Told from the points of view of both the Baltimore homicide and narcotics detectives and their targets, the series captures a universe in which the national war on drugs has become a permanent, self-sustaining bureaucracy, and distinctions between good and evil are routinely obliterated.
On the drug-infested streets of West Baltimore, there are good guys and there are bad guys. Sometimes you need more than a badge to tell them apart. Season 1 follows a single sprawling drug and murder investigation in Baltimore — one that culminates in a complex series of dangerous wiretaps and surveillance.
Season 2
12 episodes Jun 2003 – Aug 2003
McNulty's on harbor patrol. Daniels is in the police-archives dungeon. Prez is chafing in the suburbs. Greggs has a desk job. The detail may be on ice, but corruption marches on . . . and a horrific discovery is about to turn the Baltimore shipping port inside out. Setting up in the wake of the first season's joint homicide/narcotics detail that exposed a major drug operation — and left its members stigmatized and reassigned — the second season expands to include not only familiar drug de...
Season 3
12 episodes Sep 2004 – Dec 2004
The heat is on in Baltimore. The drug war is being lost, bodies are piling up, and a desperate mayor wants the tide turned before the election. But the police department hasn't got any answers. Wiretaps haven’t worked. Neither have stakeouts or street busts. With the demolition of the Franklin Terrace towers, Stringer Bell and the Barksdale crew have been forced to improvise. But no matter how hard McNulty and the detail try, the dealers always seem to be one step ahead of the game. It’s ...
Season 4
13 episodes Sep 2006 – Dec 2006
In the projects. On the docks. In City Hall. And now, in the schools. The places and faces change, but the game remains the same. A new story begins. This year, while expanding on storylines introduced in previous seasons — including the new vocations of several characters, the rise of a new drug empire, and the city's imminent mayoral election — the series expands its focus into Baltimore's school system, providing an inside look at the role of the urban educational system in shaping you...
Season 5
10 episodes Jan 2008 – Mar 2008
In the projects. On the docks. In City Hall. In the schools. And now, in the media. The places and faces change, but the game remains the same. In the fifth — and final — season, the series expands its focus into the media — specifically the role of newspapers in big-city bureaucracy — as it follows a newspaper staff as they struggle to maintain integrity and meet deadlines in the face of budget cuts and staff reductions.
Carcetti maps out a damage-control scenario with the police brass in the wake of a startling revelation from Pearlman and Daniels. Their choice: clean up the mess...or hide the dirt.
"Ain't never gonna be what it was." – Little Big RoyJimmy McNulty is sidelined to harbor patrol. He discovers a corpse in the harbor and pays back Colonel Rawls by proving City Homicide bear responsibility for the investigation.Major Valchek feels slighted when the boss of a local stevedore union named Frank Sobotka donates a more impressive gift to a local Polish church. Sobotka meets with other union leaders and learns that a crucial pier is still in a state of disrepair. Sobotka instructs his nephew Nick to see The Greek regarding payment for a clandestine container that he is smuggling through the port. Later, Port Police Officer "Beadie" Russell stumbles across The Greek's container and discovers the bodies of over a dozen young women inside.
