WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Willy and Jacob get right into discussing episode 2, which sees the ramifications of William Gant's execution as McNulty and Bunk try to tie it to the detail's goal of bringing down the Barksdale organization. Other material covered includes Jacob's David Simon "grand chicken conspiracy" and an in-depth discussion of some of the pillars of The Wire's cinematic style with references to "Style in the Wire," an incredible video essay by a Norwegian academic named Erlend Lavik. We hope you enjoy, and as always, please hit those like and subscribe buttons!

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD: We have reached our final episode of "The Gods Will Not Save You: The Wire Revisited," in which we discuss every episode of the hit original HBO series, "The Wire." We want to take this opportunity to thank anybody who has engaged with us and our project along the way. Whether you've listened to us from the beginning, came along during a later part of our run, or are just now discovering us, your engagement has meant a lot to us and we couldn't be more grateful. Thank you to anybody who has left us positive reviews and ratings on podcast platforms, we truly appreciate your feedback. We would also like to give a special thank-you to all of our financial supporters on Anchor. Your helpful donations ultimately incentivized us to lend some financial support to "We Build The Block," a New York non-profit organization aimed at stopping the spread of community violence, co-founded by the late, great Michael K. Williams. We hope that our modest financial contribution helped honor this amazing actor and activist's legacy, as well as provide some relief to those communities in need. In the series finale of "The Wire," Daniels continues to be disappointed in Carcetti's tenure as mayor, as he receives the news of the serial killer hoax and essentially orders a cover-up from the top officials in order to prevent a devastating loss in his gubernatorial bid. McNulty's guilt intensifies as he and Freamon are found out, and a "copycat" killer comes onto the scene to reign real terror on the homeless community. Freamon takes the helpful tips about the lawyers from Clay Davis to expose the courthouse leak, but the news of his illegal wiretap on Marlo starts to spread rapidly, forcing Maurice Levy and Rhonda Pearlman to play a brutal game of legal tit-for-tat, preventing the Stanfield bust from being as blockbuster of a case as it could have been. The Scott Templeton/Gus Haynes beef reaches its tipping point in the newsroom when Templeton peddles his biggest lie yet. And in perhaps what is the happiest ending of the series, Reginald, aka Bubbles, finally starts to feel some relief on his path to redemption when he reluctantly agrees to let Fletcher publish the warts-and-all article, detailing his rocky road to recovery.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Carcetti continues to do a complete 180 from what he campaigned on. He gets back into bed with Clay Davis and Nerese Campbell, in order to advance his position in the gubernatorial race. Freamon bluffs his way into blackmailing Davis and giving up the crucial nugget of information: the lawyers are part of the money trail. Marlo misses out on his opportunity to celebrate Omar getting killed by a child. by going to Atlantic City with Chris, when his clock code is cracked by the cops and him and Chris end up arrested. McNulty feels like the victory is anticlimactic and meaningless. Gus is now so fed up with Templeton's lies, that he gets his other trusted colleague, Robert Ruby, in on the snooping.

WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD! Clay Davis lies on the stand, humiliating Bond and eradicating any of his political ambitions. Carcetti okays the police to do whatever they want, leading McNulty to make requests that would have previously seemed outlandish. Gus continues to suspect that Templeton is a fraud when the Iraq war veteran that Scott interviewed, comes back to accuse the paper of printing falsehoods about his time in combat. Bunk is persuaded to hold back on following through with his murder warrant for Chris, so he can tie it in with McNulty and Freamon's efforts to bring down Marlo's empire. Omar gets killed by Kenard in a liquor store.

WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD! McNulty finally gets the serial killer story to blast off when he fakes a call to Templeton, does a soft kidnapping of a homeless man, and gets Carcetti's full support. But he soon starts to regret this when everybody in the department comes to him begging for OT and manpower to work their own cases. Freamon needs more time to figure out what the time-based codes Marlo and company are using actually means. Fletcher goes to the viva house for an on-the-ground scoop on the homeless killings but instead meets Bubs, which prompts him to go in a different journalistic direction. Omar continues to be a thorn in Marlo's side. Rupert Bond fails miserably to put Davis' head on the chopping block, as the state senator charms the jury out of convicting him for his financial crimes.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! McNulty tries to out fake Templeton, by claiming that there's fake probable cause for wiretapping the Baltimore Sun because Templeton faked a call from the "serial killer." Without even waiting for approval, Freamon sets up a wiretap on Marlo's phone. Omar plays hide-and-seek in the utility closet at the same apartment complex from which he made his "Spider-Man" jump, while Chris, Snoop, and more of Marlo's minions are left scratching their heads. Bunk channels the angry energy that he has for McNulty into trying to solve a case the old-fashioned way, but runs up against bureaucratic lab incompetence. Carcetti turns the homeless killings into a campaign opportunity. Marlo now wears the crown at the New Day Co-Op.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! With Proposition Joe out of the way, Marlo takes on the position of being Vondas and the Greeks' Baltimore drug connection, proving that loyalty never meant anything to them and that they were always primarily concerned with their bottom line. Dukie continues to be the victim of bullying even with Michael's protection and no amount of learning how to fight or shoot guns seems to change his personality. Clay Davis takes it upon himself to shape public opinion in his own favor. Bubbles thinks he is not being punished enough for his past misdeeds. McNulty and Freamon continue to concoct false details around their "serial killer" but still have to go against bureaucratic incompetence. Omar has an extremely close call with Chris, Snoop, O-Dog and Michael.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Kenard really ticks off Officer Colicchio by setting up a brown paper bag dog feces decoy, which causes him to assault a teacher and therefore forces Carver to grow as a person and as a cop. Proposition Joe tries to send out signals to Omar that he's upset about Butchie's death, but he doesn't take into consideration that Marlo, Cheese, and the Greeks are already making moves against him. McNulty and Freamon do their best to sensationalize the idea of homeless killings to get more mileage out of their police misconduct. Meanwhile, Daniels tries to do damage control with Burrell and Carcetti continues to eat bowls of shit when he realizes he has to appease every minister in town.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Michael, fresh off a new wave of PTSD after he refused to kill a kid in a home invasion, plays hooky from dealing drugs, to go to Six Flags with Dukie and Bug, where they meet girls from Virginia with sidekick phones. Bunk is still mad at McNulty for creating a fake serial killer, so he enlists the help of Freamon to talk some sense, but Freamon ends up endorsing McNulty's plan. Valchek leaks the real crime statistics to Carcetti, which throws the whole Commissioner Burrell situation into a tailspin. Clay Davis, paranoid about his legal troubles closing in on him, continues to beg for mercy from Burrell and Carcetti. Marlo, Chris, and Snoop go behind Proposition Joe's back to send a message to Omar, get the information of Butchie's whereabouts, and then torture and kill him. Alma is disappointed that her news reporting is not getting more coverage, while Templeton invents a react quote out of thin air for Twigg's piece about the police chain-of-command shake-up.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Dee-Dee makes her final appearance on the show as she tells her story in an NA meeting attended by Bubs. Bubs himself, is being pressured by Walon to tell his full story of how he got clean, thinking that it will be the only real way he could ever get true clarity. Clay Davis feels the walls closing in on him and lashes out at Burrell, who was once one of his staunchest allies. Marlo, feeling emboldened, goes on a tear and starts ordering home invasions, homicides, and the like, while also trying to get in contact with Sergei at Jessup, but he runs into the obstacle of having to talk to a now-pathetic Avon Barksdale. The tension between Gus Haynes and Scott Templeton begins to brew as we get our first taste of Templeton's untrustworthy nature concerning the "EJ" story. McNulty, spiraling back into the throes of alcoholism, decides to initiate a farcical hunt for a serial killer that doesn't exist so that he can gain some leverage to go back after Marlo.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Willy and Jacob dive right into discussing what is easily the most controversial season of "The Wire" with its' premiere episode, "More With Less." Among the many things covered are how Tom McCarthy may or may not have been shamed into making an oscar-winning movie about good journalists because he played such a bad one in "The Wire," whether or not Rhonda and Cedric would have recognized Chris Partlow, life imitating art with development and gentrification near Johns Hopkins, Carcetti finally showing his true colors as he plays politics with people's lives, Michael and Dukie's fractured home-life situation, and the real-life counterpart to the Fat-Face Rick scandal. Thank you to all of our listeners and supporters, we are looking forward to discussing a lot more interesting themes throughout this final season.