McNulty

The episode starts off with McNulty on a drunken rampage. If nothing, all his actions led me to lose all my sympathy for him. Drunk driving just isn’t cool.

I thought this was an interesting shot, as I think it sort of prods at a “what have I done” moment for McNulty. Or maybe not. It could all be a ruse. He’s a player, so it’s hard to gauge when he’s being honest and not just playing nice to benefit himself in the end.

At the beginning of the episode, we see McNulty drunkenly calling his wife. Here he’s making a call as part of his police work. This was a nice circular moment for the episode.

McNulty seems to have taken an interest in Russell, but seems to think himself better than just a one night stand, so he decides to leave before anything can happen. I’m still a little wary of this good behavior he’s suddenly showing.

The Gang’s All Here

I’m really loving seeing everyone together. I like how the team is wearing colors from the same palette, which reflects their unity and cohesion on this investigation. The pieces are really starting to come together for them.

Ziggy

Ziggy’s been up to his usual antics and behaviors. He’s taking poor advice and making weird choices, all in an effort to prove himself.

I like how we can see the three sides to this fight. Ziggy without a helmet, Maui with a yellow helmet, and the cluster of workers with white helmets. The two guys who put Ziggy up to this aren’t wearing helmets, but they’re standing with the white helmeted gang.

I thought that this was a really smart shot that shows how Ziggy sees himself at times as being bigger and better than the rest, when in reality he’s not. In fact, despite being above everyone else, he looks pretty tiny and he’s actually stuck up there. His power and his capabilities are all in his head.

I’m not exactly sure what Ziggy and the duck was all about, but I was not happy with them giving the duck alcohol. Ziggy seems to do a lot of things for attention or power, a lot of them all in good fun, without taking the time to consider the repercussions of his actions. I know it’s eventually going to bite him in the butt.

There also seems to be some friction occurring between Ziggy and Nick as Nick is doing things for the money, while Ziggy is doing things more to prove his worth and manhood.

Family Schism

Family has been playing a huge role in The Wire, especially with the criminals. Lately we’ve been seeing a lot of disagreements within the families. D’Angelo’s desire to move away from the family business led to his death.

In this episode, we saw Frank talking with his brother Lou, which was really interesting to see how different their moral compasses are. Lou isn’t going to fight for things or do unscrupulous acts to save his job or get him more money. He wants to earn things honestly, even if that means living meagerly. Frank doesn’t understand this, as he sees the immoral behavior as a way of saving people’s jobs and helping out the union.

While what Frank is doing is horrible, his reason behind it makes sense and hits home to one of the big ideas this show has been talking about: jobs aren’t giving people enough income to live on so they have to make their own jobs on the fringes through illegal activity in order to live a decent quality of life.

Suspicions

Much like D’Angelo in season 1, Frank has grown suspicious and is getting a little crazy about it. Of course, he seems a bit smarter than the Barksdale crew was about being spied on. It also doesn’t help that the police on the docks gave a little too much information away.

“It takes a whore to catch a whore.”

I think it’s going to be interesting to see McNulty under cover as I’m not so sure how this is going to work out. Likewise, after the way Kima’s undercover work went, I’m a little nervous as to how this is going to go.