Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

The Wire has ended.

And ended well. And hey, stories that don’t end, ultimately don’t mean anything.

I’ll miss the show, but there’s nothing sad about five years of making God Damned Art. And with this in their portfolio, I suspect that many of the creators involved (writers, cast, etc.) will have more opportunities going forward to make more of it. (Hell, I was with Pelecanos and Lehane long before they were with The Wire, and I fully expect to keep following their novels for as far as I can see into the future.)

I know a lot of people who will state, with no doubt, that The Wire is the best show in the history of television. I wouldn’t go that far, but I would say that it was the best thing currently on television, that it was probably the best television ever produced in America, and that it was the most novelistic program I ever watched.

But even if there are some things in the history of television that surpassed it, I can’t think of anything that both surpassed it as Art, and also had an agenda, but not a sermon. That’s a stunning accomplishment.

And, as if weren’t enough that I am feeling both proud of them, and morose at the prospect of no more Wire, they come along and do this:

What can we do? If there are two Americas — separate and unequal — and if the drug war has helped produce a psychic chasm between them, how can well-meaning, well-intentioned people begin to bridge those worlds?

And for five seasons, we answered lamely, offering arguments about economic priorities or drug policy, debating theoreticals within our tangled little drama. We were storytellers, not advocates; we ducked the question as best we could.

Go read it. An actual plan for action. Maybe they’re pissing into the wind, but I’ve always thought that suiting up to charge a lost-but-worthy cause was an action worthy of respect–the more lost, the more respect.