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! For this episode, we also get into some spoilers for another David Simon show, "The Deuce," so proceed with caution.  Bubs feels guilty about accidentally killing Sherrod, so he confesses to his crimes before trying to hang himself, which causes Landsman to have a rare change of heart about the clearance rate. Bodie, feeling like there's no room for advancement in his current career path, and feeling disillusioned by the fact that some of his favorite coworkers are getting murdered for seemingly no reason, decides to flip and cooperate with McNulty, only to be murdered by O-Dog, which makes McNulty feel angry enough that he decides to rejoin the Major Crimes Unit. Namond's guardianship debacle falls squarely on the shoulders of Bunny who pleads with Wee-Bey to let him take over the parenting duties, while also dropping in some geographical and history trivia in the middle of his jail visit. Randy goes back to the group home. Dukie moves in with Michael who is now killing people for Marlo. Daniels is now focused on bringing down the Stanfield organization the right way and is happy to have McNulty back on the team. Carcetti is making bad decisions that are politically convenient for him but morally repugnant for how they're leaving the Baltimore youth out in the cold.  Donate money to Michael K. Williams' non-profit organization, "We Build The Block" at https://webuildtheblock.org/donate/

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! This might be the most depressing episode of "The Wire" ever because by the end of its running time Randy is destined to get sent back into the foster care system, Namond gets exposed for being a big softie, Dukie's family gets evicted, Michael becomes one of Marlo's henchmen, Bunny's pilot program is pretty much done for, Carcetti is finding out the hard way that he can't deliver the promises that he made to the voters because of a deficit in the city's school budget, and Sherrod takes a hotshot that was meant for Bubs' tormentor and dies. But true to the show's form, there are tiny slivers of hope: Freamon finally gets the approval to open up the vacants, even if he has to lay the groundwork for slowly climbing up the chain of command to get permission, and Omar pulls off a brilliant heist with the co-op's shipment and continues to be a thorn in Prop Joe's and Marlo's sides. Did you know this episode also has a brief cameo from real-life former Maryland Governor, Robert Ehrlich? We dig into a bit of his inconsistent legacy and his veto of the "Wal-Mart" healthcare bill. Other topics include the meaning of the name of the episode, the story behind the term "wolf tickets," and some background on the real-life "Junior Bunk." Thank you to all who have listened so far. Again you can donate at www.anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support or https://webuildtheblock.org/donate/.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! The Boys of Summer decide to exact their revenge on Officer Walker by keying his car, dumping yellow paint on him, and stealing his ring, which makes Namond realize that Michael might be more involved with nefarious activities than he had previously thought. Bodie and McNulty have an awkward meetup where they both commiserate over the current brutal tactics of the BPD and begin to come to some sort of strange understanding with each other. Randy starts to learn the hard way that a lot of people know that he's a snitch, which makes Prez furious at the police for dragging his name out into the street. His fury finally leads Bunk, Carver, and Freamon to realize how much of a nincompoop Herc really is, not to mention that the whole debacle he had with the minister is beginning to have broad political consequences. Now that Daniels is made Colonel, Pearlman is the lead prosecutor with Homicide, and Carcetti is vowing to reform the tactics of citywide policing, some are optimistic about a new horizon for Baltimore, while others *cough* Jay Landsman *cough* refuse to believe anything will fundamentally change. Omar can't keep his promise to Bunk and decides to stir things up with Proposition Joe. Sherrod and Bubbles have a nice little reunion before it turns ugly again thanks to the "terminator." And Rawls realizes his quest for power might not be as easy as he thought, once Valchek gives him a cold wake-up call.  Thank you again to all of our listeners. If you'd like to donate, you can do so at www.anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support. We will be donating all of our funds to the late, great Michael K. Williams' non-profit organization "We Build The Block," which you can find out more about at https://webuildtheblock.org/.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! URGENT MESSAGE! As we stated, we were going to donate all of our Anchor funds to Michael K. Williams' non-profit organization, "Making Kids Win" but were unable to. So, instead, we donated everything to his other non-profit organization "We Build The Block." You can either donate to us at anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support or https://webuildtheblock.org/donate/ and the money will end up in the same place. In this episode, we dig into the uncomfortable and controversial theory that David Simon has about race and policing. We briefly discussed this in a prior episode, but now with Officer Walker's character becoming more villainous as the series progresses, we thought we would revisit Simon's actual quotes on the matter and try to examine it from all angles. Other topics of discussion include McNulty getting back to real police work and deciding to go after real church burglaries instead of playing the stat-juking game that Burrell is putting forth in order to stay relevant, Clay Davis' mind-boggling back-stabbing, Herc's continuous abuse of Bubs, Chris' absolutely brutal response to Michael's request, and much more.