The Wire

I still haven't stopped thinking about Sunday's finale of The Wire. It wasn't a fade-to-black talker of an ending, Tony Soprano-style, but I did think it was a fitting conclusion to five years of examining the rise and fall of the police, union workers, drug lords, government officials, school teachers, and newspaper reporters of Baltimore.

Specifically, I've been playing the show's final montage over and over — both in my head and in real life. The Wire is known for ending every season with a montage showing what comes next for various characters and stories, and I'm so glad that tradition continued for the final episode. So, as a final farewell to the show, I've gathered up all five montages from The Wire's five seasons. Note that there's some violence and spicy language (we are talking about hoppers, bangers, and poh-leese, after all), but if you want to check them out, just read more

After five relentlessly gritty seasons of exposing the highs and lows of Baltimore and exploring creator David Simon's thesis that people today matter less than ever, HBO's great series The Wire comes to a close tonight. I tore through all the previous seasons on DVD this Fall so I could be here tonight, watching the finale live alongside the show's other fans. But, as I wrote when I asked about your favorite series finales the other day, now that the moment's arrived, I'm feeling overwhelmingly ambivalent. Fact is, I'm just not ready to let Bunk, McNulty, Kima, Lester, Bubbles, Carcetti, and even Marlo go. And I can only imagine how fans who watched and dissected each season over the past five years must feel.

There are so many plot threads still unraveling, and so many stories yet to be connected, that I doubt there's any way tonight's 95-minute finale can tie them all up. Will Lester's shining drug bust end up falling apart? Will Scott's lies grow bigger? Will McNulty recover from his latest downward spiral? I think I may leave the show with as many questions as answers. But in a way, that's exactly how a sprawling series like The Wire should end: messy and complicated, just like it's always been.

HBO has been putting episodes On Demand a week early all season, but the network held the final episode back (and yes, it leaked online — no spoilers in the comments, please!) so fans would watch together. As a result, a very funny preview aired On Demand, featuring Clay Davis and his signature catchphrase: "Sheeeeeeeit." You can watch it, plus the promo for the final episode, if you just read more

HBO's The Wire — many a critic's pick for the best show ever on television — will end its series on Sunday after five gut-wrenching and unabashedly bleak seasons. I sped through all the early seasons on DVD so I could be caught up in time for the finale, but now that it's here, I'm looking at Sunday with equal amounts of excitement and dread. While the show's only been part of my life for a short while, I have a hard time with the fact that it will just end.

I remember feeling the same thing when another great HBO series, Six Feet Under, ended its run in 2005; I believe its ending was utterly perfect, but even thinking about it can make me cry. There's just a special, can't-miss quality to a series finale: The BBC version of The Office needed a couple of specials to wrap up its story, and the 1983 series finale of M*A*S*H is still the most-watched US TV program of all-time.

So tell me, Buzz readers: Which favorite series have you hated to see go? Which could have wrapped up better than they did? Which got the endings they deserved?

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It's hard for me to believe there are just three episodes left before The Wire goes off the air for good. But is the show's March finale really it forever?

In a recent interview with the LA Times, Dominic West (Jimmy McNulty) said he and some of the show's other main actors are trying to persuade creator David Simon to continue exploring Baltimore through a Wire movie. He said:

There’s just so much material and so many plot lines to go on, and I think Wendell [Barry, who plays Bunk] thought, why not make a movie? There’s a ready-made audience, and I think a lot of us feel it will be a long time before we get to act such great writing and with people we like as much as we all like each other.

West also said Simon "doesn't need persuading" to make a movie, but he does need a story — and he's apparently said it would need to be a prequel, which just makes me even more curious to see how the series ends.

It seems a little far-fetched; if Simon had five strong seasons planned out for The Wire, I'd hate to see him go messing with it by adding on. Then again, the prequel idea is interesting, and there were those back story videos made to promote this season, which revealed there's a lot more to these characters than what Simon has let us see on screen up till now. Could you imagine The Wire continuing in film form? Or do you think it's best to just leave the series be when it reaches its planned end?

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There's no replacement for watching all four previous seasons of HBO's The Wire for yourself, but — and I say this as someone who's only partway through season three right now — it can be a pretty daunting undertaking.

Enter a new YouTube video in the style of seven-minute Sopranos or Lost in 8:15. This one summarizes the first four seasons in four minutes, replete with clips of McNulty drinking, Rawls flipping the double bird, and Bodie showing all the ways he's not the sharpest tool in the shed.

I can probably watch about three more of these recap videos before I get tired of the format altogether, but for now, I'm still amused — and while this one can't possibly get into all the complex alliances and twists of The Wire, it's not a bad primer. To check out the video, just read more

Here's how much critics love The Wire: The show's Wikipedia page has has a running list of major publications, including Time and Entertainment Weekly, that have called it the best show on television. Yet the show, which kicks off its fifth and final season of exploring the darkest side of Baltimore on Sunday, has been mostly ignored by both awards shows and viewers.

As a relatively recent convert to the show myself, I can understand why it's had a tough time. The show doesn't hold your hand; it throws you headfirst into a world with dozens and dozens of characters, from drug dealers and their bosses to city government to dock workers to middle schoolers to the cops who step in when things go horribly wrong. I had to watch the pilot twice before I knew a single character's name, and it wasn't till the halfway point of the first season that I was confident I knew what was going on. The show is also unflinchingly realistic — which can make it seem brutally bleak. People are shot and killed, for any reason and no reason; sometimes good triumphs, but the picture is usually murkier than that.

Still, it's not all darkness and destruction, so read more

• Vulture goes a little crazy dissecting HBO's ad for season five of The Wire.
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In preparation for ending The Wire this winter, HBO is telling us more about how the show began. A series of prequels showing the characters earlier in life have hit the Internet, and they'll also be available On Demand starting Dec. 15.

Like the Big Love back stories from earlier this year, these prequels don't reveal anything about specific plot lines. Instead, they're just little glimpses into how the characters came to be who they are. One of the three shows Prop Joe as a kid practicing his political skills in the schoolyard; another shows Bunk and McNulty getting hammered together during McNulty's first day in homicide. But my favorite is the one with young Omar, a chilling clip that combines a surprising amount of compassion with his already well-honed gangster side.

To check out the prequels, just read more

Welcome to BuzzSugar's monthly must-haves, where I show off a handful of the things I'm most looking forward to watching, buying, renting and reading. We're well into the holiday season now, so here are a few things I'm looking at to keep me happy and sane amid all the hustle and bustle.

To find out why "these are a few of my favorite things," read more

• What new actors would you cast in Reality Bites in this day and age?
• Dolly Parton and Amy Sedaris, together in one music video! It couldn't possibly get any sunnier or more adorable. Then again, maybe you don't watch music videos anymore.
• Tell me: Which is better, a movie remake or a sequel?
• Need some more entertainment-related holiday gift ideas? Check out my holiday gift suggestions for sisters, brothers, cousins (girls and boys) and some big whoppers for the whole family.
• Did you read the American Girl series when you were younger? There's a trailer out now for the first American Girl feature film, Kit Kittredge.
• Earlier in the week, some actors "went speechless" for the writers strike. Here's an update on what else has happened with the strike since then.
• Get a glimpse of what's next for The Wire.
• There's been talk of a Jackson 5 reunion tour. Would you buy tickets for that if it came to your town?