"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Bunk Moreland

Oh, Bunk. Perhaps the most honest one of all...I’m not a fan of Steve Earle’s cover of Way Down, but I liked pretty much everything else about the Season 5 Wire premiere last night...I am slightly worried about how they’re gonna tie up all loose ends together in 9 more hours. Also, I want Omar. Where’s he at? Please bring him back soon.

If you need more convincing as to why you should watch The Wire, a portrayal of Baltimore's decay and survival (but really, of any post-industrialist american city), here’s thoughts from the Bmore Sun on creator David Simon’s methods:

"I think his answer is to tell the truth," said Deirdre Lovejoy, who plays Asst. State's Atty. Rhonda Pearlman. "He would never admit this in a million years, but the optimism comes through telling the truth. Because unless you had some deep-seated desire to illuminate the human condition and potentially affect some kind of change, you would not write this."

This is why I love the Wire, why the memory of Baltimore stays with me like a first love. In all its despair and hopelessness, there is a brutal honesty that refuses to paint the human condition as anything more or anything less than it is. There's a courage about that honesty that's strangely and profoundly moving.