HBO's HBO show from years past, The Wire.
The Wire premiered in 2002, one of many gritty, anti-hero-featuring shows of its decade. The drama gave a realistic look - often, not pretty - at law enforcement, lawyers, politicians, criminals, and many more in Baltimore. A large, diverse cast of characters drove The Wire for 5 seasons until it concluded in 2008. The show's fanbase has only grown since then, and it's now widely regarded (for good reason) as one of the greatest series from the "golden era of TV" in the early 2000s. The Wire writers David Simon and George Pelecanos teamed up with HBO once again to bring forth 2022's We Own This City, which tells a more updated, directly-real-life-based story of crime, law enforcement, and how the two worlds often overlap in Baltimore. Though We Own This City is not a sequel to The Wire, its writers, setting, and even some of its cast certainly make it feel and function like a follow-up of sorts.
Interestingly, We Own This City season 1, episode 5 has its own specific moment with FBI agent Erika Jensen (Dagmara Domińczyk) and BPD officer John Sieracki (Don Harvey) that harkens back to The Wire - but not in a good way. There's a scene when Sieracki offers to place a hidden microphone in a suspect's car for Jensen, since it's nighttime and visibility isn't great. Though he's offering to help another law enforcement officer he's working with, and is clearly a good guy with equally good intentions, there's a sexist implication with this offer, and the suggestion Jensen herself isn't able to do so. Jensen's We Own This City character turns down the offer and playfully mocks Sieracki for the misstep and, in turn, he acknowledges that what he said came from an outdated mindset. Still, it's an important moment in the show - one that not only gives a female officer her own agency, competence, self-advocacy, and good-natured barbs, but also addresses a major weakness from The Wire. The series took a lot of flack (and rightfully so) for imbalances and stereotypes in its portrayal of female characters.
A 2008 piece from The Wire's many seasons certainly have a handful of strong female characters (the aforementioned article rightly highlights Rhonda Pearlman, Kima Greggs, and memorable villain Snoop), the ratio of three-dimensional, layered female characters to male characters is blatantly lacking throughout the genius series' overall run.
This history on The Wire makes the more recent moment in We Own This City episode 5 all the more important. It's a quick moment, one that's even infused with some levity. However, it's a much more meaningful script inclusion than it initially seems. We Own This City offers a moment of contrition for not only weaknesses and mistakes within The Wire, but TV and movies in general over the years.