The Wire 5-2

Last night's episode of The Wire may be working to confirm Jesse's theory of how season five will unravel the reputation David Simon has earned for himself. The episode began with a poorly acted monologue (these definitely don't seem to be Simon's strong suit, which anyone who has seen The Corner could confirm) at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

In the epic good journalist v. bad/lazy journalist subplot Simon seems to be developing, "New York Times or Washington Post, where else?" journalist Scott seems to have fabricated a boy in a wheelchair to add some color to his story on the Orioles opening season game. When his editor asked for more information about the boy, the executive editor -- yes, the same asshole that denied U Maryland wasn't meeting it's desegregation goals -- thought the article was a fine piece of writing and overrode the Gus's request for more information.

As of yet, we're not really seeing a whole lot of interaction between either the journalists and the cops or the journalists and the corner boys. The one point of overlap in yesterday's episode was when Alma arrived on a crime scene to whine for time with Detective Kima. It seems that even at a bad paper, there might be more of an overlap between the police and the paper.

There was some cynical (and spot on) speculation by Bunk, McNulty, and Lester that if 22 bodies of white people (especially white women and/or children) were pulled out of row houses, the investigation wouldn't have been shut down. This seems to be leading McNulty down the rather grim path of faking a serial killer to force the city's administration to pour more money into law enforcement.

I think the point about race is a great one to make, but the idea of faking a serial killer by altering crime evidence on white bodies seems an extreme that doesn't even really address the issue. If/when McNulty gets discovered, there would be a huge backlash.

So far, I'm not overly impressed, but we'll see if it picks up in the next few weeks.

Cross-posted at campusprogress.org/blog.