Customer Rating: 
Summary: A stunning end to a stunning show
Comment: When I turned 17 years old for my birthday I recieved the first season of The Wire as a present. My father told me it was a good TV show and my expectations were in the line of a grittier version of The Shield on FX. Needless to say the show was ten times better than I ever expected. Its the only Drama that I watch over and over again.
This season of the wire may be the best last season of any show in the history of the world. David Simon and Ed Burns deliver the most complex and interesting group of characters and story ever put on T.V. Every season unfolds like a novel and this season completes the series in one of the most elegant and classic ways.
The entire police department has been set with budget cutbacks and is cut off from overtime. In city hall the newly elected mayor is getting ready to run for the govoners chair and Marlow and his crew and getting ready to take over the whole city. Along with several other equally important story arcs the show delivers in style again, the characters from Bunk to Herc to Marlow to Omar to the Polititians to the dope runners on the street all deserve Emmys all around and the show should be in an art gallery, because thats what it is, art. In my final works I'll leave with something a wise man once told me. "You gotta let em play, this America man." Those words are true even to this day. I thank The wire for lettin me play and I hope to find another show to watch.
Customer Rating: Summary: GREAT ENDING TO A GREAT SERIES
Comment: We got hooked on the THE WIRE by accident. It, without a doubt, exceeds any HBO Special up to this point, including may I say,
The Sopranos; and we have the complete DVD series on both! The Wire is superior in every respect in it doesn't leave you hanging at the end of each episode as
The Sopranos had a tendency to do. The low life drug scene, the corrupt Baltimore police dept and the opportunistic politicians all intertwined make this the most enjoyable series both my wife and myself have watched. Keeps you on the edge of your seat... Buy it!!!
Customer Rating: Summary: Ending of a classic (spoilers in review)
Comment: Maybe it's only at the end of something that we begin to truly appreciate what we had all along. For five seasons, we lived and breathed with the citizens of Baltimore; the drug life that thrives on the streets, and the police that strive to stop it. The characters, written so complete and so believable, are alive to us, and dare I say, could be our friends and companions, albeit fictional? We've lived on the streets, and seen many crimes and killings, and experienced pain and sometimes joy. The Wire has been a total experience, one of the best television shows ever on the tube, and it's hard to say goodbye.
In ten episodes, the Wire wraps up. Much has been opined about the quality of the final shows, how some people felt let down, and incomplete. I found the final ten to be very complete, very true to the intent of the series, and very emotional. The series truly adjusts its focus back to McNulty, an excellent cop who will go to any length to solve his problems, ethics be damned. In order to fully fund the police department, he decides to rig a series of deaths to make it seem like a serial killer. Soon, the "spree" catches fire, and McNulty is in it up to his eyeballs. My contempt for McNulty overall grew with his character development this season; which is probably most true to his character, but it didn't make me like him. Additional storylines cover the endless chain of drug people that simply take up where others leave off, and Marlo's gang is no exception. In seemingly trying not to repeat the fall of Barksdale and Bell, Marlo's story wraps in an interesting way, with some just desserts being handed out.
One story that had me absolutely entranced was Bubble's journey. From addict to recovery poster boy, Bubs upswing from his season four heartbreaking suicide attempt was a true American hero story, and it becomes aptly covered in the Baltimore Sun, which provides the "focus" for the season, albeit a slightly unfocused one. However, as Bubs story progressed, it was his that compelled me the most, and I was drawn into it with a quet dignity. I guess you feel overtly protective of him through the series, and maybe waiting for him to fall off the wagon once again. Bubs finds his dignity this season, and it's beautiful.
However, in a sad note, two of the four boys who stole last season, return to heartbreaking results. Almost as if to replace Bubs as an addict, Duquan, or Dukie, finally eeks out of Michael's life to start living on the streets, and becomes the new addict. Plot wise I recognized why that happened, but it totally broke my heart. Who wasn't rooting for Dukie, a child who's life was being evicted from apartment after apartment, who excelled in school, and made a connection with Mr. Prez? And then it begs to wonder, how many Dukies are there on our city streets, and how many of them do we as a society step over and ignore?
The Wire was always a complicated show, and it never took it's assignment lightly, a slice of American life that has never been captured in such a complete and honest way. Will people look back fifty years from now, from an idyllic society, and wonder how anyone ever lived through such times and not tried to stop it? Only time will tell. In the meantime, we have five seasons of the finest show ever, and that's good enough for me.
