I love The Wire but people forget how meh Season 5 was imo. I know HBO forced Simon to only do 10 episodes instead of the standard 12, so it felt rushed for a reason, but even if you give some leeway for that the McNulty storyline in that season was horrendous.
I love season five. I didn't realize some didn't.
Interesting. I found the McNulty storyline to be so implausible it soured the rest of it. Gus is a great character though.
Without getting into specifics (though can you really spoil a show that's over 20 years old?), I think that was kind of the point though - the system was so broken that the writers had to inject something seemingly implausible into it to drive home the series' ultimate point that the inner city war on drugs is a cyclical and ultimately useless endeavor. I enjoyed the fact that it was frankly so relatively easy for McNulty and Freamon to get away with it as long as they did, too. So, yeah, implausible hyperbole, but almost necessary for the final season IMO.
I do have Season 5 ranked as my least favorite but it's nowhere near "horrendous" and is still great television (as somebody else mentioned Gus was a good new character and I am generally content with how they wrapped up the storylines for most of the major players).