DVD Review: The Wire, Season Five

Bruce Dancis - Sacramento Bee

Aug 15, 2008

The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season

4 stars

"The Wire," says Clark Johnson, "is Baltimore."

Johnson is certainly in a position to know of what he speaks about the HBO series that concluded its fifth and final season earlier this year. The actor- director was a regular on NBC's 1980s Baltimore-set drama "Homicide: Life on the Street," which was based on a book by former Baltimore Sun police reporter David Simon. And on "The Wire," which Simon also created and set in Baltimore, Johnson directed the very first episode in 2002 and the series finale, and also starred during the final season as Gus Haynes, city editor of the Sun.

Johnson's point is that "The Wire" had transcended the crime genre to become an accurate, passionate, depressing and powerful portrait of the decline of Baltimore -- and by extension, the decline of the American city. His remarks are made on an audio commentary for the second episode of the series' final season, which has been released on DVD this week -- "The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season" (four discs, HBO Video, $59.99, rated TV-MA).

The conclusion of "The Wire" has brought to an end what many observers, including this critic, view as the finest dramatic series in television history. Over five seasons featuring some of the best writing and acting on TV -- the well-known journalist Joe Klein says in an interview on the DVD that "The Wire" "deserves the Nobel Prize for literature" -- the series provided a fascinating look at the seamy underside of urban America.

At the core of "The Wire" is the battle between The Law, as represented by assorted Baltimore Police Department detectives and higher-ups, and The Street, the various gangs that control the city's illegal drug trade. In each successive season, Simon and his creative partner Ed Burns, a former Baltimore police detective and middle-school teacher, maintained the focus on the cops and the criminals while expanding the series' scope.

"The Wire" took viewers inside the declining port of Baltimore and the loss of working-class jobs (Season 2); efforts by politicians and police officials to "reform" the city and the drug trade (Season 3); and the education system, with a specific look at four at-risk young men in middle school (Season 4).

What Season 5 is about, says Simon in the DVD documentary "The Wire: The Last Word," is "how far you can go on a lie."

And the lies are flying from all quarters -- from detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), frustrated by his department's lack of resources, who makes up a case about an alleged serial killer in their midst in an effort to obtain more funds for real police work; from the usual duplicity among the members of the various gangs; and, most importantly, from the city's paper of record, the Baltimore Sun.

In a season that has caused much controversy and consternation among journalists, Simon and his crew made the inner workings of the Sun one of Season 5's major plotlines, with a particular emphasis on an unethical and ambitious reporter's use of manufactured quotes and sources to enhance his stories and the fights between various editors about the value of those stories. The season also cast a critical look at the cutbacks that have affected most major city newspapers and what that has meant to the papers' coverage of their communities.

Although Season 5 did not quite match the dramatic punch of Season 4 -- which was probably inevitable, given that it's hard to equal the intensity of feeling provoked by watching children in trouble -- "The Wire" in its final season remains television at its peak.

Simon and his cast and crew adeptly wrap up the interweaving story lines that had been constructed over five seasons, even bringing back important characters from past seasons, like the imprisoned Avon Barksdale (played memorably by Wood Harris), for meaningful and not the least bit gratuitous cameos.

One of the DVD bonus features, "The Wire Odyssey," includes cast and crew members recalling their favorite characters and favorites scenes from the series. After watching this, loyal fans of "The Wire" will no doubt be doing the same.

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