The Wire’s five seasons, it was widely praised for its authentic portrayal of the communities and institutions it depicted. From the police force to the illegal drug trade to the local government, The Wire captured its subjects with such a fierce sense of realism that it often felt more like documentary than drama.
But in its fifth and final season, it veered away from that realism into an unbelievable plot that would’ve felt more at home in the clichéd police procedurals that The Wire had initially subverted. In an attempt to gain more funding for the homicide department, Jimmy McNulty dresses up some murder scenes to create the impression that there’s a serial killer slaughtering homeless people across Baltimore. While this storyline is definitely a tonal departure for the show, I still love it. It created a lot of interesting character conflicts — and it predicted the rise of “fake news.”
The Wire's Fake Serial Killer Storyline Created A Rift In The Homicide Squad
Some Cops Were More Onboard Than Others
The most interesting thing about The Wire season 5’s fake serial killer storyline is that it creates a rift within the homicide squad. For the first four seasons of The Wire, we saw these cops pull together as a united front to take down drug kingpins like Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell, and Marlo Stanfield. The conflicts were between the cops and the crooks. But season 5 created conflict between the cops themselves. Some of them were more onboard with the idea of creating a fake serial killer than others.
All five seasons of The Wire are currently available to stream on Max.
After Jimmy came up with the idea of fabricating a serial killer to get more funding for their homicide investigations, Bunk was dead against it. Up to that point, Jimmy and Bunk had been ride-or-die partners who ed each other no matter what. But Bunk couldn’t stand to see Jimmy planting evidence, tampering with crime scenes, filing false police reports, and sparking fear throughout the city over nothing, so he washed his hands of the whole thing. When he brought in Lester to talk some sense into Jimmy, Bunk was horrified to find that Lester liked the idea.
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Lester had no problem with what Jimmy was doing; he just felt he was going about it the wrong way. He thought that Jimmy didn’t make the fake serial killer sensational enough to catch the attention of the media the way that killers like John Wayne Gacy and the Zodiac did, so he introduced a calling card to turn this made-up killer into a supervillain. Kima never followed all the rules as a police officer, but even she was disturbed by Jimmy and Lester’s work and took Bunk’s side. It was fascinating to see this lie tear the squad apart.
The Wire Season 5 Predicted The Rise Of Disinformation
The Wire's Fake News Storyline Was Ahead Of Its Time
The Wire uses its fake serial killer storyline as a springboard to explore the media. The season’s B-plot takes place in a fictionalized version of the Baltimore Sun’s newsroom, with various reporters and editors reacting to the supposed homeless murders. Tom McCarthy plays Scott Templeton, a journalist who has a habit of tweaking the truth. At first, he just embellishes the details of real stories to sound more interesting and dramatic. But eventually, he’s fabricating entire reports. Clark Johnson plays Gus Haynes, an editor who values facts and truth above all and grows suspicious of Templeton’s work.
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This storyline was way ahead of its time. When the season aired in 2008, many critics — particularly David Zurawik, writing for the Baltimore Sun itself — criticized the newspaper storyline for being unrealistic. But within a decade, it wouldn’t seem so unrealistic. The prevalence of online journalism and social media led to the death of facts and the rise of disinformation. In a post-“fake news” world, a lot of news sources can’t be trusted and will either misrepresent the truth or make up outright lies.
The Wire's Newspaper Storyline Criticized News Media For Prioritizing Entertainment Over Truth
The Wire Season 5 Is An Incisive Takedown Of Newstainment
When the news media was first invented, it existed simply to present facts and report events in a plain, unbiased way. But in the last few decades, with the advent of TV and the internet, the news has gotten more and more sensationalistic. News media is a business, and as that business has grown to incorporate hundreds of competitors all vying for their audience’s attention, the media has started using duplicitous tactics to stand out. Now, a lot of news sources prioritize entertainment over truth. It’s more important to get clicks than to speak the truth.
It’s more important to get clicks than to speak the truth.
The Wire’s season 5 storyline criticized this phenomenon long before it became as widespread and destructive as it is today. The in-universe Baltimore Sun articles about a serial killer who doesn’t exist aren’t too far off from real-world disinformation about presidential elections and the COVID pandemic. This so-called “newstainment,” turning current events into a soap opera, is as dangerous as a fictional serial killer.
Critiquing The Media Was The Perfect Theme For The Wire's Final Season
It Took Aim At The Show Itself
Each season of The Wire tackled a different part of Baltimore and showed how it contributed to the overall issues of corruption and class inequality. The first season looked at the drug trade and the futility of the war on drugs; the second season looked at the docks and the death of the working class; the third season looked at local government through a mayoral election; and the fourth season looked at the public education system. There were other institutions the show could’ve tackled, from healthcare to immigration, but the media was the right focus for the final season.
Ultimately, shows like The Wire are part of the problem, because they take these issues that are keeping America divided and turn them into digestible entertainment.
While it would’ve been great to see where The Wire season 6 would’ve gone if HBO had renewed the show, critiquing the media turned out to be the perfect theme to end the series on. It took aim at The Wire itself and the way the media portrays the institutional problems depicted in the show. Ultimately, shows like The Wire are part of the problem, because they take these issues that are keeping America divided and turn them into digestible entertainment. In many ways, The Wire’s critique of the media was a self-critique.
- Directors
- Ernest R. Dickerson, Ed Bianchi, Steve Shill, Clark Johnson, Daniel Attias, Agnieszka Holland, Tim Van Patten, Alex Zakrzewski, Anthony Hemingway, Brad Anderson, Clement Virgo, Elodie Keene, Peter Medak, Rob Bailey, Seith Mann, Christine Moore, David Platt, Dominic West, Gloria Muzio, Jim McKay, Leslie Libman, Milcho Manchevski, Robert F. Colesberry, Thomas J. Wright
- Writers
- Richard Price, Joy Lusco, Rafael Alvarez, Dennis Lehane, David Mills, William F. Zorzi, Kia Corthron
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