The Wire - Requiem

I finally got around to finishing The Wire.  Season 5 is it - the end.  I have been avoiding it like the plague because no one likes seeing things pass and I have been privy to some of the plot thanks to Wikipedia.  The last season had debut in 2008 so many of you are probably thinking "old news".  In any case I did enjoy the season and liked how Season 5 actually had a fitting denouement.

Season 5 continued with the Major Crimes Unit of Baltimore investigation of a drug gang headed by the cold and vicious street thug, Marlowe Stanfield.  With all leads gone cold in the middle of a city wide deficit the unit is disbanded and reassigned leaving the Stanfield crew free reign to over throw the established drug trade.

In the meanwhile obsessed with not losing on the work he has put into the investigation, Jimmy McNulty decides to do the unthinkable.  He tampers with evidence while investigating a homeless who had apparently died of natural causes to make it seem like the homeless man was killed.  He then proceeds to string together a bunch of old and new homeless deaths to make the whole city think that a serial killer is killing homeless men.  After much posturing in a troubled mayor office on how to turn a news worthy event into a positive spin on Mayor Carcetti's run for governor, Jimmy is given "carte blanche" to allocate an emergency fund to find his fictitious serial killer.

Jimmy instead allocates most of resources into completing the investigation on Marlowe Stanfield's crew and doles out the rest to investigations that baldy needed funding to close.  Though he is somewhat successful into ending Marlowe's current reign on the streets the effort does not put Marlowe him self behind bars and only manages to temporarily cripple the drug trade in Baltimore.  Furthermore, he and Lestor Freamon are quietly released from ever doing any more police work due to the conspiracy they propagated.

I found the end very believable and did a good job resolving the fates of our favorite characters on both sides of the law through out the series.  I even was quite satisfied on how they end off Jimmy McNulty's character in the series and was quite touched with the retirement "wake" they hold for Jimmy and Lester.

As for the series it self,  I still contend that The Wire is one of the best police series I have ever watched.  It is definitely a no holds barred look at how even in the modern American city the old problems of greed and apathy is core to the problems of the western society.  As depressing a realization as this maybe brought with each of The Wire's five seasons they still do make a point of saying that change is not impossible but requires tireless work that rarely goes rewarded for an individual but eventually does for a society.