All good things must come to an end; at least The Wire, Dave Simon's brilliant portrait of Baltimore through all its social strata, wrapped up before it grew bloated like The Sopranos. The fifth season (only 10 episodes) brings the fourth estate into the mix of overachieving street-corner drug dealers, overworked cops, underfunded teachers and overwhelmingly corrupt politicians. The beleaguered editors and reporters at the Baltimore Sun (where Simon worked the crime beat), stripped bare by layoffs and facing competition from the Internet, are urged "to do more with less" by their weaselly managing editor (David Costabile). Even worse is the pompous executive editor (Sam Freed), with his Pulitzer lust and academic credentials. The moral center of the newsroom, city editor Gus Haynes (a deeply lived-in performance by Clark Johnson), a Menckenite dinosaur, reluctantly negotiates the cutbacks while trying to reign in Scott (Tom McCarthy), a reporter with a touch of the fabulist in him—his quotes are too good, his sources never want to be named. The inside-baseball newspaper story dovetails with the ongoing saga of Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) and his mates in the police department. Throwing caution and common sense to the wind, McNulty fabricates a crime wave by a serial killer preying on the homeless in order to get the resources Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters) needs to solve the murders in the vacant houses from Season 4. Two bullshitters square off when McNulty and Scott both start spinning their stories into headline-grabbing hysteria that challenges the electoral dreams of slick liberal Mayor Tommy Carcetti (a spot-on impersonation of Gavin Newsom by Aidan Gillen—or is it the other way around?). Meanwhile, Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector) makes his move on Prop Joe (Robert F. Chew) and the Baltimore drug trade, and Omar (the amazing Michael K. Williams) returns from exile with a grudge. The show manages to do justice to scores of memorable characters, building on the fertile ground of previous seasons. The Wire has cemented so many intricate emotional foundations that some of the actors seem to merge with their characters. It is startling to see Michael (Tristan Wilds), Doquan (Jermaine Crawford) and Namon (Julito McCullum), the kids from last season, a couple of years older and a few inches taller. My reservations are minimal: the newspaper subplot isn't all that well integrated with the rest of the narrative; McNulty's scheming strains credibility (there's no way they can make their doctored case stand up in court); and Marlo seems too much like a shark in comparison with Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell, whose lives of crime had a context and a purpose—Marlo's deadly ambition has left him devoid of complexity; he doesn't even enjoy the money and status he achieves. But these are minor cavils when stacked up against a brilliant scene in which a Quantico FBI profiler perfectly nails McNulty's anti-authoritarian tendencies; or the depth of professionalism that drives Bunk (Wendell Pierce) and Kima (Sonja Sohn) to acts of courageous conscience. To say that Season 5 of The Wire is the weakest one is still high praise, because The Wire is better than 99 percent of anything that has ever been on TV. Comes with commentary tracks and a couple of promo-style extras—it is amusing to hear Dominic West talking in his real English accent.

Click Here to Talk About Movies at Metro's New Blog

Send a letter to the editor about this story.