I should do some digging into interviews/articles about the season's production, as well as the overall series, because from what I remember 5 is just such a strange note to end on. I hate seeing McNulty spend season 4 on the sidelines and happy, just to backslide right into the heel we knew him to be in seasons 1-3, arguably even worse, considering (again, hazy recollection) he spends season 5 forging evidence. Heck, the way it starts with Omar happily living in another country, just to pull him back to Baltimore...I just recall feeling like the whole season has this tone of "welp, here's one more of these," and doesn't land the plane so much as cut to a quick montage of a few passengers at the baggage claim.
A couple stray thoughts:
- Bubbles' story just ain't hitting right for me; I always chafe at "getting clean then relapsing" as a plot device, and he basically spends the show on the sidelines, getting let down by the cops (twice in the same way, where a cop was supposed to be literally, physically there for him, and they forgot), and losing protegees to the needle repeatedly.
- I honestly forgot most of the Herc and Carver plots, and it's been nice revisiting those characters realizing they had a little more depth and story.
- I also misremembered how Prez left the force; I thought he'd shot a kid. So when he goes on foot after that perp and McNulty comes around the corner to see him with a grown-up body, I thought for a sec "oh, maybe I remembered this wrong, and he's just affected by having taken a life, even a criminal's life." Then McNulty kneels down and finds the badge around the corpse's neck...such a sinking feeling.
- The kids' storylines in season 4 snuck up on me twice. First time around, I just didn't really dig the kids, didn't really see the point. But by the season's end, you're completely invested in all of them. It's heartbreaking. On rewatch, I knew their stories would pay off, but I still had this feeling of "eh, this is fine," and was all-in once more by the finale.