Jared Iorio
Do you channel surf endlessly looking for television shows to fill in the gaps in the writers-strike-caused hiatus?
Stop.
Not now, but right now.
I’ve got a 50-hour cure for your rerun disease.
“The Wire” season 5 just ended, so stop what you’re doing and steal, rob, queue up your Netflix or torrent download for every last deliciously ambiguous episode. If you do nothing else, do yourself this small favor.
It started off as a cop show, if never “just” another cop show. When HBO’s “The Wire debuted 5 years ago it was lauded for its impeccable acting, sharp and witty writing, and its distinct perspective on criminals and law enforcement, giving as much air time to the motivations and lives of the thugs and hustlers as to the beat cops and detectives.
The show has expanded in each subsequent season to include a larger, almost panoramic view of the people and institutions that make up creator David Simon’s Baltimore. This is a storyline that contains more nuances than most television shows are willing or able to tackle.
The main plot of the show has always been the battle between the guys on the street and the guys whose job it is to catch them.
Season 2 opened up the world of the largely Polish dockworkers, exposing the relationships between labor unions and politics and touching on current issues such as unchecked cargo in our ports to drugs and human trafficking.
Next we moved back to the streets of downtown Baltimore, peeking in as the Barksdale crew, which owned those streets, was swept away by snitches, police work and the new kid on the block, Marlo Stansfield.
The fourth season concentrated on public education in lower class schools and the intricacies of electoral politics.
Which takes us to now, where former Baltimore Sun journalist Simon meshes reality with fiction, turning his attention on the media. Simon comes full circle, focusing the storyline on media consolidation and the push to sell newspapers with sensationalist and even completely fabricated news items, something he says he experienced in his latter days as a journalist and editor at The Baltimore Sun.
I don’t know whether the most endearing character in The Wire is the gay, scar-faced killer Omar or the whiskey-swilling, womanizing cop McNulty. There is something to being able to root for the “good guy” and the “bad guy” at the same time. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is which, but you can only decide if you check it out.
So rent the full series, lock yourself in a dark room and immerse yourself in one of the best series you’ll ever see.
Certainly beats another night of “Dancing With the Stars.”
Rating: Four and a half stars out of Five.
()
