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-30- (The Wire)

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"-30-" is the series finale of the American television drama series The Wire. It is the tenth episode of the fifth season, and the 60th episode overall. Written by series creator/executive producer David Simon (teleplay/story) and co-executive producer Ed Burns (story), and directed by Clark Johnson (who also directed the pilot episode and stars on the show[1]), the episode originally aired on HBO on March 9, 2008.[2] This episode is the longest-running episode of the series, with a runtime of 93 minutes. The episode's writers were nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.[3]

"-30-"
The Wire episode
Episode no.Season 5
Episode 10
Directed byClark Johnson
Story by
Teleplay byDavid Simon
Featured music"Way Down in the Hole" by The Blind Boys of Alabama
Original air dateMarch 9, 2008 (2008-03-09)
Running time93 minutes
Episode chronology
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Plot

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Tommy Carcetti and his staff learn that the "serial killer" was a hoax. McNulty and Freamon, unaware that their scheme has been exposed, discover that Gary DiPasquale has leaked courthouse documents to Levy. When Freamon gives Pearlman the identity of the mole, she reveals her knowledge of the detectives' duplicity.

Templeton calls 911, and claims there was an attempted kidnapping of an inebriated homeless man which he witnessed. When the police arrive, the man is too drunk to confirm or deny the claims, though an undercover officer at the scene confirms that Templeton made up the story. Marlo and his crew learn of Snoop's death and agree that Michael must be eliminated. Cheese posts bail and Marlo instructs him to hunt down Michael. Freamon informs McNulty that Daniels and Pearlman know about the hoax and the illegal wiretap.

Levy goes through the Stanfield arrest warrants and realizes that the police used an illegal wiretap to decipher the code beforehand. McNulty, Bunk, and Greggs arrive at the scene of another homeless murder, and are distraught that McNulty's fictitious serial killer has inspired a copycat.

Pearlman and Bond are told by Steintorf to quietly settle the Stanfield case out of court to keep the illegal wiretaps from being brought to light. Pearlman meets with Levy and uses a taped conversation given to her by Freamon to force him to settle. McNulty is confronted by Daniels and Rawls, who order him to quickly catch the copycat so that the press will assume he's the original killer.

McNulty identifies a mentally ill homeless man as the killer and the Baltimore Police Department charge him with two of the six "murders". Carcetti holds a press conference taking credit for both the "serial killer's" capture and the Stanfield arrests, then promotes Daniels to Police Commissioner. However, after Steintorf once again requests that Daniels "juke the stats" to boost Carcetti's position on crime reduction, he refuses, and is forced to resign after Campbell threatens to expose his past wrongdoings. Sydnor vents his frustration to Judge Phelan in a scene mirroring McNulty and Phelan's interaction in the first episode. Cheese is killed by Slim Charles for his role in Proposition Joe's murder. Michael becomes a stickup man and robs Vinson in his rim shop, where Michael shoots Vinson in the knee with a shotgun to force him into surrendering his drug money, in a manner similar to Omar. Marlo attends a high society party with Levy but leaves in frustration after Levy attempts to introduce him to developers. Out on the street he angers two corner boys to bait them into attacking him. After disarming one of them when he pulls a gun on him the dealers flee and he stands on the corner reflecting and breathing heavily.

McNulty locates Larry and drives him back to Baltimore, stopping to look over the city on the way. In a closing montage: Freamon is making his miniature furniture at home; Herc is socializing at a bar with Baltimore PD members; Templeton wins a Pulitzer Prize; Slim Charles and Fat Face Rick meet with Spiros while the Greek listens in; Carcetti is elected governor while Campbell becomes mayor; Gus looks on as others happily work in the newsroom; Valchek replaces Daniels as Commissioner; Dukie uses the money he borrowed from Prez to feed his new drug addiction; Pearlman, now a judge, recuses herself from a case Daniels is arguing as a defense attorney; Chris Partlow talks to Wee-Bey in the prison yard; Carcetti makes Rawls superintendent of the Maryland State Police; Bubbles eats a meal with his sister in her kitchen; Kenard is arrested.

The montage ends with rapid cuts of various scenes from the show and people of Baltimore. McNulty gets back in his car and says to his passenger: "Let's go home". They drive off while the shot remains on Interstate-95 overlooking Baltimore.

Production

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Title reference

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-30- is a journalistic term that has been used to signify the end of a story.[4]

Epigraph

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...the life of kings.

— H. L. Mencken

This is seen in the lobby of the Baltimore Sun, as an excerpt from a longer Mencken quote displayed on the wall when Alma talks with Gus after she has been demoted to the Carroll County bureau. The full quote reads "...as I look back over a misspent life, I find myself more and more convinced that I had more fun doing news reporting than in any other enterprise. It is really the life of kings."

Music

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The Blind Boys of Alabama's version of Tom Waits' "Way Down in the Hole" plays over the episode's closing montage. This version of the song had previously been used as the theme music for the show's first season.

During the scene where McNulty plays Trouble with Beadie Russell's children, the song that can be heard playing in the background is "Rich Woman" by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant from their 2007 album Raising Sand.

"Body of an American" by The Pogues is heard during McNulty's staged "detective's wake", making it the third time the song was used in the course of the show's run. Also, "The Broad Majestic Shannon" can be heard echoing out of the bar in the scene after the "wake".

Credits

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Starring cast

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Although credited, Michael K. Williams and Isiah Whitlock, Jr. do not appear in this episode.

Guest stars

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Uncredited appearances

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  • David Simon as Baltimore Sun staff member
  • Rebecca Corbett as Baltimore Sun staff member

Reception

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Writers Ed Burns and David Simon were nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for their work on the finale.[3]

New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley said the show "went out the way it came in" but that was to be expected. "The best and most dyspeptic police drama on television would never conclude with a triumph of good over evil", she wrote after the show's final broadcast.[5]

The Baltimore Sun was less than thrilled with the finale. Critic David Zurawik wrote that the finale was just another example of how the final season of the show "lost its heart and its way." Zurawik praised the first four seasons but blasted the finale. "Simon so forces events in the improbable newspaper story line of an invented serial killer that he does serious damage to the credibility of the police drama," he wrote.[6]

Writing in a retrospective for Collider, Jeremy Urquhart praised the finale. "The final sequence of The Wire's final episode finishes things on a particularly notable high, and is likely striking enough to make even the season's detractors feel moved."[7]

References

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  1. ^ "Season 5 crew". HBO. 2007. Retrieved December 12, 2007.
  2. ^ "HBO Schedule: THE WIRE 60: –30–". HBO. 2008. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  3. ^ a b "60th Primetime Emmy Awards". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Retrieved March 31, 2009.
  4. ^ Kogan, Hadass (October 1, 2007). "So Why Not 29? | Why did reporters for years end their stories by writing "-30-"?". American Journalism Review Archives. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
  5. ^ Stanley, Alessandra (March 10, 2008). "So Many Characters, Yet So Little Resolution". The New York Times. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  6. ^ Zurawik, David (March 9, 2008). "The Wire finale is a cop out for a once great show". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  7. ^ Urquhart, Jeremy (October 16, 2023). "The TV Series Finale That Got Everything Right". Collider.com. Collider. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
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