The Wire ended 10 years ago today

Entertainment Weekly

The fifth and final season finale of the acclaimed HBO series aired on March 9, 2008, finishing up its most polarizing and perhaps disappointing season. But in retrospect, was Season 5 really that bad? "The first four seasons of The Wire are still great, better than anything you’re convincing yourself to watch this week," says Darren Franich. "The fifth season of The Wire has a stranger reputation. I revisited it late last year for the first time since 2008... Its main fault is still its most obvious: A new plot thread about the decline of print journalism feels preachy like The Wire never did. The lying reporter Scott Templeton (Tom McCarthy) is, I think, the only truly irredeemable character the show ever conjured up, his villainy so telegraphed and so clearly symbolic. There are mass murderers on The Wire with more virtues than Templeton. (McCarthy was clearly so disturbed by the role that he performed elaborate print-journalist penance and directed Spotlight.) But a decade later, the fifth season of The Wire looks better, or at least more purposefully weird. Simon’s work is strenuously realist." ALSO: What would The Wire be like in Trump's America?