-30- (9 Mar. 2008)

'... the life of kings.' H.L. Mencken Summary provided by www.HBO.com . At his city hall office... See full synopsis »

Director:

Clark Johnson

Writers:

David Simon (creator), David Simon (teleplay),

Stars:

Dominic West, Reg E. Cathey, John Doman

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Dominic West	...	Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty
Reg E. Cathey	...	Norman Wilson
John Doman	...	Acting Commissioner William A. Rawls
Aidan Gillen	...	Mayor Thomas 'Tommy' Carcetti
Clark Johnson	...	City Editor Augustus 'Gus' Haynes
Deirdre Lovejoy	...	Asst. State's Atty. Rhonda Pearlman
Thomas McCarthy	...	Scott Templeton (as Tom McCarthy)
Clarke Peters	...	Det. Lester Freamon
Wendell Pierce	...	Det. William 'Bunk' Moreland
Lance Reddick	...	Dep. Comm. for Operations Cedric Daniels
Andre Royo	...	Reginald 'Bubbles' Cousins
Sonja Sohn	...	Det. Shakima 'Kima' Greggs
Seth Gilliam	...	Sgt. Ellis Carver
Domenick Lombardozzi	...	Thomas 'Herc' Hauk
Michael Kenneth Williams	...	Omar Little (credit only)

Storyline

'... the life of kings.' H.L. Mencken Summary provided by www.HBO.com . At his city hall office... See full synopsis »

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Plot Keywords:

wiretapping

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Details

Release Date:

9 March 2008 (USA)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Did You Know?

Trivia

The episode's title is a snippet of text reporters use to signal the end of their story, particularly if it was moving over a wire service or being filed remotely.

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Quotes

[last line of the series]
Det. James 'Jimmy' McNulty: Let's go home.

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Connections

References The AbsentMinded Professor (1961)

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Soundtracks

"Rich Woman"
Performed by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

User Reviews

Excellent conclusion to an excellent series...

In this review, I will not only review the series finale, but the season as a whole as well, with a lot of spoilers, so be ready.

I think ending a series is always difficult. How to do it? Tie up everything without succumbing to other's opinions? Not tie up everything? I think that the series finale was excellent. I am left feeling more than satisfied as to how it closed. The show stayed true to what it had promised all along- to tell honest stories about honest people. I use that term loosely, seeing as how that wasn't the basic theme of the season.

It is a shame that the season was cut short because of the writers' strike, but it still remains an excellent season. I have heard some complaints, mostly about the storyline that ran through. The storyline about the 'serial killer'. I admit, I was a bit skeptical, simply because describing it one can see that this is perhaps the most outlandish storyline that The Wire has ever conceived. It's not that it's bad. It isn't, not at all, but one wonders how that would work in context with what this show is about. Everyone is used to The Wire having story lines that are extremely grounded in realism, story lines that can happen in cities like this at anytime. The Wire isn't a show that is built on an outlandish storyline like, for example, Breaking Bad is. Breaking Bad is an excellent TV show. In fact, it's the only show that is on the same level as The Wire, BUT it's premise is built on a storyline that runs through more absurdity when described. That is not bad at all, it's just it's identification and it all plays excellently in the show. But The Wire isn't like that. It has never built it's identity around story lines like that, which is the reason why many people perhaps didn't take to this storyline and what it brought. However, it isn't a fault at all. This storyline basically gave us more explanation on why the writers decided to play with the print news media. If anything, this season has shown just how 'dirty' even the good guys are. It doesn't come out of character though, since we are used to Jimmy McNulty.

I do want to say that I am glad that we were able to expand more on Michael and Dookie's storyline, while the other two boys from the fourth season Randy and Naymond weren't. That is because the two weren't involved with the central threads of the season. We did get a glimpse of them however, in episodes 6 and 9 of the season. As expected, Randy is heading down the wrong road, and Naymond isn't. What is perhaps even worse is Dookie's fate at the end of the finale.

I don't want to babble on and one, but overall, this was an excellent season. It was certainly the season that had me skeptical the most, but I think it all played well into the series. Great ending and conclusion to an excellent series.