The Wire

AVERAGE VIEWER RATING:

Episode Guide

Series five

Episode 1/10 More with Less

McNulty and the team keep Marlo under surveillance. Carver has his work cut out to mollify his officers, who are up in arms about poor pay and conditions. Mayor Carcetti struggles with budgetary constraints, and is forced to close down the investigation into the murders in the vacants to divert the money to cover other police costs. Meanwhile, the journalists at the Baltimore Sun face cuts.
Episode 2/10 Unconfirmed Reports

There's a cloud on Baltimore's horizon and no-one at the top seems to care. A drug don called Stanfield is free to deploy his dealers and all because Mayor Carcetti slashed budgets so there's no money for police surveillance. McNulty's unimpressed and decides it's time to take the law into his own hands.
Episode 3/10 Not for Attribution

Mayor Carcetti has slashed the police budget while simultaneously demanding a drop in crime. What's a detective to do? Invent a serial killer, of course. That's McNulty's solution anyway. Across town, meanwhile, the drug dealers are wrestling with a different puzzle: where is Omar?
Episode 4/10 Transitions

When Colicchio is publicly humiliated during a failed drugs bust, he loses control and assaults an innocent bystander. Carver tries to talk to him about the incident but Colicchio is unrepentant, and Carver reports him, much to the disgust of his fellow officers. McNulty and Freamon persuade a trusted police colleague to alert them whenever another body is found, allowing them to doctor the crime scenes to appear as if their serial killer has been at work.
Episode 5/10 React Quotes

McNulty lures Alma and Templeton into printing another story about his fake serial killer with a new, salacious angle that suggests there is a sexual element to the crimes. Dukie goes to Michael for advice on self-preservation after he gets beaten up by Spider on the street, and ends up taking shooting lessons. At City Hall, Carcetti agrees to fund unlimited overtime pay for two officers to investigate the serial killer.
Episode 6/10 The Dickensian Aspect

Marlo and his crew are amazed when Omar seems to have vanished after his fall. Meanwhile, hiding in the cleaner's cupboard inside the apartment block they have been searching, Omar nurses a nasty leg injury. Carcetti is heckled by angry labourers at the opening ceremony of the New Westport Project. Bunk reopens old, unresolved case files, but his efforts are frustrated when the supervisor at the forensics lab admits an incompetent member of staff left the samples of evidence in chaos.
Episode 7/10 Took

McNulty and Freamon stage another phone call from the fake serial killer, this time to Baltimore Sun reporter Scott Templeton. They also send a terrified Templeton two images of another victim - in fact the body of a homeless man whom McNulty has dumped in Richmond. Meanwhile, Bunk becomes increasingly angered by McNulty's activities, which are diverting limited resources away from genuine cases. McNulty is unrepentant - until he discovers that the FBI are carrying out voice analysis on his call to Templeton.
Episode 8/10 Clarifications

McNulty's scheming is bearing fruit - police resources have almost returned to normal levels, although there are now rather too many people involved in the scam than is safe. The latest recruit to McNulty's operation is Carver, who is told to get a surveillance team together to track Marlo. Meanwhile, Carcetti tries to dissuade a rival candidate from running for the Statehouse, and Haynes is led to question Templeton's reporting.
Episode 9/10 Late Editions

Close surveillance of Marlo Stanfield has led the team to a warehouse near the marine terminals where Freamon believes Stanfield's supplier has been operating from. When Monk and Cheese are spotted arriving at the scene, the team move in and it's not long before Snoop, O-Dog and Lee are watching the drugs bust on the news. Meanwhile, at the Baltimore Sun, returning editor Robert Ruby takes a fresh look at Scott Templeton's reporting.
Episode 10/10 30

When Carcetti and his team learn the truth about the fake serial killer, they realise that if the news goes public their careers are over. So begins the cover up to protect their reputations, and the formulation of a plan to deal with McNulty and Freamon. Meanwhile, Freamon and McNulty realise that with the case against Marlo Stanfield and the election on the agenda they still have ways of fighting back should Carcetti try to bring them down.