The Wire, Season Five, Episode 9 – Late Edition

Grade: A

Sometimes, it’s truly beautiful to watch a plan come together. To watch great writers construct great storylines over three seasons and then bring it all together, executed with pitch-perfect performances, and have it come off perfectly is a stunning achievement. With the ninth episode of the fifth season of The Wire, every note hit perfectly. It’s the best episode of the season. Shoot, it might well be the best episode of the past two seasons.

Oh yeah, SPOILERS follow. It was a royal pain in the ass to write around the spoilers last week, so I’m not even going to attempt it this week.

This show is divided into too halves: one where everything goes right for the “good guys” and one where things finally fly off the rails. The first half deals with the fall of Marlo Stansfield. A season of maneuvering and conniving by McNulty and Lester finally pays off as the Baltimore PD finally makes it’s big bust, taking down damn near all of Stansfield’s entire crew, as well as the Greeks’ entire heroin shipment. There are bad guys in bracelets. There’s even a press conference held by the Mayor was lots of dope on the damn table (Reporter William Zorzi’s running commentary during said press conference damn near steals the show). It’s a good day for the good guys. So why does McNulty still feel miserable?

And then everything falls apart in the second half. It was obvious that the bottom would eventually fall out of McNulty’s scheme; I’ve been waiting the proverbial other shoe to drop since the end of Episode 2. But watching it unfold still had striking dramatic power, as Kima decides to spill the beans to Daniels. This not only imperils McNulty, but also the Stansfield case, as if it comes out that Lester Freamon is lying about the source of the information on Marlo, everything they’ve gathered is inadmissible. Despite the fact that it was clear that McNulty and Lester were totally out of control as the season wore on, I’m still not sure I agree with Kima’s decision to turn McNulty in. I’m not saying she did the wrong thing, but I’m really not sure it was the right thing to do either.

Things look increasingly grim for Scott as well, as Gus continues running a full court press to check if he’s been piping stories. It’s sort of interesting the Scott comes off completely unsympathetic, whereas McNulty doesn’t seem nearly as bad. I guess it’s the motives that make Scott so despicable: he’s piping stories out of ambition to improve his own career. And while stroking his own ego is a component of why McNulty started this whole mess (He doesn’t want to let Marlo win and wants to prove yet again he’s the smartest guy on the block), he’s well beyond trying to improve his standing in the police force. He has a legit desire to help cops get their jobs done.

The last 15 minutes of the episode made me want to cry both tears of joy and sorrow. Bubbles achieve gets a long-deserved measure of measure of redemption. His speech is one of the most uplifting scenes of the season. It’s good to see that he might be one of the few characters that get a happy ending. Meanwhile, things take a perilous and tragic turn for Michael and Duqan. It’s clear that Michael, despite seeming like such a natural at living the street life, really isn’t cut out for life as a gangster. Alas, he learns this too late, and there’s nowhere else for him to go. And Duquan again gets the short end of the stick. The episode’s final moments are absolutely heartbreaking.

Last week I foolishly worried that they were going to blow their dramatic wad on this episode and there would be nothing left for the series finale. Jeez, I’m a schmuck. This episode indeed raised the stakes, but left more than enough room to raise them even further. If there’s any justice, HBO has given Simon and company tow hours to wrap this up.