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.
Guest Cast
Cast Appearances
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This didn't age particularly well.
To say nothing of the stereotypes, around a year after this premiered, and five years BEFORE it ended, the war in Iraq post 9-11 started. This opened the US budget and legislative spigot for new war toys. Movies have been made about the fortunes made from the most grotesque amount of black money ever spread around a war zone that were fully based on the situation.
All any law enforcement agency around the country had to do, to get the latest equipment prior to the war, [anything from military vehicles and weapons, to top level (prior to the USAPATRIOT ACT) surveillance gear and software], was ask for it. This really kicked off full-on militarization of municipal, county, and state police. It was eerily convenient, because in a more peaceful and informed society than after the last major wars, the only job ex- 'roided and amped-up killers can really do without getting arrested is join a police force. (They were then connected with federal military, intelligence, and law enforcement infrastructure via "fusion centers," where agencies with the legal ability to gather certain information on people without probable cause or warrants share that information with agencies and people that shouldn't have access... but I digress).
A decade-plus after that, Snowden revealed that the capabilities were even more pervasive and invasive than even the most (reality-based) technophobic "conspiracy theorist" imagined at the time.
TLDR: this series was outdated within months, (if that), of the first episode's premier, and ugly things have happened to US policing since. Treme was Simon's masterpiece. The Baltimore shows were just natural offshoots of his work as a police/crime journalist for the Baltimore Sun. It's clear New Orleans is where his soul lives.
best episode from season 5
No wonder why the former U.S president Barak Obama commended this show... I gotta say it really is a masterpiece!