I think that Mr. Plotz is dead wrong when, in choosing one of his 3 high points of the finale, he points to Marlo's return to the street. What I took from that scene was his inability to return: he leaves the confining luxury hotel, obviously extremely uncomfortable in the company of Levy and the other sharks, and travels back to the corner, to his gangster roots. There he is not welcome, and the young punks he confronts, who would not have dared to even think of attacking him back in the day, try to kill him. He is able to ward them off. But for how long, without his retainers and bodyguards, can he continue to do this? The street has moved on. I see his final scene not as a triumphant return, but as a rather fitting end for this monster - the life he loves is now gone, and if he stays, he will die a violent death. He is now trapped, in his $1000 suit, in a world he doesn't like and probably cannot understand. Somehow, I find this more satisfying than seeing him dispatched with a bullet in the head.

Good call D. Macdonald, Plotz's notion that Marlo will somehow be a low-level dealer is absurd. Besides the fact that the street has moved on, there's a feeling in that scene that for the man who was obsessed with the crown, the best he can have now is dominion over an empty corner, in the middle of the night, with no product, no customers and a gunshot wound in his arm.

He's like Lear wandering the heath.

Perhaps he wants the challenge of rising from the bottom again?

Not to mention that for whatever else we may feel about Marlo, he's far too wealthy to want or need to return to the street as a dealer. Seems like all he was doing in that last scene was trying to re-establish a street cred he may never have had. Chris was feared, and through him and Snoop, Marlo was feared. But the giveaway to what was being conveyed in Marlo's last scene was the tall tales about Omar echoing in the streets as he approached the corner. Omar's name lives on, but the corner boys don't even know who Marlo is.

Just as a reference, here is what David Simon had to say to Alan Sepinwall about this subject:

I don't think we were making anything certain by that moment with Marlo’s return to the corner. I think we were speaking to a hole in the center of his soul that has to do with who he believes he is and was and what is now being denied to him by events. Going up to the corner and basically asserting for your standing and your manhood, I don't know if that's the return to the corner to which Pearlman was referring.

Alan has an extended interview with Simon about the ending of the series posted here:

<link>

Marlo’s return to the street has nothing to do with the drug business. Firstly, it showed (to those who could not realize it without having it spelled for them) that Marlo earned his way to the top. He could do anything Chris & Snoop did, and he did, but once a king he started delegating. Why would anyone think that Chris & Snoop would ever listen to Marlo if they did not see him commit some serious atrocities earning their cold-blooded respect? Secondly, it showed that all Marlo wanted was satisfaction, adrenaline rush and feeling of being superior that only taking a corner can give. He is not going to be a drug dealer, he is not starting from scratch, he just wanted that one, maybe last, thrill and joy.

agree--marlo had to get back to his comfort zone--if for only a brief moment.

To me, (although with a quote from SImon, I guess you have to defer to the author's motives), the scene of Marlo returning to the corner was more about the discussion Cutty and Dukie had a few episodes ago about not being able to really imagine life outside of what they know of inner city life. Marlo appears to have beaten the game - he's free, he's rich, he's retired, but he STILL has to got to the corner and assert himself. He still has to feel like he's a part of the game.

Dukie and Cutty can't imagine life beyond the corner and it appears, neither can Marlo.

You don't have to defer to Simon. He even goes out of his way in interviews to say that a lot of what he says about characters are his own interpretation, not Holy Writ. You really shouldn't defer to the author of a piece in any case, unless the point really isn't open for interpretation.

Marlo's last scene was definitely, I think, one of the more interesting 'wrap up' scenes. There's no way he'll go back and be a low-level dealer, since he's been exiled from the Game (it's interesting to see that that's maybe the only way to win it, to be forced out) and a return means serious conspiracy jail time he obviously doesn't want to do. But it's not clear he'll be able to find the kind of rush and competition and opportunity for domination he lives for in the world of business. I mean, obviously it's there, but he might just not see it because he's been so programmed for street domination he doesn't know anything else.

I saw an interview with Simon (it might actually be that Alan one) where he said that what interested him about the situation was that Marlo ended up being put in the position Stringer Bell so desperately wanted, but to him it was hell. And I like that. And I wonder if that means Marlo will keep wandering out of meetings with rich, important white men and asserting himself on street corners, or if he'll get past it and just feel simply trapped in the life Stringer tried so desperately to live.

And yeah, though it was somewhat unnecessary, it was good to see him show how tough he could be in a regular situation, if only to shut up the people who couldn't buy his character because so much of it was kept under the surface.

Minor point of contention:

"You really shouldn't defer to the author of a piece in any case, unless the point really isn't open for interpretation."

You don't think if an author tells you what he or she meant by something in his or her work that you should defer to that interpretation?

That strikes me as a bit odd. If the author says, for example, that the red bird symbolizes freedom, you don't give the author's interpretation of his own work more weight than others? I would think that the author's explanation would kind of close the books on the discussion of what he or she meant.

If the author says that the red bird symbolizes freedom I'll almost certainly stop liking whatever the piece is. There's obviously not much merit to it.

But my point is that any good work of art is smarter than whoever made it. Knowing what he thinks he was trying to do when he wrote or made it can be useful, but it doesn't at all close the books (a good example would be Last Year at Marienbad, where the screenwriter and director disagree as to whether or not the couple had actually met before, and the director actually says that in the writing stage he believed that they hadn't whereas when he actually made the film he came to believe that they had). An artist's intentions can be important, but they're just something he wanted. Not necessarily what he did.

Good discussion on that here: <link>