Top Five Saddest Individual Endings in The Wire

[Miguel Sanchez]

About two years ago I watched The Wire and made a thread in here asking for the top five biggest p***ks in the show. Since then my picks have changed (Landsman, Valchek, De'Londa Brice, Elena McNulty and Ziggy becoming Valchek, Herc, De'Londa, Stringer and Kima) but since I can actually now follow what the f**k is going on, I ask: what are the saddest endings for characters in the show? I'm counting their last appearance be this brought about by death, incarceration or moving on to a different group of characters.

5. Wallace

The first shocking death as Stringer shows what a callous c**t he is by ordering some children to kill another children because he thinks he's liable to snitch. The circumstances of Wallace's death certainly up the emotional stakes here as Bodie tells him to be a man as he cries with a gun in his face, but it's D'Angelo's realisation that Stringer actually did have something to do with it that pushes it over the edge.

 

4. D'Angelo

The second shocking death as Stringer shows what a callous c**t he is by ordering the death of his chief business partner's family because he thinks he's liable to snitch. While Wallace was a young kid who wanted to be in the Game and didn't really know what he was getting himself in for, D'Angelo was out of it. He was a good soldier, he knew the deal in the Game, that was fine. Part of the reason for him resolving to get out was Stringer's treatment of Wallace but whatever motivations, he was successful. He was reading Fitzgerald in his spare time, he was aff the gear, he was improving himself. He was his own man, doing things his own way. Then some nobody throttles him and tries to make it look like a wanking accident, leading to the tackiest funeral imaginable.

The sadness in his face as he realises what's happening is inescapable.

3. Bodie

For the amount of time he's around, Bodie isn't anything special. He admits this much to McNulty not long before he's killed. He never missed a count, always looked out for his boys. Stuck it out when Avon went to jail and he had to put up with Marlo supplying his packages. He, like D'Angelo, planned to talk to the police but he was adamant he was focusing solely on Marlo and his people for the perceived injustices they were inflicting on Baltimore. This honour was unwavering as Snoop, Chris and O-Dog come to get him. He knows what's happening, he doesn't flinch.  He has his corner that is what defines him, he isn't surrendering it.  The death of Bodie was really the final nail in the coffin of the switch from Barksdale to Stanfield, the last remnant of the old gang and crucially the old ways taken down in a cruel echo of his own observations of the chessboard.

2. Randy

A recurring theme continues as a young boy suffers for the perception of him as a snitch. Failed by every level of the system as he's passed and not passed around by various members of the Western District and the Baltimore PD Homicide Department he ends up sent to a group home. Carver has a private rage in his car after leaving, knowing he's just sent a fundamentally good kid to become one of the people he's actively trying to clear Baltimore of. This isn't the end of Randy, however. Bunk goes to see him in S5, still believing he knows something about one of the bodies put in the vacant houses by Marlo, the thing he was mistakenly labelled a snitch over. Randy isn't Randy anymore. But there's still enough in him to know he was failed by the system and acknowledge this. Maybe I have him up so high because I had the most hopes for him. The irony of course is because he didn't act out in school he wasn't afforded the same attention as Namond who's going on to be President by the look of things. The disappointment when he leaves Carver and then Bunk, it's inescapable.

1. Bug

Presented without comment.

 

[Vladimir Lennon]

I'd day the saddest ones are those who weren't directly involved in 'The Game.' The kid who gets shot in his home by a stray bullet. Johnny, Bubbles' sidekick. The security guard who confronts Marlo over a stolen piece of candy. The two witnesses. Avon's ex.

 

Edit:  Crikey...WHAT A PROGRAMME. I'm away to watch it again. See you in a week.

[sugna]

1. Butchie

2. Prop Joe

3. Omar

4. D'Angelo

5. Little Kevin

Least mourned because they totally had it coming to them:

1. Stringer Bell

2. Snoop

3. Cheese

[Cardinal Richelieu]

Haven't seen it in ages (although I've just bought the boxset so it will be getting repeated over the coming months), so can't really remember all the deaths. However, Snoop's death - while not really deserving of any sympathy - was very well done indeed. 

 

[ICTChris]

Bug probably turned out OK.  He got taken in by a decent family - considering he'd been in a household with a junkie for a mother and a child molester for a father he'll hopefully have a real chance now.

Randy is the saddest one for me, fundamentally a good kid, clever and with a solid home background (compared to his friends).  Basically, Herc completely fucked him, ruined his entire life and got his step-mother severely injured probably dead.  Well done Herc you thick spam-faced c**t.

The likes of Wallace and Bodie clearly aren't angels - Bodie is a killer and Wallace contributed to murder as well.  However, one theme of The Wire is that institutions chew up and spit out individuals and in the case of those two they have been used by the 'institution' of the streets, the drug dealers, the Barksdale Crew.  As Bodie says, they are just the little bitches on the chess board.