It’s been a riveting descent into the worst aspects of human nature and the modern American city. “The Wire” has distinguished itself as television’s most intricate and literate series, soberly reflecting the decline of our civilization.
But there are notes of redemption sounded in the finale, airing at 7 p.m. Sunday on HBO.
No spoilers, I promise, but fans will find evidence of small personal triumphs as the fifth and final season comes to a close.
Expect heated debate over the verisimilitude of those rare hopeful turns. If the house of cards assembled in last week’s episode doesn’t fall exactly as you expected, creator David Simon has done his job.
I can’t recall connecting with a group of characters, or feeling sad about their impending absence, this much since “The Corner,” Simon’s 2000 miniseries study of the Baltimore drug wars.
Credit that “Dickensian aspect” that Simon jokingly wove into the dialogue in a recent episode of “The Wire,” in which he mocked newspaper folks in general and critics in particular who found Dickens in the epic tele-novel.
There’s no getting around it: The horde of colorful characters ranging across social strata, and their interactions with corrupt institutions and dysfunctional bureaucracies in a gritty city in decline, recalls nothing so much as a juicy date with the complex Victorian novels. The underclass in this case are the black ghetto residents; the filthy factories are the shooting galleries; the aristocrats are the developers eyeing the waterfront; the wigged barristers are the shrewd lawyers defending the drug kingpins.
The brilliant study of manipulators and power brokers — whether police, gangsters, politicians, labor officials, shady real estate developers or the press — ties up loose ends in a satisfying finale. It’s a breathtaking finish, although last week’s penultimate hour was more forceful.
Ultimately, in the finale, directed by Clark Johnson (who plays city editor Gus Haynes), some favorite characters take surprising paths as the next generation of addicts, criminals, public servants and cops take their places.
The question of whether ends justify means has been a constant theme this season and won’t be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
The only constant is decay: of the city, its institutions and of civilization.
Our protagonist, McNulty, returned to alcoholism and womanizing while scamming the homicide department with a phony (not to mention twisted) serial murder case, in order to get more money out of the department for real police work. What punishment should his actions merit? Kima disapproved of McNulty’s infractions, just as Bunk did, but wasn’t it out of character for her to turn her colleague in to their superiors last week?
Mayor Carcetti is all about playing the game, but he’s smart enough to have the long-term welfare of the citizens in mind, too. And as an example of the competent professional following a strict moral code, Snoop was perfect, checking her hair before checking out in the previous episode.
The genius of “The Wire,” always a favorite of a small but dedicated audience, is in its fine details in the midst of an epic story. Simon gives us fully imagined characters in a world of intricately drawn obstacles and impossible choices. He has said he modeled his work on Greek tragedies.
The newspaper plotline was the weakest of the five seasons. Simon, the former police reporter for the Baltimore Sun, allowed himself to vent against his old employer. He earned the right. Those of us in the industry appreciated it, even if the newsroom depicted onscreen was noticeably free of Internet talk and modern technology.
Other aspects rang true (we’ve all endured those meetings about “doing more with less”).
And we appreciate “-30-,” the episode title, which designates the end of a newspaper story, from the age of the telegraph, typewriter and hot lead type.
In the end, a couple of lines from this season’s opener sounded a bit too obvious when they were spoken, but they continue to resonate, and serve to sum up the series as a whole:
“The game is rigged.”
“We’re all complicit.”
Joanne Ostrow’s column appears Tuesday, Friday and Sunday: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
