That season has really grown on me over time and rewatches. It has a lot of great character work on Omar, Avon, Stringer, McNulty, Prezbo, Freeman, etc.; Ziggy, Nick, Sobotka is peak tragedy with a lot of fun along the way.
You may be right that it's not as exciting as other seasons, but I personally would call it boring and it sets up and deepens _so_ much of what comes after.
> In a vocation where loss of limb (and even life) was not uncommon, prospective workers — in a field disproportionately comprised of working-class African-Americans and whites of Italian and Irish descent who did not benefit from the upward mobility of the G.I. Bill — were forced to offer kickbacks to syndicate representatives at the daily "shape-up," in which prospective workers were forced to compete against each other to secure work irrespective of union membership. At any time, workers could be virtually blacklisted from subsequent employment for arbitrary purposes in the union's "blue books," their jobs often requisitioned by members of the syndicate who were completing prison sentences.
https://www.pulitzer.org/article/underworld-syndicate-malcol...
Plus it has an incredible score.
Heresy!
But why do you seem to have this thing that union members are above committing crimes like those depicted you've called out? We know that unions are heavily influenced by organized crime. Why do you think that even if the union isn't controlled by OC, why would you think individual members wouldn't be susceptible to working side hustles?