HBO’s series ‘The Wire’ heading toward conclusion

The smart series focuses on intertwined and clashing institutions in Baltimore.

By FRAZIER MOORE

AP TELEVISION WRITER

NEW YORK — In last week’s season opener of “The Wire,” a street-smart youngster is duped into confessing a murder the detectives know he committed, but can’t prove. They attach him to a “lie detector,” which is in fact a copy machine. It spits out a pre-loaded sheet of paper that says “FALSE” an instant after the kid has denied the crime. Seeing this, he falls apart and spills everything.

Detective “Bunk” Moreland, savoring his triumph, pronounces a sweeping assessment of humanity: “The bigger the lie,” he chuckles, “the more they believe.”

And with that, viewers were alerted to the theme that will carry “The Wire” through its fifth and final season: escalating lies and misplaced faith in Baltimore.

“The Wire” is a series that has been hailed with almost tiresome consistency as TV’s best drama by anyone who watches it, and — no lie — this season is the best yet. (The second of the 10-episode run premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO.)

It has always been a study of intertwined and often clashing institutions in a troubled town: the police, the politicians, the labor force, the failing schools, the drug gangs in Baltimore’s squalid projects (the series title refers to surveillance by the narcs).

It’s a world where, too often, people focus on their narrow self-interest, where doing the right thing is no path to success.

No wonder in this system, lies become the currency with which most business is transacted.

But this season the dilemma is worse than ever. The city is in economic crisis, with budget cutbacks crippling an angry and demoralized police department. Police vehicles aren’t being serviced and cops aren’t paid their overtime.

“How are we ever gonna pay the bar tab?” grumbles Detective Jimmy McNulty as he orders another round.

“We could always knock off a liquor store,” says his bar-mate Bunk (Wendell Pierce).

“The Wire” is a drama crisscrossed by numerous story lines and a crowd of powerfully drawn characters (24 actors are listed in the opening credits). But McNulty (played by Dominic West) is at its core, particularly this season. His roguish, arch indifference masks a righteous streak in full force now.

For a year, he was part of an investigation into the murders of 22 vagrants whose bodies were found abandoned in city housing. It’s a serial crime that points back to one of the city’s most notorious drug kingpins. But now the probe has been shut down due to budget cuts. McNulty is beside himself over the wasted effort, and the likelihood that those killings might go unavenged.

But things are tough all over. This season, an institution of the media is feeling the pinch. The Sun, Baltimore’s foremost newspaper, would seem poised to be an invaluable beacon. But as depicted on “The Wire,” it, too, is compromised by economic woes.

Talk at the paper dwells on looming cutbacks, layoffs and buyouts. Under new conglomerate ownership, the mandate has become: Do more with less.

“Someday, I wanta find out what it feels like to work for a real newspaper,” cracks one of the reporters, knowing full well that, whatever a “real” newspaper is, it’s an endangered species all over.

“The Wire” was created by David Simon, a former police reporter for The Sun who clearly loves the newspaper tradition, but hates the growing trend of papers as commodities. In a media culture where public service is forgotten, mischief routinely goes unchecked. Soon, a big lie will take hold and take over, undetected, right there in the newsroom.

Meanwhile, McNulty devises a lie of his own — a scheme to kick-start the “rowhouse murders” investigation. However well-intentioned, he is playing a dangerous game, even as he justifies it as a logical response to the misplaced priorities of the powers-that-be.

“Wonder what it feels like to work in a real (expletive) police department,” he says bitterly.

Masterminded by a cop and a reporter, here are two deceptions far removed from each other. But each will feed on and inflame the other. As the season unfolds, a city continues to sabotage itself.

But however bleak, “The Wire” packs an ample measure of bitter humor.

For instance, the drug dealers have their problems, but — unique among the groups depicted on the series — limited funds isn’t one of them.

“I got TOO much money,” says ruthless gangster Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector), who just can’t launder his cash fast enough.