Michael --> Omar
Carver --> Daniels
Sydnor --> McNulty
Dukie --> Bubbles
Slim Charles --> Proposition Joe
Marlo --> Avon/Stringer
Kenard --> Marlo
Kima --> Bunk
Valchek --> Burrell
Pearlman --> Phelan
Chris --> Wee-Bey
Fletcher --> Gus
Templeton --> Whiting
Nerese --> Royce

The Greek --> The Greek
Levy --> Levy
Bunk --> Bunk

And while Prezbylewski went from a mediocre cop to a noble teacher, Herc went from a mediocre cop to a scumbag investigator.

The whole thing has a wonderful symmetry, which has always been the show's greatest strength.

But:

There is no new Bunny Colvin. No new Frank Sobotka. No new Lester Freamon. And no new Bodie.

These are the four paradigmatic figures that are lost in 21st-century Baltimore, where your experience and inventiveness and your loyalty and your toughness don't matter. All that matters is that you go quietly.

Having the show end was sort of like losing a friend or something.

Also, spoiler alert. If you haven't watched, then stop reading.

Here are some random thoughts:

I thought this season, especially the last three episodes finished strong. But, I thought the whole homeless murder thing was a weird plotline, that had nothing to do with anything, so was more of a distraction than anything else (especially since the season was only 10 episodes).

Sort of along the lines of Tim- as I told Seth offline, a lot of what I read in the last couple weeks was that in effect, David Simon made the seasons about the kids as effectively a prequel. At first, I thought that meant Michael->Avon, but obviously that was not the case. Anyway, other parallels are pretty obvious.

I thought the treatment of Dukie in the last episode was sort of weird. He was generally the most sympathetic, 'pure' character (maybe along with the not forgotten Randy), and his farewell with Michael was crazy at the end of the second to last episode. Yet, in this episode, its like he is completely lost: he was in one scene outside of the closing montage, and in it he had evidently already crossed over to the point where he could easily lie to Prez's face, without much remorse. It just seemed too quick, no anguish, for the kid who we all rooted for for two seasons and who had so much good about him.

Also, Carcetti in season 3 is flawed, but at least sees the bullshit, right? But, by the end, the good angel/bad angel thing pretty dramatically swung, and he went from being flawed, to being basically useless.

Speaking of Mayors, it is funny is seeing Nutter's take on the Wire, which shows me just how different we think. He said this:

It's not that the institutions are flawed but that those institutions are dealing with deeply flawed people, and the responses to those folk are from people with their own problems. None of us is perfect, and you aren't going to find anyone who is until you check into heaven.

I have a dramtically different take. Specifically, that multiple institutions have failed, made ever clearer by season 4. And within those institutions, there are very good people (imperfect, sure) who just lose battles to the 'system.'

The show will be missed.

There are plenty of new corner boys, absolutely. But there is nobody who is presented as remotely admirable. I do think that there is a sense of deterioration in the industries, and the drug industry is no exception. Some of that is just old-head talk, but some of that is real.