Exiting The Wire

Normally a review of a TV show episode might be fodder for my other blog, but this AV Club review of the final episode of The Wire is a good read, with good insights on the fifth season overall too.

Reviewer Scott Tobias takes issue with aspects of the Scott Templeton story, in which a Baltimore Sun reporter fabricates elements of or whole stories. I'd agree that even the biggest toolbox managers at a paper would not just dismiss Metro editor Gus' claims about the made up information, out of fear of embarrassment if nothing else. Tobias sees the portrayal of the two managers of the paper as the thinly-disguised rage of creator David Simon toward his two former bosses at the Sun. Maybe so.

I'd agree that overall though, the Sun story hit the right notes in terms of the corporate-run office environment — the "more with less" pep talk bullshit, morons making the decisions, good people pushed out or canned. I can't speak as to the focus on awards in big city papers, but it wouldn't surprise me, especially as a vehicle for advancement for the senior editors as well as the people actually doing the stories.

In interviews before the fifth season started I saw Simon and other former journalists attest to the fact fabrication occurred (though maybe more so back in the day), and not just the big cases everyone knows about. I'd think this would be easier to pull off at a big paper like the Sun or the Philadelphia Inquirer, where the subjects may be less willing to call and complain about small fabrications, and the machine may be too big to keep track of. Small fabrications would obviously be a lot harder to catch, and thus more realistic than in this season, but the story was consistent with other stories in The Wire in that respect. It might have been overblown for effect, and for the sake of plot, but Hamsterdam, Omar and several other elements of the show could be viewed similarly.

That the Sun storyline caught as much flack as it did in the media, to me, was just because reviewers worked in newspaper and magazine offices. They didn't know shit about street drug dealings or the inner workings of a big city port, so overblown plot elements in those settings got off easier.

McNulty fabricating the homeless killings, at first, actually bothered me a lot more until put in the context of some of the other over-the-top elements in the show. I was flinching along with Bunk when he starts manipulating the body of his first phony victim. Also, I still don't completely buy Freeman being OK to make busts on completely false paperwork. Interesting that as smart as Freeman was set up in the show, Levy (with a little help from Herc, who turns out to maybe be the biggest influence on the season's events while getting very little screen time) quickly figures out the cops' ploy, and would have made all that police work for naught if his own dirt wasn't in play.

Anyway, check the last episode review. I haven't been to the AV Club in a while, but will have to check it more often. Good stuff.

Oh, if wondering about the significance of the last episode's "-30-" title, someone in the comments on the article points out that's what reporters, I assume at the Sun, would stick at the end of their stories when filing them.