I have just queued it up, and will watch it tonight. I've been kind of sad all weekend about it ending - it's the best show on TV.

I'll have to watch it again, but on first viewing I thought it was too long.

The Templeton/McNulty scene was great and possibly redeemed the entire newspaper subplot, which I thought kinda sucked.

Michael's robbery scene surprised me. I suppose it makes sense though.

I guess I could go on and list my reaction to every character's "conclusion"--but I think that's what annoyed me the most, that every character had some sort of ending summary scene. I wasn't expecting to be anything but disappointed by the final episode, same as with the Sopranos, but in total it was the best TV series I've ever seen.

I really liked the ending, although it was much neater than I expected. I loved, loved, loved that Michael is the new Omar. It's the closest thing to a happy ending that kid was going to get. And I love that Bubbles gets the small, but meaningful, victory of his sister opening the door to him. But seeing Dookie shoot up....god, that broke my heart in a million pieces.

I thought the penultimate episode was the best, though. Michael taking out Snoop was kind of touching. ("You look good, girl.") It reminded me of Tessio being lead away in The Godfather. And watching Michael say goodbye to Bug and Dookie made me sob uncontrollably.

I liked the ending... If anything, it summed up the series with a moral along the lines of "The shit rises to the top."

The one moment that seemed out of place was the transition roughly an hour in with just shots of the city.

As far as the season seeming rushed, HBO cut the number of episodes in the series, so they do have a bit of excuse.

drezdn: I thought that scene w/ shots of the city was the end of the episode. I kinda wish it would've been.

Anyway, I agree with jrossi that the penultimate episode was the best.

I think the penultimate episodes (within each season, I mean) are usually the best ones, actually.

At least a few messageboard types have suggested that the writers are trying to provide, through the younger characters, origin stories for some of the older ones--the easiest example being that Michael is the new Marlo. It's a neat idea, I think, but I'm not sure how much I agree.

Michael is the new Marlo

I didn't think he was Marlo at all. I thought he was Omar, hanging on the periphery and stealing from the bad guys. If Dookie is the new Bubbles, shooting up and dealing in junk, I hope he eventually finds his way out, too.

Indeed, that was a typo, or a mistake or something. Michael's the new Omar (or, y'know, that's what folks say). Dukie's the new Bubbles, or perhaps the new Sherrod.

And Perlman's the new Phelan, Daniels is the new Perlman (!!!), would never have guessed Valchek to be the new Burrell, but there you go. And Slim Charles, who has always been one of my favorite ancillary characters, taking down Cheese like that--for Joe--was poetic.

It ended as it began, and the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I'm starting over at season 1. Who's with me?

Sounds good to me. Wanna start a Mecha Wire book club?

box: Whaddya have in mind?

Also, two points of clarification:

1) Wolfdaddy says Daniels is the new Pearlman...but, wasn't he standing next to the defendants in that quick shot of Pearlman's courtroom? Maybe my eyes deceived me.

2) When they scanned the white-shirted corner hoppers, was Marlo among their ranks? Did he takeover that corner he approached while wearing his suit?

I didn't really think it all the way through, but maybe we'd all watch season 1, ep. 1 during the course of a week, then there'd be a post where we'd talk about it? And so on through the five seasons? Hmm. Something like that, maybe.

Oh...I thought you meant "book club" literally (which is actually a decent idea--there's no lack of literature available from the Wire's writers).

But I like the idea of re-watching the series in a "book club" format. It seems like a bunch of us are planning to watch it over again anyways. The only trouble is if we pick up some n00bs that don't want to hear spoilers while us veterans will want to relate things we pick up on in the earlier episodes to events that happen later.

Hey, I'd probably also go for a regular ol' book club. Though I bet that a lot of the folks who'd be interested have already read a lot of the books.

I hadn't thought of noobs and spoilers. Hmm. We oughta keep working on this thing--I think it's a neat idea.

Sounds good, box. I'll bring it up again soon.

It wasn't Marlo on the corner, according to this Salon interview of David Simon. After leaving the circle-jerk of developers, [Marlo] walked up on those kids who were telling an Omar story and challenged them. He wasn't on a corner otherwise." I did r post with a lot of recaps, etc.

I'm totally down with a Wire book club. One of the best things I love about sagas, whether printed or televised, is once you've seen/read the whole story is to go back and read/watch it again to pick up on plot points that you may have missed or had more significance than you thought the first time around.

Was REALLY glad Prezbo FINALLY showed up, too. I was starting to get worried that we'd seen everyone--even the drunk guy who tried to throw himself down the stairs in the 1st season--but not Prezbo. And how heartbreaking was that scene with him and Dukie?

The whole Sun storyline still left me cold, though. I loved Gus. I'm still not sure why Alma got demoted/sent out to pasture. Bummed they didn't do more with Rawls sexual identity. Still, the Wire is as close to perfection as I could hope for. And zero Emmys to show for it. Sigh.

Well, Alma went to the bosses with the notebook. (And speaking of going to the bosses--Kima's appearance at McNulty's wake might've been the high point, emotionally, of the whole series for me.)