Series 4 really was fantastic, I found the plot in series 5 a bit too much OTT - I could buy the whole Hamsterdam storyline as sort of plausible, but McNulty and Lester's schemes verged on the ridiculous.
True that as they might say. Lester comes across as a totally non-corrupt and straight as a plank maverick detective in the previous series. That he joins McNulty's slapstick schemes is totally out of character and it annoys the hell out of me. I just don't believe in it. And what made The Wire so good (in the first four series) is that it seemed so close to reality. So they screw up with this and the whole serial killer plot and McNulty's police dept within the police dept.
Also - I never really cared for the guys in the newspaper (we never see the press gang at their homes, as we do/did with say police, drug dealers, dockers and even Bubbles).
There's a cheap dig at IKEA, the end credits show Daniels (as a lawyer) and Rhonda Pearlman as a judge in the same case and I think Marlo Stanfield's rise to top dog of "The Street" is almost too easily achieved after Prop Joe is popped.
And then there's Omar.
I thought that his death was a bit of a shocker and there's just no
way he would have the need for a list of people of he would knock off in his pocket
(so the police could easily pick it up).
Having said all that. It is still good - the well-meaning Carcetti starting to loose grip on his principles (Blair?), the terrific Snoop, Clay Davies making a comeback (although the jury freeing him seems incredible), the overall Victorian feel to it, a nod to "Dexter" (one of the kids watching it on telly) and so on.
But The Wire Series Five slips compared to the high standards it has set for itself in the first four. There are too many "moments of disbelief".