Season 3: Episode 5: “I had such fu#kin’ hopes for us” -McNulty
Bubbs’s friend doesn’t understand why Bubbs is helping Kima and Jimmy for money. Bubbs is going along with his plan to get money from the white guy on the ladder. His buddy gets the money and then Bubbs isn’t in the alley when he goes to meet him. Bubbs has a plan to make more money by selling shirts.
Dennis is the guy who got out of jail. He lives with his mom or grandma and she asks him if he is working anymore and he said he is working the door of a club at night. Apparently he missed his appointment with the lady or was about to when she woke him up. He didn’t miss it because he left the drug boys to go meet her. Just kidding he is meeting with a Father. She called for him. He doesn’t want to do it. “This ain’t how I thought it was gon play” –Dennis. He wasn’t going to do the drugs because he is on parole but then they said that it wouldn’t show on a pee test because they had done it before. He had to buy clean pee from an old guy. He seemed to be having an internal struggle with why he did the drugs. Dennis hit a girl in the face, that surprised me. They’re beating a dude up and Dennis told them not to finish him off or he wouldn’t be able to make right on what he owes but they didn’t listen.
McNulty is still tailing String. He has a hard hat on. What the heck McNulty you can’t just walk into String’s store! String is in real estate now. Stringer is “the bank” his money finances the operations of the drugs but there is no way they can do anything about him. String is running a board meeting and Prop Joe and I assume some other higher ups are there. They are voting on going together to get a good deal on New York package. String said if anyone has problems with anyone else to take it to the group not the streets. Someone was keeping minutes and Stringer ripped up his notes. String meets someone on the street and goes into the building. Oh, String meets up with Marlo. String tells him about the deal with Prop Joe and asks him if his Mercedes is in someone else’s name. String is offering him a spot to “wash” the dirty money.
Carver has a “better” plan to clear the corners than moving them to the deserted area of the city. Carver’s higher up wants a list of names of the people on the corner but Carver said he doesn’t have it because they’re just bustin’ heads. No one is doing high end drug stuff anymore because Rawls is too worried about the street level drugs. He ends up going to Freamon and McNulty’s crew. Com Stat knew McNulty. He is going to round up the mid-level drug dealers. He brings it back to his people and wants him to round them up. Herc is about to get himself shot, he and Carver are way out-numbered and Carver saved his butt. Com Stat told them if they don’t move they’ll be arrested and not just for loitering. I think he might have convinced them. Bodie goes to String about it. Some of the people went there and there is no one there to buy. They’re going to have to help them out with buyers. All of the drug fiends are so confused about why they brought them into a drug market basically. It is working out.
Another witness gets killed in a high profile case and Tommy is up on his soap box. He goes to the Mayor with it and plays innocent. “If he farts around on this, I’m going after him big time.” –Tommy. Then at a board meeting Tommy is playing the good guy and the guy next to him gets on Burrell about the killing of the witness. Tommy told him to lay off and he is not happy with him.
Rawls and Burrell cracking skulls again. The guy charged with reducing auto theft says they mostly happen at night and his people are working during the day. He said he would change his hours to reflect the data that most of them happen at night.
Bunk is getting somewhere with the Omar deal but then Jay shows up wondering why he isn’t on the gun case. Omar is having issues with his crew. The guy is mad because he doesn’t get to carry a gun and she said you shouldn’t get to or her head is going to get blown off. Bunk is talking to people in jail and he is getting nowhere. It sounded good at first but the more you listened to those people the less it would actually make sense.
Avon is out of jail. He throws the clothes out the window that he was wearing when he got out of jail. They throw a party for Avon because he is out of jail and Bri is there and so is Prop Joe. Avon sees String talking to all of the heads of the drug rings and doesn’t seem to like it. Avon is talking to the State Senators and his lawyer at the party. String sets Avon up with a room and a Navigator. The room is in Avon’s name.
McNulty is flirting with someone else and Alayna doesn’t like it. She was crazy and she is crazy when they wake up too. He doesn’t like that.
Episode 6: “Just a gangster, I suppose” -Avon Barksdale
The com stat tells his men to do whatever it takes to get everyone off the corners and into the free zones. He says he will back them up as long as the victims can get up and walk out of the emergency room. One of the people they are moving says, “Fu#k y’all we in America!” and Santangelo says “Uh uh, West Baltimore.” The police are getting crazy to get them all to move. Santangelo and the black guy drop some of them off in the middle of the woods and make them find their way back to the city. I like how they show how much better everyone is doing with all of the drug dealers off of the corners and juxtapose that with “Hamsterdam” and the chaos going on there. The poor old lady is still living in the old apartment. He tries to get her to move but she doesn’t want to move. Bunny goes to his commander and gets him to sign a paper allowing them to move the old lady and after he signs it he said “If Rawls gets wind of this, you forged my signature.”
