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Originally Posted by irishjayhawk
Like I said, it's much like UP's simile: its like picking your favorite child.
While I found the fake serial killer plot to be somewhat unrealistic, comparatively (I don't see a problem with legalization - in fact that is one of the aspects that made Season 3 rank higher than 2. I loved the thought behind that decision. It made sense. As for Omar, I'm not sure what's unbelievable about his story arc.), it was more that the season seemed contrived. It was paced faster and written almost truncated. They knew they were ending and it's like they decided to race towards it. I LOVE the ideas behind all the arcs in the season, but they felt rushed and almost betrayed because of it. For example, while I understood Gus' plight with Templeton, it seemed emotionally unattatched. I mean I wanted Gus to win but the loss (the girl reporter) I felt was unemotional and a "who gives a shit" moment. I hated the managers of the paper - like you were supposed to - but I felt like they had a side of the story that wasn't completely told.
I'm half-tempted to rank them like so: 4 & 1, 3, 2, 5. But I don't think I can because there's much of 5 to like. And 2 seems like the black sheep in that many of it's storylines don't continue. Sure, the Greek comes back and has a job in the later seasons but aside from that, it didn't offer the overlapping storylines that made most of the seasons great.
Like I said though, it's a tough choice regardless because each has their own merits. I loved the dock setting, for example.
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1.) It would be very difficult to set up a Hamsterdam area for a number of weeks and not have anyone catch on, in "real life" that is. Just about as hard as it would be to fake some murders. As for Omar... stick up men don't do the superhuman shit that he does, nor do they live for nearly as long as Omar did. Not the ones that target the wolves at night like Omar did, anyway.
2.) Odd that you say the media plot of season 5 was emotionally unattached, as it was the most personal of plots for David Simon. I understand the criticism that the editors were not portrayed as fully as other characters, but they aren't the first ones. Characters like Andy Krawchek or Commish Valcheck are similarly one-note. It doesn't serve the story to reveal more about them, and I would argue that we don't need to know. We can easily extrapolate what the motivations of the editors might be; what "their side" would be.
3.) It didn't serve the story to continue following the dock workers. Nothing changed about their situation. All the necessary follow-up was found in the season 5 cameos: Nick Sobatka complaining about the same ol, same ol with riverfront development & about the robots taking away even more jobs, and also Johnny Fifty's cameo as one of the homeless under the bridge that McNulty saw. Having Vondas and The Greek pop up a few times was conducive to the story because they were the connect. But it would have done nothing to further the messages of the show to continue following the dock workers just to follow them. Simon & Burns said what they wanted to say.