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! In this week's episode, we address the tragic loss of the great Michael K. Williams. We make the announcement that all of our donations to our podcast, which can be made at anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support will now go to the incredible non-profit he co-founded to curb mass incarceration and gun violence among kids, "Making Kids Win." You can also donate directly to his non-profit at http://www.makingkidswin.com/donate.html. We also give a shout-out to another great Wire podcast, "ReWired," who we had the pleasure of talking to for a cross-over episode about the parallels between "The Wire" and "Generation Kill." You can check that episode out at https://rewired.podbean.com/e/generation-kill-with-thegodswillnotsaveyou-podcast/. In terms of the actual episode we discuss, we also go into how advocating for either Tommy Carcetti or Nerese Campbell in their little spat is a lose-lose situation and how the business of politics is already corrupting Carcetti (i.e. his promotion of known jerk Valchek.), and also how Daniels and Pearlman might, unfortunately, be too optimistic about the upcoming regime change. Herc completes his horrible transition into being a full-fledged villain at this point when he continues the exploitation of Bubbles' labor to a frightening degree. Prez flexes his police knowledge at the middle school and hesitantly gets into a business arrangement with Randy. Proposition Joe and Marlo finally learn how to get along like best buds and mount a collaborative effort to kill Old-Faced Andre. Also, Poot comes back home to almost no fanfare and Bunk gives Omar a really tough ultimatum once he gets him out of jail.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Willy and Jacob are back to talk about how Robert Chew (R.I.P.) had a Looney Tunes-sized catalogue of vocal impressions from which to draw on when pulling a fast one on law enforcement. We also discuss Chris and Snoop's classic banter on Baltimore radio and how they find out if somebody is from New York, how Bunny is finally making some headway in reaching the kids in his pilot program, and how terrifying it is for Michael now that an abusive father figure has returned home. Thank you to all for listening. If you'd like to donate, please do so at www.anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Willy and Jacob talk about how truly messed up Chris' plan to frame Omar is, how Ronda's meeting with the new State's Attorney gives her conscience an awakening, how Namond continues to prove to all of us that he's just all talk, how Carcetti's meeting with Royce after the election is super cringe, and how the dirty politics of the days in "The Wire" seems almost quaint by today's standards and much much more. Thank you to everybody who's been listening to us all along. If you like what you hear and would like to donate, please do so at www.anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!  Willy and Jacob give their thoughts on the opening of the episode that sees the mayoral candidates at their respective church services and Carcetti and his family performing some truly atrocious dance moves. The mayoral race, by the way, has some potential last-minute game changers that keep everybody on their toes but the depiction of political smears seem downright quaint in the age of social media and mass-marketed misinformation. And Carcetti ends up winning anyway. We also talk about how Brianna Barksdale and Delonda Brice could go head-to-head in a worst-mom-ever match, now that Wee-Bey's family is getting cut off. The police also decide to play politics and intentionally throw a wrench into the Braddock murder investigation to Kima's dismay. We discuss how Cutty is teaching his students' moms more than just the basic 1 and 2 combos and how it's affecting the learning environment for some of his most promising fighters. We also keep track of Prez's evolution as a character since he's sticking his neck out for Dukie instead of engaging in police brutality like he used to. Bunny, fresh off of his failure with the Hamsterdam experiment, proves himself to be a glutton for punishment and tries out his stoop kid vs. corner kid theory at Tilghman Middle. Thank you to everybody who's been listening to us so far. If you'd like to donate you can do so at www.anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! There is internal conflict at Mayor Royce's office, which means Burrell is unceremoniously shunned, while Rawls pulls a two-faced switcheroo. Prez stumbles on his disciplinary tendencies and Bunny rocks the boat with Parenti when he suggests a strategy that could be read as "tracking." Chris and Snoop make a job offer to Michael with an advance on his salary. Dukie snaps Randy back into reality to try and get him to deal with the fact that there is no such thing as "special dead." Thank you to everyone who has listened to us so far. Please give us positive reviews on any podcast platform and if you'd like to donate to us, you can do so at www.anchor.fm/thegodswillnotsaveyou/support.