The Wire Blows Its Last Season

The first four seasons of The Wire were the best that television could offer. This season creator David Simon got too close to home and had too many bones to pick. He featured the Baltimore Sun, his former paper, and his anger toward the state of newspapers caused him to screw up the whole damn thing.

The Washington City Paper has the best critique of the show.

Season 5’s mistakes—clunky plotting, false parallels, confused motivations—are violations of the realism the show promised. And without a solid rooting in truth, The Wire doesn’t just have a bad season—it betrays its own intentions. David Simon broke a contract, changed the rules without warning. In his world, that’s something only the Wire-bad are supposed to do.