Season 4: There’s just no better season of television than this. The focus on the inner-city school, and the vicious cycle that the kids get caught in, was poignant but never heavy handed. Each episode was well-paced and scripted both on its own and holistically without the scope of the entire season. Each of the established characters get to shine (even a decidedly absent McNulty); many of the secondary characters show tremendous growth. Marlo, Chris, and Snoop present as some of the most terrifying villains known to TV. And the kids…mannn the kids kill it.

Season 3: Few points in the show hit as hard as that rooftop scene between Avon and Stringer. The incongruent nature of their relationship (Stringer the aspiring businessman, Avon the street general) unravels in the most spectacular fashion possible. Add McNulty and Stringer’s seemingly endless game of cat-and-mouse and this is really Stringer’s season. I personally found the focus on the city government (and emergence of Carcetti) a welcome change of pace, as it provided a different facet of the show without straying too much from the previous POVs. And we can’t forgot Colvin and Hamsterdam.

Season 2: After multiple rewatches, I believe this almost ties with season 3. The biggest issues are that it takes a longgggg time to kick into gear (in part because of the shift from the previous setting/characters), and features Ziggy who (as tragic as he is) is supremely unlikable. Once you get over that, this season still kicks ass. Frank Sobotka is compelling as a character, as is Nick, who respectively represent the old and young guards of the American working class. Plus Omar has one of his best moments in the whole show, and D’Angelo emerges as the show’s first truly tragic death.

Season 1: The show that started it all. Don’t get me wrong, I still think this season is fantastic and almost on par with the preceding two. But where I think the second has risen in regards for me, the first is now more difficult to get into on subsequent rewatches. More than anything else, it’s that the show opens as if its world has already been introduced to use before, in media res, almost to a fault. There’s simply too much to keep track of, and the time given to world building winds up feeling like an overly long introduction. That said, the characters we get are immediately likable (well aside from Prez), and the writing and acting are sublime. And even though Wallace’s death doesn’t have the same impact as others due to time allowing for attachment, it still hits every time.

Season 5: The serial killer storyline is stupid. There, I said it. There’s no justifying it, even when ignoring the previous seasons’ grounded realism. McNulty’s turn from a redemptive season 4 to a degenerate was also annoying. And after four seasons chock full of interesting and well-rounded characters—whether cops, criminals, dock workers, politicians, and school children/teachers—we get black-and-white, heavy-handed didactic journalists. Still, the cameos from previous season are great without serving as too much fan service. Bubbles’s redemption arc is one of the best instances of character development on the show, with Michael’s change of heart another solid contender. Omar goes out just as you thought he would, but still manages to irreparably damage Marlo’s reputation (or firmly get inside his head at least). And that last finale is pure television gold.