Need to celebrate or drown your sorrows? Take The Wire food quiz

First, if you don’t know “Sheeeet!,” you don’t know … well, you haven’t been following the best show on television.

Whether it’s the best television show of all-time … that is a matter of fierce debate in critics’ circles. Check out this enlightening exchange between Alan Sepinwall (The Newark Star-Ledger), Andrew Johnston (Time Out New York) and Matt Zoller Seitz (The New York Times). Johnston argues for The Sopranos, Seitz for Deadwood and Sepinwall for The Wire — but they all admit The Wire holds its own.

In any case, the series finale is here — and many of us are in panic mode, wondering what the future of television might be like beyond the streets of Baltimore. Whether it’s sparking a conversation about masculinity, the media — or something inbetween — it has never failed to deliver on both a literary and a raw emotional level.

And it’s not just me talking.

The reaction to the final season, however, has been surprisingly mixed, to say the least. For a positive take on this season, see The House Next Door. For a more sober assessment, see David Zurawik of the hometown Baltimore Sun (which — and I’m not accusing Zurawik of bias here — has been mocked incessantly on the show this season) or Ross Douthat of The Atlantic. Or check out this debate between Dan Kois and Adam Sternbergh of New York magazine.

I happen to think that while the show made its various allegories a little too explicit this season, it worked as a climatic crescendo to what has been an incredibly patient and subtle show over the years. The show’s unflagging criticism of both personal and collective corruption is now blatantly obvious, I admit, and McNulty’s fake serial killer scheme does strain the very disciplined realism of the show. But it is the reactions of the media and the mayor to McNulty’s scheme that bring the show back home.

Those reactions, even though they are laughable and outrageous, feel undeniably true. That’s exactly how a modern for-profit newspaper and an idealistic but inevitably political politician would respond to the sensationalist opportunity that McNulty delivers to them. Yes, it’s over-the-top, but have you watched a 24-hour news channel lately when it’s got a celebrity scandal/scandalous murder to latch onto?

Whatever one’s thoughts are toward this final season, as the finale approaches it’s time for celebration and appreciation.

For a celebration, how about some crab cakes — Baltimore-style. Get the recipe here (or try yellow pepper coulis). Thanks to the the Raleigh News and Observer — which also created the definitive Wire food quiz (pdf).

Better yet, if you are near Baltimore, hit some of the show’s favorite bars.

Putting aside food and drink, you might enjoy BET’s Top 10 Wire Moments and other fun stuff.

For an appreciation, beyond reading the critical appraisals noted above, let’s leave it to David Simon, the show’s creator, who recently held forth on The Wire — its take on journalism and its roots in everything from Greek tragedy to Stanley Kubrick.

Most importantly, though, let’s give Simon and the other minds behind the show a final chance to remind us that for all its literary greatness, it’s a show very much based in a reality that persists and that we must fight to change. In their humble opinion, that means rejecting, among other things, the so-called war on drugs.

After humanizing a part of America that had been dismissed or forgotten by media and popular culture, after representing what many thought was unrepresentable, in this election season they have my vote.