Each season of the series dealt with a different facet of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. In order they were: the drug trade, the port, the city bureaucracy and the school system. Before the season began, HBO announced that The Wire’s fifth season would be its last. David Simon and Ed Burns knew how they wanted to end their look at the city of Baltimore and reportedly had to beg HBO for one final season to tell their story. Despite much critical acclaim and a passionate fan base, ratings for The Wire have always been surprisingly low. While the network always supported the show and lauded its brilliance, after four seasons of decreasing viewership, its patience seemingly wore thin; HBO opted not to give the show the standard 12 or 13 episodes, cramming the final season down into an even 10.
Oh, but what a 10 they were! Despite some weak points, The Wire still remained better than 99% of the other series television available. Knowing this was their last go round, the cast and crew of The Wire had ambitious plans for a 10 episode season. The series tries to wrap up the individual storylines of the characters and carry on the tradition of exploring a new theme. This time, it’s the media.
The basic idea is to show how the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality skews the public away from meaningful news, and how ever-growing financial cutbacks in journalism force its writers to do “more with less.” When a newspaper starts taking shortcuts, they run the risk of letting a cheater loose in their mist. Reporter Scott Templeton begins secretly fabricating story details and reporting false facts.
I could write several pages deconstructing the actions of various characters during The Wire’s fifth season, but in the interest of time and keeping your attention I’ll limit my thoughts here to McNulty (Dominic West). Frustrated by a system that continually prevents the police from apprehending criminals, McNulty invents a fake serial killer in hopes that the media coverage will force local officials to give more resources to the Baltimore Police Department. Resources he hopes will bring down Marlo Stanfield once and for all.
The 10 episodes of The Wire’s final season are dramatic and full of all sorts of twists and turns. In the end the series’ writers somehow managed to offer an intelligent solution for each loose end, which in the bigger picture, resolves nothing at all.
As McNulty faces the future without his career he gazes over the city and scenes from the past and the future flash by: Freamon enjoys retirement; Templeton wins a Pulitzer; Carcetti becomes Governor; Haynes is sidelined to the copy desk and replaced by Fletcher; Campbell appoints Valchek as commissioner; Dukie injects heroin; Michael becomes a stickup boy; Pearlman becomes a judge and Daniels a defense attorney; Bubbles is allowed upstairs where he enjoys a family dinner; Chris serves his life sentence alongside Wee-Bey; the drug trade continues; and the people of Baltimore go on with their lives.
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
The Wire – The Complete Fifth Season preserves the original television aspect ratio. The audio is presented in English 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish 2.0. Subtitles are available in English, French and Spanish.
This five disc set has a few notable special features : Six Audio Commentaries with David Simon and other cast and crew — Simon and Company give informative lectures, complimenting and enhancing the stories on screen. Portions of these commentaries could be substituted for collegiate lectures on urban decay and the state of the media today..
The Wire: The Last Word (26:34 min.) — This half-hour featurette does more than show how The Wire examines the role of the press in its final season, it examines the state of the press nationally, in reality. Chalk full of interviews with actual reporters (most from the Baltimore Sun), this bonus dwells on the diminishing power of the press, the way in which the media is controlled by focus groups and market testing that insists on less hard news and more sensationalistic tabloids; the subjectivity of truth; and the vital necessity of a vibrant press to speak truth to power and keep our leaders accountable.
The Wire Odyssey (28:40 min.) — Detailing each of the five seasons (drugs, blue collar job loss, business reform, education, and lastly, the media), this bonus is as funny as it is moving. In addition to recapping the seasons, the cast and crew reminisce on their favorite scenes and characters, and reveal the audition process that got them their parts.
