![]() ![]() It is these nuances that dictate when they stop watching the prepared movie, slowing peeling back to leave only a single Marine transfixed by the screen in front of him.Īnd while it may seem too simple, that final scene really does provide the most distinct expression of who our central characters are. Whether its the idea of Iraq being a nation of people either Very Good or Dead, or the stark realities of medical care and humanity in those small Baghdad neighbourhoods, their views of war and Iraq have changed. With the action almost completely over, this was an episode that was about Marines who are forced to make a final decision on where they stand on the actions they have undertaken and the invasion of Iraq. This doesn’t change, though, my intense appreciation of the song, and its relevance here. And there are numerous war video montages on YouTube which use the song juxtaposed with images of war, so it’s not as if Simon and Burns’ use of the song is anything revolutionary. ![]() Right off the bat, we have to go to the end montage of the footage shot during the invasion, set to Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around.” This is not, by the way, the first show to use this song to great effect this season: earlier this year, FOX’s Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles elevated its cinematic qualities with a great scene set to the song. Instead, it is simply scary, and it seems like this is what Wright (And Simon and Burns) intended. It is downright scary that, five years after the fact, Simon and Burns still found this particular warning necessary, that the problems they outlined throughout the miniseries have certainly not been solved.Īs a result, finishing Generation Kill was a process that took some time when we consider that, in the end, we’re not just accepting to end of Hitman 2’s mission with this finale, but the start of our own shattered reality and while I have numerous kudos to wave in the series’ direction, I will have to say that finishing it certainly is not satisfying. Simon and Burns’ gut-wrenching reality check is far worse when it is actual reality, when they are framing our understanding of something ongoing within today’s society. Watching this finale was not like saying goodbye to old friends and reflecting on what we can do as a society to change it, but watching with horror knowing what was going to happen over the next five years. It doesn’t paint an idealistic picture of the world Simon and Burns created, no, but its meaning in “reality” is still a bastion of hopefulness for those who choose to view it as such.īut there’s something far more infinite in the tragedy of Generation Kill, the tragedy of a “true story” as told through the eyes of someone who experienced it first hand. So while I certainly have a new perspective on the drug trade, education, the media, or anything else that the show exposed to me during its run on HBO, I can honestly say that watching that finale gave me some hope: hope that the cyclical process that we follow could potentially be stopped, that the show and its message can serve as a guiding post for the future. And yet, there is that necessary and welcome distance which we also experience: while this is something that does happen in our own society, it is still playing out with fictional characters (regardless of how much we may relate to them in various fashions). I recently finished The Wire’s fifth season (partially why I was so late getting to this finale), and the show’s conclusion (like the conclusion of every season) is about reflection: about the journey of these characters we followed for five seasons, and about how their journeys are part of today’s modern American society. Saying goodbye to Generation Kill isn’t just difficult, it’s impossible.
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