I doubt you'll read this as it's been so long since your post and this forum is pretty dead, but as I'm here
Sometime near it ending, I think in 2002 or 2003, there was a big siege storyline where armed robbers took members of the Close hostage in their houses. This climaxed in police helicopters descending, one of the robbers shooting at them and a the helicopter crashing down onto the parade, resulting in two characters dying, one of them the mother who was played by one of the Nolans.
The last episode was pretty insane - several characters banded together and lynched a drug dealer who had moved into the area! Everyone who was left then left the close bar Tinhead, Nikki and Jimmy and the last ten minutes or so were a rambling monologue by Jimmy about things like the media and drugs that didn't make much sense, at least to me, the last few minutes Jimmy scrawled ' GAME OVER ' on the doors of all the houses, added a ' D ' to the Brookside Close sign and in the very last shot broke the fourth wall by winking to the camera
A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free