Stringer isn’t only the bank, he is involved in the face to face drug stuff and Kima and McNulty think they have to get him in the drugs now or they won’t get him in the future. Daniels doesn’t care whether or not they get him because his people are no longer killing people left and right. I guess this is consistent with what Rawls is talking all of them in the meetings that they have. Kima and McNulty go back to Daniels. He tells them to mind the chain of command and listen to what he says. Kima tells McNulty that Daniels just cares about them listening to him right now. Kima tells McNulty to talk to Bunny to ask Daniels for help. Bunny seems to agree to do it. Daniels gets called into a meeting with Rawls, Bunny, and Burrell and I think he might know why they called him in. I don’t know if he knows that McNulty is behind it or not yet.
Jay is just sitting there reading a porn magazine with his door open and doesn’t bother to close it when Bunk walks in. If that isn’t messed up then I don’t know what is. Then he just sits there reading it while Bunk is explaining what his papers are. Bunk is using it to get the higher ups out of Jay’s hair and therefore getting Jay out of his hair. He wants to work his murders (Omar’s people). Bunk goes and talks to Tasha’s family and tells them to get the word to Omar and his people—she flicks his card like he isn’t going to do that. They talked to the other girl. She acts like she wants to talk to them but Omar wants to protect his boy. Omar gives himself up to Bunk? Bunk tells Omar he has an eye witness and Omar didn’t believe him. Woo Bunk gets angry. He told Omar how the kids were glorifying him.
Avon doesn’t seem happy with anything that Stringer is doing. He doesn’t like the building stuff, he is not happy that Marlo has all the prime real estate. I think Stringer might kill him off here soon. It seems super awkward between Avon and String. Avon said we don’t buy corners, we take corners—String said you buy them one way or another, whether it is with money or bodies. Stringer wants to get into the distributing game and Avon doesn’t seem to be into it. String thinks he can talk some sense into Marlo. Avon just wants his corners. String just goes down to Hamsterdam to talk to Bodie—String finally decides to put some people there, but just young guys with a small package in case it is a trap. Avon is getting his muscle to put a hurtin’ on Marlo because he wants his corners. Avon and String aren’t communicating because things are awkward and they have two different ways of thinking now. They are planning on shooting all of Marlo’s people. They have a serious game plan ready except two of the younger ones don’t want to go along with the plan; they are going to mess it up. And they did. They all got shot except maybe the one with the shotgun. Rawls is on Bunny about the shootout. Fighting between Avon and String. Avon wants to go kill Marlo himself. Man Avon is waving that dang gun around like it’s no one’s business. String and Avon have completely different views. String tried to tell Avon about Hamsterdam but he wasn’t listening at all. String is talking to someone (Clayton Davis) about the permits that he needs for his building and how much it’ll cost—25k, 20k for permits, 5k for running. Dennis goes and shoots the young boy with the guy who stole his drugs and didn’t give him money for them. Had a chance to shoot the older guy who actually did it but let him get away. That probably wasn’t a good idea because now he has seen him. Couldn’t squeeze the trigger because it wasn’t in him he said. “It ain’t in me no mo’” –Dennis. He doesn’t want to be in the game anymore. Avon is going to kill him off. He doesn’t know what he is going to do but it can’t be drugs. Avon said they’re straight but I don’t think they are.
Bubbs saw all of what happened with Barksdale’s people and Marlo’s people and tells Kima and Kima is confused because String met with Marlo to figure it all out. She doesn’t know that Avon sent them in, not Stringer.
McNulty takes the pictures of D to someone and is talking about how if there is some suspect or a reason to believe that it was a homicide; the cause of death can be changed from suicide to homicide. The lady doesn’t want to talk about it because her county doesn’t need another murder. McNulty likes the girl from his kids’ school thing.
The guy in the wheelchair wants Marla on the council to keep everyone honest. Not letting things slide. Marla was happy with how Cedric acted at her little get together thingy. Marla seems to want to work things out and Cedric says no. He doesn’t know what he thinks about their relationship—probably because he is getting some on the side from Rhonda. Cedric tells Rhonda that he is playing the proud husband for Marla to run. “I’m going to do what I can to make sure she gets what she wants this time around. Nothing more than that.” –Daniels—I think he’ll go back to her eventually and then he’ll have to tell her about Rhonda and she’ll leave him again.
