Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The Wire and the Lie of an Ending

I finally made it to the last episode of The Wire. It was a mess, poorly paced and an uneasy mix of urban rhapsody and rushed plot points. But, of course, it didn't matter. The Wire at its worst is television at its best. And great moments flooded from the screen: Snoop facing death by checking her hair, Cheese telling the drug lords, 'There ain't no back in the day, nigga. Ain't no nostalgia to this shit here. There's just the street and the game and what happen here today', Bubbles, as ever, condensing the suffering of the world, Bunk's cigar after he'd cuffed Chris Partlow, the fake wake for McNulty when they all roared 'I'm a free-born man of the USA!', McNulty's speech to the lying hack on the Baltimore Sun, Carcetti's epic disbelief at the serial killer scam, Omar's death at the hands of a child, Rawls looking massively uncomfortable in the uniform of a state trooper, Marlo suddenly asserting his identity, 'My name is my name', Marlo returning to the street just to smell its cold lethality (real shiver there) - I could go on for hours and just about this one sub-par episode. But perhaps it wasn't sub-par. Perhaps the whole point is that The Wire is uncomfortable with endings because endings are lies. The same returns, life goes on and, as the little neighbour boy says, ' Nothing is revealed.' The Wire is one of the great works of art of our time.

9 comments:

  1. Thats right Appleyard, give the bloody ending away.

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  2. There is no ending, Malty, and you're an engineer! Who knew?

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  3. "The Wire is one of the great works of art of our time."

    It sure is, along with "The Dark Knight" and "Into the Wild" my Highlights of the TV and Cinema year thus far.

    I would you would have been watching David Malone's New Doc, on BBC4 last night and keeping up with developments in uncertainty?
    Rather than a pack of lager, a pizza and The Wire.

    High Anxieties: The Mathematics of Chaos

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  4. Right, can you catch up with 'Deadwood' now? Another piece of genius from HBO. The quality of the writing (and most of the acting) is astounding. Look out for the words they put into the mouth of the Hotel owner, 'EB' - those words, his delivery . . . utterly brilliant.

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  5. Deadwood works for Yankees, as they have not seen Ian McShane in Lovejoy.

    Every time I see him in Deadwood I cant get Ford Anglia s, East Anglia and Lady Jane out of my head.

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  6. Hey come on - what about the ending of The Sopranos? And, come to that, NYPD Blue?

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  7. Suck a duck, Bryan! Why oh why did I read that post? I am still watching Season One (no time, no time, no time) and you've now told me how the whole thing ends. Jaysus! Giving away endings is a cardinal sin for reviewers of anything....I cain't believe it of you, boy. You'd better come up with another post to make up for this one.

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  8. The panormaic shots of the city itself were like a shock too sine we hadn;t seen any of it. Carcetti's stunned silence with his mouth hanging open was priceless, and ditto, Marlo's bloodlust at the end.

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  9. Bryan, did you buy the boxset?

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