Every Monday, VIBE.com reviews and recaps the latest episode of HBO's The Wire - which we consider the most realistic show on television, the best TV show of the century, and the most important sociological document of our lifetime. But you know what it is.
This is it, homies. The final season of The Wire. It's hard to believe an epic show in which we've invested so much time and mind-space - not to mention the place this shit holds in our hearts - is coming to an end. But quitting while you're on top is a good way to go. (Not hating, but I can think of some rappers that could learn a thing or two from these dudes for real.)
The fifth and final season has to somehow top season four, which focused on Baltimore's crumbling school system, where four lovable boys navigated their way from the chaos of the corners, into a rigidly structured environment that didn't fit with anything else they knew. Arguably the best season so far, it bound together the reality of the streets with its casualties who have little choice in their fates - young black men caught up in the game and/or eaten up by the system. (It's all the same thing, after all.) It helped that the teen-characters - Michael (Tristan Wilds), Randy (Maestro Harrell), Dukie (Jermaine Crawford) and Namond (Julito McCullum) - were some of the most compelling on the show, innocent and world weary at the same time and unforgettable.
So how do you follow that up? For one, the final season of the Wire doesn't seem like it will be based totally on the streets - sure, most of our favorite (still-living) characters are back, including Michael and Dukie, now both high school dropouts and corner boys for fox-clever kingpin Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector). But if episode one is any indication, this season will be more about how the street's tentacles reach seemingly removed institutions, a la the docks in season two.
This time we're introduced to the inner workings of the Baltimore Sun, a daily paper where series creator David Simon worked for years. Set under the fluorescent lights of the newsroom, it's got a new cast of true-blue reporters - there's an editor-in-chief who upends the news to suit his own white viewpoint, a stoic take-no-shit City Editor (Gus Haynes, played by Clark Johnson), a young and hungry reporter who still believes in the integrity of journalism (Alma Gutierrez, played by Michelle Paress), another young and hungry journalist who's trying to use the Sun as a stepping stone to a bigger paper like the Times. It's a traditional set-up and, from a magazine-staffer's point of view, rings true to life - a fact some other journalists and reviewers have found annoying, but who my non-writer friends think is fascinating and, in true Wire form, utterly confusing to outsiders. But you gotta stay with it because, presumably, these folks are gonna start reporting on the streets - and, also presumably, that's how we'll get a glimpse of how yet another American institution deads any dealings with poor people of color.
And what would a crumbling American city be without the street story - the corner is the gift that STAYS giving. The show opens up with beloved Detective Bunk (Wendell Pierce) administering a fake lie-detector test to a kid he's trying to coerce into snitching. Bunk and his cohorts duct-tape homie's hands to a copy machine, and as they ask the alleged culprit questions, the copier spits out a sheet of paper that says either "TRUE" or "FALSE" - hilariously, ingeniously getting dude to confess. "The bigger the lie, the more they believe," chuckles Bunk, and his observation serves as a good subtitle for the season - the deception of the media (aforementioned), the deception of the government (you know Mayor Carcetti is finna be stunting like a man who wants to be Governor), and, probably, the deception of the police dept. and the intricate, citywide d-boy network set up by the inimitable kingpin / clockworker (LOVE THE METAPHOR) Proposition Joe (Robert F. Chew).
Of course, this is how they do. As Marlo Stanfield's right hand nailgun-slanga Snoop (Felicia Pearson) threatens while wrangling up some business with a new dude, "We will be brief with all you motherfuckers—I think you know." BOOM. It's one of those signature Wire lines that's probably already sampled on some young rapper's mixtape, and speaks volumes to longtime viewers: characters who misstep will be dealt with. Characters who are in the wrong place at the wrong time? Collateral damage.
As iconic as Snoop's line will be, it's yet another signature Wire line that foreshadows the happenings of the whole season (at least that's what Anwan Glover, who plays Slim Charles, told me at The Wire premiere party in New York on Friday). In the scene, the d-boy coalition is having a meeting in a conference room at the local Holiday Inn. Prop Joe is at the helm - young stealth Marlo shows up on rap time, aka late. Their power struggle is clearly about to blow. The topic of discussion : how to divide the paper among neighborhoods whose business is flagging. Prop Joe says folks who run certain neighborhoods, like East Baltimore - which is slowly gentrifying and, as a result, thirsting for customers - should get a bigger cut to balance out their profits. Marlo, who's always seen Prop Joe as a leech on his own crown, challenges the fairness of his suggestion and, on some real gangster shit, straight-up asks Slim Charles if he likes riding bitch on Prop Joe's operation. He says he likes it fine. Then Slim Charles leans over to Prop and's like, "Yo, you gotta keep an eye out for Marlo." Like we don't already know!
The Wire airs on HBO every Sunday at 9 pm EST.
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