The black guy seems to be playing Tommy—he tells him that he wants to run for Mayor. Tommy gets so mad but (for now) he is controlling his anger. It wouldn’t surprise me if he went off on them. Tommy is still trying to get that girl to run his campaign for him. Gosh he is a cocky a$$ I don’t like him at all.
D’s girl asked Bri if she could get with String and Bri said she was okay with that. She tells Bri that McNulty came by and told her that D might not have been a suicide.
Mayor tells Burrell that if he doesn’t keep murders under 300 for the year he will get fired.
Episode 7: “Conscience do cost” -Butchie
Avon is out checking the corners and Herc saw him. Avon tells his guy to take the corners when the police leave. Herc is mad he is out already. McNulty and Kima didn’t believe that Herc had seen Avon. They all think he is still in jail. They tell Daniels and Freamon and Prez. Woo Kima is really mad she picked up the file and chucked it across the room.
Daniels’s group is doing Stringer and Marlo. Everyone is arguing about which case they should be working. Even Freamon is kind of on the Stringer and Marlo side because they’re the ones dropping bodies right now. McNulty may have Avon’s room that was rented. McNulty tries (and fails) to convince Daniels that he is not a piece of $hit. Daniels tells McNulty he is done in that unit when they arrest Stringer. McNulty said there is an easier way to get a disposed phone and said he is going to hit the bar, Kima and the other guy didn’t follow until he said I’m buying. I think McNulty is going to try to get the young black guy to give Bodie a new phone and get his old one.
Dennis is working hard with the landscaping company. The boss man asked him if he walked back through the drug doors. Dennis goes to talk to the Father again. Says he is tired of not being able to stop himself from doing bad things.
Tommy is steady trying to screw Burrell over. Tommy doesn’t think he is self-righteous. He is running and that girl is going to be running his campaign. His wife doesn’t seem the least bit happy about it. Mayor doesn’t want to go along with his witness protection plan.
String is mad that D’s girl told Bri about McNulty coming to tell her that D may not have been a suicide. He plays like he is mad because he doesn’t want her upset but really he doesn’t want anyone to find out that he set D up to get killed. Woo, we haven’t seen that side of Stringer. String is going to go call the lawyer and tell him to tell Bri that she doesn’t have a shot at proving that D was a homicide not a suicide. Lawyer tells him that she is going to go down there and hear them out. Sounds to me like the lawyer knows that String had D killed.
Someone is talking on a cell phone in Avon’s office. Love the angle and how they are focused on it. It is like foreshadowing that the police are going to get that phone and be able to track it.
Love how they played the scene with Bubbs. Really shows the chaos in Hamsterdam. He seems to be getting overwhelmed by everything that is going on. They also really played up the chaos with all of the background noise. When he sees Johnny he tries to get him to stop using for a while. Bubbs realizes that he doesn’t want to be that way again, I think. Carver tells one of the drug dealers that he and everyone else selling has to kick in $100 a week. Used some to pay himself for the basketball hoop and the rest he said to pay the runners with. Herc goes “what are you a fu$king communist?” Then they respond to a call (which I assume is Kima, McNulty, and the other guy. They don’t know what Hamsterdam is so they didn’t know that they couldn’t arrest them for drugs. They don’t really understand how Hamsterdam works but he asked them not to say anything back downtown.
Kima finally admits that she didn’t want the baby, she just didn’t want to disappoint her partner. She tells Kima that she needs to go. Kima knows she is gone for good.
Omar goes to Butchie about his talk with Bunk. Dog barking while Omar is there talking with him. Butchie calls Bunk. He gave him the gun but didn’t tell him that Omar gave it to him to give to Bunk. It was the service weapon that Bunk had been chasing.
Bunk goes and cuts that poor guy’s tie off because he fell asleep on the job. Apparently that is a rule at the office because the guy didn’t get nearly as mad as I thought he would.
McNulty gets Bodie’s phone and Freamon and Prez are going to have a field day with it. Bodie’s phone links with 15 different phones, none with subscriber information. Not everyone was so excited about speed dial as Prez was hahaha. They need more phones.
McNulty is gunna get it in with that girl from his kids’ school. He did and showed up late to the office.
Marlo is going to keep wholesaling. His guys think Avon is going to see him as weak. Drive by shootings on a motorcucle. Poot didn’t actually get shot, just played dead but the other guy actually did get shot.
