James Hynes

(Note: If you don't want to know what's happened in the next-to-last episodes of The Wire—say, for example, you're still working through season two on DVD—then don't read any further.)

(I'm serious, Steve. Stop right now.)

(Don't say I didn't warn you.) 

Over here at the Cultwriter Institute of David Simon Studies, we're all too blue about the death of Omar to craft a complete eulogy for him. We saw it coming, of course: Omar was made reckless in his final days by grief and by his lust for revenge, and it's possible that living the good life in the islands may have dulled his edge a bit. But it's also telling that he didn't get got by any of Marlo's seasoned and well-drilled killers, but by a member of the next generation of damaged children from the streets of West Baltimore. And it's also telling that in the end, Omar was killed, in large part, because of his sense of honor. If he hadn't come back from the Caribbean to avenge the death of Butchie, he'd be alive today. But then if he hadn't come back, then he wouldn't have been the Omar we all came to know and love.

These twin inevitabilites—that Omar would be forced to avenge his friend, and that his righteous anger would get him killed—are further evidence of Simon's debt to Greek tragedy, which he invoked when talking about the show in the New Yorker. On the other hand, there was something a little Shakespearean about the death of Snoop last night, which was a tad reminiscent of (bear with me) Henry IV, part II, in which Prince Hal, on his way to becoming Henry V, has to renounce his old mentor and drinking buddy, Falstaff. I realize I'm stretching a point here, since Hal and Falstaff never intended to kill each other, but still, Michael's killing of Snoop was a Shakespearean act of generational war, intimate ("You look good, girl") and brutal all at once. Sooner or later we all kill our teachers, even if we don't literally shoot them in the back of the head.

One more thought, preparatory, perhaps, to a full-blown eulogy for the whole series after the last episode next Sunday. Not that it was ever much of a mystery, but David Simon's politics are clearer than ever as all the plotlines are resolved and all the characters' fates are made clear. There's no doubting his liberal credentials, I suppose, but on the other hand, it's also clearer than it's ever been that he and his writers have no faith whatsoever in institutions or institutional solutions, which is a curious stance for a liberal. The only redemption in The Wire is individual and hard-won, either the result of an act of Dickensian (yeah, I know that Simon sneers at the adjective) charity, such as  Bunny Colvin saving Namond from a life on the streets (and turning him, apparently, into a National Merit Scholar), or the result of a supreme act of will. The two main examples of which, of course, are the amazing Bubbles, aka Reginald, who has bootstrapped himself up into nobility, and Cutty, who has earned a measure of nobility himself. Even McNulty cleaned up his act for a time, and though he's fallen back into his drunken, narcissistic ways, and appears to be taking a lot of folks with him, these last couple episodes have shown that he has a conscience, even if he still needs to work on his impulse control. Not to go all Aeschylus or anything, but it's all about hubris, finally. Or as Snoop might say, if she were still alive, payback's a bitch.

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