finale was the way Daniels, after his meteoric rise to the post of Comissioner, chucked away his career in one fell swoop because of his ideals regarding the department. Found that to be totally unrealisitc and a big stretch of the imagination.

He's clearly doing something else he loves by moving into law. I wanted to sort out the police department and knew from an early stage that he wouldnt be able to do anything. He just saved himself alot of hassle in the long term. He is a realist

giftgrub

just finished...I'm man enough to admit that it moved me in a way that other TV shows never have

Theres a very good(but long) Q&A with David Simon here

http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2008/03/wire-david-simon-q.html

Shame about dukie, but good to see Namond doing well for himself.

What next for McNulty?

Lord Nikon

Wish something good came out for Omar, yeah he killed a few people but he wne to kill the right people. Really bad way for him to go down too, felt sorry for him. It was ****ty the way Gus fobbed off the story of him getting killed for a fire instead, if only he knew the truth.

Terrible what happened to Butch too.

Was gutted to see Dukie shooting up at the end. Prez driving away disgusted.

Damn I wish it wasnt over, i miss it now, feel liked i got to know the characters so well, and now there all gone.

Peace

Man what a show. I guess it never hit BIG because its such a slow burn. I guess it just wouldn't suit people with short attention spans!

5 seasons of quality viewing. Sorry its over but the ending was pure class.

silvine

i watched it last night and can honestly say that this show is so good it has ruined tv for me.

I was in the middle of watching the West Wing before I started watching the Wire and now that show seems like fairytale nonsense. Even Battlestar Galactica seems a little corny.

As for the series finale, it was for more satisfying than the Sopranos and hit all the right notes. The only thing I didn't like was Marlo's ending. It was very ambigous. And Jimmy got off lightly (but then I was rooting for him!)

Jim

silvine wrote: »

i watched it last night and can honestly say that this show is so good it has ruined tv for me.

I was in the middle of watching the West Wing before I started watching the Wire and now that show seems like fairytale nonsense. Even Battlestar Galactica seems a little corny.

As for the series finale, it was for more satisfying than the Sopranos and hit all the right notes. The only thing I didn't like was Marlo's ending. It was very ambigous. And Jimmy got off lightly (but then I was rooting for him!)

Same thing happened to me.

Was in the middle of watched S2 of Dexter, which I used to quite enjoy, then watched The Wire. When I went back and tried to continue Dexter I thought "How did I ever watch this ****e?"

CivilServant

Guys try breaking bad, that's some good shiiiiiiiiiiet. It's the only decent thing I've seen since the Wire. Who knew the Wire could mess up television forever?!

Lord Nikon

I need more The Wire, crap why did it have to end.

tvnutz

neuromancer wrote: »

I need more The Wire, crap why did it have to end.

why? you wanted some happy ending or an ending that tied everything up in a nice little package? then you have been watching the wrong show for the last 5 seasons,it was never like that. I thought it was a great ending,nothing changes. To steal a quote from Battlestar galactica..."all of this has happened before,and will happen again".

silvine

Most shows that go beyond four or five seasons tend to turn into pale copies or their former selves. It's hard for a show to stay fresh, original and still have something to say.

I'm sorry there is no more Wire but just think how many great shows have been ruined by being dragged on too long eg 24.