Frustration mounts in the Baltimore police department as budgetary constraints force investigations to be closed for lack of resources to pursue them, and severs the flow of overtime that most cops rely on to get by. Reporters at the Baltimore Sun are also feeling the financial pinch, with enforced layoffs and cuts to departments. Resentment mounts everywhere, and it is surely only a matter of time until people in both organisations start to step outside the rules ...
The final season of The Wire is widely considered the show's weakest, and I can see why. It's a couple of episodes shorter than those before it, and it has the largest cast of characters to date - including several new faces from the newspaper. Things get stretched a bit thin at times, and some of the story arcs intersect in only very minor ways.
That said, even at its nominal worst, this remains one of the best shows on TV. Sharp writing, a great ensemble cast, sympathetic-but-flawed characters on all sides of the equation, and a continued rejection of easy answers. Perhaps most impressively of all, it frequently puts characters you like on opposite sides of an argument and allows you to at least understand and empathise with both positions.
Heck, it even manages to land a solid ending. How many long-running TV shows can say that?
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